A GRAVE IN THE DESERT
But Ned and Alan did not eat with their friends that night, nor for
some days to come. And when they saw each other again one of
Elmer's juicy venison steaks would have seemed to all of them the
sweetest morsel ever eaten by man.
Ned only waited to help inflate the balloonet in the big balloon
with the little hand blower for the Cibola showed quite perceptibly
the loss of gas after her twenty hours of inflation. Then, the
course having been laid, he left the wheel and engine to Alan's care
and turned in for his long needed rest.
Alan had determined on a record flight. He allowed the Cibola to
rise higher than it had yet flown, about 5,000 feet, and then
setting the aeroplanes on a slight incline he headed the car on a
down slant for Mount Wilson's just visible peak, thirty miles away.
There was no economy in half speed, for time and the utilization of
their gas were more precious than gasoline. "We can always float
without gasoline," the boys had said to themselves, "but we can't
move without gas." Therefore the Cibola was soon at its maximum and
the enthusiastic Alan knew that Ned would have a short sleep.
In an hour and twenty-one minutes the swift dirigible was abreast of
the peak of Mount Wilson, and then, without slackening speed, Alan
altered her course southeast toward the scene of the previous
night's hair-raising experience. Long before he reached the place
he was able to make the juncture of the two rivers his landmark, and
the ship pointed her course as straight as a railroad train. After
thirty minutes sailing from Mount Wilson, Buck's rendezvous could be
made out, three miles beyond.
One glance told the whole sad story. Two dead horses alone marked
the spot where their freight wagon had stood. Alan aroused Ned, and
as the Cibola sailed low over the place the boys saw that the
thieving Utes had gone--with the wagon, horses, freight and their
dead companions.
Poor Buck's body was lying where the brave escort had fallen.
"We can't make two landings," suggested Ned. "We'll find the
gasoline and then come back and bury our friend."
Disappointed, although they had really in their hearts expected
nothing less, the young navigators turned the Cibola and sailed
slowly down the river in the hope that the gasoline would be found
where Elmer had described it as lying.
They were as richly rewarded here as they had been previously
disappointed. The drift, a tangled jumble of small mountain wood,
had caught and preserved seven of their eight tins of gasoline.
It was now noon, and broiling hot, but luncheon was not thought of
and the difficult work of recovering the heavy packages was begun.
This presented a new difficulty, for again the boys were determined
not to lose any gas in making a landing.
The drift was too light to hold their anchor although two trials at
this were made. Not a bush or tree was to be found nearby. In
despair at last, Alan was about to suggest opening the valve--for it
was imperative that they secure the gasoline--when Ned turned the
bow of the craft down stream.
"Perhaps we can find anchorage further down," he explained.
"But if will be pretty hard work carrying these tins," Alan began.
"They floated where they are, didn't they?" smiled Ned. "What's the
matter with letting them float a little further?"
His hope was realized. But the solution was fully a mile away. On
a sandy bar, half buried in the sand, the stout end of a cottonwood
trunk, the flotsam of some extraordinary freshet, had come into
view. The experience of the morning was repeated, but on a smaller
scale, for here were no dangerous tree limbs to threaten their
delicate silken bag. After two trials and much pulling and hauling
the car of the Cibola was tied fast to the snag, half over the
shallow water and half over the sand.
Then, naked as when they were born, and suffering not a little from
the pitiless sun, the boys started afresh. Alan made his way back
up the river and began to prod out the stranded tin casks. All were
soon bobbing along in the slow current, with Alan behind them like a
lumber driver of the northwest dislodging logs left in the shallows.
Ned below soon had all of them in shallow water.
By means of a coil of the drag rope, looped in turn about the tins
of recovered fuel, Ned lifting below and Alan pulling above soon
transferred the gasoline to the bobbing Cibola. As each cask
ascended, a portion of the extra ballast was dumped overboard.
Then, dressing themselves and improvising what tools they could, the
boys made their way sorrowfully to the scene of the previous night's
tragedy. Buck's body was carefully removed and decently buried. A
mound of boulders was made over the grave to designate the spot, and
with the hope that some day they might return and suitably mark the
desert tomb the boys took a mournful farewell.