Campmates Part 15

"I'd rather drown than let them get me again," said Glen.

But Binney had not had the other's experience with Indians, and to him nothing could be more terrible than water.

Long and earnestly they watched, filled with alternate hopes and fears.

The riders seemed to move very slowly. All at once, Glen uttered a shout of joy. "They are white men!" he cried. "I can see their hats;" and, seizing his wet shirt, he began to wave it frantically above his head.

That his signal was seen was announced by a distant cheer, and several shots fired in quick succession. A few minutes later, six white men reined in their horses on the bank, just abreast the wagon. They were hardly able to credit their eyes as they recognized, in the two naked figures clinging to it, those whom they had been so certain were long ago drowned, and for whose bodies they were searching. As they hurriedly consulted concerning how best to effect a rescue, they were amazed to see both boys clamber down from their perch, and drop into the turbid waters, one after the other. When they realized that Glen and Binney were swimming, and trying in this way to reach the sh.o.r.e, they forced their horses down the steep bank and dashed into the shallow overflow of the bottom-land to meet them.

At that moment Binney Gibbs, by trusting himself so implicitly to Glen's strength and skill, in an element where he was so utterly helpless, was displaying a greater courage than where, acting under impulse, he sprang from his mule the day before, and ran back to fight Indians. The bravest deeds are always those that are performed deliberately and after a careful consideration of their possible consequences.

As "Billy" Brackett, who was the first to reach the boys, relieved Glen of his burden, he exclaimed,

"Well, if I had the luck of you fellows I'd change my name to Vanderbilt and run for Congress! We were sure you were gone up this time, and the best I hoped for was to find your bodies. Instead of that, here you are, hardly out of sight of camp, perched on the top of a wagon, as chipper as a couple of sparrows after a rainstorm."

"Where is camp?" inquired Glen, who was now wading easily along beside the other's horse.

"Just around that farther bend, up there."

"What made it come so far down the river, and off the road?"

"It hasn't. It's right at the ford, where we crossed last night."

"But I thought that was at least ten miles from here."

"Ten miles! Why, my son, you must have imagined you were travelling on a four-wheeled steamboat all night, instead of an old water-logged prairie schooner. We are not, at this minute, quite a mile from the place where you started on your cruise."

It was hard for the boys to realize the truth of this statement; but so it was; and, during those tedious hours of darkness they had only travelled rods instead of miles, as they had fancied.

After the short delay necessary to recover the boys' clothing from the wagon, they were triumphantly borne back to camp by the rescuing-party.

There the enthusiasm with which they were received was only equalled by the amazement of those who crowded about them and listened to the account of their adventure.

By means of a double team of mules, and some stout ropes, even the wagon on which they had made their curious voyage was recovered, and found to be still serviceable, though the greater part of its load was ruined.

The river was still an impa.s.sable stream, as wide as the Mississippi at St. Louis, and was many feet deep over the place, on its farther side, where they had camped at sunset. Thus there was no danger of another attack from Indians. Two hours after sunrise the explorers were again wending their way westward, rejoicing over their double escape, and over the recovery of the two members who had been given up as lost.

Chapter XXVI.

RUNNING THE LINE.

After this day and night, crowded so full of incident, four days of steady travel brought General Lyle's expedition to a point close to the boundary-line between Kansas and Colorado, where their surveys were to begin. The last hundred miles of their journey had been through a region studded with curious ma.s.ses of sandstone. These were scattered far and wide over the Plains, and rose to a height of from one hundred to three hundred feet, resembling towers, monuments, castles, and ruins of every description. It was hard to believe that many of them were not the work of human hands; and to Glen and Binney they formed an inexhaustible subject for wonder and speculation.

They were now more than three thousand feet above the sea-level; the soil became poorer with every mile; there were fewer streams, and along those that did exist timber was almost unknown.

The first line of survey was to be a hard one; for it was to run through the very worst of this country--from the Smoky Hill to the Arkansas, a region hitherto unexplored, and known only to the few buffalo hunters who had crossed it at long intervals. The distance was supposed to be about seventy miles, and there was said to be no water along the entire route. But both a transit and a level line must be run over this barren region, and the distance must be carefully measured. A good day's work for a surveying-party, engaged in running a first, or preliminary, line in an open country, is eight or ten miles; and, at this rate, the distance between the Smoky Hill and the Arkansas rivers could be covered in a week. But a week without water was out of the question, and General Lyle determined to do it in three days.

On the night before beginning this remarkable survey, every canteen and bottle that could be found was filled with water, as were several casks.

Everybody drank as much as he could in the morning, and all the animals were watered the very last thing. Everything was packed and ready for a start by daylight, and long before sunrise the working-party was in the field. The first division was to run the first two miles. Its transit was set up over the last stake of the old survey that had been ended at that point, and the telescope was pointed in the direction of the course now to be taken. The division engineer, with his front flagman, had already galloped half a mile away across the plain. There they halted, and the gayly painted staff, with its fluttering red pennon, was held upright. Then it was moved to the right or left, as the transit-man, peering through his telescope, waved his right or left arm. Finally, he waved both at a time, and the front flag was thrust into the ground. It was on line.

Now the head chainman starts off on a run, with his eyes fixed on the distant flag, and dragging a hundred feet of glistening steel-links behind him. "Stick!" shouts the rear chainman, who stands beside the transit, as he grasps the end of the chain and pulls it taut. "Stuck!"

answers the man in front, thrusting one of the steel pins that he carries in his hand into the ground. Then he runs on, and the rear chainman runs after him, but just a hundred feet behind.

