CHAPTER VIII

THE LAND WHERE IT NEVER RAINS

It was well on in the afternoon of the next day when Roger woke, to find his friend the frontiersman bustling about the camp. He came sharply when the boy hailed him.

"See here, lad," he said, "I figured that a rest wouldn't hurt you any, so I told the thin fellow that if you stayed on here a while, I didn't have much on hand, and I'd keep you company. Jest to watch that you didn't get up in the middle of the night and try and find some other new trail. So it's you and me for a few days, and I guess that teamster of yours ought to show up soon, because, of course, he doesn't know anythin' about what's been goin' on."

A couple of lazy weeks passed by rapidly, lazy because the Westerner insisted on doing all the work that needed to be done, and before they were over Roger found that he had nearly regained his full strength, his wiry frame recuperating without loss of vitality. Masseth, on his return, was much gratified to find how well the boy had got along, and the following week he took him alone to one of the most prominent stations on the northern side.

"Now, Roger," Masseth said to him, "I've just about finished what I want to do on this side, so I'm going across to run a level on the other side. But I'm very anxious to get a clear sight of this peak, where we're standing, for an extensive triangulation, in order to correct or rather verify some results. The only way in which this can be done is to flash a heliograph message to me, at a certain time on a certain day, in the way I showed you last week."

"Across seven miles?" asked the boy in amazement.

"More than that," said his chief, smiling. "Now here is the way you had better get at it. In this box, which you see has been securely fastened to the rock, are two pieces of tin, one with a quarter of an inch hole in it, the other with a hole an inch square. They point, with mathematical correctness, to a peak on the other side, which is an old station, and easily seen. If you look through, you can see the place."

Roger bent down, and looking through the aperture was able to determine a slight projection on the far distant bank, which he described and which was in verity the point sought.

"Now," continued Masseth, "two months hence, or to be more exact, sixty days from now, at eight o'clock in the morning, I will be waiting at that point on the other side, and I shall expect you to be here. Over the further piece of tin, as you see, I have hung a cloth, which you can drop while you are testing the glass. In this movable frame, so devised that it can be screwed up or down, or shifted slightly sideways, arrange the glass so that the reflection of it, shining through the larger hole, appears at an equal distance on all sides of the smaller opening. You understand me?"

"Quite, Mr. Masseth," answered the boy, who had been listening with all his ears.

"Very well," the older man continued. "At eight o'clock sharp, then, you will raise quickly the curtain in front of the smaller hole, and drop it again, doing this three times, allowing the hole to remain open for ten seconds each time. Do that every five minutes for half an hour, or six times in all, to allow for any possible variation of time in your watch. By the way, you had better have two watches in the event of one of them stopping or the hands catching, or something of that sort, because a month's work will depend on getting that signal. But I think I can trust you."

"You can, indeed, Mr. Masseth," said Roger. "But what shall I be doing during those two months? Am I to remain alone in camp?"

"Hardly," said his chief, smiling. "The Survey does not waste men that way. Mr. Mitchon has written me that Mr. Herold desires you should have an insight into the varied work of the department, and I have arranged for another topographic aid to meet me on the other side, so that, except for this heliograph signal, which I must remind you is excessively important, you will have finished with the work here."

"Then what?"

"Death Valley and the Mohave Desert," replied his chief. "It is perhaps a little hard to send you into a hot section of the country at this time of year, but, you see, you cannot go too far away because of your engagement with the sun on a morning two months hence--by the way, if it is cloudy, which is so rare a contingency as scarcely to be reckoned on, signal the next morning at the same hour--so you must stay near by, and the most interesting work at hand is that being done in the waterless country."

"Death Valley," the boy repeated, his eyes sparkling with excitement, "I have always wondered what Death Valley was really like."

"That will give you a chance to see it, and to find out for yourself."

"But how?" asked the boy surprisedly. "Isn't the air poisonous, or something? I had an idea that nothing could live in Death Valley."

