The Boy With the U. S. Survey Part 4

"Yes there are, lots," answered Field, "I saw a big flight of them as we drove by that large slough a few miles out."

Roger thought it strange that the farmer should be mistaken about the bird season on his own farm, but surely people who could discover a flowing well 3,000 feet below the ground with nothing to show where it was, wouldn't be stopped for a few snipe. In fact, if any one had told the boy that the Survey had discovered the Fountain of Perpetual Youth or was making a detailed topographical map of Mars he would have accepted the statement without question or surprise.

The farmer's muttered objections being silenced by the united voices of the party, the plan of operations was outlined by Field.

"You see, Roger," he said, "as the youngest of the party you are always the guest of honor at the first few things the camp gets up, and so, as I promised, we'll let you have the best of the fun to-night. Remember, though, we expect you to get a big bag. It's a good dark night and you ought to be able to pick out a whole lot."

"But I don't see how you can work it at night," objected Roger. "Do you go out with torches, or how?"

"We'll show you how, when we get to that slough that I told you of.

Bring that best gun of yours along, and we'll post you right where the birds will come."

There was a sense of strangeness about the whole affair which was puzzling to Roger, but he attributed it as much to his fatigue as to any other cause, and obediently fetched his gun out, saw that it was clean and in good order, and prepared to accompany the party. They borrowed a light rig from the farmer and started out. It was a little after nine o'clock when they left the house and fairly cold, while, as one of the men remarked, "It was as dark as the inside of an empty tar-barrel with the bung driven in."

They drove and drove for what seemed to Roger an interminable time, though he could not help wondering at the sudden twists and turns in the road, and several times, by the sc.r.a.ping of the underbrush against the body of the rig, he knew they were on no road at all. The undergrowth grew thicker and thicker and the ground more and more boggy, when, after they had been driving for at least two hours and Roger had fallen into a light doze, the horses were pulled up with a jerk.

"Here we are," said Field loudly. "Tumble out, boys."

The horses had been stopped at the very edge of an immense marsh, that looked almost like a lake in the dim light, but that its margin was fringed with reeds and bulrushes, and although it was so early in the year a sc.u.m was beginning to form. The place was not at all inviting, and Roger felt well satisfied that he was not there alone.

"Now, son," said Field, lighting a large lantern which was part of the camp outfit, "you stay right here and we will drive the horses away a little distance so that the possible noise of their moving about restlessly won't disturb the birds, and then we will circle the slough in both ways and drive the birds to you. You see, they won't rise at night, but keep to the ground, and if we start in opposite directions from the other side of the slough all the birds will come together right where you are. Then, when they find their escape cut off, they'll have to hit the water or else take wing."

"But it will be pretty hard to shoot them," protested Roger; "it's almost pitch-dark."

"They won't rise until they come into the circle of light shed by the lantern," said Field, "and then, if you're quick, you can get them as they rise. Now, remember, you've got to keep silent, or else, caught between two fires, they will scatter back from the water; we will be silent, too, so as not to scare them too much. Keep still, and don't shoot until the snipe begin to come into the light."

With this Field jumped into the rig, and a minute or two later Roger heard him stop the horses and speak loudly about tying them to a tree. A few moments later, he returned with one of the men.

"Harry and Jake have gone round to the south of the slough," he said, "and we will take the other side. Now remember, not a move until the birds begin to come. Good sport to you," and they were gone.

Roger sat patiently with his gun across his knees, waiting for the birds to come. He had been sitting perhaps for a quarter of an hour, when a very faint "Coo-ee" was heard and he stiffened to attention. The men, he thought, must be beginning to drive the birds from cover. The night wind was chill on the edge of the marsh, and Roger, expecting every minute that the birds would begin to come into the circle of light, dared not move. His left foot became numb, but he did not rise to his feet until the numbness became unendurable, and then, as softly and silently as he could, he stood up. The scene was even more lonely, viewed standing up.

There was not a light to be seen, not a sound to be heard, save the hoa.r.s.e croaking of the frogs and the booming of a bittern in the far distance.

The minutes pa.s.sed into hours, until it became agony to refrain from sleep, but Roger felt that he would be forever disgraced in the eyes of his comrades if he were found asleep at his post on the very first occasion they had given him a trial of endurance, and he promised himself that he would stay awake, no matter what it cost him.

