IN THE GIANT TULE SWAMPS
From the time that Roger fooled the members of the party just as they
were organizing a rescue search for him, his path became much easier.
Though still he occasionally made mistakes, as was unavoidable, he found
they were condoned rather than exaggerated. Indeed, the boy realized
that he was no longer treated as a tenderfoot, as he had been but a few
weeks before, but, none the less, he was not sorry when Field told him
one evening that he thought Roberts would be along shortly.
Roger was growing weary of the Minnesota work because it was evident
that it consisted of the same routine day after day, that it was
unremittingly hard work, and that the sense of progress was slow in
proportion to the labor involved. Then the mosquitoes were beginning to
get troublesome, and worst of all, the "bulldog flies" began to make
their presence felt. These large horse-flies, which madden cattle and
drive horses to distraction, in certain parts of the marsh were
ferocious and hungry enough to attack men. Roger found that he was
popular with them and got many sharp nips, which, though in no sense
dangerous, were irritating and painful.
"I don't want to seem ungrateful, Mr. Field," he said, when his chief
broached the return of his former co-laborer to him, "and I'm not, but
Mr. Mitchon seemed to think that I would only stay a few weeks here, for
the sake of the experience and to get the hang of this kind of work. I
think I have gained some knowledge of it, and," he laughed, "I can shoot
snipe and teach swamp angels to steal ham sandwiches."
The chief smiled in response.
"You turned the tables on us very neatly that time, Roger," he said,
"and you really had me badly worried, because, as you know yourself,
these swamps are not a good place to get lost in. I reckon, from what
you've told me, that if you had walked heedlessly on into that quag
without trying to test it step by step, you would still be there, only
at the bottom instead of the top."
"I really believe I would," answered the boy seriously.
"If you stick to the Survey," went on Field, "and come to be the head
of a party, particularly in wild country, you will see how necessary it
is to do just what you're told instead of trying to run the thing your
own way. If you follow instructions and anything goes wrong, then the
fault belongs to the head of the party, who is supposed to have enough
judgment and experience to know what to do in an emergency. What could
have been more simple than to go twenty or thirty yards farther away
than you had been told, just as you did, for instance, and yet, if you
had not been lucky, you would have disappeared forever in that quagmire
and by your death spoiled our record."
"Have many lives been lost in Survey work?" asked Roger.
"In the nearly thirty years of the existence of the Geological Survey,
as a separate branch of the Department of the Interior," replied Field,
"during which time explorations of the most extreme peril have been
undertaken, only one life has been lost. Really, when you come to
consider how much of the work has been done in lands absolutely unknown,
and that thousands of miles of territory have been covered wherein a
white man had never before set his foot, this is nothing short of
astounding."
"But if sickness should strike a camp?" queried the boy.
"Hard work, clean living, good judgment, and the open air, are worth all
the drugs we know about and a whole lot more that we don't. Of course a
small chest of certain radical remedies accompanies each party, with
quinine and things like that, but it is seldom that it is opened."
"But how about accidents, Mr. Field?"
"Such as?"
"Breaking a leg by a fall, or something like that," the boy responded.
"I don't see what business any man on the Survey has to fall. That isn't
what he's there for. He's there not to fall. Personally, I have never
had any accidents which would need other than ordinary attention, nor
have I had any with any members of my party. Then an injury would have
to be pretty bad, any way, that couldn't wait until some kind of a
doctor was reached, that is unless it was in the north of Alaska, or
some place like that, and in such trips a little surgical case is sent
along, and the chief would do as well as he could do with it."
"Then," said Roger with a short laugh, "I'm just as glad that I'm not at
the bottom of the quag, for your sake as well as my own, for I should
hate to be the one to spoil the Survey's record."
But while Roberts was expected in camp shortly, a couple more weeks
rolled away before the party, completing its line through a very
difficult piece of marsh, headed for one of the famous corduroy roads
and made its way back to headquarters. There, with one of the farmer's
children on his knee and the others grouped around him sat Roberts,
occupied apparently in telling some interesting story or fairy tale. He
put down the youngster and shouted as the party hove in sight.
