12:00 Noon: Jarod had checked in at the Center and introduced himself around. Most of the available rangers were off conducting tours or doing sweeps above or on the canyon floor. Those at hand were helpful and accepting of Jarod’s enthusiastic persona. After asking a few pertinent questions, Jarod got the go-ahead to explore the canyon floor. He was packed with camping gear to stay a night or two if need be and was given a lift by one of the helicopter sweep riders. His first stop would be the lower camp where the first man had disappeared.

Liz and Luke were already across the river and hiking toward the north rim. The helicopter pilot had given them a map where he had marked the spot he set them down on , the lower camp (nearest help), the best sparsely occupied camping spots, and some sites of early Indian hieroglyphics. At the last, he gave them a list of the times he would be available to pick them up, and a C.B. radio. “Don’t use it unless you have to. This is my band, and this one is the emergency ranger band. Good luck kids. Be careful now, don’t make Elsie and me regret helping you get down here. I know I’d regret it because Elsie would skin me alive!” With that, he had taken off, with a wave and a smile.

Luke was all for taking off for the Indian signs, but Liz wanted to find a good camping spot first. “It might get dark before we get back to the camping grounds, you don’t want to try and set up in the dark, do you?”

“All the more reason to explore first. Ever try to find your own camp in the dark? We can set up anywhere when we are ready!” At Liz’s reluctance, he added. “Besides we have watches and can start back in plenty of time” Luke won.

Lower camp:

There were men stationed at the ranch house, that Jarod needed to talk to. One especially, had been working there for twelve years. He, before any of the others, should have a feel for the unusual, and Jarod wanted to feel him out on his theories.

“You say your name is Jarod? Well Jarod, I think you might have something there, because I’ve been trying to convince someone that there are some pretty strange things going on down here. Damned if I ain’t.” Hank was his name, and he was as far from looking like the spit and polish rangers above as you could get. Part of that was ‘color’ as he called it. And part was his own preference in clothes and talk. Jarod took an instant liking to him.

Hank laid out a map and started talking. “There have been minor thefts from here to here. Nothing big or valuable, just little things, but no one has ever found out who was doin’ the taking. Also, they have been stretched out over a long period of time. If it was some camper, he would be gone in a few days and that would be that. These have gone on for about a year and a half, somethin’ this week somethin’ the next and so on.”

“What kinds of things have gone missing?” Jarod asked, looking at the patern of small x’s spread over a good piece of area.

“Oh, a little food, a scarf, a blouse, some pants, a frying pan, a roll of fishing line. Stuff like that.” Hank scratched under his beard and looked at Jarod sideways. “You would almost think a couple had set up permanent residence down here.”

“A couple?”

“Yep. Some of the stuff was something a lady might take a liking to, and some was what a gent might want.”

Jarod looked at the ranger and didn’t bother to ask if he had looked around for the errant couple. Hank definitely looked like the kind that would gnaw on it on his own time if need be. “What have you found?”

Hank pointed to an area across the river on the far side of the camping grounds. “Well, I’ve found foot prints all over the place, which you’d expect, but not when they go up to a rock face and just disappear. There are two places, here and here where they go up to a shear face of cliff and stop, or start. Can’t figure out if I’m supposed to think they can walk up cliffs, or through ‘em!”