A FIRST-CLASS BUCKING MULE
As there was yet a month to elapse before Roger's "engagement with the
sun," as Masseth had called it, and the journey to the Grand Canyon
would not take more than eight or nine days, the boy felt little
desirous either of waiting about the desert country or of going back to
the Canyon ahead of time. It was practically a vacation for him, he had
plenty of money in his pocket, a good horse between his knees, the
prestige of a government appointment at his back, and the recollection
of the gloomy Mohave country to wipe out.
The reconnoissance party had left him at Olancha, at the southern
extremity of Owens Lake, a land of black volcanic lava and great beds of
tuff. After the dazzling white of salt and borate deposits; the great
sheets of black lava, and the heights of the Sierra Nevada behind,
formed so strong a contrast that Roger could hardly believe that the two
were but a couple of days' ride from each other. Towering over all,
moreover, could be seen Mt. Whitney, the sentinel peak of the southern
end of the Sierra, snow-capped and majestic, and Roger conceived the
idea of riding thitherward to gain some idea of the life and scenery of
the mountain-side.
A few hours' ride brought him to Lone Pine, where he put up for the
night. In the course of casual conversation with some of the men in the
little frame hotel, Roger mentioned that he was with the Geological
Survey. This announcement he had found it necessary to make in a number
of instances, for in that Western country a man's business is not
regarded as a matter especially to be kept secret.
"Sho!" said one of the men, just in from a big cattle ranch. "I presoom,
then, that you propose to hitch up with that peak-climbin' outfit?"
"Is there a geological reconnoissance party near here, then?" queried
Roger interestedly.
"A what?"
"A geological reconnoissance party," repeated the boy, "a government
survey."
"Geological reconnoissance is good!" exclaimed the Westerner. "If that
salubrious phrase is a maverick, I reckon I'll brand it and inclood it
in my string. But there was a bunch here the other day, with
three-legged telescopes and barbers' poles, just like what you
describe."
"How long ago?" asked the boy.
"'Bout a week, I surmise. An' they can't have got any thousand miles
away, either, because, as I understood 'em, they was a-contemplatin'
drawin' little picture-maps of the country as they went along."
Roger nodded understandingly.
"I know," he said, "that's just the delineation of the topographical
contour."
The Westerner's jaw dropped for a moment, but he was game, and came
right up to the scratch.
"Topographical contour I like!" he said. "This is our busy day on
language. It may be a new sort of drink for all I know, but it sounds
well. I presoom, partner, that you had better lend your valooable
assistance to the delineation of the topographical contour on a
geological reconnoissance!"
He looked round for the applause of the little gathering, which was
readily and gleefully accorded him.
The boy laughed. "All right," he said, "I'll take my medicine. I hadn't
noticed that it would seem like tall talk, but that's the way the men
speak on the Survey."
"Which I've no objection, son," answered the other. "I'm allers willin'
to rope and hog-tie a new bunch o' words, an' I has gratitood therefor."
"You all remember," broke in another speaker, "the time when Ginger
Harry's gun-play was choked off by the vocab'lary Little Doc unloaded?"
And Roger, seeing the conversation pass into other hands, was glad to
retire from the center of the stage in which he had unexpectedly found
himself, and listened for all he was worth to the reminiscences of the
days when cowboy life had not been spoiled by railroad tracks and
barbed-wire fences.
Early the next morning, however, taking with him a few days' provisions,
Roger started up the trail which had been pointed out to him as the one
the survey party had taken a few days previously, and his now trained
eye could easily detect where halts had been made and bench marks
established for the mapping out of the contour of the country. At the
same time he noticed that the party was pushing on rapidly, and by this
he judged that the climbing of the peak was one of the objects of the
expedition.
He had reached quite a sharp slope in the mountain, and was letting Duke
take the trail slowly and quietly, when suddenly he heard above him a
sharp blow, and then, far up the mountain-side a faint,
"ting-ling-ling-ling" and a moment's pause, then louder,
"crackety-crack-crack-crack" and then, with a tumult of crashes and
whangs, a large tin pail went clattering down the mountain.
Roger looked up, and from the heights above him there floated down a
vociferous and fluent torrent of language, which, even at that distance,
sounded strange and barbarous to the boy's ears. Using his
field-glasses, moreover, he could distinguish a figure leaning over a
ledge some distance above, and by the long cue he could see it was a
Chinaman. The sight gave him great encouragement, for he knew that the
party he was following had with it a Chinese cook, named Ti Sing, well
known in that region, and one of the most valued cooks in the Survey.