Masseth smiled.

"You're mixing up some fairy story of the Upas Tree, or something of that sort," he said. "There's nothing very dangerous in Death Valley, except the lack of water. And even that is nothing like it used to be, because, while they have not found any more water, the places where pools do exist are carefully mapped out and made easy of access. But it is a grim and fearful place unless every step of the journey is carefully planned with relation to those few scanty wells."

"Then," said the boy, "if it is just lack of water, why was it called Death Valley?"

"A party of emigrants gave it that name," said the chief quietly, "and to them its sinister title bore a grim meaning. They had passed through the desert, suffering incredible hardships and were greatly weakened when they arrived at the valley. Still they pluckily journeyed on till they reached those salt and borax flats, where the surface is rougher to travel on than can be imagined, the salt having formed in sharp spikes and jagged scales with their edges at every angle, and shallow pans filled with dreadfully salt water. But it was water, and many of the party sought thus to quench their thirst."

"Although it was salt!" cried Roger. "I should think it would have made them crazy."

"It did," responded the older man. "The torture of an unquenchable thirst with no means to allay it, led first to madness, then to death, and the valley claimed a fearful toll. Some died outright, others became maniacal, several indeed having to be shot by their comrades in an effort to save the lives of those that remained. Few animals and fewer men found their way to the scanty water of the Panamint, and the tale as told by the survivors made the words Death Valley a name of fear to the 'Forty-Niners' and other early travelers in what was then known as the 'Great American Desert.' Death Valley it was called, and Death Valley it will remain until all memory of America's pioneers is past."

"And is the Survey working in there, too?"

"I happen to know that there is a short reconnoissance trip to be made to look into the question of the borax deposits of the Valley and the Mohave Desert, and if you start right away, you ought to be able to get to Daggett a week before the party reaches there, or at the slowest, in plenty of time. The borax industry is large, and as it depends in a great measure on the information furnished by the Survey, it might be a good thing for you to know something about."

"And how shall I get there?"

"I will lend you Duke."

"Your own horse? And what will you do, Mr. Masseth?"

"Oh, I'll take Black's mare, and let him ride one of the mules over. I am none too anxious to take Duke through the Canyon any more than I have to."

"And the route?" queried the boy.

"You will not find any difficulty there, I think, because all you have to do is to follow the edge of the Canyon. You go west and then south, over the famous Hurricane Fault, and beside that mighty gate a mile high through which the Colorado runs, passing from the grandeur of the Canyon to the dismal torrid lower Sierra country. You will reach the Santa Fe at Needles, where you can take the train for Ludlow, and changing there go to Daggett, to await the arrival of the party. It is not such a great distance, and there are trails all the way to Needles. But remember, you are still under my direction, and all this is merely incidental to the main piece of work I require of you, and that is, the heliograph signal on October 21st."

"I'll be there, Mr. Masseth," said Roger quietly. "You can bank on me for that."

The boy was so silent on his way back to camp that Masseth rallied him a little on his unusual reserve.

"Don't you want to go into the Mohave country?" he said. "Because if you feel that way, I will try to arrange some other plan. Only I thought you might wish to see that sort of country and get an idea of what the work is like out there."

"Indeed I do," said Roger hastily. "What made you think I didn't?"

"You were so quiet about it. And quietness is not your strong point."

"It isn't that," said Roger, hastily, "but I was just wondering whether I would be able to remember all the scenes and incidents of the year."

"Not all of them, of course," said the older man, "but you will find that their variety in experience is invaluable. You told me you were going to Alaska with Rivers later on. Now, if you have seen the Death Valley work as well as triangulation in the Grand Canyon and surveying in the Minnesota swamps, you will have a fair idea of the immense range of the work of the Survey."

"It is a contrast, all right," said Roger. "From the flat, boggy country of Minnesota to the high dry peaks of the Canyon, and from the intense heat of the desert to the ice-bound ranges of Alaska is certainly quite a jump. But I'm very glad to have the chance, Mr. Masseth, though I shall be sorry to leave you and the rest of the party."