Then a faint mist began to wreathe upwards from the lake and took all sorts of fantastic shapes before the boy's tired eyes, and while, for a little time, it afforded him occupation to watch their curling gyrations, at the last this but added to the dreariness of the place.

Once his eyes had closed and he dozed for a few seconds, when he was aroused, and not only aroused but startled, by the far-off howl of a wolf. Roger was no coward, and had all the boy's contempt for the coyote of the prairies, but he was woodsman enough to know that the coyote troubles timbered lands but little, and that the call was from the throat of the dreaded timber wolf.

What would not the boy have given for one of his rifles? But there he was at the edge of a slough, not even knowing in what direction he could retreat should flight prove necessary, with no weapon but a shotgun loaded with small bird-shot, and a timber wolf prowling near. Once, indeed he thought of shooting in order to attract attention, but the morbid fear of being thought timid and old-womanish restrained his hand from the trigger.

Again came the call, clear and unmistakable this time, and drawing nearer. All the wolf stories that he had read beside the fire at home rushed across his memory now--the Siberian wolves who chased across the steppes that traveler who saved his unworthy life by sacrificing to the beasts successively the three children intrusted to his care; the wolves who picked clean the bones of all the inhabitants in the Siberian village who refused to help escaping prisoners; the were-wolf, who, half-maiden and half-brute, lives on the blood of men; until, in spite of his courage, Roger found himself feeling far from at ease and deeply wis.h.i.+ng that some of the others in the party were there to keep him company.

Again the wolf howled, a long-drawn-out howl with a little "yap" before it. Had Roger but known, he need have had no fear, for such is not the call of an angry or a hungry wolf, but merely the cry of the solitary hunter not running with the pack. A wolf after his prey does not howl, but gives a succession of short, sharp barks. Presently the boy received a sensation as of movement among the bushes to his right. He looked intently, but could see nothing. At one time, indeed, he thought he could discern two specks of light that might have been the eyes of the intruder, but knowing how easily the eyesight is deceived when it is being strained, and also having the good sense of not making matters worse by wounding a beast he feared he could not kill, Roger contented himself by keeping a lookout with every nerve strung. There was no longer any thought of the snipe, they had paled into insignificance before what appeared to be--although it was not--a real danger.

So Roger stood, watching the brush, the long night through, the little lamp shedding its pale gleam upon the ground at his feet and glimmering upon the waters of the lake, until in the east the first gray light of the false dawn began to appear. Gradually the light increased, and Roger with a sigh of relief took his eyes from the bush he had watched anxiously so long. As the day began to break and to disperse the slight mist, objects in the distance seemed to take shape, and Roger could hardly believe his eyes when he saw, but a few hundred yards away, the very house where he had supped the night before, and from which he had been taken a long two-hours' ride.

In a moment it all flashed on him, the old farmer's incredulity at the presence of snipe at that time of year, the readiness to put the newcomer in the place of honor, the unanimity of all the members of the party in falling in with the chief's suggestion, the folly of shooting anything on a pitch-black night, and he saw that he had been hoaxed. He was wet, incredibly weary and stiff from the strain, and Roger's first impulse was that of intense anger. As he would have phrased it himself, he was "good and mad." The boy soon reflected, however, that if this was a regular performance on the tenderfoot--which appeared probable from Mitchon in Was.h.i.+ngton having been in the game--a good deal depended on the way he took it. They would expect him to be angry or sulky. Well, he would disappoint them.

Just as he was about to walk into the barn, however, where he proposed to have a nap in the straw, who should meet him but Field and another of the men! They greeted him with a shout of laughter and satirical queries as to the number of snipe he had shot. Roger schooled himself to laugh in reply.

"That was one on me, all right," he said, "but this is only my second day. It's your turn now, but mine will come some other time."

The chief laughed appreciatively.

"That's the right way to take it, Roger," he said, "and now you'll know enough not to go shooting snipe any more at night, I reckon. But, lad, it's early yet, and we won't start for a couple of hours, so you just turn in and we'll call you when we are ready to go."

"I won't deny that I'll be glad of a nap," said Roger, yawning, "and I'm mighty glad that this part of my initiation is over with."

CHAPTER III

FOOLING A RESCUE PARTY

Roger speedily found that Field's remark to the effect that the "snipe-shoot" had better take place before the actual work started was really a merciful suggestion, for three or four days later, when the swamp survey was in progress, the boy found himself at night so tired that he would not have budged from the camp for anything smaller than a tiger. He was no mean athlete and had been accustomed to consider himself in good training, but after a day in the marsh the muscles of his back felt as though he had been lying on a corduroy road and allowing a full-sized steam roller to run over him.