The chief was delighted without question to see the newcomer, for while
he had been greatly pleased with Roger, the boy could not be expected to
be as valuable as an experienced man, and was not to be depended on to
proceed in his work without instruction and supervision.
"I was looking for you a couple of weeks ago, Mr. Roberts," he said.
"I expected to be here earlier, Mr. Field," answered the other, "but Mr.
Herold asked me to put in a few days in that Susquehanna
flow-measurement business, and that put me back."
Roger looked inquiringly at his chief, who catching his look of
question, said,
"Well, son?"
"I would like to ask," said the boy hesitatingly, "what that stream
flow-measurement is for?"
Roberts looked up a little surprisedly, but a few words from Fields
explained the situation, and the newcomer turned to Roger quite affably.
"Certainly, my boy, it's very simple," he said. "You see, all work on
rivers, whether for the purpose of irrigation, flood control, or
navigation, is dependent on the amount of water that flows through that
river channel every year. A week of wet weather makes a vast difference
to the amount of water the river is carrying, and a dry spell cuts it
off."
"But don't springs and things keep the water about even?" queried the
boy.
"No, indeed," answered his informant emphatically. "Why, the Tennessee
River, which I worked on once, for three months never flowed more than
20,000 cubic feet per second, yet that same year, for fifteen days in
the spring, it tore down with over 360,000 feet a second. In other
words, in the spring it was as big as eighteen rivers its usual size."
[Illustration: MEASURING STREAM FLOW.
Trolley line one mile long, over an Eastern river. Instruments pulled
up, ready for return to the bank.
_Photograph by U.S.G.S._]
"Are all rivers like that?"
"Most of them. You see, suppose in the middle of summer a river is ten
feet deep with a three-mile current, in the autumn is only four feet
deep with a two-mile current, but in the spring floods goes rushing
through its bed forty feet deep with a ten-mile current, it makes a
mighty difference to the towns and villages all the way along. The
destructiveness of a flood lies in the top few feet of water. In the
second place, the navigation of a stream can only be estimated by its
lowest depth recorded, and its horse power in the same way. But this
same river, which in the autumn was only four feet deep and developed a
corresponding horse power, would have an average depth of eight feet
with four times the horse power. If then, the water that wastefully and
ruinously flows down in the spring is conserved all through the summer,
the river has been made more than four times as valuable."
"And how is this done?"
"That's too big a subject to take up now. Still, you can understand that
if you dam the stream high up, and divert all the water over a certain
height into immense reservoirs, the water could be let down gradually
later. But that all depends on the measurement, which is taken daily for
years, often--as in the case I was in--from a cable stretched from bank
to bank, from which a little 'bos'un's chair' is hanging on a pulley, so
that sitting in this little framework you can reach up to the cable and
pull yourself to and fro. The one over the Susquehanna, where I was, is
over a mile long, and of course it's pretty high up to allow for the
sag, which is not small on a wire of that immense span."
Roger had a host of questions to ask but kept silent, not wanting to
monopolize the talk when older men were there.
"By the way, Roberts," asked Field, seeking to change the subject from a
topic which was stale to all the members of the party except Roger, "how
did you like the work in the lower Sacramento Valley?"
"Parts of it weren't so bad, Mr. Field," was the reply. "Indeed, I think
I've struck worse going right up here and in the Mud Lake district, but
the project down there is on so large a scale that one is bound to
become enthusiastic in the work. The bush is very dense, of course,
semi-tropical in character, but where the growth is heavy the swamp is
not so bad, so that it becomes a mere question of bushwhacking. Then,
too, that southern stuff is all soft to cut and much easier to get
through. The tule grass, however, is different."
"I've never been down in that tule grass," said one of the party, "is it
as bad as has been described?"
"It's never been adequately described on paper," was the ready answer.
"Uncle Sam wouldn't let the report go through the mails."
Roger grinned.
"But what is it like, Mr. Roberts?" he said.
The newcomer thought for a moment.