That evening in camp, the chief announced his intention of returning to the far side of the Canyon, and stated that Roger would be left to send a heliograph message a couple of months later, and that in the meantime he would visit the Mohave country for a few weeks.

"Why," commented the frontiersman, when this plan was unfolded, "I was figurin' myself how it mightn't be so worse an idea to prospect some in that Silverbow country, now that I'm 'way over here. My two boys are working a small claim of mine near Oak Springs Butte, an' I've a notion that there's a heap of gold in that Kawich country. Guess I'll go with you part of the way to Daggett, pard; that is, if you're agreeable."

Nothing could have suited the boy better, and his exuberant delight in the prospect of his friend's presence throughout the long ride was obviously pleasing to the old man.

"That's a go then, bub," he said; "if you want to stick to the old trail I'll help you keep it, and if you want to find a new one, why, I'll just follow right along."

"But when are you going to break camp, Mr. Masseth?" asked the boy, who was growing a little tired of the continual reference to his crossing of the Canyon.

"The day after to-morrow, I think," the chief of the party replied, "as the work should be done by that time; so you can start the same day, only in the opposite direction."

In spite of Roger's interest in going to a new field, however, and though he had beside him his grizzled friend, one of the keenest twinges of loneliness the boy had felt while on the Survey came over him a couple of days later, as he saw the party which he had so long considered as his own, ride away from the site of the camp, leaving the frontiersman and himself looking after them. He would much have preferred being the first to start, but as the main party had to cross the Canyon, movement at the earliest dawn was necessary. One consolation he had in the possession of Duke, the chief's horse and a great favorite with the boy.

As Roger and his friend started on their journey westward, the boy said:

"You were speaking of some mines out this way. Do you own gold mines?"

"No, bub, not gold. Wouldn't have 'em as a gift."

"Why not?" asked the lad, surprised.

"Cost too much to work, and there's no money in it. You know the old saying about gold mines, don't you?"

"No, what is it?"

"That 'A copper mine will bring you gold; silver, silver; but a gold mine will only bring you a few coppers!'"

"I never heard that before," replied the lad, "and it sounds queer, too."

"Well, it's true. I wouldn't mind betting," said the old pioneer, "that there's more gold been put into gold mines than ever was taken out of them."

"How's that?"

"Well, you take it all through. There's the time and money spent by the thousands of prospectors that spend all their lives wandering up and down the mountains trying to locate the gold. Then, when a vein is found, some fellow's got to put in a lot of capital to start to work it, and thousands have to be spent for machinery to crush it, before it is at all certain that the mine will pay. Then, in order to raise this money, brokers all over the United States are selling shares of these mines, and they make a good living out of it. And when you think how many tens of thousands of dollars are spent on each mine, and how many thousands of mines there are which have proved dead failures, and over and beyond this, how narrow the margin of profit is even on a successful strike, it doesn't look like much of a paying business, eh?"

The trail becoming too rough at this point for riding side by side, the boy dropped behind, thinking over the difference between the finding of gold as it really is, and as his adventurous ideas had supposed it to be. When the trail widened again the boy cantered up, and continued the former subject with the remark:

"Are your mines copper, then?"

"No, azurite."

"What's that?" asked the boy, who had never heard of it before.

"It's a sort of stone that they make up into all sorts of jewels that women wear. Of course it's not precious like sapphire and emerald and all that sort of thing, but that's perhaps because it is not as well known, nor as rare. It's just as pretty, I think. I'd rather have it than a gold mine or a copper mine, either, for that matter."

"Why?" asked Roger.

"Because it can be worked so easily. You see a small box of that stuff can be packed on a mule any distance and then shipped, and if a different point is used each time no one knows where it comes from and there is no competition. Now copper, you see, is only valuable in large quantities, and it needs a big industry to run it. And of this rarer sort of stuff, there's lots of it around for any one that wants to look for it."

