A query for the topographer, which must be answered; a sample of rough
country work.

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

CHAPTER VI

A LONE HAND AGAINST HUNGER

Early the next morning quite a large group of tourists gathered to see
the Survey party set out, it having become known that it was to make use
of the old Cameron trail and endeavor to climb the other side of the
Canyon. Some, who had been part of the way down the trail, were politely
incredulous as to the possibility of the feat, others took an especial
pleasure in prophesying disaster, and a few expressed a wish that they
might accompany the party "to see how it was done."

To these various people Masseth paid no heed. Indeed he scarcely
responded to questions, returning but the briefest replies, except once,
when an old lady, quiet and gentle in manner, came up and laid her hand
on his arm.

"You will pardon an old lady," she said, "but I should not like to think
of your going down there, unless you can assure me that it is really
safe."

The topographer turned to her immediately, raising his cap and smiling:

"I have been over the trail before," he said, "and indeed I have been in
many worse places than this part of the Canyon, so you really need feel
no alarm. It is very kind of you to be solicitous of our well-being, and
I shall take your expressed interest as a happy omen for the journey."

This little speech, overheard by Roger as he came up with the head
packer to say that everything was ready, gave him a quick insight into
the intense graceful courtesy, which was so strong a characteristic of
the man who was to be his chief for a couple of months to come. A few
sentences between Masseth and the chief packer were followed by the
words, spoken in a sharp tone of command, markedly different from the
suavity of a moment before:

"You may start, then!"

Roger waited for instructions.

"Doughty," said the leader, "you will ride in the rear with Black, and
you will do well to let him teach you how to handle the animals in rough
spots. I shall go ahead, of course."

"Very well, sir," answered Roger, and cantered off to the pack train,
where the assistant topographer was helping the second packer to get the
mules started. The head packer had gone as far as the brink of the
Canyon with the chief and there waited to deploy the animals on the
trail in good order and to scrutinize every pack as it passed him, to
make sure that none should become loose and slip.

The boy chatted freely with Black as they paced along behind the last of
the mules, and he found his companion well-informed, as Masseth had
said, but except on matters of the trail, somewhat non-communicative. In
brief remarks, however, he explained to the boy many of the troubles he
must expect to encounter and the best manner of meeting them, and his
curt references to the lie of the land struck Roger as being of immense
value. He pointed out certain striking landmarks as features of the
landscape which were to be ignored, because, from any point of view,
they would appear entirely different; and certain other eminences,
perhaps not even as noticeable as the former, which he must remember,
since, by reason of their conformation they would always appear the same
and thus could be taken as absolute and certain guides.

But as soon as the trail fell over the edge there was no more speaking.
Fell over the edge, Roger thought, was almost the only way to describe
the road, which was precipitous and winding beyond belief. There was a
supposition that the way had been made smooth for mules, but it did not
seem to the lad that any four-footed animal short of a goat could keep
his footing. The long line of mules treading easily in front, however,
was evidence that he need not fear, so warily keeping an eye on his mule
lest his mount should stumble, he preceded the assistant, following
immediately after the last pack mule.

For several hundred feet the trail went down in this rough fashion, then
suddenly turned sharply to the left along one of the broad terraces of
rock, whereof Masseth had spoken to the boy before. After a quarter of a
mile of easy going, the party came to a slope of loose shale, almost
filling up the terrace. The pack mules picked their way over this
without any apparent demur, but Black called out:

"Guess you'd better get off!"

Roger slipped from his saddle, and going to the mule's head started to
walk beside it.

"Go in front, you chump," called the other. "If the trail's none too
wide for one, how do you suppose two can go abreast?"

"But I can't help him then!" protested Roger.

This speech was greeted with a hoarse chuckle.

"Any old time a mule needs a tenderfoot to teach him where to put his
feet," he said, "I want to have a front seat to watch it. Don't you ever
worry about that, I guess he can walk anywhere that you can, but on a
shelving bank a rider makes a beast topheavy."

Down they went into the chasm, climbing over heaps of fallen rock,
pitching down slopes which seemed almost perpendicular to the boy, and
as they descended the sun rose higher and the air seemed to become less
tenuous and almost visible. Roger had been expecting the wonderful
radiance of the valley to become tenfold richer under the noonday sun,
and was surprised to note all the color fade out of the rocks and the
air become as it were so solid as to refract the light of the sun. The
whole atmosphere seemed to be glowing with a metallic luster which was
most confusing, because of the way in which it changed the whole
environment. Lines of strata became distorted and even disappeared, the
buttes appeared to flatten, the minor shadows to diminish and the
darker shades to turn an inky black, till, when the halt was made at
noon, the boy realized that he could not have made his way back one mile
by reason of the chaotic look of the abyss under the direct light of the
noonday sun.

After the march had been resumed and the afternoon was drawing to a
close, however, the true witchery of the scene struck deep into Roger's
mind. As the evening clouds began to gather and the twilight shadows
deepened, the Titanic temples and cloisters seemed to awake and stretch
themselves to meet the expected vesper. Little by little the atmosphere
lost its density and the rocks behind began to glow, the colossal buttes
assumed their due proportions; while a thousand bizarre forms, that had
not been observable in the intense light of day, thrust themselves
forward into an uncouth prominence. Then the sun disappeared from the
view of the travelers, though still shining on the rocks above. Black
cantered up beside the boy.

"Now watch," he said: "here's where you see the greatest display of
color in the whole world."

"But how can it be brighter than it is now?" queried Roger, on whom the
bold and striking scene was creating a profound impression.

"The best is yet to come," answered his companion, "and look, it begins
now!"

For the first time since morning Roger was able to look upwards without
being blinded by the sunlight. The sloping rays now fell full upon the
upper part of the Canyon, at the crest of which a vivid yellow cut
athwart the transparent blue of the sky and underneath its pallid
brilliancy ran a soft belt of pale rose. The deep vibrating red of the
body of the Canyon seemed to pulse with life as a faint blue haze began
to gather in the dusk, changing second by second into the countless
differing hues of crimson lakes and ruby violets, deepening as the
hastening twilight passed. Strange and metallic gleams of burnished
bronze and green gloomed from the intervening lines, all yielding place
little by little to the veil of azure mist. And beneath all, the glowing
red, now changed to imperial purple, as though the world were bathed in
a regal radiance at the crowning of a universe's king.

It was not until the dark had really come and the stars were shining
brightly that the boy awakened to the consciousness of a trail and felt
that he could speak. He turned to the assistant.

"And that's been going on every day for years!" he said, struck by the
wastefulness of such a sight to so few eyes.

"For thousands upon thousands of years that went on before any man saw
it," replied Black, smiling slightly, "and it will go on when the
present civilizations are deemed but musty antiquities."

The night was well advanced when the party reached the crest of the
Canyon on the north side. The journey, as Masseth had said, was one
devoid of special risk because of the numbers of the party and the known
trail, though, in truth, it needed a keen eye at times to discern that
such apparently impassable ground was intended for a trail. The top
reached, however, a hasty camp pitched, the packs and saddles taken off,
the mules and the animals hobbled to graze on the rich herbage of the
Kaibab plateau, Roger sank to sleep without loss of time, and it seemed
to him hardly ten minutes before the cook aroused him for the camp
breakfast.

"You know something about the work of a rodman, and of the handling of
the tape?" asked Masseth, after breakfast, referring to the 300-foot
steel tape used in measuring distances in wooded areas.

"Yes, indeed, Mr. Masseth."

"Of course you realize that the tape is generally impracticable in such
a country as this, and that all the work must be done by the computing
of angles with continual astronomical verification. As topographic aid
you can learn as much as you are able of the use of instruments, at such
times as you are not carrying out levels." And Masseth, questioning
closely, elicited the mathematical ability of the lad. The boy had
always hated arithmetic and its kindred studies, not realizing the value
of the higher branches, but with the incentive before him, he found his
chief's teaching markedly interesting.

The next day a semi-permanent camp was pitched, and there the supplies
were kept. The head packer, who became a teamster as soon as things were
settled, immediately left for the village of Kanab in Utah, over a
hundred miles away, where a heavy wagon was in waiting, and whence the
provisions were to be drawn for the party during the two months it
should be on the north side of the Canyon. As it was a three days'
journey there and the same returning, the teamster was a busy man,
having but one day comparatively free and camping on the trail five
nights out of seven.

Roger, of course, went out with the other men every day, scaling points
picked out for him by the chief as places he desired occupied, measuring
from the rod elevated by the boy, who then, at a signal, was ordered to
go to the next point scheduled. To a boy as fond of climbing as was
Roger, for a day or two this was good fun, but the novelty soon passed
by and he did his day's work with a persistent regularity, which, though
it brought forth the results required, was lacking in the adventurous.
In short, the continuity of risky work became monotonous.

It was due to this cause, perhaps, that one afternoon, when this sort of
thing had been proceeding for several weeks, Roger, passing from one
outjutting piece of rock to another, but a few feet away, jumped
carelessly, twisted his ankle beneath him and fell, spraining his wrist.
Despite the sprain, however, he reached the point to which he had been
sent, and then, instead of going on, returned to the topographer.

"What's the matter?" called Masseth, who had seen him fall, as soon as
he came in hearing. "Did you hurt yourself?"

"Sprained my wrist, I think, Mr. Masseth," answered the boy. "Beastly
sorry, but I'm afraid I'll have to lay off for the rest of the
afternoon."

[Illustration: A HARD POINT TO MEASURE.

Note the comparative size of horse and men at the foot.

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

"Let's see, son." The topographer felt the wrist, then feeling that no
bones were broken, and that a day or two would set it all right again,
bade Roger go to the main camp and let the cook change places with him
for a few days.

"I'll write to Mr. Mitchon, and tell him of your promotion to camp
cook," called Masseth, laughing as Roger rode away.

On arriving at the camp and giving his message to the cook, the latter
readily agreed to help for a few days.

"I'll go at once," he said, "the teamster should be back to-morrow, and
while things are running pretty short, I guess you'll have enough to
hold out."

The following morning early, after having told Roger everything he was
to look after, the cook started for the side camp to take Roger's place,
while the latter looked after the camp. Long and weary seemed the
morning to the boy, so inactive it was after the strenuous life he had
been leading for some weeks, and, though the teamster usually got in
before noon, when evening came he had not arrived. Roger, who had
counted on the cook's knowledge of the teamster's time, found himself
almost without food for supper, and made a very light repast. He was
just about to turn in for a sleep, when he heard the sound of horses'
hoofs and went out to greet the teamster.

"Is that you, Jim?" he called out.

"Guess not, pardner," answered a strange voice, and a cowman loped into
the circle of light. "This here a United States camp?" he queried.

"Yes," answered the boy.

"An' who's running the shebang?"

"I am just at present," Roger answered. "But I expected the teamster
here to-day."

"You are? No offense, but you don't look more'n a yearling. Well, it's
not so worse to brand 'em young."