"It's like what a field of wheat would seem to a very small dog," he
answered. "It's too thick to walk through, too high to see over, and as
stuffy as a tenement house with all the windows nailed down."
"How do you manage it then," asked the boy. "Do you go on stilts?"
"Stilts!" ejaculated the surveyor. "You'd have to be an opera dancer
with legs about twelve feet long to manage stilts down there. And even
after you cut it down, walking on the stubble is like tramping over
bayonet blades stuck in the ground point up. No, what we do is to cut a
sort of trail for a horse, who is hitched to a light buckboard. The
horse goes through because he's got to, and the buckboard follows unless
the harness breaks."
"But how do you get your tripods above the rushes," said the chief, "for
you surely can't cut lines everywhere."
"We don't. The legs of the tripod are spliced to sticks long enough to
raise them above the grass: and the topographer, standing sometimes on
the body of the buckboard, sometimes on the seat, works with his nose
just peering above the giant rushes, from a rod of extra length,
deducting from his calculations the height of the tripod and the
buckboard from the ground."
"And is it dry?"
"Mostly, except when the tide comes in at the lower part. At least, it's
not soggy wet, like it is here. It's dead easy to get lost though, and
you can't see any landmarks. You could chase your own back hair for a
week and never know that you were going in a circle."
"Apropos of getting lost, Roberts," said the older man, "we had a little
experience with the lad here that is worth repeating," and beginning
from the snipe-hunt, he related the entire affair, showing first how
well they had got the laugh on the tenderfoot, and how he had got back
in return. Roberts laughed long and heartily at the picture conjured up
of Roger sitting in the boughs above the party, hearing them discuss
plans for his rescue and heroically resolving to leave nothing undone
till they should find him.
[Illustration: DIFFICULTIES OF WORK.
In the Giant Tule Swamps in the Southern Sacramento Valley. The umbrella
is not for comfort, but to keep the sun off the instrument.
_Photographs by U.S.G.S._]
"I didn't fare as well when I got trapped down there," he commented,
"and while I suppose it was funny, I couldn't see the joke of it
myself."
"Was that in the tule grass?" asked Field. "Tell us the yarn."
"I think I told you," began the new assistant, "how hard that stuff is
to make a way through, and though it is really almost as tangled as this
marsh work up here, the ground is so flat that far fewer bench marks are
required. We had taken a long sight, because there was a sort of
depression at that point which we wanted to delimit, and I was quite a
distance from the plane table. Suddenly I felt a swish of water at my
feet, my first realization that the tide was coming in. This had often
happened before, and the water usually rose to a little above the knee,
when, as soon as the tide ebbed, it would flow out and leave all dry
again.
"Of course I was aware that I was working in a slight depression, but as
a matter of fact it never occurred to me that this would make any
especial difference. I was surprised, certainly, at the strength of the
tide as it flowed in, and I remember a little later wondering whether it
was spring tide and not being able to find any reason for the heavy
flow, but it was only casually that the matter occurred to me at all.
Few minutes elapsed, however, before I realized that any greater
increase of depth would be a really serious matter. The water was
already above my knees and increasing at an alarming rate. I think I
have shown you how hard it is to get through that stuff, and to cross a
hundred yards of tule grass is a matter of half an hour's work. Still,
at any moment, I thought the water would reach its maximum and I felt
ashamed to start back after all the labor of reaching the point where I
then was.
"Of course I am not usually the tallest man in the party [the speaker
was not more than five feet six or seven] and the boys used to joke me
about my height. I knew they would roast me to a turn if I had to let on
that I was afraid of being drowned in a few feet of water. So I held
on. But the water had crept up rapidly until it was well above my waist,
and I determined, jesting or no jesting, that I was going to strike for
higher ground, or, if possible, get as far as the buckboard. The other
fellows couldn't see the trouble I was in because they were on a little
crest of ground, and because the waving tule grass shut off all sight of
the water.
