The Boy With the U. S. Survey Part 17

Opposite the opening to t.i.tus Canyon where the fatal guide-post was found.

_Photograph by U.S.G.S._]

When he came to bid farewell to Mr. Pedlar, however, the latter looked at him a little keenly.

"I could see," the older man said, "that the t.i.tus Canyon matter worked a little on your nerves. Now, I don't want you to feel that you must get hard, for you will find that the finest and most daring men in the world are often as tender as a woman, but it contains a most important lesson for you."

"And that is?" queried Roger.

"That it is only the fool who over-estimates his own strength."

CHAPTER IX

A FIRST-CLa.s.s BUCKING MULE

As there was yet a month to elapse before Roger's "engagement with the sun," as Ma.s.seth 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 a.s.sistance 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 grat.i.tood 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 pa.s.s 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 pus.h.i.+ng 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-gla.s.ses, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 a.s.sistant 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 sh.o.r.e 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 b.u.t.t end to sh.o.r.e, 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."