The lad explained the circumstances of his being alone, pointing out
that the rest of the party were only three or four hours' ride away, and
the stranger nodded.

"Which I was a plumb forgettin' to explain is that the gent what you was
a-greetin' with the airy name of Jim, won't come none this week to camp,
but he allowed as you-all had a-plenty."

"What's the matter with him?"

"Which I ain't a sharp as a doc. Took a spell or somethin'. I opine
he's a goin' to continue cavortin' around this Vale of Tears some more,
though he has been figurin' on procurin' a brace of wings."

"He's getting better, though?" asked the boy.

"Which he holds a good hand for a long life."

"But I haven't got any extra supply of grub," continued Roger in some
dismay.

"Shore!" The stranger, who was just gathering up his reins, half turned
in the saddle. "I wouldn't bet a small white chip for any gent's success
in a dooel with hunger. Which it is some uncomfortable to ignore the
chuck-wagon. But this here Jim he relates that he toted a big jag last
time, and it must be cached."

"It must be here somewhere, then," said Roger dubiously, "and I'll look.
But it doesn't sound good to me."

"Which if you don't locate, saunter over to the Bar X Double N and we
will supply the existin' demand a whole lot," and with a wave of his
hand the rider cantered away into the darkness, without giving Roger a
chance even to ask where the ranch might be.

But youth is little accustomed to troubled dreams, and Roger slept
soundly enough, awakening the next morning, not to a hot and
well-cooked breakfast, but to having to prepare his own. Laying hands on
everything that he could find, the boy made out a breakfast and then
started on a search for other provision. He doubted its existence for
the cook had told him that it was nearly all gone. At last, in his
rummaging he found a little notebook, marked on the outside, "Record of
Supplies," and thinking that this might give a clew, he opened it.

There, under a date of a few days before, was an entry to the effect
that the cook had sold to a passing party a large supply of surplus
provision, thinking that the teamster would make his regular trip. It
was small wonder, Roger thought, that the teamster was not at all
anxious, because he made sure that the provision was still in the camp,
and of course the cook was not disturbed because he supposed that the
teamster would come the next day.

The situation was gloomy enough so far as Roger was concerned, for he
was practically without food, but what rendered the matter doubly
serious was that the rest of the party would come in from the side camp
two days hence with their supply of provision exhausted, only to find
the camp barren, and leaving five men a long way from getting food
instead of one. The more Roger thought over the matter, the more
determined he was that he must procure supplies. The question was,
where?

If the lad had known the country at all, there were undoubtedly ranches
somewhat near at hand to which he could appeal at a pinch, but he had
wisdom enough to know that it would be the height of folly to ride out
upon the north Arizona plateau without the faintest idea of a
destination. There was the ranch to which he had been told to come, and
he had heard of it often enough to know that it was one of the largest
ranches in the country, but who would direct him there? He feared that a
blind try in the plain might put him out of touch of water as well as
food, a condition insupportable.

There was only one bright spot in the position, and that was the
presence of Jack. Jack was a burro, apparently of extreme age, who had
been found one morning near the camp, and who had attached himself to
the party. Of course all the rest of the animals were away, the cook
having ridden back to the side camp the horse on which Roger had come
from there. True, there was this burro, but what could he do with it,
where could he go?

As he asked himself this question, an answer shot into the boy's mind
which turned him hot and cold. He looked over the plateau to the plains
and shook his head, then quietly went into the tent to think over the
best course for him to pursue. Five, ten, fifteen minutes passed, then
with jaw hard-set and lips compressed Roger walked to where the burro
was grazing, and slipped a halter over his head. Obediently the patient
animal followed him to the edge of the rift of the Canyon, and there
Roger looked down and across. Nine miles away, across those fearful
chasms and lurid cliffs lay food and necessaries not only for himself,
but for the party.

Roger was conscious that prudent judgment would counsel his return to
the side camp for the purpose of informing the party of the situation,
so that they could cross by the old trail to renew supplies, but the boy
knew that Masseth was working against time. Beside this, it would be a
great achievement and the lad was burning with a desire to shine before
the Survey. The old trail was the better way, but it had been night when
they debouched on the plateau and Roger could not have told where the
trail entered. He feared he might lose time by hunting for that faint
trail, and decided to direct his whole strength into an attempt to force
his way straight across the cleft in defiance of the decree that it had
never been done and could never be done.

About a mile away along the bank there was a deep fault which could be
entered a few hundred yards back on the plateau. The lad knew about
this, for the spring whence the camp got its water was close by. Into
this Roger turned with his burro, casting one long glance at the camp
just visible in the distance, before he took his courage in both hands
and plunged into the almost inaccessible ravine.

"They call this Bright Angel Canyon, Jack," he said aloud. "I'd like to
have a pair of their wings right now."

The little gray burro looked at him for a moment, then went on picking
his steps carefully. It was rough but not perilous for a few hundred
yards and the boy's spirits rose until in an hour or so he came to an
obstruction about ten feet high, but this puny ten feet, which had
looked simply like a little ridge of dirt, baffled him for hours. He
traveled up and down, but found the terrace continuous, and it seemed as
though his quest would fail almost before it had well begun.

Suddenly there flashed into the boy's mind one of the old fables, and,
as before, he took his rough-haired friend into his confidence.

"We can't jump it or knock it down, Jack, old boy," he said. "It's up to
us to climb it some way."

With immense toil and labor he carried stone and rock and bits of
boulders, and though hours were spent on the task he built up a kind of
shaky and insecure pile up which the burro, following him patiently,
reached the top. There luck was with him, for, by picking his steps
carefully for twenty yards or so, he was enabled to reach a newly fallen
piece of cliff, by which he got to firm ground on the other side.
Stopping to rest, this obstacle over, the boy's ears were greeted by the
musical and grateful sound of falling water, and hurrying to the place,
he found a little stream fed by springs and gurgling merrily in tiny
cascades to the river.

Although he knew but little of geology, Roger's sense speedily showed
him that, by following this little tributary, he probably would have a
fair path down to the river, or at least, while he would probably find
many drops downward, there would be no walls across his path unless it
were one through which the little creek had tunneled. So, ankle deep in
the grooved bed, they started down the streamlet on its way to the
bottom of the valley.

It was perhaps fortunate for the lad that he was not too well-informed
in the customary ways of the burro, and was entirely unaware of the
animal's intense objection to running water. Had he known this, in all
probability he would have left the burro behind, which would have
resulted grievously. But this old burro, as it fortunately chanced, must
have belonged to some prospector working in a mountain country, for he
evinced no fear of or dislike to the stream. One hundred and seven times
did Roger and the burro cross Bright Angel Creek, each crossing growing
swifter and deeper than the last. Dusk was falling as they reached the
bank of the Colorado River at the base of the Canyon.

Before it became entirely dark, the boy climbed up a peak of rock to
make sure of the direction of his objective point, a matter hard to be
determined because of the windings of the river, and on descending laid
several stones in a row pointing to the direction sought. Then,
supperless and almost spent, he resolutely refrained from eating the
few last morsels he had brought with him, and flinging himself down
beneath an overhanging ledge he fell asleep.

In spite of the strangeness of his position it was bright daylight when
he awoke and the burro was standing patiently near by. Taking from his
wallet the solitary crust of bread and the few biscuits that remained,
and noting that Jack had found some grass just at the water's edge,
Roger put on his shoes and walked gravely to the edge of the river.
There is only one Colorado River in the world, and it is perhaps the
most violent stream in the two hemispheres. It was not at its height at
this time, but it ran like a mill race with a vicious swirl and spume,
and was ugly to look at. Roger was no mean swimmer, but his heart sank
at the thought of plunging into it.

"Jack," he said, "I'd as soon try to swim the Niagara gorge," and the
burro looked wonderingly at his master.

So up and down the bank for several hundred yards he went, striving to
find some rapids that might be forded, but only at one place did it even
appear possible and that, the boy thought, had large odds against it.
Still, it was all he saw, and he put the burro at it. But Jack refused,
point-blank, and as the obstinacy of a burro needs some considerable
persuasion to overcome, things looked black for the boy.

There was just the river between him and safety, for Roger had heard the
men speak of an Indian trail which paralleled the river on the southern
side and whence he could reach one of the three trails that ascended the
plateau, and not only safety, but the welfare of the party, which he
felt was intrusted to his care. The burro would not try the ford. Very
well, then, he would cross himself. On this side of that torrent,
hunger, defeat, and death, on the other food, success, and reputation.
Come what might, he would cross!

CHAPTER VII

SAVED BY HIS NERVE

It was with a lurking fear that the burro had the better intuition of
danger that Roger decided to attempt the ford that the animal had
refused to try, but, so far as he could see, there was no other way out.

"He may follow me," said Roger aloud, looking at the little animal, "but
I hate to leave him behind."

The longer he looked at it, however, the worse it got, and so, in order
to test the feasibility of it, the boy sprang lightly upon the nearest
boulder about four feet from the bank. Water to the depth of six inches
was pouring over the stone, but he had paid no heed to this, feeling
that it was easy to brace against a current of that shallowness. But if
his feet ever touched that stone he did not know it, for the rush of
water took his footing from him, throwing him headlong as though his
feet had been jerked from under him by a rope.

As he fell, the boy threw out a hand to save himself and grasped a
projecting corner of the boulder on which he had expected to land, and
found himself hanging on for dear life with the current pouring over the
rock into his face and almost strangling him. Very few seconds were
enough to show that he had not strength enough to draw himself up on the
rock against the force of the stream, but the bank was scarcely more
than an arm's length away, and making a desperate lunge the boy reached
it and clambered on shore, his breath gone and his nerve somewhat shaken
by the suddenness of the peril.

The hope of a ford must be given up therefore; no boat or raft was
procurable, and indeed could hardly live in such a torrent, bridging was
out of the question, so nothing remained but to swim for it. Roger
figured that, while of course he could not swim directly across, if he
could manage to make any resistance to the current at all and would
point up stream at a slight angle, the onrush of the stream would carry
him across. A little distance below the ford he had attempted, the river
flowed deeper with less apparent turmoil, and there, perhaps, was a
chance to get through alive.

But the question of the wearing or the not wearing of boots was quite a
quandary. If he kept them on, they would impede his swimming greatly,
while if he took them off and did manage to get across, his feet would
be cut to pieces in ascending the Canyon on the other side. But he
decided to do one thing first, and if he crossed the river safely, then
it would be time to consider ways of going up the chasm. Taking off his
shoes he tied them to the burro's neck, feeling sure that even if the
little animal failed to cross alive, he might be washed ashore on the
further bank and the boots could be recovered.

Then, unexpectedly to the burro, while the latter was standing at the
edge of the bank, he gave him a shove and toppled him in and sprang into
the water after him.

But, despite his previous little experience of the force of the current,
Roger had altogether underestimated its power. He could not even face
it, the impetus stunned, blinded, and deafened him. The river took him
like a chip, and though in an aimless sort of way, he tried to swim so
as to keep his head above water, he knew that he was being swept down
the reach with incredible speed. As for the burro, he had not time to
think about the faithful little beast, who was being swept down the
river even more rapidly than the boy.

