The Boy With the U. S. Survey Part 10

"I will explain those to you after dinner," said the topographer, "and, by the way, it is nearly time we returned to the hotel or we shall be late. I can show you how the various reds are due to iron in the rock--you remember how a rusty nail stains everything red?--and other iron compounds give the green, while the blues of the slates and the dark belts of hornblende all play their part."

Ma.s.seth was as good as his word and all through the time spent in the dining-room he interested the boy in the country by his vivid descriptions of how all these rocks had first been made, then reduced to sand and built up again, and how the Colorado River was fast tearing them down and carrying them away to be built up somewhere else in some other way.

"Then geology isn't all over!" exclaimed Roger in surprise. "I always thought of it just as a sort of history of things that happened a great while ago."

"Geology is happening right along," said Ma.s.seth, "and that's why it is so necessary to do this work and find out both what has been and what is going to be, even though it is both difficult and arduous."

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN AWKWARD COUNTRY TO WORK IN.

The Terraces cut in the Western territory. Note buggy on trail at base of cliff.

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

"But of all the work in the Survey," suggested Roger, thinking of the apparent inaccessibility of the Canyon as he had seen it, "I should think this Grand Canyon work the most difficult and dangerous of all."

The older man shook his head.

"It is not dangerous," he said, "unless carelessness is shown, because the most lofty b.u.t.tes, simply being cut down from the level plateau, have their crests just that height, so that they can be fairly well mapped by a determination of their bases. But, though you can't see it from the top here, those bases are fearfully irregular and a cliff forty feet high may take miles to go round. You have noticed that there are plenty of terraces, so that in many places you can walk up or down the Canyon as on a made road, but that would help you not a whit in getting across."

"Well, it is difficult, anyway," said the boy.

"Extremely so. The intense color, the glowing rays of the sun seldom shielded by any clouds, the lack of vegetation and the absence of landmarks all help to confuse the idea of distance, so that you cannot trust to your eyes to map a point until you have been there."

"And how do you get there?" queried the boy in wonderment.

"Climbing. There is an Indian trail on this side that helps a little, and there are three roads down to the river on this side and one on the north. This one through trail, called the Cameron or Tourist trail, has been partly rendered pa.s.sable, so that by herculean effort and with trusted and well-trained animals it is possible to cross. Usually, however, the trail is left in loneliness, for there is absolutely no traffic between Utah and Arizona. Except for a little corner in each, these States are more widely separated than if an ocean rolled between them."

"And how about these corners?"

"Well, Utah can get to hers by taking a little trouble, but the northwest corner of Arizona is No Man's Land, so far as any jurisdiction goes."

"But you say animals can be made to tackle those trails. I should have thought that kind of work would kill any animal that tried it."

"It's pretty hard to kill a burro," answered Ma.s.seth, "and I've never lost one. Indeed, in all the Survey work I've done in the Grand Canyon, I've only had one accident, and that was a case absolutely unavoidable.

I lost one of my favorite horses that time."

"How did it happen, Mr. Ma.s.seth?" asked Roger.

"It was on the north side of the Canyon," began the topographer, "and I was working on an outlying b.u.t.te with my a.s.sistant. We had made quite a number of bench marks and I was working out the contours--those are the lines on a map which show the height or elevation of any point--while my a.s.sistant was sitting beside me, making out some of the necessary calculations. We were working out from a little side camp, the two of us, the rest of the party being at headquarters, several miles away. I was drawing in at full speed, because I wanted to change from that side station that evening, and for a couple of hours I suppose we had not exchanged a word, except with relation to figures.

"Before coming out on that sun-baked exposed b.u.t.te, I had tied the animals--a pack-mule, my riding mare, and the a.s.sistant's horse--to the branch of a tree. Suddenly, as it afterwards appeared, the other fellow heard a sound as of a fall and went to see what it was. He was gone so long that I noticed his absence. When he returned I waited for him to volunteer an explanation but apparently he did not want to disturb me, so I said, questioningly:

"'Well?'"

"'Only two of them there now,'" he replied. 'Bella's gone over the edge.

Neck's broken, so there's no use doing anything.'

"Now Uncle Sam, you know, is always willing to stand for accidents that can't be helped, but he's got to know all about it, and while I realized that it would really matter little in the long run, I was sure that the department would feel better satisfied if the manner of the accident were set forth. So I put away my pencil, folded up the plane table, and went to investigate. It was as puzzling a thing to decide as I ever saw.

The tree was at least twenty yards from the brink of the precipice, although the ground sloped fairly steeply to the edge.

"When I arrived there I found the other two animals tied to the branch, as I had left them, and apparently undisturbed. The ground, however, between the tree and the edge of the chasm, was torn up with hoof marks and the struggles of an animal that evidently had fallen to the ground, and the spoor from the tree to the Canyon's edge was easily traced. Of the animal, I could at first find no evidence, but my a.s.sistant touched me on the arm.