Realizing that he was near his goal the boy hurried on, and soon
overtook the party beside a small river with a swollen stream, a
recent cloudburst having filled to overflowing a creek usually
fordable. The water would, of course, go down in a day or two, but the
men did not want to wait. The building of a bridge seemed almost beyond
feasibility, as the banks were flat and there was no way to get across
with a rope even, for the first span.
[Illustration: CROSSING A SWOLLEN STREAM.
Bridge is a log hewed flat on one side, about three feet wide. Rail is
flimsy and but a "bluff of confidence."
_Photograph by U.S.G.S._]
As it chanced, the head of the party, with the assistant topographer,
had taken a little side trip off the trail, and the packers were annoyed
by being stopped in this way.
"I reckon Saracen could find a way, all right," said one of the men,
"but I shore do feel like a fool to wait for him to come up and show us
old-timers what to do."
Numberless suggestions had been made, and Roger's presence as a stranger
had kept him silent, but thinking perhaps that he could be of some use,
he spoke in an aside to the first speaker and suggested to him a
possible means, which he had heard as having been done in a similar case
by Herold. He gave the packer the idea, and told him to go ahead with it
as though it were a plan of his own devising.
"You see," said Roger, "it would seem like an intrusion if it came from
me."
"Nothing o' the kind," said the other roughly. "I'm not going to steal
another man's ideas and put them out as my own. What do you think I am?
Here, boys," he continued, "this youngster has an idea that he says has
been proved before. Let's try it. Tell us about it, son."
Roger flushed hot at being brought before a group of men he had never
seen till that day, but he spoke up bravely.
"It doesn't seem right, I know," he said, "for me to do any talking, but
I know of a scheme that might work here, if you thought it would go.
Work it just like you do a canoe in tracking. You know with a rope from
bow to stern, going against the current, if you pull on the bow, it will
swerve in and on the stern it will sweep out?"
"That's right!" agreed several of the men.
"Well," went on the boy, "it would be pretty easy to get a tree half-way
across, wouldn't it? Drop a tree in the river, fasten the butt end to
shore, and then let the top sweep out into the stream, fastening the
rope when it was out at a sharp angle up stream."
"Any fool can do that," said one of the party scornfully, "but you might
just as well be on this side as only half-way across."
"Dry up, Hank, and don't get grouchy," said the first speaker, "the boy
isn't through."
"I thought then," continued Roger, with a grateful glance at his ally,
"that another tree could be cut down, away up the river, butt end first.
Two ropes on, same as the other. Then, keeping the top down stream and
checking off the ropes gradually, the current would sweep the tree to
the other side of the stream. Let it float until the branches of the
second tree interlocked with those of the first, held tight in the
middle of the stream. Then slack up the butt end of the second tree, and
as it swung round it would hit the bank on the further shore, and there
is your bridge made."
"That would read all right in a book," grumbled the discontented one,
"but a river like that isn't any child's kite business."
"But I didn't get it out of a book," replied the boy, a little hotly.
"Mr. Herold, the geographer, told me that, and said that it had been
done on some of the swollen streams of the Glacier National Park in
Montana, where the streams are hard to cross."
His former friend also came to the boy's support.
"There is a lot of chance work in it," he said quietly, "but the plan
sounds all right to me. Of course, if the second tree behaves like you
say it should it would be all right, but there isn't any guaranty that
it will. But it's worth the trying, and anything's better than standing
here like a lot of dummies waiting for somebody to come along and tell
us what to do."
One of the members of the party having been detailed to look up two
suitable trees, and another to find out the narrowest and most
convenient place in the river, it was not long before the two trees were
down and dragged to their respective places on the bank. Roger's friend
desired him to assume direction of the work, which Roger refused to do.
"It isn't my plan, anyway," he said. "As I told you it is only something
I heard, and I wouldn't dream of thinking that I know as much about the
way of going at it as any of you," a modest speech which won him favor,
even with the disgruntled packer.
The launching of the first tree, however, proved so easy, the current
carried it to its place with so much readiness that all were encouraged.
It was securedly anchored at the shore and pointed up stream, with
little difficulty. But the second tree, owing to having been too short,
proved a failure at the first attempt, and it was not until a tree of
just the right height had been secured that success was attained. The
second time, the tree drifted quietly down, entangled in the branches of
the other tree, according to programme, and the butt being slackened
away it landed fair and true upon the other shore. Without delay one of
the most active of the men crawled out and lashed the two trees
together, then crawled over the second tree and stood on the further
shore triumphant.
