BEGINNING THE BOAT
After we had got thoroughly rested, Jim from being rescued and Tom and I
from doing the rescuing act, we went back to our camp.
"It's rather nice," remarked Jim, "to camp under cottonwoods after
having nothing but pines over us, or the sky."
"It does seem sort of civilized," said Tom. "This is one of the nicest
places we have struck. Just the kind for a picnic."
The broad-leaved trees were over our heads, and there was an open space
amongst them for our camp. The trees were old, and some with bent trunks
on which we could sit and swing our feet. After the wide and lonely
extent of plains that we had been journeying over, our camp among the
trees seemed a cosy shelter.
But as evening came on our enthusiasm received a severe jolt, for swarms
of mosquitoes came in from the levels between the two streams. We began
to slap around our ears in frantic efforts at self-protection.
"Does this remind you of anything?" asked Tom.
"You bet it does," said Jim. "It was way back in Kansas where they came
near eating us alive. I know when I tried to take aim at some ducks they
settled so thick on the gun that I could not see the sight."
"Yes, I recollect building a smudge back of black Carl and setting his
tail afire, too," I put in.
"We won't stay any longer around here than we have to," said Jim.
"How long do you suppose before we will be ready to start down the
river?" I asked.
"We will get to work to-morrow," said Jim, "and we won't waste any time.
It would not surprise me if we were ready to launch out after two days."
The reader will wonder what we will do now that the river is reached. Of
course we had no boats with us and there was no place within five
hundred miles where we could have them made. Nor did we have the
materials wherewith to construct a boat.
As to our ponies we had no other course than to leave them at this
point. We could not take them with us because we did not expect to
build a Noah's ark. If we had been in striking distance of a settlement,
Jim would have taken the horses and sold them.
However, we would not be out anything, as the ponies had cost us
nothing, as we had captured them from the Indians, but we regretted
having to leave our faithful companions who had once saved our lives
when we were in desperate straits.
Of course we had not come so far without some definite plan of action
when we struck the river.
"I don't think we could have reached the Green at a better point than
this," said Jim, "because we have different kinds of trees to make a
raft."
"It's a pity we couldn't have a boat," I said. "It would be so much
easier to manage than a raft, and it would make better time."
"I don't know as it would be any safer," remarked Jim. "You could stove
in a boat on one of those sharp rocks, but it would take something worse
than that to break up a solid raft."
"If we are going to get up so early, we might just as well turn in now,"
said Tom.
"It will be a good way to keep off the mosquitoes," I said.
But we soon found that these pests were very persistent and kept
serenading around our ears and settling on any exposed parts of our
anatomy, so that we had to keep our head ducked down under the blankets,
and thus curled up, we were soon fast asleep.
It was not uncomfortably warm, either, as there was a nip in the air
that made the blankets seem all right. We slept a little later than was
usual with us, for the deep shade of the trees shut out the rays of the
sun, and it was a half hour before Jim roused us.
"Get up, boys, or we will miss our train," he cried, and he rolled us
out of our blankets onto the ground.
We did not resent this, as it saved us the trouble of unrolling
ourselves. It did not take us long to stow our breakfast away in the
hatches and then, with an eager vim, we sprang to our work.
We had packed the necessary supplies and tools to help us in
constructing a raft. We each had an axe. There were also big spikes and
several sizes of nails. We had plenty of these. Jim led the way to the
slope of the valley, just above our camp, where grew the tall pines and
in a few minutes there was the ring of the axes as we jumped into the
work, each anxious to get his tree down before the other.
It was jolly work as I made the big yellow chips fly, and swinging into
the stroke with all the weight of my body, poised from the toes.
Jim and Tom stood squarely on their feet and struck in only with the
weight of their shoulders, and as they sent in their blows with greater
rapidity, it looked as if they would surely beat me out. But it was like
a bad stroke in rowing, and was hard on their wind and taxed their
strength.
"Oh, you're slow," grinned Jim with a gleam of his white teeth as he
glanced over his shoulder at me. "I'll have this fellow down before you
are half through."
My only reply was to send another blow with precision and a big,
perfectly blocked chip flew into the air and came down on Jim's back. It
was my turn to grin. "They laugh best who laugh last."
It was true that Jim's first tree came down a few seconds ahead of mine,
but after that I beat him easily, no matter how hard he struggled.
Oh, I tell you, it was great work, cheerful and invigorating in that
resin fragrant air. We soon stripped off our shirts and, bareheaded, we
swung out glittering axes into the trunks of the pines.
I don't think that any of the old knights used their great battle axes
against the gates of beleaguered cities or on each other's iron top
knots with any more enthusiasm than we three boys did as we slew the
pines. I imagined that I was Ivanhoe or Richard Coeur de Lion and this
added more vigor to my blows.
I think it would have pleased our old physical director if he could have
seen the muscles on our arms and back and shoulders. Jim, long and
rangy, Tom somewhat lighter, but with clear cut development, making for
agility, while I was rather lithe, with symmetrical muscles and of
tireless activity. It was a pretty strong, three-stand combination.
After the trees were cut and trimmed, the next thing was to get them
down to the beach where the raft was to be constructed. Of course we had
felled them as near the selected place as possible. Jim decided to press
Coyote and Piute into service for snaking the logs down. Then there was
something doing every minute, like in a three-ringed circus.
Jim fixed up a crude harness out of the ropes and hitched our broncho
team onto the first log. They bucked and reared and kicked. Sometimes
they varied matters by falling over backwards. We let into them with the
whips, that is Tom and I did, while Jim held the ribbons or ropes.
Finally they started to run and the log went snaking down the slope,
but in a minute they came to an abrupt stop, turning an unexpected
somersault. But after an hour of gymnastics and acrobatics they settled
into the harness like respectable animals.
After awhile we put Tom to work cutting saplings of cottonwood and
quaking aspens. These were to be used for cross pieces to hold the raft
together.
We had all the material gathered at the beach by the middle of the
afternoon and we went to work to construct the raft. There was nothing
so extremely difficult about it, but there was lots of hard work and it
was not such a simple matter as making a raft to float on some quiet
pond or down a gentle river.
There were some tough questions which came up and it took all of Jim's
craft and strength to settle them, and Tom's ingenuity backed Jim up.
The very weight of our boat was a problem, but three strong boys
buckling into a job of that kind can make pretty good progress.
You can imagine how anxious we were to start on our dangerous and
memorable journey. The call of the river was continually in our ears,
and we would look way down the stretch of water and wonder what lay
ahead of us in that far and mysterious land surrounded with weird
plateaus and strange ranges.
"I'm going to put a keel on our craft," said Jim. "That will be the only
way to keep her to the current."
"I'd like to know where you will find it?" I asked.
"Don't you worry about that," replied Jim. "I'll locate it all right.
You fellows rest while I look around."
"I don't need a rest," I answered. "You lay out some work for us while
you are scouting around."
Jim stood with his boot upon one log and his hand on his knee,
supporting his chin. His eyes had a dull glaze and from this symptom and
his attitude, I want you to know that Jim was cogitating, and it was a
subject worth thinking about, too, for it was of great importance that
we should have a raft that would meet the requirements of the river.