CHAPTER IV

IN THE GIANT TULE SWAMPS

From the time that Roger fooled the members of the party just as they were organizing a rescue search for him, his path became much easier. Though still he occasionally made mistakes, as was unavoidable, he found they were condoned rather than exaggerated. Indeed, the boy realized that he was no longer treated as a tenderfoot, as he had been but a few weeks before, but, none the less, he was not sorry when Field told him one evening that he thought Roberts would be along shortly.

Roger was growing weary of the Minnesota work because it was evident that it consisted of the same routine day after day, that it was unremittingly hard work, and that the sense of progress was slow in proportion to the labor involved. Then the mosquitoes were beginning to get troublesome, and worst of all, the "bulldog flies" began to make their presence felt. These large horse-flies, which madden cattle and drive horses to distraction, in certain parts of the marsh were ferocious and hungry enough to attack men. Roger found that he was popular with them and got many sharp nips, which, though in no sense dangerous, were irritating and painful.

"I don't want to seem ungrateful, Mr. Field," he said, when his chief broached the return of his former co-laborer to him, "and I'm not, but Mr. Mitchon seemed to think that I would only stay a few weeks here, for the sake of the experience and to get the hang of this kind of work. I think I have gained some knowledge of it, and," he laughed, "I can shoot snipe and teach swamp angels to steal ham sandwiches."

The chief smiled in response.

"You turned the tables on us very neatly that time, Roger," he said, "and you really had me badly worried, because, as you know yourself, these swamps are not a good place to get lost in. I reckon, from what you've told me, that if you had walked heedlessly on into that quag without trying to test it step by step, you would still be there, only at the bottom instead of the top."

"I really believe I would," answered the boy seriously.

"If you stick to the Survey," went on Field, "and come to be the head of a party, particularly in wild country, you will see how necessary it is to do just what you're told instead of trying to run the thing your own way. If you follow instructions and anything goes wrong, then the fault belongs to the head of the party, who is supposed to have enough judgment and experience to know what to do in an emergency. 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. Really, when you come to consider how much of the work has been done in lands absolutely unknown, and that thousands of miles of territory have been covered wherein a white man had never before set his foot, this is nothing short of astounding."

"But if sickness should strike a camp?" queried the boy.

"Hard work, clean living, good judgment, and the open air, are worth all the drugs we know about and a whole lot more that we don't. Of course a small chest of certain radical remedies accompanies each party, with quinine and things like that, but it is seldom that it is opened."

"But how about accidents, Mr. Field?"

"Such as?"

"Breaking a leg by a fall, or something like that," the boy responded.

"I don't see what business any man on the Survey has to fall. That isn't what he's there for. He's there not to fall. Personally, I have never had any accidents which would need other than ordinary attention, nor have I had any with any members of my party. Then an injury would have to be pretty bad, any way, that couldn't wait until some kind of a doctor was reached, that is unless it was in the north of Alaska, or some place like that, and in such trips a little surgical case is sent along, and the chief would do as well as he could do with it."

"Then," said Roger with a short laugh, "I'm just as glad that I'm not at the bottom of the quag, for your sake as well as my own, for I should hate to be the one to spoil the Survey's record."

But while Roberts was expected in camp shortly, a couple more weeks rolled away before the party, completing its line through a very difficult piece of marsh, headed for one of the famous corduroy roads and made its way back to headquarters. There, with one of the farmer's children on his knee and the others grouped around him sat Roberts, occupied apparently in telling some interesting story or fairy tale. He put down the youngster and shouted as the party hove in sight.

The chief was delighted without question to see the newcomer, for while he had been greatly pleased with Roger, the boy could not be expected to be as valuable as an experienced man, and was not to be depended on to proceed in his work without instruction and supervision.

"I was looking for you a couple of weeks ago, Mr. Roberts," he said.

"I expected to be here earlier, Mr. Field," answered the other, "but Mr. Herold asked me to put in a few days in that Susquehanna flow-measurement business, and that put me back."

Roger looked inquiringly at his chief, who catching his look of question, said,

"Well, son?"

"I would like to ask," said the boy hesitatingly, "what that stream flow-measurement is for?"

Roberts looked up a little surprisedly, but a few words from Fields explained the situation, and the newcomer turned to Roger quite affably.

"Certainly, my boy, it's very simple," he said. "You see, all work on rivers, whether for the purpose of irrigation, flood control, or navigation, is dependent on the amount of water that flows through that river channel every year. A week of wet weather makes a vast difference to the amount of water the river is carrying, and a dry spell cuts it off."

"But don't springs and things keep the water about even?" queried the boy.

"No, indeed," answered his informant emphatically. "Why, the Tennessee River, which I worked on once, for three months never flowed more than 20,000 cubic feet per second, yet that same year, for fifteen days in the spring, it tore down with over 360,000 feet a second. In other words, in the spring it was as big as eighteen rivers its usual size."

"Are all rivers like that?"

"Most of them. You see, suppose in the middle of summer a river is ten feet deep with a three-mile current, in the autumn is only four feet deep with a two-mile current, but in the spring floods goes rushing through its bed forty feet deep with a ten-mile current, it makes a mighty difference to the towns and villages all the way along. The destructiveness of a flood lies in the top few feet of water. In the second place, the navigation of a stream can only be estimated by its lowest depth recorded, and its horse power in the same way. But this same river, which in the autumn was only four feet deep and developed a corresponding horse power, would have an average depth of eight feet with four times the horse power. If then, the water that wastefully and ruinously flows down in the spring is conserved all through the summer, the river has been made more than four times as valuable."

