The Boy With the U. S. Survey Part 8

"What's wrong?" I heard one of them shout, as I started back, but I didn't want them to get the laugh on me too soon, and I was coming back through that sodden gra.s.s just as rapidly as I could make arms and legs go. Well, sir, I suppose that tide came in slowly, but it seemed to me as though I could see it creep up my shirt inch by inch, and I had hardly got half the distance before it was up to my shoulders. I thought it was time then to let the boys know what was up, so I shouted:

"'Bring the buckboard here, fellows, or I'll be drowned in this infernal gra.s.s!'

"'Drowned?' I heard one of the men say questioningly, then immediately after, 'By Jove, he's caught with the tide down in that low spot.'

"But of course they couldn't bring the buckboard because the horse couldn't go through unless a path had been cut, and they couldn't very well cut a path, for the reason that in doing so they would have to stoop, bringing their heads under water, to say nothing of the difficulty of swinging an ax in the water. It looked pretty bad for me, but I thought it likely that Shriveter, one of the party, who was over six feet, would come to my aid, and six inches more of height made a considerable difference of time in the up-creeping of the water. Then I saw the chief pull out his watch and speak to the rest of the boys, and they began to laugh. I was about thirty yards away by this time and could hear them laugh quite distinctly. It made me as mad as a hatter, for the water was up to my chin.

"'It may be deucedly funny to you,' I called out, 'but you might come and help a fellow!' But they only laughed the harder and it made me sore. Can you imagine what it's like plowing through that infernal gra.s.s with water up to your chin? You can't stoop your shoulder to push yourself through, because, if you do, a mouthful of salt water comes to your share; all your clothes are sopping wet and heavy; the ground under your feet has become slimy and hard to walk on and the blades of gra.s.s are sodden and almost beyond a man's power to move. I found it harder work to make a five-yard line through that mixture of tule gra.s.s and tidewater than Harvard ever did on the gridiron against Yale."

"Easy, old man," said Field, "I'm Yale!"

"I know you are," grinned the other, "that's just why I said it. But, as I was telling you, it sure was a man's job to fight through that stuff yard by yard, and the salt water was just about level with my lips, so that when I wanted a breath I had to give a little jump and breathe before I came down. And those beasts on the buckboard were simply howling with laughter.

"'Look at the human jumping-jack!' I heard one of them say, imitating the voice and manner of a sideshow barker, 'The only original half-man, half-frog, in the world. See him hop! One hop is worth the money!' I tell you what," added Roberts, laughing in unison with the rest, at the picture he had conjured up, "I was just about hot enough under the collar to have ducked every one of those grinning oafs."

"But did you really think you were going to be drowned, Mr. Roberts?"

asked Roger.

"I suppose if I had stopped to think, my boy," was the immediate response, "I would have known that the other chaps would have got hold of me long before that, but I felt more than half-way drowned as it was, hardly able to advance a step nearer safety, and only succeeding in getting breath by jumping up and down as if I was on a skipping rope.

But when I thought I would have to give out, paying no attention to the jocose suggestions of the fellows, such as 'Get a balloon!' 'Talk about a gra.s.shopper!' 'Look who's here, there's spring-heeled Jack on the trail!' and so forth, and when my strength was nearly at an end, it seemed to me either that I had reached a little hillock or that the water was receding. I stood still, and found that by throwing my head back I could just breathe without making any wild gymnastics, and I thought it a good time to take a breathing s.p.a.ce. In a few moments I saw that the water really was receding and half an hour later I made my way to the buckboard, where all the boys had gathered and were sitting smoking, watching my frantic efforts.

"'You're a precious lot,' I said to them, as I clambered up out of the wet, 'to let a fellow half drown without coming to help him. I might have gone under out there for all you cared.' Oh, I was mighty sore about it, and I didn't care if they knew it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DENSE SOUTHERN PALM GROVE.

Through this lines must be cut to establish Survey points, showing wide range of territory with which a topographer must be familiar.

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

"But the chief, who had been laughing as heartily as any, said: 'Roberts, you know perfectly well that we would have come after you if there had been any danger. But I looked at my watch and saw that it was full time for the tide to turn, so that you really stood in no such awful peril as you seemed to think.'

"'That's all very well,' I answered, 'but how was I to know it?'

"'That was just the sport of it,' he said; 'you didn't know it, and we did. And you would have died laughing if you could have heard yourself, 'Schriveter (gurgle, gurgle), you lanky galoot (gurgle, gurgle), come and give me a hand (gurgle, gurgle), instead of sitting there (gurgle, gurgle), like an Indian cigar sign (gurgle).' I don't know just how Schriveter felt, but so far as I am concerned, I was so tired from laughing that I nearly fell out of the rig.' I suppose really the chief was right, knowing that the water would not come any higher, but then I didn't know, and it wasn't any too pleasant a feeling."

"By the way," continued Roberts, when he had finished his story, and other members of the party had added their mite of comment, approval, or equivalent yarn, "Mr. Field tells me that you are new on the Survey.

I suppose your name is Doughty, then?"

"Yes, Mr. Roberts," answered Roger, surprised that this man, who was almost a complete stranger to him, should know his name.

