Francis Rolt-Wheeler

“ The geologist smiled at the boy's sudden conclusion that unimagined wealth lay exposed before them.
"Gold does not come in quarries like building stone," he said with a laugh. "Did you think it came in great masses of rock?"
"No," answered Roger, "but I thought it came in veins through the rocks."
"So it does, but you can find it in sand. What is sand?"
The boy thought a moment. "Why," he said, at length, "sand is rocks ground small by the action of wind and water."
"Very well," said his chief. "Now if some of the rocks ground small contained a vein of gold, what would happen to it?" ”

“ Roger speedily realized the wisdom shown by Rivers in forcing the march through the entire first part of the trip, for whereas the weather had been favorable, two days after the argument with the mountain goat, the sky, which had been dark and gray for days, suddenly seemed to drop to within a few hundred feet of the heads of the travelers, and a tinge of slaty blue came into the over-hanging masses. A hollow booming sound filled the air, and the Alaskan old-timers hastened to make everything fast, laying provision close to hand and insuring all the outfit against the coming storm. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ I found it harder work to make a five-yard line through that mixture of tule grass 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. ”

“ Roger speedily found that Field's remark to the effect that the "snipe-shoot" had better take place before the actual work started was really a merciful suggestion, for three or four days later, when the swamp survey was in progress, the boy found himself at night so tired that he would not have budged from the camp for anything smaller than a tiger. He was no mean athlete and had been accustomed to consider himself in good training, but after a day in the marsh the muscles of his back felt as though he had been lying on a corduroy road and allowing a full-sized steam roller to run over him. ”

“ When you're eleven miles away from the nearest road, and that only a 'corduroy,' in a swamp over which 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 to make a sort of platform of brush and three or four of us pull out one chap who had sunk below his waist, and that with only half a pack instead of the full load. No," he added, turning to Roger, "Minnesota's not so powerful civilized if it comes to that!" ”

“ It did not seem possible that any man could ride that furious clashing of the jam, but Roger noticed that Bulson, making his way to shore over the grinding ice, yet had coolness to stop and give a shove here and a heave there, unlocking the jam, as it were, until, standing on the ice nearest the shore, he gave one last mighty shove and sprang to the bank just as with a seeming disappointed roar the whole jam broke and sped down the foaming river. ”

“ What could have been more simple than to go twenty or thirty yards farther away than you had been told, just as you did, for instance, and yet, if you had not been lucky, you would have disappeared forever in that quagmire and by your death spoiled our record."
"Have many lives been lost in Survey work?" asked Roger.
"In the nearly thirty years of the existence of the Geological Survey, as a separate branch of the Department of the Interior," replied Field, "during which time explorations of the most extreme peril have been undertaken, only one life has been lost. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When Roger turned, however, he found that he had ceased to be opposite the slough, and he plunged into a dense and palpitating quagmire, the kind against which he had been specifically warned, fairly firm on the surface, but which quivered like a jelly as far as he could see when he stepped upon it. None the less, it was the only way the boy knew to rejoin his comrades, so with considerable trepidation he stepped upon the edge. It held him, though with a sort of "give" that was most unpleasant. ”

“ It was a welcome sight, on topping a small rise, to see in the distance that two of the three tents were still standing, though ringed round with a smoldering fire; in the foreground the blackened figures of the cook and the Indian, working for their lives, and the chief just pounding into the camp. With never a pause, save when some fellow tripped and fell, the men tore over the rough ground until they reached the flames. ”

“ 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 draw map every rock, know when stop canoe."
"Yes," said the cook thoughtfully, "it isn't much of a job to run a rapid when you know what's ahead of you; the trouble is generally that some fool rock shows up when you least expect it."
"That's true," said the boy thoughtfully, "even the rock we nearly went to smash on,—the one you jumped, you know,—we could have dodged that if we had known that it was there and had hugged the right-hand shore."
"No strike rock this time. You no want try jump?"
"Not on your life, Harry," laughed Roger. ”