[Illustration: BRIDGED BY "DOUBLE TREE."
Foaming mountain torrent, too powerful to cross for miles, and its
source hidden in inaccessible ravines.
_Photograph by U.S.G.S._]
But it must be admitted that while the passage had been achieved, it was
a perilous one at best. The current foamed over the trunks of the trees
and fairly boiled through the intertwined branches. Bit by bit, all that
the mules had carried in their packs was taken over, even the saddles
being borne over this arboreal bridge. Great as had been the difficulty
of making the bridge, scarcely less hard was it to make Ti Sing cross.
He called on all his gods, in eighteen several and distinct dialects of
Chinese, but the men were obdurate, and with one pulling him in front
and another pushing him behind, he was at last brought over.
Then a rope was stretched from shore to shore, passing through a loose
ring. This was fastened to the girth of a mule, one rope was tied to his
head to keep him from drowning and another to his tail to make him keep
his temper, for a mule can't get irritated with his tail tied, and thus,
half-drowned and altogether weary, the mules were got across, just as
the chief of the party came up. He said nothing until with his assistant
he had crossed and seen the animals over safely, then turning to the
packer:
"Whose idea?" he asked briefly.
The man pointed to Roger in reply, and the chief walked over to where he
stood, watching the men chaff Ti Sing about the missing tin pail.
"That's an old trick of Herold's," he said, "but I never heard of any
one else using it. Where did you get hold of the idea, boy?"
"From Mr. Herold, sir," answered Roger. "He told me about it before I
started into the field."
"Oh, you're on the Survey, then. What party?"
"Mr. Masseth's."
"Then what in thunder are you doing up here?"
So Roger recounted to him his story, showing that he had to return to
the Canyon in a few weeks, but that he couldn't see any fun in lying
around waiting for the time to pass. He pointed out that he was
especially anxious to fit himself for work in Alaska, and quoted Rivers'
dictum as to the experience he would need.
"Well," replied Saracen, "I guess that's right enough. You've just come
to see the Sierra country. We're not going to stay long on this side,
and after I get through with this little bit of peak--which was the
reason of the crossing that stream--we shall go to the other side of the
mountain, where I can put you on the main trail. By that means you will
have a couple of weeks up here, and still be able to get back to the
Canyon to finish that bit of work you are pledged to do there."
Roger thanked him heartily, and began his ten days of mountain climbing,
an experience utterly new, for even the scrambling up and down the
terraced cliffs of the Colorado was a different matter from the scaling
of apparently inaccessible crags, where the climber faced no little
peril in making the ascent. Further, in order to do the drawing after he
got up, he would have to be tied on and have the plane table tied,
while working on a knife-blade ledge all day.
Some few days after his arrival, Roger had the unexpected opportunity of
seeing a mule train possessed by fear, and watching a mule buck. Mules
rarely buck, so the lad was conscious of the value of the experience. It
happened on a fairly wide trail, but which sloped considerably to the
side of the mountain, and Roger was riding beside the chief of the
party. Suddenly a loud commotion was heard in the rear of the pack
train, and Saracen and Roger reined up. Duke, always restive and
nervous, began to prance about, showing evidence of real fear, and while
Roger was a good horseman and kept his seat easily, he could not keep
the beast on the trail, and the bay danced off to the side, where on the
turf, three or four yards from the beaten track, he brought him,
snorting and trembling, to a standstill.
Then he had time to look about him. On the trail immediately above him,
the lead mule, bestridden by Saracen, was performing evolutions that
would not have disgraced a trick circus beast, cavorting and pirouetting
and bucking, evidently longing to bolt, but held down by the iron hand
of his rider. Just as the beast was a little quieted and Roger thought
of resuming the trail, there came a clattering of hoofs, and whish! a
runaway mule flashed by, arousing Duke and the lead mule to a new
exhibition of bucking. Roger soon had his mount pacified, but Saracen
was getting angry, and was applying whip and spurs without stint, to no
purpose, for a couple of minutes later another of the pack train's mules
came down tearing up the dust, then two together in a panic of stampede.
