RUNNING THE LINE.
After this day and night, crowded so full of incident, four days of
steady travel brought General Lyle's expedition to a point close to the
boundary-line between Kansas and Colorado, where their surveys were to
begin. The last hundred miles of their journey had been through a region
studded with curious masses of sandstone. These were scattered far and
wide over the Plains, and rose to a height of from one hundred to three
hundred feet, resembling towers, monuments, castles, and ruins of every
description. It was hard to believe that many of them were not the work
of human hands; and to Glen and Binney they formed an inexhaustible
subject for wonder and speculation.
They were now more than three thousand feet above the sea-level; the
soil became poorer with every mile; there were fewer streams, and along
those that did exist timber was almost unknown.
The first line of survey was to be a hard one; for it was to run through
the very worst of this country--from the Smoky Hill to the Arkansas, a
region hitherto unexplored, and known only to the few buffalo hunters
who had crossed it at long intervals. The distance was supposed to be
about seventy miles, and there was said to be no water along the entire
route. But both a transit and a level line must be run over this barren
region, and the distance must be carefully measured. A good day's work
for a surveying-party, engaged in running a first, or preliminary, line
in an open country, is eight or ten miles; and, at this rate, the
distance between the Smoky Hill and the Arkansas rivers could be covered
in a week. But a week without water was out of the question, and General
Lyle determined to do it in three days.
On the night before beginning this remarkable survey, every canteen and
bottle that could be found was filled with water, as were several casks.
Everybody drank as much as he could in the morning, and all the animals
were watered the very last thing. Everything was packed and ready for a
start by daylight, and long before sunrise the working-party was in the
field. The first division was to run the first two miles. Its transit
was set up over the last stake of the old survey that had been ended at
that point, and the telescope was pointed in the direction of the course
now to be taken. The division engineer, with his front flagman, had
already galloped half a mile away across the plain. There they halted,
and the gayly painted staff, with its fluttering red pennon, was held
upright. Then it was moved to the right or left, as the transit-man,
peering through his telescope, waved his right or left arm. Finally, he
waved both at a time, and the front flag was thrust into the ground. It
was on line.
Now the head chainman starts off on a run, with his eyes fixed on the
distant flag, and dragging a hundred feet of glistening steel-links
behind him. "Stick!" shouts the rear chainman, who stands beside the
transit, as he grasps the end of the chain and pulls it taut. "Stuck!"
answers the man in front, thrusting one of the steel pins that he
carries in his hand into the ground. Then he runs on, and the rear
chainman runs after him, but just a hundred feet behind.
Two axemen, one with a bundle of marked stakes in his arms, and the
other carrying an axe with which to drive them, follow the chain
closely. At the end of each five hundred feet they drive a stake. If
stakes were not so scarce in this country, they would set one at the end
of every hundred feet. It does not make much difference; for these
stakes will not remain standing very long anyhow. The buffalo will soon
pull them up, by rubbing and scratching their heads against them. At the
end of every half-mile, a mound of earth--or stones, if they can be
found--is thrown up; and these the Indians will level whenever they come
across them. Perhaps some of them will be left, though.
While the chainmen are measuring the distance to that front flag, and
the axemen are driving stakes and throwing up mounds, the transit-man,
mounted on a steady-going mule, with the transit on his shoulder, is
galloping ahead to where the front flag awaits him. Only the back
flagman is left standing at the place from which the first sight was
taken.
The front flagman thrust a small stake in the ground, drove a tack in
its centre, and held his flag on it before he waved the transit-man up.
Now the transit is set over this stake so that the centre of the
instrument is directly over the tack; and while it is being made ready
the front flag is again galloping away over the rolling prairie, far in
advance of the rest of the party.
The transit-man first looks through his telescope at the back flag, now
far behind him, and waves to him to come on. Then the telescope is
reversed, and he is ready to wave the front flag into line as soon as he
stops.