"And how is this done?"

"That's too big a subject to take up now. Still, you can understand that if you dam the stream high up, and divert all the water over a certain height into immense reservoirs, the water could be let down gradually later. But that all depends on the measurement, which is taken daily for years, often--as in the case I was in--from a cable stretched from bank to bank, from which a little 'bos'un's chair' is hanging on a pulley, so that sitting in this little framework you can reach up to the cable and pull yourself to and fro. The one over the Susquehanna, where I was, is over a mile long, and of course it's pretty high up to allow for the sag, which is not small on a wire of that immense span."

Roger had a host of questions to ask but kept silent, not wanting to monopolize the talk when older men were there.

"By the way, Roberts," asked Field, seeking to change the subject from a topic which was stale to all the members of the party except Roger, "how did you like the work in the lower Sacramento Valley?"

"Parts of it weren't so bad, Mr. Field," was the reply. "Indeed, I think I've struck worse going right up here and in the Mud Lake district, but the project down there is on so large a scale that one is bound to become enthusiastic in the work. The bush is very dense, of course, semi-tropical in character, but where the growth is heavy the swamp is not so bad, so that it becomes a mere question of bushwhacking. Then, too, that southern stuff is all soft to cut and much easier to get through. The tule grass, however, is different."

"I've never been down in that tule grass," said one of the party, "is it as bad as has been described?"

"It's never been adequately described on paper," was the ready answer. "Uncle Sam wouldn't let the report go through the mails."

Roger grinned.

"But what is it like, Mr. Roberts?" he said.

The newcomer thought for a moment.

"It's like what a field of wheat would seem to a very small dog," he answered. "It's too thick to walk through, too high to see over, and as stuffy as a tenement house with all the windows nailed down."

"How do you manage it then," asked the boy. "Do you go on stilts?"

"Stilts!" ejaculated the surveyor. "You'd have to be an opera dancer with legs about twelve feet long to manage stilts down there. And even after you cut it down, walking on the stubble is like tramping over bayonet blades stuck in the ground point up. No, what we do is to cut a sort of trail for a horse, who is hitched to a light buckboard. The horse goes through because he's got to, and the buckboard follows unless the harness breaks."

"But how do you get your tripods above the rushes," said the chief, "for you surely can't cut lines everywhere."

"We don't. The legs of the tripod are spliced to sticks long enough to raise them above the grass: and the topographer, standing sometimes on the body of the buckboard, sometimes on the seat, works with his nose just peering above the giant rushes, from a rod of extra length, deducting from his calculations the height of the tripod and the buckboard from the ground."

"And is it dry?"

"Mostly, except when the tide comes in at the lower part. At least, it's not soggy wet, like it is here. It's dead easy to get lost though, and you can't see any landmarks. You could chase your own back hair for a week and never know that you were going in a circle."

"Apropos of getting lost, Roberts," said the older man, "we had a little experience with the lad here that is worth repeating," and beginning from the snipe-hunt, he related the entire affair, showing first how well they had got the laugh on the tenderfoot, and how he had got back in return. Roberts laughed long and heartily at the picture conjured up of Roger sitting in the boughs above the party, hearing them discuss plans for his rescue and heroically resolving to leave nothing undone till they should find him.

"I didn't fare as well when I got trapped down there," he commented, "and while I suppose it was funny, I couldn't see the joke of it myself."

"Was that in the tule grass?" asked Field. "Tell us the yarn."

"I think I told you," began the new assistant, "how hard that stuff is to make a way through, and though it is really almost as tangled as this marsh work up here, the ground is so flat that far fewer bench marks are required. We had taken a long sight, because there was a sort of depression at that point which we wanted to delimit, and I was quite a distance from the plane table. Suddenly I felt a swish of water at my feet, my first realization that the tide was coming in. This had often happened before, and the water usually rose to a little above the knee, when, as soon as the tide ebbed, it would flow out and leave all dry again.

"Of course I was aware that I was working in a slight depression, but as a matter of fact it never occurred to me that this would make any especial difference. I was surprised, certainly, at the strength of the tide as it flowed in, and I remember a little later wondering whether it was spring tide and not being able to find any reason for the heavy flow, but it was only casually that the matter occurred to me at all. Few minutes elapsed, however, before I realized that any greater increase of depth would be a really serious matter. The water was already above my knees and increasing at an alarming rate. I think I have shown you how hard it is to get through that stuff, and to cross a hundred yards of tule grass is a matter of half an hour's work. Still, at any moment, I thought the water would reach its maximum and I felt ashamed to start back after all the labor of reaching the point where I then was.

"Of course I am not usually the tallest man in the party [the speaker was not more than five feet six or seven] and the boys used to joke me about my height. I knew they would roast me to a turn if I had to let on that I was afraid of being drowned in a few feet of water. So I held on. But the water had crept up rapidly until it was well above my waist, and I determined, jesting or no jesting, that I was going to strike for higher ground, or, if possible, get as far as the buckboard. The other fellows couldn't see the trouble I was in because they were on a little crest of ground, and because the waving tule grass shut off all sight of the water.

"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 grass 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 grass!'

"'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 grass 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 grass 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 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.

"'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 grasshopper!' '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 space. 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.

"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