Free More Adventures Of The Great Brain by John D. Fitzgerald Page B

other canyon, and again ended up in a fork, and again took the canyon to the right. We came back and took the other canyon. Finally we came to another canyon that had a stream of water running down it.

        It was a good thing we camped on high ground that night because we had the worst cloudburst I’d ever seen or heard. The rain came down as if poured from giant buckets in the sky. The river was a raging torrent of water when we came out of the tent in the morning, although the rain had stopped.

        “There is nothing like roughing it,” Papa said cheerfully as he made sourdough biscuits with the last of our flour. “I could spend all summer in these mountains, but we’d better start for home. Your mother will be worried. We are a couple of days overdue now.”

        Boy, did that make me feel better. I was sure that we were lost in the mountains, and all the time Papa had only been pretending to be lost to give us boys an exciting adventure.

     
    Sweyn must have been thinking the same thing. “You mean we aren’t lost?” he asked.

        “How can a person be lost in the mountains when there is running water?” Papa asked as he pointed at the rain-swelled river. “Water runs downhill. All we have to do is to follow this river downstream, and it will lead us out of these mountains.”

        “Then why didn’t we follow the other stream?” Sweyn asked.

        “That would have taken us out on the other side of the mountains from Adenville,” Papa answered.

        We followed the river downstream until we came to a waterfall. Papa said we would bypass the waterfall the same way we had bypassed the cliff, by going down one side of the canyon around the waterfall with Sweyn and Dusty holding the buckboard from tipping over.

        Tom and I were walking behind; Papa was sitting on the seat of the buckboard. I had my head down to see where I was stepping when I heard Sweyn scream. I looked up, and it felt as if my chest had caved in. The strain on the lariat had become too much, and it had broken. I was stunned with horror. Papa leaped from the seat of the buckboard just a second before it turned over and went tumbling down the side of the canyon, pulling the team with it.

        I ran crying to Papa and threw my arms around his waist. He patted my head.

        “Next time we’ll take pack horses,” he said calmly as if he lost a buckboard every day of the week.

        The buckboard was a total wreck, with two wheels smashed so badly they couldn’t possibly be fixed. Bess was standing up and shaking with fright, but Dick kept trying to stand up only to fall down and was screaming something awful. We made our way down the steep slope of the canyon to where the horses were. Papa unhitched Bess and had Sweyn tie one end of his broken lariat around her neck and take her to one side with Dusty. Then Papa knelt down and examined poor old Dick. His face was grave as he stood up.

        “His right foreleg is broken,” he said. “I’ll have to shoot him.”

        Sweyn got his .22 rifle from the holster attached to his saddle and handed it to Papa. I watched Papa put the end of the barrel in Dick’s ear and then turned my head away. I heard the sound of the shot. I turned around. Dick still seemed to be moving. Papa shot him again in the head. Then the horse lay still.

        Our tent was ripped in half, and our supplies were scattered all over the side of the canyon. We salvaged what we could and made a pack horse out of Bess.

        Papa mounted Dusty and led the pack horse, Sweyn and I followed close behind on foot, and Tom lagged behind again.

        We followed the stream downhill until afternoon of the following day. Then Papa pulled Dusty to a halt.

        “Don’t worry, boys, “he shouted over his shoulder.”When we round that bend up ahead, you’ll be able to see the mouth of the canyon.”

        I felt cheered up enough to start whistling. My whistling