But, about two hundred yards down the river, there stuck out above the
water a large projecting snag, which had been carried down the stream
from the forests hundreds of miles above, and which had been partly
buried in silt and thereby held firm. The snag being on the further side
of the river, just as it took a sharp curve, had made a tiny shoal and
the burro was slung by the current against the snag and held there by
the force of the water. The donkey had hardly struck the snag before
Roger, gasping and exhausted, came whirling down upon him, but his
smooth wet sides afforded no handhold and Roger was slipping away from
him when his hands unconsciously touched and grasped the animal's tail.

A violent jerk followed, and for a moment it seemed doubtful whether the
wrench would not tear the burro from the crotch of the limb in which he
was imprisoned, but the anchored tree held fast, and Roger, though his
arms were nearly pulled from their sockets, fought inch by inch his way
to the lee of the burro, grasped the snag, and finally got footing on a
part of it below the water, where the current was not so swift. But
there was no time to lose, so Roger, rapidly unfastening his shoes from
around the burro's neck, threw them to the shore, which was about
sixteen feet distant; then to get a start for a jump he balanced himself
on the topmost branch of the snag and gave a wild leap for safety.

He could jump six feet, and with arms outstretched reach five, leaving
scarcely two yards to cover. This the impetus of his leap should give
him, Roger figured, but even those few feet were almost too much, and
had not the shore curved a trifle at that point he might have been
carried out toward the center of the stream again. But the initial
velocity of his spring was just enough, and a moment later, with his
heart beating like a trip-hammer and trembling with the exertion, Roger
flung himself upon the other shore. The Colorado was crossed!

Roger's first thought, after a sense of gratitude and relief, was for
the burro, but for whose providential capture in the snag and whose most
convenient tail, he would probably have been dashed upon the rapids
below. He got nimbly to his feet, though considerably bruised and sore,
and hurried up stream the thirty or forty feet to where he had left the
animal. As he reached there, he saw that the burro had found shoal water
under his feet and was pawing away for a foothold, thus loosening the
hold of the snag upon the bottom, and the boy saw the tree begin to
shift.

"Don't, Jack," he called, as though he believed the burro could
understand, "keep still till I help you out!"

But the companion of the boy's perilous trip took the shouting for
encouragement and kicked all the harder, till a few seconds later, amid
a swirl of mud and sand, the huge wreck of a tree rolled over and
whirled down in the river in a confusion of branches amid which the poor
burro seemed to have no chance. The very size of the tree evinced to
Roger how furious must be the torrent of the Colorado in the spring
floods, for the snag showed that it must have come from a pine not less
than thirty inches at the base. The forking, broken and splintered
limbs, however, projecting on all sides, caught in the bed of the river
now that the stream was low, and this prevented the burro from being
swept into the middle of the current, and suddenly, to the surprise and
delight of the boy, a swift back eddy caught the animal and threw him
up upon the shore.

Roger ran to him, but there was no sign of motion, the poor burro lay
quiet as though dead. Heaving a sigh, for their twin peril had made
Roger quite fond of the little animal, he turned to go, half-thinking
that, if there were any future state for the four-footed part of the
world, he would have a candidate to present. Then, sitting on a fallen
rock, he put on his boots, his feeling of pride at the great achievement
of having crossed the Colorado River only dimmed by his sorrow for his
faithful comrade. Before leaving, however, he went back to where the
burro lay.

"It's a shame to leave you lying there, Jack," he said, "but there's
nothing I can do for you. Of course, I know you're only just a burro,
but I do hate to say 'Good-by.'"

There was a great big lump in the boy's throat.

"I'd like to dig a grave, or--or--something," he added, "but I can't. It
seems playing it low down on you, Jack, when I couldn't have got across
but for you, but there's no help for it. It's got to be good-by!"

He turned away sadly, when, just as he did so, he thought he saw the
little burro's side heave. With a shout of delight, he stooped down,
though he had not the faintest idea whereabouts to locate the animal's
heart, and was feeling for a throb, when, with two or three deep
breaths, the burro opened his eyes and staggered to his feet; looking
with a mild surprise on Roger, who was dancing the wildest kind of a
war-dance round him and whooping enough to make it sound as though the
Apaches were on the scalping trail once again.

But while the difficulties of the trip were by no means over, the
dangers were now few. Roger knew that he was bound to strike the Indian
trail which paralleled the river on the southern side, and that, if he
desired still easier going, though probably longer, he had only to
follow any of the terraces and he would strike one of the trails. He
decided on the latter course, and with Jack following him with absolute
docility, he commenced his long trip up the other side of the Canyon. On
and on he went, hour after hour passed, when, just as the boy had given
up all hope of ever reaching the trail, the burro turned sharply and
stood still. The afternoon was drawing on, and between hunger and
exhaustion Roger was very nearly played out. Looking up, however, he
found he could just discern the edge of the Canyon near the hotel, and
he knew that the little black specks upon the brink were people,
probably looking down at him, and all unaware of the desperateness of
his condition.

His handkerchief had been lost somewhere, so Roger tore off the sleeve
of his shirt to wave at the people, and a following glint of white told
him that they were waving back. But it was help that he wanted, not
greeting, and the boy puzzled his brains to think how he could signal at
that distance. Then an idea struck him, and looking up to see that the
people were there, he stumbled and fell as though to make them think
that he had been hurt or wounded in some way. A rapid increase in the
numbers on the edge of the chasm told him that his ruse had succeeded,
and in a few minutes he saw several people debouch on the trail, which
was only visible for a few yards from the summit.

He pulled himself together and started up the trail, but it was not
until it was almost dark that the rescue party found him, the leader
being a long, gaunt frontiersman.

"What's your name?" demanded the latter.

"Got anything to eat?" promptly countered Roger, to whom this was the
chief need.

The frontiersman signed to one of the party who had brought some
provisions along, and after the boy had been somewhat refreshed, the old
man said:

"Now tell us whar you've been."

"I've come from the other side, down Bright Angel Canyon," replied Roger
tersely, "and I came to get grub for the Survey camp."

Numerous inquiries brought from the boy enough of the story to give the
members of the search party a fair idea of what had happened. He was too
tired to talk, however, and contented himself with an appeal that Jack
should be well looked after, and thereafter satisfied himself with
sticking to the saddle of the mule which had been brought down for him
to ride. When they reached the hotel the frontiersman walked into the
rotunda with the boy, and as they stood before the desk, he turned to
the crowd assembled and said:

"Ladies and gents, I'm no speechmaker, but I reckon we hadn't ought to
let this young feller hit the bunk before we tell him what we think of a
chap who is plucky enough to blaze a new trail across the Grand Canyon,
and the first time in its history to cross it alone with one burro. This
is Roger Doughty, ladies and gents, the first white man to cross the
Grand Canyon alone."

Immediately all the curiosity-hunters that hang about those sight-seeing
hotels crowded around the boy, but he would have nothing to say, and was
far too wearied to undertake to tell his story. Bidding the clerk have
all the supplies ordered for him early in the morning he turned to go,
when his new friend, the frontiersman, said:

"Did you reckon to go back yourself with the grub?"

"Sure. To-morrow," said the boy. "That is, if I can get a little sleep
to-night," he added pettishly.

"Then I'll go with you, boy. You've done a thing that will be talked
about in Arizona, I guess, as long as the Colorado River flows. It isn't
right for you to tackle the trip back alone, and anyway, I know the
trail better than you do. An' what's more, you sleep till I call you
myself to-morrow, and I'll see that all the supplies are ready and
packed for the start. I'm an old hand at the game, bub, and you can
leave it all to me."

Roger thanked him and once more turned to go to bed when he was
intercepted by another group. The frontiersman stepped forward.

"The kid's going to hit the pillow," he announced, "an' I reckon that
he's earned it. Any one that tries to stop him can talk a while to me.
Go on up, bub," which Roger, portentously yawning, proceeded to do.

So, laughing at the mixture of friendliness and bravado exhibited by the
boy's lanky champion, the people stood aside while Roger stumbled
upstairs and fell on a bed asleep. A few minutes later the big
frontiersman followed him, and seeing him dead to the world with all his
clothes on, even his hat being still crushed over his eyebrows; picked
him up on his knee, took off his clothes and tucked him in as tenderly
as his mother might have done, the boy never even growing restless in
his sleep the while. That done, the burly Westerner, whose touch had
been throughout as light as that of a woman, looked down on the sleeping
boy.

"If that's the kind the government breeds," he said, "no wonder we can
whip the earth!" and he went down to arrange about the next day's trip.

In the meanwhile the Survey party had progressed rapidly with its work,
and on the afternoon following Roger's arrival at the hotel, they
returned to the main camp. They thought it strange, as they rode in,
that Roger should not have heard the horses' hoofs and come out to greet
them, and Masseth felt a slight alarm lest the hurt to Roger's wrist
should have proved more serious than was at first thought. On reaching
the main tent, however, he saw a large piece of paper, held down by a
stone. He picked it up. It was written, boy-like, as an official report,
and read as follows:

     "MR. MASSETH: Sir, I regret to report that James, the
     teamster, has got sick, and will not bring any supplies
     this week. He sent word that there was a lot of
     supplies in camp, but I could not find them. A cowboy
     from Bar X Ranch brought word. I have taken burro and
     will try to cross Canyon to get supplies. I hope to be
     back Friday afternoon or evening.

     "R. DOUGHTY."

"By the eternal jumping crickets!" was Masseth's first astonished
exclamation. Then, calling to the cook, "George," he said, "come here a
moment!"

The cook came over and the chief handed him the letter. George read it
through carefully twice, then handed it back.

"I got a chance to get a long price for some pretty stale grub, and it
looked to me like a good stunt. How was I goin' to know that bally chump
of a teamster was plannin' to get sick?"

"But the boy!"

"It's sure tough on the boy. It's a beast of a trip, even if he's sure
of the trail."

"But he's only been over it once, and he could never remember that
confusion of canyons." He turned sharply on the cook. "It's your fault,"
he said; "you ought to know better than to let yourself run out. It's
never safe to go without some on hand for contingencies."

The cook thought it wiser not to increase his superior's anger by
replying, so went to the cooking tent to try to devise some sort of a
meal from the remnants that had been brought from the side camp. As for
Masseth, the more he thought of the situation the less likely did it
seem that the boy could have found his way, but he could have struck
water somewhere, so that perhaps search parties organized on the other
side might have a chance of finding him, but every hour counted. He
talked it over with the assistant.

"Well," answered Black, "of course the dark's confusing, but with both
of us watching the trail and knowing the landmarks, we can't get far
astray. And we might drop across the lad. I'm ready to start any minute
you say."

Masseth thought for a moment, then pointed with his finger to the chasm.

