"Some four years ago, the Survey sent me on a trip which included themapping of a portion of the foothills of the Mt. St. Elias Range. It isa rugged and barren part of the country, but although rough in theextreme, no obstacles had been encountered that hard labor and longhours could not overcome. It was a packing trip and everything hadprogressed favorably, there was plenty of forage, the streams had beenfairly passable, and we feasted twice a day on moose or mountain sheep.For days and weeks together we had hardly been out of sight of caribou.They had a curious way of approaching, either one at a time or else inquite large bands, coming close to the pack-train, then breaking awaysuddenly at full gallop and returning in large circles. Even the crackof a rifle could not scare them out of their curiosity, and we nevershot any except when we needed meat.
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"Well," drawled the other, "Minnesota's civilization in that swampcountry doesn't hurt her[Pg 25] much yet, I reckon. When you're eleven milesaway from the nearest road, and that only a 'corduroy,' in a swamp overwhich you can't take a horse, and through which you can't take a boat,you begin to think that other human beings live a thundering way off.Why," he said, "I've seen parts of that swamp so soft that we'd have tomake a sort of platform of brush and three or four of us pull out onechap who had sunk below his waist, and that with only half a packinstead of the full load. No," he added, turning to Roger, "Minnesota'snot so powerful civilized if it comes to that!"
Roger speedily found that Field's remark to the effect that the"snipe-shoot" had better take place before the actual work started wasreally a merciful suggestion, for three or four days later, when theswamp survey was in progress, the boy found himself at night so tiredthat he would not have budged from the camp for anything smaller than atiger. He was no mean athlete and had been accustomed to considerhimself in good training, but after a day in the marsh the muscles ofhis back felt as though he had been lying on a corduroy road andallowing a full-sized steam roller to run over him.
The work itself was not so hard to understand or to follow, but thedifficulties of the nature of the ground made it appear to him almostinsurmountable. Arising early in the morning, about half-past fiveo'clock, he found himself fully ready for breakfast, which was duly overby half-past six, when the work of making up the packs began.[Pg 45] Each manin the party was supposed to carry a pack, all the properties of thecamp being divided up into equal weights. The making up of these was asource of no small anxiety, as the division of weight made a lot ofdifference in the day's march. The load was so divided that it wouldrest upon the back, just below the neck, and to keep it in place a broadstrap, called a "tump-strap" was passed across the forehead. If thestrap was a little long, or the load adjusted so that it hung too fardown, the effect was to jerk the neck back until it seemed that it wouldsnap off, while if the load was too high up on the neck, in order todistribute the weight evenly the bearer would have to bend so farforward that he would be walking almost double.
It chanced one afternoon, right after the short stop in the middle ofthe day, that Field sent Roger off, to the right of the party, in quitedense timber, and told him not to go further than twenty-five yardsaway. For twenty or thirty feet the boy hacked manfully through theunderbrush, and then, to his delight, came across a smooth piece ofmarsh overlaid with water. Testing carefully every step he took, the ladfound the bottom of it less like a morass than was the general characterof the swamp, and he knew enough to realize that there must be firmground on the other side. Knowing, moreover, that a piece of informationsuch as this would be of great assistance he ventured to cross thestretch, and as he surmised, found a small hog-back on the further shoreof the shallow lake. This ran parallel, so far as he could judge, withthe route being taken by the members of the party, and Roger conceivedthe idea of following along this line, until it would be time for him torejoin his friends. The wood[Pg 50] was thick on the ridge, however, and Rogerfound that he was not making good time, so after going half a mile orso, he decided to strike across and meet the rest of the party.
By this time Roger was fully alive to the difficulties that confrontedhim. If he were out of reach of the party, and could not make himselfheard, it would be very difficult to trace them, even if he crossedtheir trail; unless it were where they had been making a sight or whereundergrowth had been cut, there would be no mark of their passage, asthe soft ground speedily sucked in all trace of footsteps. A shot, hethought, would travel farther than the voice, and so, taking out hisrevolver, the boy fired three times in the air. He strained his earseagerly, though fearing that no shot would answer, but when the minutespassed by he knew that he was lost and that he would have to find hisway back to the party unaided.