“ But each day's travel now brought the mountains closer upon them, and the banks of the river narrowed. The flat plain of the lower valley was disappearing and the mountains sloped nearer the water's edge. On the farther shore the Talkeetna range, isolated from all other mountains, rose almost sheer from the water, while on the shore the party traveled, though beyond the Chulitna, the great Alaskan range towered up into the clouds, Mt. McKinley, the highest peak in the United States, rearing his 20,300 feet, snow-capped and glacier-bearing, statuesque above all lower eminences. ”

“ No work of its class is so completely up-to-date or so worthy in point of thoroughness and avoidance of danger. The drawings are profuse and excellent, and every feature of the book is first-class. It tells how to make a boy's workshop, how to handle tools, and what can be made with them; how to start a printing shop and conduct an amateur newspaper, how to make photographs, build a log cabin, a canvas canoe, a gymnasium, a miniature theatre, and many other things dear to the soul of youth. ”

“ Excited and expectant travelers were many on the Santa Fé 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 anticipation than the boy, as the train, passing 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. ”

“ For fifty-four consecutive hours their paddles never ceased a second, one man in each boat eating and resting while the others paddled. The Survey men took their turn at the labor, and trained to endurance as they were, they competed well with the untiring swing of the Eskimo paddle, and gained the admiration of the natives. For the last four hours it was a flight for life that kept every nerve alert and tense, and the ice-pack was not fifty yards from shore when the boats, paddling furiously, rounded Point Barrow. ”

“ 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." ”

“ My own experience would lead me to believe that what we need in the Geological Survey is the 'staying' rather than the 'dashing' qualities. And you must remember that even if you do come with me next year, there's no pull in it to bring you a sinecure, the chief of a party has entirely a free hand in the selection of his assistants, and their value for the work is almost the only consideration. If you come, it will be practically as a camp hand, just to do what you're told, whether it is what you want to do or not. Work on the Survey needs backbone."
Roger's jaw set hard. ”

“ The next morning, before it was light, Harry and Roger were in the canoe, and they started off on their hunt for Nigaluk, up this channel and down the other. Harry was paddling for all he was worth, and the boy found it hard labor to keep up, but at their noon stop nothing had been found. As it was growing dusk, however, the Indian gave a grunt and pointed ahead, and Roger, giving a shout of joy, saw before him the outlines of a structure. But on arrival, they found nothing but an Eskimo grave, erect on four driftwood spars. ”

“ Bad weather came, and several days were lost by storms, so that the trip, even in the Eskimo umiaks and under the conditions the natives knew so well how to overcome, was by no means easy, and Roger shivered at the thought of the terrible experience he would have had to face, if they had not overtaken the Eskimo boats. The canoe, which was being towed behind the largest umiak, was almost a fetish for the natives, and the way it rose to every wave, never shipping even a drop of water, to them was a constant source of delight. ”

“ I made a reconnoissance once from Fort Yukon to Kotzebue Sound, and it's because I know the ground so well that we're making such good time now. That portage often takes three days."
"What a wonder Bulson is on the trail," said Roger, trying to stifle a yawn, "he must have had a hundred and thirty pounds in his pack to-day."
"Well, he's as strong as a grizzly," replied the older man, "and he just eats up the trail. You're stronger in a canoe. By the way, there are some rapids on the Kanuti River, down which we start to-morrow, and I suppose you'll have a chance to shine there. ”

“ Quite a torrent was beginning to flow over the ice in the Jack River, and on the morning of May 16th, when Roger had gone out with Gersup the topographer, to map out with greater detail a little piece of country which had been passed by on a previous expedition, he saw that the center of the ice in the river was bulging up like a hog-backed bridge.
"What makes it bulge that way?" asked the boy.
"You should have been able to figure that out," was the response. "When the ice thaws it increases the volume of water under the ice. ”