"What sort of stuff?"

"All these rare mineral earths. The clay that's used in making gas mantles, for instance; or there's tungsten, which is worth a lot now for making the wires of incandescent light. I've a friend who's rich because he got hold of a deposit of tungsten from reading the Geological Survey bulletins. There's a lot more of it in the Snake Range of Nevada, just waiting for somebody who's got energy enough to go ahead and develop it."

Thus, throughout the entire trip, Roger found his interest in the work greatly whetted by this new view-point, looking at the Survey from the side of the shrewd Western man, seeking practical results, rather than the more professional and scientific aspect of the field worker himself. Indeed, it opened the boy's eyes immensely to the vastness of the importance of the department when he realized that there was scarcely a branch of manufacture that did not depend on some rare element, in some of its processes, and that these rare elements were brought to light in the very work that he had been doing. So it chanced that when Roger and his friend reached Daggett, he was as enthusiastic concerning the economic side of the work as he had been regarding its opportunities for adventure.

Masseth had estimated the time of the party which Roger was to join with close accuracy, for the boy had not been in the little settlement more than three days when the party rode up, all on mules. Roger introduced himself and presented Masseth's letter.

"Oh!" said his new leader in surprise. "So you're the boy who crossed the Grand Canyon alone! I heard of that in San Bernardino, some tourists were telling the story."

"Yes, Mr. Pedlar," said Roger with a flush. "But there wasn't so much to it, I just had to get across."

"Well, I'm glad to have you. Now what is your idea in joining us, because I see Mr. Masseth says that you are still on duty with him."

Roger explained the two months' signal that had been agreed upon, and Pedlar, tall and light of hue, as though the desert had bleached him, whistled softly.

"He's always taking long chances," he said, "but to do him justice they generally come out all right. As I understand it, then, you want to come along for a few weeks and then get back to Bright Angel Point in plenty of time."

"Yes, sir," the boy answered.

"Well, that will be about right, only it's not going to take as long as you think. It will be just a hurried reconnoissance. I suppose you know why we're going in?"

"Mr. Masseth said something about borax," the lad replied, "but he didn't say just what you were going to do."

"It's this way, Doughty," was the reply. "Borax, you know, was first obtained by evaporating the water of some lakes in California. Later, in the beds of some old dry lakes, the borax was found already evaporated by the sun, and for years these marsh crusts formed the whole supply of the country. Then the Geological Survey pointed out that before these lakes were dried up the borax must have flowed into them by means of some small streams or just the regular drainage of the rainfall."

"You mean," said Roger, interrupting, "that there must have been a lot of it near by somewhere, and that each rain just soaked away a little and brought it along."

"Exactly. Therefore it was up to the Survey to locate these large deposits, and this was done. A large bed was found at Borate, about twelve miles northeast of here, and this proved so valuable that more surveying was done, especially in the region about Death Valley, where one of the old salt marshes was located."

"Then it was the Survey that gave to the country all the borax it is now using."

"It was," replied Pedlar. "Now, you see, I am making a hasty trip to the known deposits, so that other related beds can be pointed out, as each new find adds to the resources of the country, or, in other words, makes the United States just that much richer."

"How is that?" asked the boy. "The government doesn't run the mines."

"No. But don't you see, the United States means the people of the United States, and if the money spent on borax goes to American producers in American fields instead of to Italy, where so much of it went before, the country is richer to that amount."

Then, putting the matter as simply as he could, Pedlar explained to the boy how greatly the commercial prosperity of the country is due to some of the lesser known government bureaus, and pointed out the wisdom of the fostering of American industries. Even so, it was not until the tangible discovery of a hitherto unknown bed of rock salt, fifty feet in thickness, that Roger realized how, every day in the year, the prosperity of the country was being advanced by this patient scientific investigation. The new salt deposit was found at the extreme south end of Death Valley, a few miles before the trail went through a gap in the Funeral Mountains. Skirting the Amargosa Desert, a furnace of cactus and alkali, the party reached Grapevine Peak, from which may be seen perhaps the most desolate and forbidding view in the Western Hemisphere.