"'Here, Mr. Ma.s.seth,' he said, 'you can see Bella from here.'

"Sure enough, on rounding the corner of a pinnacle which stood out a little distance from the edge, the body of the mare could be seen about one hundred and seventy-five feet down, lying on a sharply pitching bank of talus--that is, debris of rock and dust, fallen from the overhanging cliff above. It was still a wonder to me how the mare fell, and as she had been wearing a brand-new halter, this in a country where it is easier to get beast than harness, I told my a.s.sistant that I was going down to secure the halter and also to find out, if I could, what had been the cause of the accident.

"I think that was about as nasty a piece of climbing as I ever had. It would never come about in the regular course of business, you see, because we don't work that way, but I was going down to get that brute, no matter what labor it cost. At last I managed to make my way down to the point where she was lying. There, after studying the position in which she must have fallen, I gained some idea of the manner in which it had come about. Bella was from the ranches, where, you know, an animal is not muscle-bound like your eastern horses, and in trying to scratch her head--where possibly a fly had settled--with her off fore-leg, the calk of her shoe must have caught in the neck-strap of the halter, and of course, she could not get it out.

"The poor beast probably stood as long as she could on three legs, but the posture must have been cramped and painful after a few moments and she fell heavily, breaking the rope of the halter as she did so. Then, while lying on the ground, floundering about in an effort to free her foot from the thraldom of the halter-strap, she must have slipped nearer and nearer to the edge and then suddenly gone over, with her hind-foot still fast in the strap.

"Since I had got so far, though I did not much relish doing it, I determined to take off the halter, and at least save that out of the wreck. But you can readily see that the halter had been drawn fearfully tight, and I could not get slack enough to unfasten the buckle. At last I gave a hearty wrench, and was just about to be able to slip the p.r.o.ng of the buckle through the hole, when the insecure talus on which I was standing, 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 I reached a little outjutting terrace. But I had scarcely reached that point of safety when poor Bella went over the edge another seventy-five feet into the chasm.

"That made me mad. I had come down a very nasty piece of climbing to get that halter, and I was bound to secure that bit of leather if I had to scramble down the gorge to the very bed of the river itself. So, as soon as I could find a way to start down, I went on and reached the mare, this time resting on a wide ledge where I could disentangle the halter with but very little trouble.

"I had gained the object of my quest, I had found out the cause of the accident to the horse, and I had recovered the halter, but in the achievement of these purposes I found myself two hundred feet down the gorge and I knew that it would be a great deal harder to get up that distance than it had been to get down, and even the latter had been no easy matter. Of course, my a.s.sistant was up above, and had been watching the proceedings, all the while, so that I knew he would get at me from the top in the course of time.

"I was anxious, however, to get back the way that I had come without taking a long trip to one of the side canyons, and after losing some time, and also some skin from knees and elbows and other parts of my body, I got back to the place where the horse had first lain. My a.s.sistant dropped me a rope--there is always a long rope carried by each party--and I climbed up that rope."

"Swarmed up a rope a hundred and seventy-five feet high!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Roger, then, with a whistle, he added, "that's an awful climb."

"It was not a straight hand over hand climb, my boy," answered Ma.s.seth quietly. "You must remember that all those walls are in terraces and every other line of strata would give a ledge. Of course, in some parts they were overhanging and that made it all the harder, but there were plenty of places to rest on the way up and in due course I reached the top. That was the first misadventure, and I hope it will be the last in any of my camps in Grand Canyon work."

"And what part of the work are you doing now, Mr. Ma.s.seth?" queried the boy.

"I was just waiting for you to complete the party," was the reply. "We are going to tackle the Tourist's trail, that is the one I was telling you about, and will go up the other side. Then, from the north side, I will pick out a number of points which I want you--with other members of the party--to occupy. You will then do some work under my a.s.sistant, while I cross back to this side, and on an appointed day we will strike a level across the nine-miles gap."

"Then we will be working together though miles apart?" asked the boy in surprise.

"Yes, and months apart, too."

"But how in the world can you do that?" was the amazed response. "Do you carry a wireless telegraph outfit in your vest pocket, Mr. Ma.s.seth? Is there anything the Survey can't do?"

"You seem to think," responded the chief with a smile, "that the race of wizards has been reborn and christened the Geological Survey, as a visiting diplomat once said of us."

"Well, pretty nearly," answered the boy.

"We're not quite that," admitted the other, "but," with a smile of mystification, "I do carry a little device by which I can make use of a system of wireless telegraphy which was in existence thousands of years ago."

"And can I see it?"

"Certainly," replied the topographer, and drawing his hand from his pocket, he showed it open to the boy.

"That's just a looking-gla.s.s," cried Roger in disappointment, having expected to see some delicate and ingenious piece of intricate machinery.

"Just a piece of looking-gla.s.s," a.s.sented his chief. "What then?"