"What's wrong?" I heard one of them shout, as I started back, but I
didn't want them to get the laugh on me too soon, and I was coming back
through that sodden grass just as rapidly as I could make arms and legs
go. Well, sir, I suppose that tide came in slowly, but it seemed to me
as though I could see it creep up my shirt inch by inch, and I had
hardly got half the distance before it was up to my shoulders. I thought
it was time then to let the boys know what was up, so I shouted:
"'Bring the buckboard here, fellows, or I'll be drowned in this infernal
grass!'
"'Drowned?' I heard one of the men say questioningly, then immediately
after, 'By Jove, he's caught with the tide down in that low spot.'
"But of course they couldn't bring the buckboard because the horse
couldn't go through unless a path had been cut, and they couldn't very
well cut a path, for the reason that in doing so they would have to
stoop, bringing their heads under water, to say nothing of the
difficulty of swinging an ax in the water. It looked pretty bad for me,
but I thought it likely that Shriveter, one of the party, who was over
six feet, would come to my aid, and six inches more of height made a
considerable difference of time in the up-creeping of the water. Then I
saw the chief pull out his watch and speak to the rest of the boys, and
they began to laugh. I was about thirty yards away by this time and
could hear them laugh quite distinctly. It made me as mad as a hatter,
for the water was up to my chin.
"'It may be deucedly funny to you,' I called out, 'but you might come
and help a fellow!' But they only laughed the harder and it made me
sore. Can you imagine what it's like plowing through that infernal grass
with water up to your chin? You can't stoop your shoulder to push
yourself through, because, if you do, a mouthful of salt water comes to
your share; all your clothes are sopping wet and heavy; the ground under
your feet has become slimy and hard to walk on and the blades of grass
are sodden and almost beyond a man's power to move. I found it harder
work to make a five-yard line through that mixture of tule grass and
tidewater than Harvard ever did on the gridiron against Yale."
"Easy, old man," said Field, "I'm Yale!"
"I know you are," grinned the other, "that's just why I said it. But, as
I was telling you, it sure was a man's job to fight through that stuff
yard by yard, and the salt water was just about level with my lips, so
that when I wanted a breath I had to give a little jump and breathe
before I came down. And those beasts on the buckboard were simply
howling with laughter.
"'Look at the human jumping-jack!' I heard one of them say, imitating
the voice and manner of a sideshow barker, 'The only original half-man,
half-frog, in the world. See him hop! One hop is worth the money!' I
tell you what," added Roberts, laughing in unison with the rest, at the
picture he had conjured up, "I was just about hot enough under the
collar to have ducked every one of those grinning oafs."
"But did you really think you were going to be drowned, Mr. Roberts?"
asked Roger.
"I suppose if I had stopped to think, my boy," was the immediate
response, "I would have known that the other chaps would have got hold
of me long before that, but I felt more than half-way drowned as it was,
hardly able to advance a step nearer safety, and only succeeding in
getting breath by jumping up and down as if I was on a skipping rope.
But when I thought I would have to give out, paying no attention to the
jocose suggestions of the fellows, such as 'Get a balloon!' 'Talk about
a grasshopper!' 'Look who's here, there's spring-heeled Jack on the
trail!' and so forth, and when my strength was nearly at an end, it
seemed to me either that I had reached a little hillock or that the
water was receding. I stood still, and found that by throwing my head
back I could just breathe without making any wild gymnastics, and I
thought it a good time to take a breathing space. In a few moments I saw
that the water really was receding and half an hour later I made my way
to the buckboard, where all the boys had gathered and were sitting
smoking, watching my frantic efforts.
"'You're a precious lot,' I said to them, as I clambered up out of the
wet, 'to let a fellow half drown without coming to help him. I might
have gone under out there for all you cared.' Oh, I was mighty sore
about it, and I didn't care if they knew it.
[Illustration: DENSE SOUTHERN PALM GROVE.
Through this lines must be cut to establish Survey points, showing wide
range of territory with which a topographer must be familiar.
_Photograph by U.S.G.S._]
"But the chief, who had been laughing as heartily as any, said:
'Roberts, you know perfectly well that we would have come after you if
there had been any danger. But I looked at my watch and saw that it was
full time for the tide to turn, so that you really stood in no such
awful peril as you seemed to think.'