"Behind you," broke in the voice of the chief, "beginning at that peak you see fifty miles away in the distance, and which is known as Oak Springs Butte, is a section of the country containing over 3,000 square miles, equal in size to the states of Delaware and Rhode Island together, which is absolutely waterless. 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. It is dryer and hotter than the Great Sahara Desert of Africa, and wild and rough beyond belief."

"And has that awful place been covered by the Survey, too?" asked the boy.

"I did one quadrangle," answered Pedlar, "and there's a party in there this season."

"But how do they manage for water?"

"They tote every drop. And," with a grim meaning, "they are not taking baths twice a day at that!"

"On this other side," continued the chief of the party after a pause, turning round, "is a place you know well by reputation."

"That is the famous Death Valley?" queried Roger.

"That," said the chief, putting his heels to the mule's side and starting down the slope, "is the infamous Death Valley."

Half-way down the slope Pedlar halted and pointed to a sign on a box lid, stuck into a pile of stone.

"Gruesome advertising, that!" he commented.

Roger read it. It was the signboard of a local undertaking company, and the implication of such a need for every one descending into the valley was to the boy more sinister than any of the stories he had heard about it. As they reached the valley, dunes twenty to thirty feet high surrounded them on every side, with a salt sand between, sometimes soft, sometimes with a treacherous crust through which the hoofs of the mules sank, often cutting their legs, into the wounds of which the alkaline dust penetrated, causing great pain. The boy tore his coat into strips to bind around the pasterns of Duke, but even so some slight scratches were unavoidable.

They journeyed on over this fearful traveling for many weary miles, till, suddenly, Roger's quick eyes, eagerly looking for new things, discerned at the entrance to a small rock-bound canyon a sliver of wood broken off and sticking upright in the sand. As wood in that country is as unusual as it would be to see a shaft of burnished silver protruding from the arid ground, Roger rode up to it. There, penciled apparently recently on the wood, were the following words:

"Have gone down canyon looking for the spring; have been waiting for you.--Titus."

The boy called to the chief. Pedlar came over and read the message, then quietly and with reverence removed his hat.

"Poor chap!" he said very softly. "There is no spring in that canyon."

He summoned the other members of the party and silently they rode up the narrow cleft. 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."

They rode up. It was as the chief had said, and Titus's friend, whoever he might have been, would never see him more.

"Shall we make a grave?" asked Roger in an awed tone.

"Better in the little cemetery at Rhyolite," answered the other. "I will send word."

"But ought we not to make a pile of stones over him, or something?" suggested Roger, his mind full of thoughts running on the possibility of interference by wild beasts.

"Nothing can hurt him here," was the reply. "Not even a buzzard will haunt so desolate a spot as this. But still----" he paused. Then thinking that it might ease the boy's mind, as well as show respect for the dead, he gave orders to raise a cairn of stones over the body of "Titus."

The discovery cast a gloom over the party, and the penciled piece of wood, which was to be sent back to Rhyolite to be used instead of a headstone, seemed an uncanny thing to bear. The tragedy had given the boy a violent distaste for the bleak country, for he seemed to see a body lying under the lee of every cliff. He was glad when they reached civilization again, and he could turn his face away from the land of sage brush and alkali.

When he came to bid farewell to Mr. Pedlar, however, the latter looked at him a little keenly.

"I could see," the older man said, "that the Titus Canyon matter worked a little on your nerves. Now, I don't want you to feel that you must get hard, for you will find that the finest and most daring men in the world are often as tender as a woman, but it contains a most important lesson for you."

"And that is?" queried Roger.

"That it is only the fool who over-estimates his own strength."