"I don't believe any of us would be comfortable to-night," he said,
"knowing that the lad was down there, when for all we know he may be
dying of starvation and the loneliness of desolation, just within our
reach. A bite to eat, whatever there is, and then an immediate start."

Gathered to the hasty and scanty supper, the cook found himself in a
position of extreme discomfort, though no blame was attached to him. He
had acted for the best and this result could not have been foreseen.
Perhaps it was because his nerves were unusually upon the strain that he
was the first to hear a sound along the chasm. He held up his hand to
enjoin silence, and in a moment or two horses' hoofs and voices were
heard. Then, looming unnaturally large in the last flush of twilight
before the darkness fell, came two figures, one on a tall iron-gray
horse, one on a mule, with a burro plodding along patiently behind.

A stentorian voice hailed them from the distance.

"Hey, there!" it said.

"Well?" called back Masseth.

The second of the oncomers answered, this time in a boy's voice.

"Oh, Mr. Masseth, have you been back long?"

"It's the boy," said the topographer solemnly, but with a note of joy in
his voice, "and his life won't be laid at my door;" the soberness of
words and tone revealing how keenly the fear of Roger's peril had been
pressing on him.

When the two rode up the boy introduced his frontiersman friend to the
chief of the party, the while he was being untied from the saddle, to
which, in his still exhausted and stiffened state, he had been fastened.
But introductions, however informal, did not stop the big Westerner from
speaking his mind.

"I'm thinkin' there's some thunderin' big fools in this here party," he
announced in his abrupt way, "that can get matters into such a hole
that a youngster has to start off on a crazy trip like that, but I want
to state that the boy is pay dirt all through. He's not only crossed the
Canyon alone, but he's found a new trail!"

"Where?" asked Masseth eagerly, thinking it wiser to ignore the
stranger's criticism rather than debate the point.

"Down Bright Angel Canyon, Mr. Masseth," answered the boy. "It wasn't so
awfully bad, except in a few places."

"But how did you get through?"

"I went down by the spring," answered Roger, "keeping to the right,
until I got wedged in between two cliffs, pink in color with a broad
band of slate blue about two-thirds of the way up."

"That's usually a bad wall!" interjected Masseth. "How did you cross
it?"

Roger described the device he had used, and received the encomiums of
all his comrades for the work, and then, as briefly as he could, gave an
outline of the various points of interest on the way.

He was especially gratified, when, after telling how he had got out of
the pocket of rock, Masseth turned to his assistant.

"We'll chart that as Doughty Point," he said, "for the boy's sake."

The boy flushed with delight at having his name given to a part of the
country, just like a real explorer, and cast a grateful look at his
chief.

"It was just beyond that that I struck water. The ravine sloped abruptly
for about one hundred feet, then struck an upcurving rock and gave a
little jump like a fellow does on skis and fell like a long silver
ribbon for about two hundred feet. I suppose that is Bright Angel
Creek?"

"And rightly named," put in the assistant topographer, nodding his head
affirmatively, "any stream that doesn't run dry in this sort of country
is angelic, all right."

Roger continued his story of the trip, describing points which he had
noted, Masseth naming them, "Deva Temple," "Brahma Temple," "Zoroaster
Temple," etc., and at last he fixed the route by its relation to "Cheops
Pyramid," one of the well-known configurations of the Canyon.

"But on which side of the creek were you, when you saw the pyramid?"
asked the chief.

"On the other side from it," answered Roger.

"If you had only crossed once more, or once less, it would have brought
you to the main trail where the boat is," said Masseth regretfully.
"But how in the world did you cross?"

So Roger told the story of the burro, and the manner in which he had
been caught in the crotch of a snag; and the party, though old hands at
the business, hung on his tale as though they had been so many
greenhorns. He told, moreover, as well as he could, his route up the
other side, until the frontiersman took up the story from the point
where the lad had been seen by the spectators on the edge of the Canyon,
near the hotel.

The last few sentences of the boy's story had been somewhat incoherent,
for the long trip of that day, following his arduous experiences alone
had been too much for him, and he could not keep his eyes open. He was
promptly taken to his tent and bidden to sleep, the while the
frontiersman described enthusiastically the boy's pluck and nerve.

"And I thought, by thunder," he concluded, "that the overschooled kids
of this generation were a pack of milksops, but I see there's grit in an
American boy yet!"

CHAPTER VIII

THE LAND WHERE IT NEVER RAINS

It was well on in the afternoon of the next day when Roger woke, to find
his friend the frontiersman bustling about the camp. He came sharply
when the boy hailed him.

"See here, lad," he said, "I figured that a rest wouldn't hurt you any,
so I told the thin fellow that if you stayed on here a while, I didn't
have much on hand, and I'd keep you company. Jest to watch that you
didn't get up in the middle of the night and try and find some other new
trail. So it's you and me for a few days, and I guess that teamster of
yours ought to show up soon, because, of course, he doesn't know
anythin' about what's been goin' on."

A couple of lazy weeks passed by rapidly, lazy because the Westerner
insisted on doing all the work that needed to be done, and before they
were over Roger found that he had nearly regained his full strength, his
wiry frame recuperating without loss of vitality. Masseth, on his
return, was much gratified to find how well the boy had got along, and
the following week he took him alone to one of the most prominent
stations on the northern side.

"Now, Roger," Masseth said to him, "I've just about finished what I want
to do on this side, so I'm going across to run a level on the other
side. But I'm very anxious to get a clear sight of this peak, where
we're standing, for an extensive triangulation, in order to correct or
rather verify some results. The only way in which this can be done is to
flash a heliograph message to me, at a certain time on a certain day, in
the way I showed you last week."

"Across seven miles?" asked the boy in amazement.

"More than that," said his chief, smiling. "Now here is the way you had
better get at it. In this box, which you see has been securely fastened
to the rock, are two pieces of tin, one with a quarter of an inch hole
in it, the other with a hole an inch square. They point, with
mathematical correctness, to a peak on the other side, which is an old
station, and easily seen. If you look through, you can see the place."

Roger bent down, and looking through the aperture was able to determine
a slight projection on the far distant bank, which he described and
which was in verity the point sought.

"Now," continued Masseth, "two months hence, or to be more exact, sixty
days from now, at eight o'clock in the morning, I will be waiting at
that point on the other side, and I shall expect you to be here. Over
the further piece of tin, as you see, I have hung a cloth, which you can
drop while you are testing the glass. In this movable frame, so devised
that it can be screwed up or down, or shifted slightly sideways, arrange
the glass so that the reflection of it, shining through the larger hole,
appears at an equal distance on all sides of the smaller opening. You
understand me?"

"Quite, Mr. Masseth," answered the boy, who had been listening with all
his ears.

"Very well," the older man continued. "At eight o'clock sharp, then, you
will raise quickly the curtain in front of the smaller hole, and drop it
again, doing this three times, allowing the hole to remain open for ten
seconds each time. Do that every five minutes for half an hour, or six
times in all, to allow for any possible variation of time in your watch.
By the way, you had better have two watches in the event of one of them
stopping or the hands catching, or something of that sort, because a
month's work will depend on getting that signal. But I think I can trust
you."

"You can, indeed, Mr. Masseth," said Roger. "But what shall I be doing
during those two months? Am I to remain alone in camp?"

"Hardly," said his chief, smiling. "The Survey does not waste men that
way. Mr. Mitchon has written me that Mr. Herold desires you should have
an insight into the varied work of the department, and I have arranged
for another topographic aid to meet me on the other side, so that,
except for this heliograph signal, which I must remind you is
excessively important, you will have finished with the work here."

"Then what?"

"Death Valley and the Mohave Desert," replied his chief. "It is perhaps
a little hard to send you into a hot section of the country at this time
of year, but, you see, you cannot go too far away because of your
engagement with the sun on a morning two months hence--by the way, if it
is cloudy, which is so rare a contingency as scarcely to be reckoned on,
signal the next morning at the same hour--so you must stay near by,
and the most interesting work at hand is that being done in the
waterless country."

[Illustration: TWENTY-SEVEN MILES FROM WATER.

Shelter camp in Great Dry Desert, life being sustained by constant
relays from distant wells.

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

"Death Valley," the boy repeated, his eyes sparkling with excitement, "I
have always wondered what Death Valley was really like."

"That will give you a chance to see it, and to find out for yourself."

"But how?" asked the boy surprisedly. "Isn't the air poisonous, or
something? I had an idea that nothing could live in Death Valley."

Masseth smiled.

"You're mixing up some fairy story of the Upas Tree, or something of
that sort," he said. "There's nothing very dangerous in Death Valley,
except the lack of water. And even that is nothing like it used to be,
because, while they have not found any more water, the places where
pools do exist are carefully mapped out and made easy of access. But it
is a grim and fearful place unless every step of the journey is
carefully planned with relation to those few scanty wells."

"Then," said the boy, "if it is just lack of water, why was it called
Death Valley?"

"A party of emigrants gave it that name," said the chief quietly, "and
to them its sinister title bore a grim meaning. They had passed through
the desert, suffering incredible hardships and were greatly weakened
when they arrived at the valley. Still they pluckily journeyed on till
they reached those salt and borax flats, where the surface is rougher to
travel on than can be imagined, the salt having formed in sharp spikes
and jagged scales with their edges at every angle, and shallow pans
filled with dreadfully salt water. But it was water, and many of the
party sought thus to quench their thirst."

"Although it was salt!" cried Roger. "I should think it would have made
them crazy."

"It did," responded the older man. "The torture of an unquenchable
thirst with no means to allay it, led first to madness, then to death,
and the valley claimed a fearful toll. Some died outright, others became
maniacal, several indeed having to be shot by their comrades in an
effort to save the lives of those that remained. Few animals and fewer
men found their way to the scanty water of the Panamint, and the tale as
told by the survivors made the words Death Valley a name of fear to the
'Forty-Niners' and other early travelers in what was then known as the
'Great American Desert.' Death Valley it was called, and Death Valley it
will remain until all memory of America's pioneers is past."

"And is the Survey working in there, too?"

"I happen to know that there is a short reconnoissance trip to be made
to look into the question of the borax deposits of the Valley and the
Mohave Desert, and if you start right away, you ought to be able to get
to Daggett a week before the party reaches there, or at the slowest, in
plenty of time. The borax industry is large, and as it depends in a
great measure on the information furnished by the Survey, it might be a
good thing for you to know something about."

"And how shall I get there?"

"I will lend you Duke."

"Your own horse? And what will you do, Mr. Masseth?"

"Oh, I'll take Black's mare, and let him ride one of the mules over. I
am none too anxious to take Duke through the Canyon any more than I have
to."

"And the route?" queried the boy.

"You will not find any difficulty there, I think, because all you have
to do is to follow the edge of the Canyon. You go west and then south,
over the famous Hurricane Fault, and beside that mighty gate a mile
high through which the Colorado runs, passing from the grandeur of the
Canyon to the dismal torrid lower Sierra country. You will reach the
Santa Fé at Needles, where you can take the train for Ludlow, and
changing there go to Daggett, to await the arrival of the party. It is
not such a great distance, and there are trails all the way to Needles.
But remember, you are still under my direction, and all this is merely
incidental to the main piece of work I require of you, and that is, the
heliograph signal on October 21st."

