Читать книгу The Cruise of a Schooner - Albert W. Harris - Страница 7

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It is almost impossible to describe the country we found ourselves in as we started out from Daggett on the afternoon of May twentieth, because, to use a home-made expression, “it does not sound at all as it looks.” We are to follow the Mojave River Valley until we get through the Mojave Canyon, then go north around the base of the Soda Mountains, etc., as per directions. Now the above sounds easy. It makes one think of water running down hill, and with water the mountains should have trees among the rocks, as a canyon suggests a rocky country.

PROVISIONED FOR THE DESERT

The real picture, however, which presented itself to us that afternoon was a desolate, wind-swept country; the valley looked like a wide rolling stretch of desert, flanked by bare hills, with no sign of a river. It was so cold that even with our coats on we were none too comfortable. The wind blew so hard we had to take the canvas off the wagon, and after going about ten miles we made camp for the night at a place where the trail took us close to a deserted railroad section house, which had a well. These railroad wells are really cisterns, but instead of being built to catch rain water, are designed to hold the water that the Salt Lake R. R. hauls in tank cars and distributes regularly to the section men. These section houses were located about twenty or thirty miles apart and about every other one had a well. The others had a few barrels, so, as we afterwards found out, if one came to the railroad track he knew that by following it fifteen or twenty miles he would probably find a deserted section house with a few pails of water left in a barrel, or perhaps a well with a few barrels of water, and possibly a section crew that had not been laid off. In the latter case you could find out how far it was to the next water. The water in the railroad wells was very good, but where the company found enough water to fill the big tank cars they evidently sent over the line when the road was running, no one seemed to know. We concluded, however, that it came from Kelso, California, or Las Vegas, Nevada, where we found out later they had water tanks and plenty of good water. We had met no one since leaving Daggett who could tell us about the trail ahead, but with plenty of water we felt cheerful enough and expected to make a good many miles the next day, so turned in to get an early start.

Saturday morning, May twenty-first, we found we had lost our canteen. It was so cold and windy the afternoon before that we hadn’t needed the canteen and in taking the sheet off the wagon we must have pulled it off, but where and when we didn’t know. Having plenty of water to start with we concluded we could pick up another canteen or improvise one, so we did not go back far to look for it, but started out to get over as much ground as possible.

There was no air stirring; it warmed up early and later got hot. The sand made it hard pulling and finally, at 11 A. M., we reached another deserted section house. There was a well and bucket, and, while there was no shade and the heat was intense, we managed to keep fairly comfortable by lying under the wagon and recalling how cool it had been the day before. Our dog, Tuck, seemed to feel the heat more than we did, or the horses, but it was principally because we had hard work keeping him in the wagon. If he saw anything move, from a coyote to a lizard, he would jump out of the wagon and undertake to catch it. The lizards would disappear in the sand and the coyotes in the distance, and Tuck would be hot for an hour or two afterward.

About 2 P. M. we started on again, this time driving spike, as the sand was getting harder to pull through and it took all three horses to do it. By evening we had reached what is called the canyon of the Mojave River. Here we camped in the bed of the river, which at this place was a mere rivulet. The river bed, however, was about two hundred yards wide, full of gravel and stones, with occasionally a big boulder. Willows grew in patches on the banks, and here and there a cottonwood. On each side the bare mountains had edged up to the bank, and we had a shut-in feeling. The river, however, small as it was at this time, no doubt rushed through here at times, carrying a large volume of water out into the desert beyond.

Having picked out a place to camp, where there were no rocks, we proceeded to get supper, while Tuck raced up and down in what little water there was in the river and had a glorious time. We were tired with the heat and sand, and so were the horses, but after supper we decided to take a swim; at least that is what we said, but the reader can imagine we did not swim much in a stream four feet wide and three inches deep. It was quite a grotesque sight to see three men trying to take a bath in such a stream by the light of the moon. In fact we laughed a great deal ourselves, but we were so long at it, and it grew cold so fast, that we were shivering before we got back to the wagon. Such is the difference in temperature between night and day in this country.