The work itself was not so hard to understand or to follow, but the difficulties of the nature of the ground made it appear to him almost insurmountable. Arising early in the morning, about half-past five o'clock, he found himself fully ready for breakfast, which was duly over by half-past six, when the work of making up the packs began. Each man in the party was supposed to carry a pack, all the properties of the camp being divided up into equal weights. The making up of these was a source of no small anxiety, as the division of weight made a lot of difference in the day's march. The load was so divided that it would rest upon the back, just below the neck, and to keep it in place a broad strap, called a "tump-strap" was pa.s.sed across the forehead. If the strap was a little long, or the load adjusted so that it hung too far down, the effect was to jerk the neck back until it seemed that it would snap off, while if the load was too high up on the neck, in order to distribute the weight evenly the bearer would have to bend so far forward that he would be walking almost double.

[Ill.u.s.tration: IN THE TAMARACK SWAMP.

Morning start from small dry spot where camp was made. Chief of party in center, holding axe.

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

Sometimes, though not often, the party was able to proceed straightaway without any ax-work, but more often all hands had to set to work, clearing away underbrush and second growth so that a clear distance might be secured for making a sight. At first it would seem that a swamp perforce must be level, and in such a case drainage would be extremely complex and difficult, but in the Chippewa swamps there is a heavy fall toward the Red Lake River, this fall, however, being interrupted by numerous small hog-backs and elevated stretches of ground which might almost be called islands.

"But, Mr. Field," said Roger to his chief, when this was explained to him, "if a drainage ditch were cut direct from the highest point of the marsh to the Red Lake River, would not all the water naturally flow into it, and so drain the swamp without all this elaborate surveying?"

"And how would you find the highest point or points of the marsh," said the other, smiling, "without a survey? You see, son, this swamp is like a continent on a small scale. It has its mountains and its valleys, its plateaus and its ravines, though these be measured in inches instead of hundreds of feet. Now, if this ground were rocky, all this drainage would make for itself a network of small streams and flow down to the river, but as the ground is naturally spongy the water has lain instead of running, and therefore has not cut any channels. Add to this the hundreds of thousands of years' deposit of rotting vegetation, and you see how impossible it is for the water to do what would naturally be expected, that is, find its own level."

"But it must flow down some time, surely," said the boy.

"The overplus does. In spring, that is to say in early spring, right after the snow melts, this whole swamp is a sheet of water, even worse than it is now, and the houses on the higher grounds are on islands, the farmers going to and from them with boats, but that soon runs off until it reaches the level of complete saturation, in other words, a bog as wet as it can hold. Now, what we have to do, is to trace this highest point or points, such as you spoke of, or, to speak more correctly, the succession of the lines of highest points, a very crooked series of lines, and find out their relation each to the other. This you see, will divide up the swamp into several drainage areas. Then each of these areas is to be surveyed to determine the line of drainage, the whole to be conformed to the main ditches that will flow to the river, and this intricate network of ditches must be kept at just the exact level of fall, so that it will flow unenc.u.mbered to the streams on either side of the swamp."

Roger whistled softly.

"That's why you've got to go over every foot of the country so carefully," he said.

"Of course. If it wasn't for the trees and brush, which prevent us seeing just where every little rise is, it would be comparatively easy, but unless we know the lie of the ground, we might plan a ditch just on the wrong side of a ridge of comparatively solid earth, which would divert the entire stream. Of course, there's a pretty good fall to the river, both the Mud River and the Red Lake River, but even so, an un.o.bserved ridge of earth a few feet high, running along for a couple of miles would throw out the value of that particular ditch and create the cause for a new drainage area."

"I see," said the boy, "and I'm very glad you told me, Mr. Field, because it did look to me as though a lot of this exactness was unnecessary."

"We do nothing unnecessary on the Survey," came the prompt response. "No man knows better than we how much work there is yet to be done."

As the days went on Roger found himself becoming quite apt at the pack work, and, to his great delight, found his muscles hardening under the exercise so that the strain was not so great. Several times too, and this gave him great joy, the chief would send him out off the line of march, not more than fifty yards, with instructions to report on the nature of the ground. When about that distance, well within earshot, he was supposed to "Coo-ee" in order to find his way back to the party.