"I'll be there, Mr. Masseth," said Roger quietly. "You can bank on me
for that."

The boy was so silent on his way back to camp that Masseth rallied him a
little on his unusual reserve.

"Don't you want to go into the Mohave country?" he said. "Because if you
feel that way, I will try to arrange some other plan. Only I thought you
might wish to see that sort of country and get an idea of what the work
is like out there."

"Indeed I do," said Roger hastily. "What made you think I didn't?"

"You were so quiet about it. And quietness is not your strong point."

"It isn't that," said Roger, hastily, "but I was just wondering whether
I would be able to remember all the scenes and incidents of the year."

"Not all of them, of course," said the older man, "but you will find
that their variety in experience is invaluable. You told me you were
going to Alaska with Rivers later on. Now, if you have seen the Death
Valley work as well as triangulation in the Grand Canyon and surveying
in the Minnesota swamps, you will have a fair idea of the immense range
of the work of the Survey."

"It is a contrast, all right," said Roger. "From the flat, boggy country
of Minnesota to the high dry peaks of the Canyon, and from the intense
heat of the desert to the ice-bound ranges of Alaska is certainly quite
a jump. But I'm very glad to have the chance, Mr. Masseth, though I
shall be sorry to leave you and the rest of the party."

That evening in camp, the chief announced his intention of returning to
the far side of the Canyon, and stated that Roger would be left to send
a heliograph message a couple of months later, and that in the meantime
he would visit the Mohave country for a few weeks.

"Why," commented the frontiersman, when this plan was unfolded, "I was
figurin' myself how it mightn't be so worse an idea to prospect some in
that Silverbow country, now that I'm 'way over here. My two boys are
working a small claim of mine near Oak Springs Butte, an' I've a notion
that there's a heap of gold in that Kawich country. Guess I'll go with
you part of the way to Daggett, pard; that is, if you're agreeable."

Nothing could have suited the boy better, and his exuberant delight in
the prospect of his friend's presence throughout the long ride was
obviously pleasing to the old man.

"That's a go then, bub," he said; "if you want to stick to the old trail
I'll help you keep it, and if you want to find a new one, why, I'll just
follow right along."

"But when are you going to break camp, Mr. Masseth?" asked the boy, who
was growing a little tired of the continual reference to his crossing of
the Canyon.

"The day after to-morrow, I think," the chief of the party replied, "as
the work should be done by that time; so you can start the same day,
only in the opposite direction."

In spite of Roger's interest in going to a new field, however, and
though he had beside him his grizzled friend, one of the keenest twinges
of loneliness the boy had felt while on the Survey came over him a
couple of days later, as he saw the party which he had so long
considered as his own, ride away from the site of the camp, leaving the
frontiersman and himself looking after them. He would much have
preferred being the first to start, but as the main party had to cross
the Canyon, movement at the earliest dawn was necessary. One consolation
he had in the possession of Duke, the chief's horse and a great favorite
with the boy.

As Roger and his friend started on their journey westward, the boy said:

"You were speaking of some mines out this way. Do you own gold mines?"

"No, bub, not gold. Wouldn't have 'em as a gift."

"Why not?" asked the lad, surprised.

"Cost too much to work, and there's no money in it. You know the old
saying about gold mines, don't you?"

"No, what is it?"

"That 'A copper mine will bring you gold; silver, silver; but a gold
mine will only bring you a few coppers!'"

"I never heard that before," replied the lad, "and it sounds queer,
too."

"Well, it's true. I wouldn't mind betting," said the old pioneer, "that
there's more gold been put into gold mines than ever was taken out of
them."

"How's that?"

"Well, you take it all through. There's the time and money spent by the
thousands of prospectors that spend all their lives wandering up and
down the mountains trying to locate the gold. Then, when a vein is
found, some fellow's got to put in a lot of capital to start to work it,
and thousands have to be spent for machinery to crush it, before it is
at all certain that the mine will pay. Then, in order to raise this
money, brokers all over the United States are selling shares of these
mines, and they make a good living out of it. And when you think how
many tens of thousands of dollars are spent on each mine, and how many
thousands of mines there are which have proved dead failures, and over
and beyond this, how narrow the margin of profit is even on a successful
strike, it doesn't look like much of a paying business, eh?"

The trail becoming too rough at this point for riding side by side, the
boy dropped behind, thinking over the difference between the finding of
gold as it really is, and as his adventurous ideas had supposed it to
be. When the trail widened again the boy cantered up, and continued the
former subject with the remark:

"Are your mines copper, then?"

"No, azurite."

"What's that?" asked the boy, who had never heard of it before.

"It's a sort of stone that they make up into all sorts of jewels that
women wear. Of course it's not precious like sapphire and emerald and
all that sort of thing, but that's perhaps because it is not as well
known, nor as rare. It's just as pretty, I think. I'd rather have it
than a gold mine or a copper mine, either, for that matter."

"Why?" asked Roger.

"Because it can be worked so easily. You see a small box of that stuff
can be packed on a mule any distance and then shipped, and if a
different point is used each time no one knows where it comes from and
there is no competition. Now copper, you see, is only valuable in large
quantities, and it needs a big industry to run it. And of this rarer
sort of stuff, there's lots of it around for any one that wants to look
for it."

"What sort of stuff?"

"All these rare mineral earths. The clay that's used in making gas
mantles, for instance; or there's tungsten, which is worth a lot now for
making the wires of incandescent light. I've a friend who's rich because
he got hold of a deposit of tungsten from reading the Geological Survey
bulletins. There's a lot more of it in the Snake Range of Nevada, just
waiting for somebody who's got energy enough to go ahead and develop
it."

Thus, throughout the entire trip, Roger found his interest in the work
greatly whetted by this new view-point, looking at the Survey from the
side of the shrewd Western man, seeking practical results, rather than
the more professional and scientific aspect of the field worker himself.
Indeed, it opened the boy's eyes immensely to the vastness of the
importance of the department when he realized that there was scarcely a
branch of manufacture that did not depend on some rare element, in some
of its processes, and that these rare elements were brought to light in
the very work that he had been doing. So it chanced that when Roger and
his friend reached Daggett, he was as enthusiastic concerning the
economic side of the work as he had been regarding its opportunities for
adventure.

Masseth had estimated the time of the party which Roger was to join with
close accuracy, for the boy had not been in the little settlement more
than three days when the party rode up, all on mules. Roger introduced
himself and presented Masseth's letter.

"Oh!" said his new leader in surprise. "So you're the boy who crossed
the Grand Canyon alone! I heard of that in San Bernardino, some tourists
were telling the story."

"Yes, Mr. Pedlar," said Roger with a flush. "But there wasn't so much to
it, I just had to get across."

"Well, I'm glad to have you. Now what is your idea in joining us,
because I see Mr. Masseth says that you are still on duty with him."

Roger explained the two months' signal that had been agreed upon, and
Pedlar, tall and light of hue, as though the desert had bleached him,
whistled softly.

"He's always taking long chances," he said, "but to do him justice they
generally come out all right. As I understand it, then, you want to come
along for a few weeks and then get back to Bright Angel Point in plenty
of time."

"Yes, sir," the boy answered.

"Well, that will be about right, only it's not going to take as long as
you think. It will be just a hurried reconnoissance. I suppose you know
why we're going in?"

"Mr. Masseth said something about borax," the lad replied, "but he
didn't say just what you were going to do."

"It's this way, Doughty," was the reply. "Borax, you know, was first
obtained by evaporating the water of some lakes in California. Later, in
the beds of some old dry lakes, the borax was found already evaporated
by the sun, and for years these marsh crusts formed the whole supply of
the country. Then the Geological Survey pointed out that before these
lakes were dried up the borax must have flowed into them by means of
some small streams or just the regular drainage of the rainfall."

"You mean," said Roger, interrupting, "that there must have been a lot
of it near by somewhere, and that each rain just soaked away a little
and brought it along."

"Exactly. Therefore it was up to the Survey to locate these large
deposits, and this was done. A large bed was found at Borate, about
twelve miles northeast of here, and this proved so valuable that more
surveying was done, especially in the region about Death Valley, where
one of the old salt marshes was located."

"Then it was the Survey that gave to the country all the borax it is now
using."

"It was," replied Pedlar. "Now, you see, I am making a hasty trip to the
known deposits, so that other related beds can be pointed out, as each
new find adds to the resources of the country, or, in other words, makes
the United States just that much richer."

"How is that?" asked the boy. "The government doesn't run the mines."

"No. But don't you see, the United States means the people of the United
States, and if the money spent on borax goes to American producers in
American fields instead of to Italy, where so much of it went before,
the country is richer to that amount."

Then, putting the matter as simply as he could, Pedlar explained to the
boy how greatly the commercial prosperity of the country is due to some
of the lesser known government bureaus, and pointed out the wisdom of
the fostering of American industries. Even so, it was not until the
tangible discovery of a hitherto unknown bed of rock salt, fifty feet in
thickness, that Roger realized how, every day in the year, the
prosperity of the country was being advanced by this patient scientific
investigation. The new salt deposit was found at the extreme south end
of Death Valley, a few miles before the trail went through a gap in the
Funeral Mountains. Skirting the Amargosa Desert, a furnace of cactus and
alkali, the party reached Grapevine Peak, from which may be seen perhaps
the most desolate and forbidding view in the Western Hemisphere.

"Behind you," broke in the voice of the chief, "beginning at that peak
you see fifty miles away in the distance, and which is known as Oak
Springs Butte, is a section of the country containing over 3,000 square
miles, equal in size to the states of Delaware and Rhode Island
together, which is absolutely waterless. In that appalling land of
thirst there is not a river, stream, or brook; a spring is a thing
unknown; no well has ever been sunk, and even the Indian waterhole
exists only in imagination. At rare, very rare intervals, a cloudburst
may come upon the parched land, but five minutes later there is no sign
of moisture save for a cup in a ravine or a crevice in a rock, where
water may lie for twenty-four hours. It is dryer and hotter than the
Great Sahara Desert of Africa, and wild and rough beyond belief."

"And has that awful place been covered by the Survey, too?" asked the
boy.

"I did one quadrangle," answered Pedlar, "and there's a party in there
this season."

"But how do they manage for water?"

"They tote every drop. And," with a grim meaning, "they are not taking
baths twice a day at that!"

"On this other side," continued the chief of the party after a pause,
turning round, "is a place you know well by reputation."

"That is the famous Death Valley?" queried Roger.

"That," said the chief, putting his heels to the mule's side and
starting down the slope, "is the infamous Death Valley."

Half-way down the slope Pedlar halted and pointed to a sign on a box
lid, stuck into a pile of stone.

"Gruesome advertising, that!" he commented.