"Mr. Herold told me that I should find you here," he said, "and he asked me to give you this letter. He told me what was in it," added the new arrival with a smile, "and I think it should please you."

Roger took with eagerness the long official envelope handed him by Roberts, his first letter of instructions since he became a member of the Survey, and found therein a brief order, requiring him to report at the El Tovar Hotel, Grand Canyon, Ariz., on the first day of the month following. The same envelope contained, moreover, a personal letter from Mitchon, in which, though of course no official recognition could be made, was a phrase worded in such wise as to show that the boy had been well spoken of by Field, and that this new appointment was due to satisfaction with his first few weeks on the Survey. The lad colored with pleasure as he read it.

"I suppose, Roger," said Field, when the boy folded the two letters and put them back into the envelope, "that letter means that you are going to leave us?"

"Yes, Mr. Field," answered the boy, "I don't know just when I am supposed to leave, but I am ordered to report in Arizona on the first of June."

"Going on the desert work?" queried the chief. "My word, Mr. Herold wants to give you pretty sharp contrasts!"

"I think it must be somewhere about the Grand Canyon," answered the boy, his eyes sparkling with the thought of seeing that wonder of America, which he had so ardently desired to visit. "At least, I am told to report at a place called Grand Canyon."

Roberts nodded.

"That's right son," he said. "Grand Canyon is the tourist station for seeing the Colorado River gorge at its best."

"To whom do you report?" asked Field, "to Ma.s.seth?"

"Yes, Mr. Field, that was the name," answered the boy.

"Isn't that the man who did such clinking good work in the Little Colorado country?" asked Roberts.

"That's the man," replied Field. "You couldn't be under a better leader," he added, turning to the boy, "but you've got to keep both eyes and both ears wide open with him, for he has a knack of expecting every one with him to know everything. He'll teach you to think quickly, all right."

"Well, my present chief----" began the boy gratefully, but Field waved his hand petulantly.

"Cut that sort of thing out," he interrupted. "Any man will get along if he tries to do his work. But," he warned smilingly, "I don't know that it's such good discipline to play practical jokes on the head of the party. They might not all take it kindly."

"I had a letter from Mr. Mitchon," retorted the boy, "in which he bids me thank you for the snipe. He said they were much appreciated in the office. He writes awfully nicely."

"That snipe's an old joke on the Survey," answered Field, "indeed, it's pretty well known all over the West, but seeing that it was new to you, Mr. Mitchon wanted to enjoy the fun."

"I never met Mitchon until this last time I went to Washington," put in Roberts thoughtfully, "but I liked him very much."

"I had a little experience with Mitchon once," put in David, who had been listening, "and I found him white clear through."

"Mitchon's all right!" said Field.

"You bet!" affirmed the boy.

"Well," commented Roberts with a laugh, "that's a good enough epitaph for any man. Mitchon's a long way from being dead, and I guess no one's particularly anxious to start carving a tombstone, but at that, I guess he'd be satisfied with such a general opinion."

CHAPTER V.

PERIL IN THE GRAND CANYON

Excited and expectant travelers were many on the Santa Fe railroad, but Roger felt that he had never met a more enthusiastic group than those who dined at the long low mission-like hotel Fray Marcos at Williams, Ariz., waiting for the train to Grand Canyon. And of all these none had been more a-tingle with antic.i.p.ation than the boy, as the train, pa.s.sing by the station of Hopi--the very name recording that strange tribe of Arizona Indians--ran through Apex and began to slow up for the last stop.

Throughout the past two or three hours of the trip, all the pa.s.sengers had been speaking of the great sights that awaited them, and guidebooks and photograph collections without number had been scanned, bringing interest to fever heat. But in spite of all this preparatory ardor, those who had visited the Grand Canyon before and those whose friends had done so, bore testimony to the universal belief that nothing, no estimate of the wonders of that land, however extravagant, could discount the reality.

It was a little after four o'clock on the afternoon of the last day in May as the train drew into the station, and guides met the pa.s.sengers ready to conduct them direct to the brink of the Canyon that they might gain their first sight of it. Roger's very toes were aching with the desire to follow them, particularly as he was not on duty until the following day, but still he felt that he was on government service and that he ought to report for duty at the appointed place immediately on his arrival. Then, the boy argued, should there be no one to meet him, his time would be his own until the following morning, and he could enjoy the pleasures of sight-seeing without feeling that he had in any way been neglectful of the strictest interpretation of his orders. His trunk had been checked through, so Roger, refusing the solicitations of the guides, picked up the small hand-grip he had carried for the necessities of the journey and set his face resolutely to the hotel.

Turning to view the country about him, Roger was as much disappointed as amazed to find how flat and uninteresting it seemed. Indeed, there was nothing in the region to suggest that a canyon was anywhere in the vicinity. So far as he could see, on either side of the railroad track up which he had come was a level treeless prairie, and in the direction whither the tourists had gone, there was naught to be seen but this same slowly rising plateau, which, a little further on, seemed to be bounded by a slight rise. The boy knew that the Canyon must be on the other side of this eminence, but there was nothing to bespeak its presence, not a sign to awake the consciousness that a few hundred yards away lay a view of the greatest scenic wonder that any man had beheld, primitive and untouched as since the days that antediluvian monsters roamed the plains whereon he now was walking.