Two axemen, one with a bundle of marked stakes in his arms, and the other carrying an axe with which to drive them, follow the chain closely. At the end of each five hundred feet they drive a stake. If stakes were not so scarce in this country, they would set one at the end of every hundred feet. It does not make much difference; for these stakes will not remain standing very long anyhow. The buffalo will soon pull them up, by rubbing and scratching their heads against them. At the end of every half-mile, a mound of earth--or stones, if they can be found--is thrown up; and these the Indians will level whenever they come across them. Perhaps some of them will be left, though.

While the chainmen are measuring the distance to that front flag, and the axemen are driving stakes and throwing up mounds, the transit-man, mounted on a steady-going mule, with the transit on his shoulder, is galloping ahead to where the front flag awaits him. Only the back flagman is left standing at the place from which the first sight was taken.

The front flagman thrust a small stake in the ground, drove a tack in its centre, and held his flag on it before he waved the transit-man up.

Now the transit is set over this stake so that the centre of the instrument is directly over the tack; and while it is being made ready the front flag is again galloping away over the rolling prairie, far in advance of the rest of the party.

The transit-man first looks through his telescope at the back flag, now far behind him, and waves to him to come on. Then the telescope is reversed, and he is ready to wave the front flag into line as soon as he stops.

The leveller, with two rodmen, all well mounted, follow behind the transit-party, noting, by means of their instruments, the elevation above sea-level of every stake that is driven.

So the work goes on with marvellous rapidity--every man and horse and mule on a run until two miles have been chained and it is time for the breathless first division to have a rest.

Mr. Hobart has watched their work carefully. He has also made some changes in his force, and is going to see what sort of a front flagman Glen Eddy will make. This is because Nettle has proved herself the fleetest pony in the whole outfit.

"Two miles in fifty-two minutes!" shouts Mr. Hobart to his men, as the stake that marks the end of ten thousand five hundred and sixty feet is driven. "Boys, we must do better than that."

"Ay, ay, sir! We will!" shout the "bald heads," as they spring to the places the first-division men are just leaving.

Mr. Hobart, Glen, and a mounted axeman are already galloping to the front. They dash across a shallow valley, lying between two great swells of the prairie, and mount the gentle slope on its farther side, a mile away. It is a long transit sight; but "Billy" Brackett can take it.

The boy who rides beside the division engineer is very proud of his new position, and sits his spirited mare like a young lancer. The slender, steel-shod, red-and-white staff of his flag-pole, bearing its gay pennon, that Glen has cut a little longer than the others, and nicked with a swallow-tail, looks not unlike a lance. As the cool morning air whistles past him, the boy's blood tingles, his eyes sparkle, and he wonders if there can be any more fascinating business in the world than surveying and learning to become an engineer. He thinks of the mill and the store with scorn. It beats them away out of sight, anyhow.

As they reach the crest of the divide, from which they can see far away on all sides, Mr. Hobart, using his field-gla.s.s to watch the movements of "Billy" Brackett's arms, directs Glen where to place his flag.

"Right--more--more--away over to the right--there--steady! Left, a little--steady--so! Drive a stake there! Now hold your flag on it! A trifle to the right--that's good! Drive the tack! Move him up--all right, he's coming!" Then, leaving the axeman to point out the stake, just driven, to the transit-man, the engineer and his young flagman again dash forward.

"Two miles in thirty-eight minutes! That is quick work! I congratulate you and your division, Mr. Hobart." So said the chief-engineer as the men of the second division, dripping with perspiration, completed their first run, and, turning the work over to those of the third, took their vacant places in the wagon that followed the line.

The morning sun was already glowing with heat, and by noon its perpendicular rays were scorching the arid plain with relentless fury.

Men and animals alike drooped beneath it, but there was no pause in the work. It must be rushed through in spite of everything. About noon they pa.s.sed a large buffalo wallow, half filled with stagnant water, that the animals drank eagerly.

That evening, when it was too dark to distinguish the cross-hairs in the instruments, the weary engineers knocked off work, with a twenty-one-mile survey to their credit. They were too tired to pitch tents that night, but spread their blankets anywhere, and fell asleep almost as soon as they had eaten supper. There was no water, no wood, and only a scanty supply of sun-dried gra.s.s. It was a dry camp.

The next day was a repet.i.tion of the first. The tired animals, suffering from both hunger and thirst, dragged the heavy wagons wearily over the long undulations of the sun-baked plain. Occasionally they crossed dry water-courses; but at sunset they had not found a drop of the precious fluid, and another dry camp was promised for that night.

As the men of the second division drove the last stake of another twenty-one-mile run, and, leaving the line, moved slowly in the direction of camp, the mule ridden by Binney Gibbs suddenly threw up its head, sniffed the air, and, without regard to his rider's efforts to control him, started off on a run.

"Stop us! We are running away!" shouted Binney; and, without hesitation, Glen gave spurs to Nettle and dashed away in pursuit.

"What sc.r.a.pe are those young scatter-brains going to get into now?"

growled Mr. Hobart.

"I don't know," answered "Billy" Brackett; "but whatever it is they will come out of it all right, covered with mud and glory. I suppose I might as well begin to organize the rescuing-party, though."