Roger read it. It was the signboard of a local undertaking company, and
the implication of such a need for every one descending into the valley
was to the boy more sinister than any of the stories he had heard about
it. As they reached the valley, dunes twenty to thirty feet high
surrounded them on every side, with a salt sand between, sometimes soft,
sometimes with a treacherous crust through which the hoofs of the mules
sank, often cutting their legs, into the wounds of which the alkaline
dust penetrated, causing great pain. The boy tore his coat into strips
to bind around the pasterns of Duke, but even so some slight scratches
were unavoidable.

They journeyed on over this fearful traveling for many weary miles,
till, suddenly, Roger's quick eyes, eagerly looking for new things,
discerned at the entrance to a small rock-bound canyon a sliver of wood
broken off and sticking upright in the sand. As wood in that country is
as unusual as it would be to see a shaft of burnished silver protruding
from the arid ground, Roger rode up to it. There, penciled apparently
recently on the wood, were the following words:

     "Have gone down canyon looking for the spring; have
     been waiting for you.--Titus."

The boy called to the chief. Pedlar came over and read the message, then
quietly and with reverence removed his hat.

"Poor chap!" he said very softly. "There is no spring in that canyon."

He summoned the other members of the party and silently they rode up the
narrow cleft. Roger and the chief were riding in advance, and after a
few minutes' ride the latter pulled his mule in sharply, and pointed to
the figure of a man lying near a rock in the full glare of the sun.

"Perhaps he isn't dead?" said the boy, his heart in his mouth.

"No use to hope that, my boy," was the grave reply. "See, he must have
lain down in the afternoon, when that spot was shaded, and died before
the next sun rose. No living man would lie exposed to such a sun as
this."

They rode up. It was as the chief had said, and Titus's friend, whoever
he might have been, would never see him more.

"Shall we make a grave?" asked Roger in an awed tone.

"Better in the little cemetery at Rhyolite," answered the other. "I will
send word."

"But ought we not to make a pile of stones over him, or something?"
suggested Roger, his mind full of thoughts running on the possibility of
interference by wild beasts.

"Nothing can hurt him here," was the reply. "Not even a buzzard will
haunt so desolate a spot as this. But still----" he paused. Then
thinking that it might ease the boy's mind, as well as show respect for
the dead, he gave orders to raise a cairn of stones over the body of
"Titus."

The discovery cast a gloom over the party, and the penciled piece of
wood, which was to be sent back to Rhyolite to be used instead of a
headstone, seemed an uncanny thing to bear. The tragedy had given the
boy a violent distaste for the bleak country, for he seemed to see a
body lying under the lee of every cliff. He was glad when they reached
civilization again, and he could turn his face away from the land of
sage brush and alkali.

[Illustration: IN THE DEATH VALLEY.

Opposite the opening to Titus 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 Titus 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-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.

CHAPTER X

AMERICANS THAT ARE FORGOTTEN

The elation that Roger felt over the successful issue of the heliograph
message with which he had been intrusted soon dwindled away under the
realization that he did not know what was coming next. The only
instructions he had received were that he was to take Duke to Prescott,
Ariz., there to leave him with certain friends of Masseth's who would
take care of him. Masseth had also told him to call for his mail, and of
course the presumption was that he would there receive notice as to the
next step in his Survey work. But for the moment he was masterless, and
the boy felt a little lost.

So when Roger had packed the little heliograph instrument in as small
compass as possible, in order that it might not be ungainly in the
saddle, and gone to the edge of the Canyon to look over, the scene
struck him with loneliness. In precisely the same place, two months
before, he had stood and made up his mind to risk the peril of that
single-handed journey, and his courage began to revive as he remembered
how well it had resulted. Down below him he could see Bright Angel
Creek, and far away, the peak to which he had signaled, all redolent of
the interest of the summer now fast waning. Even the trail upon which he
set out to return was full of the memories of his frontiersman friend,
who had lightened the way with anecdote and information on his first
journey there.

But while Roger was inly conscious of a feeling of isolation in being
thus cut off from all the Survey parties, and looked forward to his ride
to Needles with little anticipation, that sense was not shared by Duke,
who, having twice before with Roger traversed the high Kaibab plateau,
remembered well the succulent long bunch-grass, the fragrant lupine and
the toothsome wild oats. For the Kaibab plateau, lying high and
therefore being moister than the surrounding territory, is a veritable
garden. The gently declining ravines, instead of being filled with
boulders at the bottom, are decked with flowers and their bases are
avenues of smooth, rich lawn; on the banks rise spruces and pines, with
the white trunks and pale foliage of the quivering aspen; and on the
table-land above in wild profusion grow every sort of herb and plant
and flower.

The desert lies to the north, the inaccessible Canyon to the south, an
alkali waste to the westward, and the desolate cactus land to the east,
but the Kaibab plateau, 8,000 feet above the sea, is a sylvan paradise.
Yet there is no running water, and travel over it must be well within
reach of trails. Here alone, in this vast arid tract, it rains
frequently, but the rains form no streams, for the whole plateau is
pitted with cups or depressions ten to twenty feet across, into which
the water runs, and through which by some underground passages it
disappears only to swell in some invisible manner the swollen torrent of
the Colorado, 6,000 feet below.

Through this plateau Roger rode slowly, enjoying its peacefulness the
while. No great hurry consumed him, his present work was done, and until
he reached Prescott, he was his own master. Duke, moreover, had fared
ill in the hard riding of the past few weeks, and so it was by very easy
stages that the boy crossed the Kaibab, and indeed, loafed one whole
week in the wonderful De La Motte Park, in the midst of the plateau, to
give his horse a rest and to let him fill out his bones a little on the
succulent grasses. A most beautiful country to enter--and a hard one to
leave. No artificial maze is more confusing, for enticing as the ravines
are, they are all exactly alike, no landmarks exist by which a direction
may be followed, and the valleys themselves wind and double like a
frightened hare.

Roger, however, had crossed this forest the first time with the
frontiersman, who knew the trails like a book, and he had learned the
general lie of the country from him. Besides, the lad had imbibed enough
woodcraft since his appointment on the Survey to enable him to follow a
trail, no matter how faint or tortuous, a thing which even the Mormon
herders who follow the mazes of the wood with a keenness equal to that
of the Indians, and with more intelligence, admit is a difficult thing
to do.

But idleness was in no sense a characteristic of Roger's make-up, and he
was glad when he reached Stewart's Canyon, where the main trail took a
direct road northwards to round the Dragon and the Little Dragon and to
skirt the Virgin Range still further to the northward. But as the trail
descended into the valley and the altitude became less, it was seen that
Paradise was left behind. Instead of pines and aspens, the ferocious
and forbidding cactus took its place. The yuccas or Spanish bayonets,
the prickly pear, the gaunt Sahaura and the spiny devil, together with
other truculent barbarians of the vegetable kingdom convinced the boy
that he had left behind all the attractive part of his trip.

To the west, Roger quickened his pace and passed over the Shewitz
plateau, crossing stretches of lava, black and recent-looking, as though
they had been erupted but a few years before. Then, coming to the famous
geological break in the rocks known as the Hurricane Fault, he turned
sharply to the south through the plain uninteresting territory of
Eastern Nevada and California and reached the Needles again with little
trouble to himself or Duke. By this time Roger felt quite at home in and
about the Canyon, and he was conscious of boyish pride when the
proprietor of El Garces, the big hotel at the Needles, welcomed him as
an old traveler.

Changing at Prescott Junction, it was not long before Roger found
himself in Prescott, a thriving and flourishing town of the Southwestern
type. There Roger found a large packet of mail, letters from home,
notes from former school friends to whom he had written at divers times
throughout his trip, and which had been sent to Washington, his field
address not being known. But the letter that was first opened bore no
stamp, being franked with the seal of the United States Geological
Survey.

As before, there was inclosed with the letter of instructions a personal
letter from Mitchon, to the effect that favorable reports had been
received and implying that his next party probably would be the last
before his start on the Alaskan trip. The last few words made Roger
almost leap with delight, for it was evidence to him that if he
continued as well as he had begun, he would be accepted by Rivers, which
throughout had been the goal of his ambition.

The letter of direction, moreover, was fairly pleasing, though couched
in the usual dry official terms. It was to the effect that he should
join the topographical party under the leadership of Mr. Gates, present
post-office address being Aragon, County Presidio, Texas, and that the
party was engaged in mapping the Shafter quadrangle. Borrowing a large
atlas, the boy promptly proceeded to look up Aragon and Shafter, and
found, to his delight, that it was near the boundary line of Mexico.

After scampering through the rest of his mail, Roger promptly went to
the little depot and asked for a ticket to Aragon. Leisurely the agent
went about filling his request, then, looking at him with half-shut
eyes, said, with the easy familiarity of the West:

"Folks down there?"

"No," said Roger shortly, "going down on government business."

The agent's eyes opened slightly with a gleam of amusement in them.

"Ain't you pretty young for the Pecos country, son?" he said.

"Why?" asked the boy, quickly.

"Wa'al, it's pretty wild down there yet. It's nothing like what it used
to be in the days when the Apaches used it as a sort o' Tom Tiddler's
ground for picking up scalps, but I wouldn't go so fur as to call it an
abode of peace, right now."

"But the Indians are all in reservations now!" said Roger, surprised at
the suggestion of danger.

"That's right, son, so they are. But the Greasers ain't all dead yet,
more's the pity."

"What's a Greaser?"

"Guess you don't know much about that saloobrious portion of the world
if you ain't had the pleasure of a Greaser's company. Why, son, he's a
varmint that's about one-fourth Mexican, one-fourth Spaniard, one-fourth
Indian, and the other quarter just plain meanness. He's as venomous as a
rattler, as sneaking as a coyote, as bad-tempered as a bob-cat, and just
about as pretty to look at as a Gila monster."

Roger laughed.

"You don't seem to love them much," he said, "but I guess that
description's coming it a little strong."

"Not a blamed bit!" answered the agent, handing the boy his ticket, "an'
you'll find out that the rest of the people down there are just about as
fond of 'em as me. I lived down in Tombstone for some years, and I
wouldn't take the whole county of Cochise for a gift unless I could
teetotally banish all those cusses. Prescott ain't any lily-fingered
Eastern town, by a long shot, but it's a Sunday school compared to the
Pecos country, you can bet on that!"

"Well," replied the boy, nodding, "I'll try to come out of there alive,
just the same."

"Hope you do, son," was the reply, "an' I'll give you jest one piece of
advice which may help that hope along a lot. It's this--don't let any
Greaser who has a grudge agin you get within' knifin' distance, or your
camp mates will be picking out a nice chaste headstone and sending your
last lovin' messages to your friends."

"All right," replied the boy cheerfully, "I'll keep it in mind."