All the while the lead mule, held to one place by a grip that never
relaxed for an instant, plunged and reared and strained every nerve to
unseat his rider. Next came a salvo of shouts and objurgations, and two
of the packers hurtled along the trail, sawing at the mouths of their
animals, but utterly unable to hold them in, and indeed, narrowly
escaping being ridden over by the rest of the pack mules following.
Saracen always declared that his mule counted each animal as it went by,
but certain it is that no sooner had the last of the pack train vanished
in the distance than the lead mule steadied down. No damage had been
done save that the rider's hat, though strongly fastened on, had been
bucked off. A few minutes later, back came the other men, who curiously
enough were in similar case. The three hats were found close together on
the trail.
When an investigation was made, no known cause could be found to account
for the sudden bolt, except that a white mule, one of the last in the
train, had become suddenly frightened, possibly because there was a bear
in the neighborhood, and had started to run, bunting into the mule next
in the lead, and thus communicating the fright all the way along the
line. Fortunately no mishaps had occurred, and though some of the packs
had shaken loose, none had been thrown and nothing was lost.
The very next day after this, the mule in question, which, by the way,
was the only white mule in the party, quietly slipped off the side of a
cliff with a drop of one hundred and forty feet, landed upside down on
the pack-saddle, bounced twenty feet farther, and then quietly got up,
shook himself, and began to graze. Being white, the mule was easily
visible, and as it was seen that he was not hurt and in the pack were
certain things almost indispensable, it was decided to go down and
recover him.
When this was pointed out, Roger, thinking that it might take some time
to recover the mule, felt that he would be wiser to start on his
journey for the Canyon, and finding out the nearest trail from the chief
of the party, he started back to fulfil his "engagement with the sun."
Having plenty of time, he took the trip quietly, reaching Lone Pine a
few days later, and making his way south to the railroad at Mohave.
[Illustration: IF HE SHOULD SLIP!
The Chief Geographer making a plane-table station, 10,996 feet above sea
level. Note how table is tied on.
_Photograph by U.S.G.S._]
There he encountered a young fellow on his way to Washington with some
special news of the discovery of important fossils by one of the
branches of the Geological Survey, and Roger, to his surprise, found
another avenue of science covered by that department of the government
to which he had become so proud of belonging. This young fellow had been
working in the bone-bearing strata for several months, and some
extremely valuable finds had been made which were to be placed in the
Smithsonian Museum.
With this comrade to while away the journey it seemed but little time to
Roger until they reached Needles, where the lad took to the saddle
again. It was all familiar ground to him now and no trouble was
sustained in reaching the little camp on the north side of the Canyon
where he had been bidden signal. He arrived three days before the
appointed time, desiring rather to be sure than to run the risk of some
accident delaying him. He found the provisions cached safely and knew
where to go for water. After making sure that the little instrument and
the glass had not been touched, the boy having carried the key about his
neck the entire two months, he settled down for his three days' wait.
The night before the date appointed, having a vague fear lest he might
oversleep himself, though it was a thing he had not done in all the time
he had been on the Survey, the boy lay down in front of the little
glass, wedging himself in so that he could not move, and having the
glass pointed so that the rays of the rising sun would be directed
immediately into his eyes. It was not a comfortable night's rest, but
the plan operated like a charm, for the sun's rim had hardly more than
appeared above the horizon when the reflected rays shone directly into
his face and wakened him instantly.
He got up without delay, and though considerable time was to elapse,
prepared all before his breakfast. That meal done, he sat beside his
heliograph to await the time. There was a variation of a minute and a
half between the two watches, and Roger thought it better to take the
later time, for, he reasoned, if Masseth was there he would be sure to
wait, while if he flashed too early, his chief might not be ready.
Promptly at the hour, therefore, the light shining equally about the
edges of the quarter-inch hole, he raised the cloth shutter that had
been in front of the aperture and three times let the strong light shine
through. He almost fancied that he could see the reflection on the
distant peak.
Five minutes elapsed, then he repeated the signal, three flashes of ten
seconds' duration, as had been agreed upon. Then, suddenly and
unexpectedly, he saw on the distant peak to which he was signaling, an
answering triple flash. He waited the required time, five minutes, then
gave the old signal, but followed it by three quick flashes of a second
apiece. This was answered in the same manner, telling the boy that not
only had his signal been seen, but also that his answer to the response
had been observed and that everything was right.
Thus, across seven miles of the roughest country in the world, did Roger
receive his official release and message of farewell from the Grand
Canyon party he had served so faithfully.