The leveller, with two rodmen, all well mounted, follow behind the
transit-party, noting, by means of their instruments, the elevation
above sea-level of every stake that is driven.
So the work goes on with marvellous rapidity--every man and horse and
mule on a run until two miles have been chained and it is time for the
breathless first division to have a rest.
Mr. Hobart has watched their work carefully. He has also made some
changes in his force, and is going to see what sort of a front flagman
Glen Eddy will make. This is because Nettle has proved herself the
fleetest pony in the whole outfit.
"Two miles in fifty-two minutes!" shouts Mr. Hobart to his men, as the
stake that marks the end of ten thousand five hundred and sixty feet is
driven. "Boys, we must do better than that."
"Ay, ay, sir! We will!" shout the "bald heads," as they spring to the
places the first-division men are just leaving.
Mr. Hobart, Glen, and a mounted axeman are already galloping to the
front. They dash across a shallow valley, lying between two great swells
of the prairie, and mount the gentle slope on its farther side, a mile
away. It is a long transit sight; but "Billy" Brackett can take it.
The boy who rides beside the division engineer is very proud of his new
position, and sits his spirited mare like a young lancer. The slender,
steel-shod, red-and-white staff of his flag-pole, bearing its gay
pennon, that Glen has cut a little longer than the others, and nicked
with a swallow-tail, looks not unlike a lance. As the cool morning air
whistles past him, the boy's blood tingles, his eyes sparkle, and he
wonders if there can be any more fascinating business in the world than
surveying and learning to become an engineer. He thinks of the mill and
the store with scorn. It beats them away out of sight, anyhow.
As they reach the crest of the divide, from which they can see far away
on all sides, Mr. Hobart, using his field-glass to watch the movements
of "Billy" Brackett's arms, directs Glen where to place his flag.
"Right--more--more--away over to the right--there--steady! Left, a
little--steady--so! Drive a stake there! Now hold your flag on it! A
trifle to the right--that's good! Drive the tack! Move him up--all
right, he's coming!" Then, leaving the axeman to point out the stake,
just driven, to the transit-man, the engineer and his young flagman
again dash forward.
"Two miles in thirty-eight minutes! That is quick work! I congratulate
you and your division, Mr. Hobart." So said the chief-engineer as the
men of the second division, dripping with perspiration, completed their
first run, and, turning the work over to those of the third, took their
vacant places in the wagon that followed the line.
The morning sun was already glowing with heat, and by noon its
perpendicular rays were scorching the arid plain with relentless fury.
Men and animals alike drooped beneath it, but there was no pause in the
work. It must be rushed through in spite of everything. About noon they
passed a large buffalo wallow, half filled with stagnant water, that the
animals drank eagerly.
That evening, when it was too dark to distinguish the cross-hairs in the
instruments, the weary engineers knocked off work, with a
twenty-one-mile survey to their credit. They were too tired to pitch
tents that night, but spread their blankets anywhere, and fell asleep
almost as soon as they had eaten supper. There was no water, no wood,
and only a scanty supply of sun-dried grass. It was a dry camp.
The next day was a repetition of the first. The tired animals, suffering
from both hunger and thirst, dragged the heavy wagons wearily over the
long undulations of the sun-baked plain. Occasionally they crossed dry
water-courses; but at sunset they had not found a drop of the precious
fluid, and another dry camp was promised for that night.
As the men of the second division drove the last stake of another
twenty-one-mile run, and, leaving the line, moved slowly in the
direction of camp, the mule ridden by Binney Gibbs suddenly threw up its
head, sniffed the air, and, without regard to his rider's efforts to
control him, started off on a run.
"Stop us! We are running away!" shouted Binney; and, without hesitation,
Glen gave spurs to Nettle and dashed away in pursuit.
"What scrape are those young scatter-brains going to get into now?"
growled Mr. Hobart.
"I don't know," answered "Billy" Brackett; "but whatever it is they will
come out of it all right, covered with mud and glory. I suppose I might
as well begin to organize the rescuing-party, though."