"'That's all very well,' I answered, 'but how was I to know it?'
"'That was just the sport of it,' he said; 'you didn't know it, and we
did. And you would have died laughing if you could have heard yourself,
'Schriveter (gurgle, gurgle), you lanky galoot (gurgle, gurgle), come
and give me a hand (gurgle, gurgle), instead of sitting there (gurgle,
gurgle), like an Indian cigar sign (gurgle).' I don't know just how
Schriveter felt, but so far as I am concerned, I was so tired from
laughing that I nearly fell out of the rig.' I suppose really the chief
was right, knowing that the water would not come any higher, but then I
didn't know, and it wasn't any too pleasant a feeling."
"By the way," continued Roberts, when he had finished his story, and
other members of the party had added their mite of comment, approval,
or equivalent yarn, "Mr. Field tells me that you are new on the Survey.
I suppose your name is Doughty, then?"
"Yes, Mr. Roberts," answered Roger, surprised that this man, who was
almost a complete stranger to him, should know his name.
"Mr. Herold told me that I should find you here," he said, "and he asked
me to give you this letter. He told me what was in it," added the new
arrival with a smile, "and I think it should please you."
Roger took with eagerness the long official envelope handed him by
Roberts, his first letter of instructions since he became a member of
the Survey, and found therein a brief order, requiring him to report at
the El Tovar Hotel, Grand Canyon, Ariz., on the first day of the month
following. The same envelope contained, moreover, a personal letter from
Mitchon, in which, though of course no official recognition could be
made, was a phrase worded in such wise as to show that the boy had been
well spoken of by Field, and that this new appointment was due to
satisfaction with his first few weeks on the Survey. The lad colored
with pleasure as he read it.
"I suppose, Roger," said Field, when the boy folded the two letters and
put them back into the envelope, "that letter means that you are going
to leave us?"
"Yes, Mr. Field," answered the boy, "I don't know just when I am
supposed to leave, but I am ordered to report in Arizona on the first of
June."
"Going on the desert work?" queried the chief. "My word, Mr. Herold
wants to give you pretty sharp contrasts!"
"I think it must be somewhere about the Grand Canyon," answered the boy,
his eyes sparkling with the thought of seeing that wonder of America,
which he had so ardently desired to visit. "At least, I am told to
report at a place called Grand Canyon."
Roberts nodded.
"That's right son," he said. "Grand Canyon is the tourist station for
seeing the Colorado River gorge at its best."
"To whom do you report?" asked Field, "to Masseth?"
"Yes, Mr. Field, that was the name," answered the boy.
"Isn't that the man who did such clinking good work in the Little
Colorado country?" asked Roberts.
"That's the man," replied Field. "You couldn't be under a better
leader," he added, turning to the boy, "but you've got to keep both eyes
and both ears wide open with him, for he has a knack of expecting every
one with him to know everything. He'll teach you to think quickly, all
right."
"Well, my present chief----" began the boy gratefully, but Field waved
his hand petulantly.
"Cut that sort of thing out," he interrupted. "Any man will get along if
he tries to do his work. But," he warned smilingly, "I don't know that
it's such good discipline to play practical jokes on the head of the
party. They might not all take it kindly."
"I had a letter from Mr. Mitchon," retorted the boy, "in which he bids
me thank you for the snipe. He said they were much appreciated in the
office. He writes awfully nicely."
"That snipe's an old joke on the Survey," answered Field, "indeed, it's
pretty well known all over the West, but seeing that it was new to you,
Mr. Mitchon wanted to enjoy the fun."
"I never met Mitchon until this last time I went to Washington," put in
Roberts thoughtfully, "but I liked him very much."
"I had a little experience with Mitchon once," put in David, who had
been listening, "and I found him white clear through."
"Mitchon's all right!" said Field.
"You bet!" affirmed the boy.
"Well," commented Roberts with a laugh, "that's a good enough epitaph
for any man. Mitchon's a long way from being dead, and I guess no one's
particularly anxious to start carving a tombstone, but at that, I guess
he'd be satisfied with such a general opinion."