The day following, Roger, having regretfully bidden good-by to Duke,
boarded the train for the Pecos country, but the trip was so replete
with wonder that there was no time for lamenting even the absence of a
favorite horse. Passing through Phoenix, which a few years ago was
nothing but the desolate haunt of the dying consumptive, and which,
through irrigation, has become one of the garden spots of the Southwest,
they came to Casa Grande. Roger had never even heard of the place, but
in the observation car an elderly man, who was traveling with his son,
began speaking of the wonderful ruins that lay north of the road, and
casually showed that he was going to stop off and visit them. After a
moment's hesitation, Roger, who had been sitting close by, turned to
him.

"I beg your pardon, sir," he said, "but I felt sure you would not mind
my hearing what you said about the Casa Grande ruins."

"Not at all, my boy," was the ready reply, "I am only glad if I was able
to interest you."

"Immensely," said Roger. He paused diffidently, then went on, "I am on
the Geological Survey, sir," he said, "and on my way to join a new
party, but have a day or two to spare, as the Director has been so kind
as to give me opportunities to visit different fields of work to gain
experience for a trip to Alaska next year. You said you were going to
visit Casa Grande, and--I hope you won't mind my saying this--I should
like to go with you if I might, and learn something about a place of
which I know so little."

The elder man held out his hand.

"Glad to have you," he said, heartily, shaking hands. Then, turning, he
introduced him to his son, Phil, a young fellow about Roger's age, and
but very few minutes elapsed before the train stopped.

"Of course you know," said Roger's new friend, when they were in the
stage and bowling through the plain, "that this part of the country is
just full of evidences of a civilization far earlier than the Indians
and earlier even than the Aztecs or Toltecs."

"But, father," said Phil, "I supposed the Aztecs were the first people
in the country!"

"So do many people, Phil," was the reply, "but they were not. They were
a wandering tribe, as Indians might be, who conquered a people older
than themselves called the Nahoas, about whom we know very little. But
the Aztecs achieved a good deal of skill in working in stone, and the
fact that their monuments are not perishable, makes their civilization
enduring in fame."

"Then the Nahoas were the first?" queried Roger.

But his informant shook his head, smiling slightly.

"They may have been," he answered, "but it seems very doubtful. I think
we have to go back a great deal further when we start to look for early
Americans."

"Why?"

"Because of the evident age of the remains. For example," he continued,
"I don't suppose either of you has been noticing this road?"

"I've been wondering at it this last half hour," said Roger. "It isn't
like any canyon that I ever saw, and by the way it cuts through
different levels of strata it can't have been made by water. And if it's
made by hand, why should they cut a road, when it could have been made
on the level above with half the trouble?"

"You are observant, my boy, and your eye has been well trained," was the
approving reply. "But you don't seem to realize that this may be
artificial and yet not have been intended for a road, although it is so
used now."

"Oh, I know," broke in Phil, "it must be a canal."

"Hardly big enough for a canal," said his father, "though you are on the
right track. This was an irrigating ditch, and if you will notice, at
almost regular intervals, smaller dry ditches fork from it. This desert
through here is just honeycombed with works of irrigation, great
aqueducts, canals and lateral ditches, which at one time must have made
this barren waste a field of blossoms."

"It seems a shame, somehow," said Roger, "to think of all that work
being abandoned."

"Abandoned indeed! This place once possibly was the New York or London
of its time, but ruins represent all that is left of the cities, and a
thousand different kinds of cactus have taken the place of the
cornfield and the vineyard. And," he added, pointing ahead, "of all the
palaces of those unknown emperors, ruins like these are all that
remain."

The boys thought it rather a strain on the imagination to picture
palaces in the dry square adobe walls, but as they walked up close to
them, some lurking hint of former greatness became felt. The Casa Grande
must have stood some four or five stories in height and the rooms were
rarely less than twenty feet square, so that the idea was given not only
of size but also of extreme age, this being due in part, of course, to
the softness of the material of which they were built.

Only a hint of greatness, but when, standing beside the ruins, the boys
looked over the country below them, the real magnitude of the work
became apparent. Following the pointing forefinger of the elder man,
Roger could see what ninety-nine out of every hundred would have
overlooked, the regular relations of green defiles, which, though veiled
by the hand of time, were evidently artificial work. One great canal
could be traced tapping the Salt River on the south side, near the mouth
of the Verde; this, for three miles and a half, formerly flowed through
a bed cut by hand out of the naked rock in the Superstition Mountains
to a depth of a hundred feet. This canal alone, with its four branches
and the distributing ditches, irrigated 1,600 square miles of country,
and the engineering would be no disgrace to modern times.

"And how long ago were these canals dug?" asked Roger.

"No one knows," was the truthful and unhesitating reply. "It is a puzzle
that so far archæologists have tried in vain to solve. They must be
older than the Aztlan civilizations----"

"What are those?" asked Phil.

"Aztecs, Toltecs, and that bunch, aren't they?" queried Roger, wanting
to show his knowledge.

"Mayas, too," said the other, smiling assent, "and they must be older
than the Nahoa empire, of which little is left except in the south of
Peru. Just how old is impossible to say, and the only clew we have is
that these canals and ditches are in part filled up with volcanic lava
and debris from the Bradshaw mountains, and geologists are able to show
that these eruptions cannot have taken place less than two thousand
years ago."

"That's as old as Rome!" said Roger in surprise.

"That means that the end of it, at latest guess, was older than the
beginning of Rome, practically. And, though this volcanic action has
been later than these immense works of early man in America, there is
left neither a tradition of the millions of people who lived then, nor
even of the forces which led to the decay of the empire and the
overwhelming volcanic disaster in which it may have closed."

On their way back to the train, the old traveler gave Roger a long
account of the early settlement of that part of the country by the
Spaniards, and pointed out, as they passed through Tucson a few hours
later, the quaint mediæval architecture of a town which claims its
beginning as far back as 1560, and in which many houses three centuries
old are still standing; the oldest town in the Southwest, with the
exception of Santa Fé.

A mirage, or rather a succession of them, formed the basis for some
thrilling African desert tales, with which Phil's father was
well-primed, and when, passing round the mile-long horseshoe curve, the
train pulled into El Paso, Roger was extremely sorry to leave the
friends who had made his trip such a pleasant one.

A few hours sufficed for the boy to purchase some trifles needed to
make up his equipment, and bright and early the following morning he
started for Aragon, where he would find out the location of the party he
was to join. It was quite dull after the jollity and interest of the
trip to El Paso, and Roger began to wish that he had arrived, and was
pining to get into action again. But the incident for which he was
anxious did not fail him. As the train pulled up at Chispa, a station
about fifty miles west of Aragon, it was seen that almost the whole
population of the village was at the depot, a crowd numbering perhaps
twenty people, and foremost among them a man carrying a little girl,
about eight years old, in his arms.

In answer to questions put to him in Spanish, for he could speak no
English, the father explained his trouble by pointing to six little
marks on the girl's leg, three groups of two, all near each other. No
sooner was it seen what the trouble was than a big six-footer shouldered
his way through the car.

"When?" he asked.

In a torrent of Spanish and gesticulation, the man explained that the
child had been struck by a rattlesnake three times, fortunately, a small
one, just half an hour before the train came in, and that he was going
to take her to the nearest doctor, who was in Marfa, a town some few
stations down the line.

"Well," said the big man, "I can fix her, I guess. That is, I've got the
regular serum here, but I haven't a syringe. Any gentleman got a
hypodermic needle?"

But none of the passengers would confess to the use of a needle, because
of its implication that its owner would be a "dope fiend," and the
querist shrugged his shoulders.

"Are you a doctor?" asked one of the men in the car.

"I'm not a little girl doctor, I'm a cattle doctor," answered the big
man with a laugh, "or at least I'm a government inspector, and I haven't
anything smaller than this!" He pulled out of his case a hypodermic
syringe used for injecting fluid into cattle.

But the father sent up a cry of protest at the sight of the instrument,
and would not allow it to be used. The matter was explained to him in
Spanish, in English, and in half a dozen different dialects of each, but
he only shook his head.

"Has anybody got a sharp knife? I mean really sharp," next asked the
inspector, who had assumed control of the situation and was in no wise
disconcerted by the opposition of the girl's father. There was a
moment's pause and then Roger stepped forward.

"I was taught on the Survey," he emphasized the words to give them
weight with the government official, "to keep a blade sharp, and I guess
this is about as good steel as you can get."

The inspector took it, opened it, and ran his thumb along the blade.

"It's a good knife, son," he said, "but it's no surgical instrument.
Some one lend me a razor, I use a safety myself."

Of the stock of razors that were handed to him, the big man took one,
sterilized it in some boiling water from the dining car, and prepared to
make an incision in the girl's leg just above the fang marks.

But no sooner had the blade touched the skin and drawn a little blood,
than with a yell the father leaped straight at the inspector, flashing a
knife as he did so. Not expecting an attack, the government man would
have been taken unawares, but that is a land of quick action, and before
the Mexican could bring his arm down, he found his wrist seized, and a
revolver barrel an inch from his nose stopped his onward rush.

"That's a Greaser's gratitood, every time," said the holder of the gun.
"Go ahead with your job, pard, and if this ornery cayuse so much as
squirms, I'll give you an elegant opportoonity to perform a little
operation for bullet extraction."

The inspector, who, seeing that the danger was averted, had gone back to
his task, merely nodded. He made several wide and deep incisions,
thinking that scars were better than death, and then, despite the crying
of the girl and the fluent curses of the father, rubbed soda in the
wounds with a vigorous hand.

"There!" he said, as he completed the task. "I think she'll do all right
now!"

"But is that a sure preventive?" asked the boy.

"No, son," was the reply. "To be honest with you, nothing's sure against
a rattler, because, you see, some folks' constitutions are worked on
more easily than others, but in a certain number of cases the soda fixes
it. That is, if you're not afraid to cut deep enough."

"Then," Roger said, "it just means that you've probably saved the girl's
life?"

"Well," replied the other, "that's putting it a little strongly. And,
anyhow, if you're on the Survey, you know mighty well that when
government men do that sort of thing they don't talk about it."

CHAPTER XI

WHERE PRIMITIVE JUSTICE REIGNS

Roger had thought he had seen a few varieties of cacti in the Amargosa
Desert, but as he stepped off the train at Aragon, he realized that all
his previous ideas had fallen far short. To the eye unfamiliar with
cacti, their cumbrous ungainliness looked unnatural and forced, and
standing by the little shanty which was dignified with the name of
station, the boy looked over a dusty plain wherein fantastic and thorny
shapes ran riot. If the Grand Canyon was a bizarre dream of rocks, then
the cacti of the Arizona plains looked to Roger the nightmare of the
vegetable world.

But the boy, arrived at the point where he must strike off for the
party, realized that the time for delay was over, and turning to the
station agent, who had been eyeing him curiously, he asked for
information about the government surveyors. There was no difficulty in
finding out roughly the direction in which the party had traveled, but
the description of the route over the apparently interminable cactus
plains somewhat perturbed Roger, accustomed though he now felt himself
to be to find his way over the faintest trails. But he was a boy, just
the same, and the cacti looked forbidding and menacing, and the lad
wished profoundly that the old frontiersman, who had been his companion
on the first ride to Death Valley, were with him now. But there was no
help for it, he had to join his party no matter what the trail was like
or whither it led.