Limping back over the ridge of ground, his ankle growing sorer eachstep, Roger painfully wended his way to the little lake. He found theridge, but in returning it appeared to divide into twain paths, and fora moment his heart sank within him; as luck would have it, however, heremembered seeing a tree that had been struck by lightning somewhereabout where he then was, and he determined to go along each of the pathsuntil he struck the tree. Taking the left hand, at random, he hobbledalong for half an hour, but seeing no blighted tree, retraced his wayand took the other path. Just as he was about to give up that routealso, in despair, the sentinel tree on which he had been building loomedup before him. It was the first sure sign that he was on the righttrail, and Roger let out a boyish whoop of delight. Suddenly he thoughthe heard an answering yell, and he called again, but there being noanswer he felt that his ears had deceived him. Soon he came[Pg 55] to thebanks of the little shallow lake, and struck in to wade across.
He was hardly more than safely ensconced among the branches when thecook returned. He busied himself about the fire with the wood that hehad brought, then chancing to look at the dish, he saw that the hamboneand the bread had gone. The[Pg 61] cook, whose language was that of awoodsman, consigned all four-footed thieves to perdition, and then bentdown to examine the tracks. He looked at them carefully several timesover, then:
"Most of them. You see, suppose in the middle of summer a river is tenfeet deep with a three-mile current, in the autumn is only four feetdeep with a two-mile current, but in the spring floods goes rushingthrough its bed forty feet deep with a ten-mile current, it makes amighty difference to the towns and villages all the way along. Thedestructiveness of a flood lies in the top few feet of water. In thesecond place, the navigation of a stream can only be estimated by itslowest depth recorded, and its horse power in the same way. But thissame river, which in the autumn was only four feet deep and developed acorresponding horse power, would have an average depth of eight feetwith four times the horse power. If then, the water that wastefully andruinously flows down in the spring is conserved all through the summer,the river has been made more than four times as valuable."
"But the chief, who had been laughing as heartily as any, said:'Roberts, you know perfectly well that we would have come after you ifthere had been any danger. But I looked at my watch and saw that it wasfull time for the tide to turn, so that you really stood in no suchawful peril as you seemed to think.'
Taking up his hat, as he spoke, he waited while the boy arranged for hisgrip to be taken to his room, and then without further parley startedtoward the brink of the chasm with quick, nervous strides which taxedRoger's walking powers to the utmost. They walked on to the roundedhill, Roger so full of excitement that he could hardly answer hiscompanion's questions about his former work on the Survey, and just asthey were about to cross the summit of the slope, Masseth touched him onthe arm, holding him back.[Pg 93]
And, in Titanic mockery of pygmy human work, the glowing rocks appearedgrotesquely, yet powerfully scornful of the greatest buildings ofmankind. Minaret and spire, minster and dome, façade and campanile,stood guard over the riven precipices, and not to be outdone by man,nature had there erected temple and coliseum, pyramid and vastcathedral, castle and thrice-walled fastness, until it seemed to the boythat there was thrown before his eyes a hysterical riot of every dreamand nightmare of architecture that the world had ever conceived.
"It is not dangerous," he said, "unless carelessness is shown, becausethe most lofty buttes, simply being cut down from the level plateau,have their crests just that height, so that they can be fairly wellmapped by a determination of their bases. But, though you can't see itfrom the top here, those bases are fearfully irregular and a cliff fortyfeet high may take miles to go round. You have noticed that there areplenty of terraces, so that in many places you can walk up or down theCanyon as on a made road, but that would help you not a whit in gettingacross."
"Since I had got so far, though I did not much relish doing it, Idetermined to take off the halter, and at least save that out of thewreck. But you can readily see that the halter had been drawn fearfullytight, and I could not get slack enough to unfasten the buckle. At lastI gave a hearty wrench, and was just about to be able to slip the[Pg 105] prongof the buckle through the hole, when the insecure talus on which I wasstanding, and on which the animal had been resting, began to slide.Fortunately I am fairly quick on my feet, and in two or three springs Ireached a little outjutting terrace. But I had scarcely reached thatpoint of safety when poor Bella went over the edge another seventy-fivefeet into the chasm. 2ff7e9595c
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