His next question, implying the desire to buy a good mule and the
ability to pay for it, aroused considerably more interest, and the
station agent so bestirred himself in the matter that Roger felt sure he
had a commission in view. It was but a short time before three mules
were brought for his inspection, all sound beasts so far as the boy
could judge, and he counted himself fortunate to strike an agreement
with the owner of the mule, whereby, for a little extra payment, one of
the herders should accompany him on the trail to the Survey camp.

The ride was long and dry, and the boy was amazed to learn from his
companion that a few years before these arid plains had been a grazing
country.

"Where has all the grass gone?" he queried.

"Señor," replied the Mexican, "it was thisa way. Alla the grass has been
eaten. There wasa too moocha the cattle on the land, they eata the grass
moocha too short, and the grass cannot maka the seed."

"But," objected Roger, "aren't the roots still there?"

The herder shook his head.

"No, Señor," he answered, with a sweeping gesture; "if the grass get
moocha short, the rain not soaka in but runa right away, the ground all
same as dust, and wind blowa the earth away from the roots and alla dry
up."

"I see," said Roger thoughtfully. "Then putting too much cattle on land
is like cutting the forests on the mountains too heavily. Deforest the
mountains and the water floods the streams and is wasted, crop the
plains and they become a desert. I see."

The distance to the Survey camp was not great, being but little over
twenty miles, but the country was not conducive to rapid traveling, and
as the boy allowed his companion to set the pace it was almost evening
when they arrived. The party had just come in from the day's work, and
Roger immediately presented his letter to Mr. Barrs, by whom he was
warmly welcomed.

Roger's new chief was a quiet man, as indeed most of his leaders had
been, but Mr. Barrs bubbled over continually with a certain sedate
humor. He promptly put the lad through a catechism with reference to his
work and experience since he joined the Survey, and little by little,
drew out from Roger almost the entire story of his adventures up to and
including the incident of the rattlesnake-bitten girl on the train the
previous day.

"That, my son," said Barrs, "is a fitting prelude to your stay here.
This is the first and only original headquarters of the snake, spider,
and insect tribe, and anything with the usual number of legs is out of
place."

"And are they all poisonous, Mr. Barrs?" asked the boy.

"Not especially," was the cheerful reply. "At least I've managed to keep
alive a whole lot. No, half these stories you hear about venomous
reptiles are imaginary and superstitious."

"But if you geta the trantler bite," put in the Mexican herder, who had
been listening, "you willa the dance until you drop down dead."

"Nonsense, José," answered the chief of the party, "that's just an old
story. The tarantula's bite may be bad, as far as that goes, but I've
never heard of any one having been bitten. Have you?"

"No, Señor, not myself have I seen it. But I have hearda of moocha the
plenty, and they all die in the dance. There was Juarez Alvinero on the
festa Sant' Antonio two years ago, Señor; he dance and dance in the
Plaza until he droppa down dead, and when they runa to picka him up, a
trantler let go his hand and run away, and there was two moocha large
bites. Si, Señor."

"Probably frightened himself to death. Lots of these low vitality races
do that."

"Yet you have seen plenty of tarantulas, Mr. Barrs?" queried Roger,
"although you know of no one suffering from their bites."

"Yes, lots of them. Why, the boys often use them for entertainment, sort
of a prize-fight business. It is a good betting proposition, for they
are inveterate fighters."

"You mean, fight each other?"

"Yes, of course. If you get hold of two tarantulas and put them down on
a large sheet of paper, they will try to run away until they catch sight
of each other, and then you couldn't make them run. Neither will attempt
to escape, but they will crawl close till just about six inches from
each other, and will then circle slowly, looking for an opening."

"Sort of sparring for wind," commented the boy.

"That's it. Then, suddenly, one or the other will spring, and either
will sink his mandibles in the body of the other, or will meet with a
like fate himself. Whichever gets the hold, it is fatal, but I couldn't
tell you whether it is due to poison, or just to the strength of the
bite."

"It's just like a regular duel," exclaimed Roger in surprise. "I never
heard of anything like that."

"And what's more," continued the chief, "I have heard of a man who had a
pet tarantula, with which he used to visit places and organize fights,
just as people do at a cocking main, but I can't say that I ever saw it
done. It may be true, just as the dancing story may be true, but if it
were I should have heard of some cases of it."

"But how did the creatures get the reputation?" asked Roger. "Surely
there must have been some cause for it."

"There is, I believe," answered the chief. "So far as I can learn a
convulsive twitching follows a tarantula bite, and as the best thing to
do in all poison cases is to walk the sufferer up and down until he is
ready to drop, the twitching at such a time might resemble St. Vitus's
dance. This was exaggerated, as most travelers' tales were in the early
days, but I don't think at worst, that it is much more dangerous than
the sting of a black hornet."

"Then you have scorpions down here too, haven't you? Are they as bad as
they are supposed to be?"

"The main trouble with a scorpion is his vicious make-up," was the
reply. "He's about the wickedest-looking proposition that ever came down
the pike, but his bite is not fatal. One of the fellows with me one year
had a little experience with a scorpion that made me think they are not
as bad as they look.

"You know the way they love to creep into the folds of cloth? Well, my
assistant had just taken up his flannel shirt from the ground where he
had been drying it in the sun, and after shaking it well and examining
it thoroughly to see that nothing had crept into it, he laid it on the
table a minute before putting it on. Then he slipped it over his
shoulders and suddenly gave a yell, ripping the shirt off as he did so,
and there across his chest ran a full-grown scorpion, which, as it
passed above the region of the heart brought his devilish sting over his
head and struck three times.

"Of course, I felt sure that the poor fellow was gone, because I knew
nothing of scorpions then, except by reputation, and the place of the
stings was so near the heart that I didn't care to try to cut them out
or cauterize or anything of that sort. Well, the three places puffed up
the size of pigeon eggs, and for a few hours the pain was very
considerable, but they went down by night, and there were no
after-effects."

"Why, Mr. Barrs," said Roger, "you are making out all these dangerous
and venomous creatures to be comparatively harmless. I thought you said
there were such a lot of them down here."

"Well," replied the older man, "there are enough. Leaving the snakes out
of the question, there are several varieties of ants that it is wise to
give a wide berth, and the centipede is a creature to leave strictly
alone."

"Is their bite fatal?" asked the boy.

"They don't bite."

"Their sting, then."

"They haven't any sting," responded Barrs, smiling at the boy's
bewilderment.

"Then what have they got?"

"They've got feet!"

"I know that," said the boy, a little scornfully. "That's what the name
centipede means, isn't it, a hundred feet?"

"Yes, and some of them can beat out their name."

"But they can't sting with their feet."

"They do, just the same," replied the older man. "You see the feet of a
centipede are like the paws of a cat, all furnished with claws, which
are drawn in while the creature is walking about, but which can be
extended and fixed firmly if disturbed. For example, if a centipede is
walking over your hand and you go to brush him off, no matter how fast
you strike, the moment your other hand has touched the little hairs all
over his body that very instant all those little claws in each of his
hundred feet sink deep into your skin, and Mr. Centipede can't be pried
off with anything short of a crowbar.

"As a matter of fact, if you try to tear him off, the chances are that
you will pull until you break the claws off, leaving them in the
skin--for he will never let go--and then you will have an awful time. I
don't know for sure if there are little poison sacs at the base of the
claws or whether it is just blood poisoning that sets in, due to the
fact that the centipede lives on decaying flesh, and his claws are
covered with germs, but I do know that if the claws are broken in, it
means trouble. If you leave the thing alone, however, and can keep from
trying to annoy him, if there is no need for him to stick his claws into
you, it is no worse than having a caterpillar crawl over your hand."

"But is it fatal if he gets his claws in?" asked the boy.

"I wouldn't say that it was. It often means the amputation of a limb
though, and I suppose if it was on the body it might end in a case of
blood poisoning that might prove fatal. But at best it makes a deep
sloughing sore, which gets bigger and bigger all the time, the skin
seeming to die about the edges. Of course, injury from a centipede is
comparatively rare, as he is generally found about carrion, and in this
kind of climate no one keeps carrion any nearer to the camp than he has
to."

"Then there's the Gila monster," suggested the boy, "they were telling
stories about them on the train coming down."

"He looks ugly, and I have been told some very bad things about him,"
said the chief gravely, "but so far as I am concerned, I have seen no
warrant for them. I can hardly see how so lazy and sluggish a creature
as a Gila monster can be called dangerous. I have tried to provoke them
by shoving sticks down their throats in order to find out how they
behaved when angry, but I have never been able to make them show fight."

"Only just the some times," put in the Mexican, who had followed the
conversation with intense interest, "there is justa the five, six days
in eacha year, the Gila is moocha bad, other times, nothing at all."

"That's possible," said Barrs, "but I guess I never struck those days.
But I mustn't keep blatherskiting here all night, come along to the rest
of the fellows. You want to get acquainted, I reckon, and you'll find
them a mighty lively set of boys."

Most of the men had put in their time in the Southwest, and Roger heard
more stories of the old days before wire fences were instituted and when
the whole prairie was open to their herds than he had ever dreamed could
be found out of books. It seemed good to the boy to be back in the
harness again, after the lapse of a couple of months since he saw
Masseth and the party ride away along the edge of the Canyon, and he was
glad to find that he could take his place as a man and do a man's work,
even in a new environment.

The agent's warning about the dangers of the Pecos country and the
stories told in the evening of times past, however, never seemed real to
Roger, any more real than the tales of history, until suddenly they were
made grimly lifelike. One evening, sitting in Barrs' tent, talking with
him, Roger suddenly heard a sharp report and a bullet came tearing
through the cloth of the tent not eighteen inches above his head. Almost
simultaneously, it seemed to the boy, Barrs had thrown down the lamp and
put it out, grasped his revolver and leaped from the tent. The other man
who had been sitting near by was lying prone, working his way along the
ground to the other tent.

Roger had not seen him drop to cover, the whole had happened so quickly,
but as soon as he realized, he lost no time in following suit. As he did
so, and his ear came close to the ground, the boy could hear the sound
of hoofs galloping at topmost speed and receding into the distance.
Suddenly, from far off, came the sound of voices, like to a challenge
and response, and then a fusillade of shots broken by a shriek.

"Jones!" called Barrs.

The man called stepped forward promptly.

"Follow the trail in the direction that man went, and see if you can
find out who fired those shots we heard. I'll overtake you in a moment.
Wilkins, take Doughty with you and follow the trail to the north, to see
if you can find out from any one who passed there a few minutes before.
The rest can look after the camp."

Within three minutes all were scattered, and Roger found himself riding
beside Wilkins with his gun ready in the event of further trouble. They
had not far to ride. The very first house they came to was lighted up
for a festivity, and there were sounds of merry-making within.