Part 7 (2/2)

I found dinner ready, the wagon unloaded, and the reach ready to be repaired, and better yet, Bob had found a gimlet which we had overlooked before. It was a delicate tool to use in hardwood, but after lunch we managed to get the reach ready for use and were loaded up and off again at 3 P. M. We soon found we had our front stanchions on wrong and had to raise up the wagon and turn them, so that by the time we had this done, and had stopped at the section house for water, it was 4:20 P. M., and we were only ten miles from our morning camp.

This was discouraging enough, but from here on the washes were not so frequent and, in between, the roads were good, so we made ten miles more before we camped.

We had made fifty-one miles in three days and there remained only three days in which to make sixty-nine miles, and we began to worry about the kind of roads we would find from here on, but we had met no one who could tell us. We camped near a section house called Whitehouse, but the man there didn't know anything about wagon roads except that we were the first wagon outfit he had seen in some time, so we just hoped for better things and turned in.

”It never rains, but it pours,” some one has said, and that evidently was what happened between Whitehouse and Cisco, for we were until 11 A. M. getting there, only six miles. We filled washes, mended a bridge, and were tired enough when we pulled into town. A store and postoffice, the railroad station and corral, was every building there, but it looked large to us and we were able to buy some provisions of the canned order, get a bale of alfalfa, and the storekeeper gave me one-half his supply of oats, which was just a pailful.

Still sixty-three miles to Grand Junction and we are told the trail following the railroad is washed out and in the same condition as the one we have just come over. We are advised to try getting to Grand Junction over what they call the old narrow gauge route, or old grade.

On the theory that it cannot be any worse that way, we cross over the railroad tracks and go north. The road is bad, however, and mostly uphill this afternoon, and by 7 P. M. we figure we have made only eight miles, or fourteen for the day. The horses are tired and discouraged. We camp by a mud hole for water and turn the horses loose to graze. The country is mountainous and of clay formation, and, aside from a little bunch of gra.s.s here and there, is bare.

We began to be worried about getting to Grand Junction by the third and concluded we wouldn't try. We had not agreed to be there before the fourth anyway, we said, and so after deciding not to get there before the fourth (which decision was especially funny because we knew we couldn't possibly get there before and perhaps not then), we turned in. We were not a very hilarious party and I think the horses had begun to tire of life as well. They certainly looked dejected.

Sat.u.r.day, July 2, was much like Friday, only, as some one remarked, ”more so.” Our shovel was continually in demand. We had one very long hard pull after lunch which finished Kate up entirely, and at 5:30 P.

M. we camped near a patch of gra.s.s, after making about fourteen miles, as near as we could guess, leaving us forty-one miles still to go. We crossed Cottonwood Creek about nine-thirty this morning and West.w.a.ter Creek at 4 P. M., and are probably about six miles from Bitter Creek.

Cottonwood and West.w.a.ter Creeks both had the sandy side up, and we do not expect any better of Bitter Creek.

Kate is tired out and still I do not want to put Dixie into the collar yet, as her neck is nearly well, and I want it to get entirely well before I put her in to take Kate's place. If Kate can only hold out until we get to Grand Junction, we can rest her there, and Dixie's neck can then probably stand the collar again. Good old Bess, she never complains, but works every day. Luckily she has not been laid up at all as yet and apparently is made of iron. She goes on day after day seemingly just as fresh as when she started.

We have two hours of daylight left, so, as Bob volunteers to make camp and get supper, Doc and I take the rifle and climb up on a mesa, where we find small pine trees and big rocks, and from which we get a beautiful view of Mt. Wagg and Mt. Tomasaki. We have been in sight of Mt. Wagg ever since we left Green River. We sat there for a full half-hour and then returned to camp.

Just as we sat down to eat we saw a camp wagon coming up the trail from the east. The wagon sheet was clean and it was a brand new outfit; we could see that a mile away. The team was fresh, and a man and woman sat on the front seat. Behind was a lead horse, and bringing up the rear a make-believe cowboy and cowgirl. He was carrying a rifle. While they pa.s.sed us within a hundred yards, they never saw us (apparently), and (apparently) we never saw them. We put them down as a wedding party from Grand Junction--they looked so new and acted so green.

This was the first camping outfit we have met on our trip since reaching the desert and we are nearly across to the Rocky Mountains now, so evidently they are not very numerous, and as to sociability,--well, up to date we haven't found any one to be sociable with. If you mind your business, the other fellow minds his, and no questions are asked.

We had about forgotten the camp wagon outfit when, in taking a look about, we noticed their camp fire about two miles west at a water hole we had watered at as we pa.s.sed. They were still there when we pulled out in the morning.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WE ABANDON OUR WATER BARRELS]

As I started to hitch up I found Kate was practically ”all in,” so we were put to it to devise some means to reach Grand Junction by to-morrow, the fourth. We had given up getting there before and we still had forty-one miles to go, but I was bound to be there to-morrow if it took a horse, so we decided to lighten the s.h.i.+p, so to speak, by throwing away everything we did not need. First came the water barrels and platform. The barrels being empty were of no use to us to-day, and by making a forced march we could get to Grand Junction without them, and after that we would not need them. Then we threw overboard samples of ore, rocks, and all extra bolts and spikes; also a bunch of hay we had left, and figured we were about a hundred and fifty pounds the lighter. Then we put Dixie on the pole with Bess, padded up her collar, put a rope on the pole to take the weight off her neck, and leaving Kate to take care of herself as best she might, we started over the last few miles of desert which separated us from Grand Junction and its orchards on the western slope of the Rockies. First we took a picture of the barrels and wrote our names on them.

I did so hate to leave Kate, but I hated worse to miss being at Grand Junction on the fourth, after having only so recently confirmed the statement that we would be there. Besides, the Doctor had telegraphed Mrs. Lancaster, who was on her way home from San Francisco, that he would meet her there and for her to stop off and, as she was quite sick, he was very anxious to be there to meet her.

We had not gone far, however, before I saw that Kate was following us and I figured that if she would stay near the trail, some one would pick her up and care for her, or else she might reach Mack, which we figured could not be more than twenty miles away. We had a few very hard places to cross, but as a rule the grade was down hill and the wagon ran better without the barrels, and we pushed ahead so fast that we made camp within four miles of Mack by twelve-thirty.

While we were eating our lunch we heard Kate nicker, back up the trail, and very shortly she came up. We had lost sight of her long before and when she came up greeted her as a long-lost cousin. We gave her a feed of oats and then got her some water out of a water hole near at hand, and concluded that if she wanted to come so bad we would not discourage her; so when we started up again we thought she would follow us in to Mack where, if necessary, we could leave her. When we got nearly to town she was so far behind that Bob volunteered to wait for her and ride her in, so we left Bob and went on.

Leaving the team in front of the store, we hunted up the man who ran it and bought some hay and oats of him, also some groceries, as we were short. When we came out to the wagon there was Kate, but no Bob.

He came shortly afterward, having walked in. He said he sat down by the side of the trail to wait for Kate and he could hear her nickering as she came along, just as though she were crying, and as she came around a bend he got up to catch her, but, although she seemed hardly able to walk, she must have mistaken him for a ”holdup man” for she ran by him and he never could catch up with her. So he walked in, much to his disgust and our merriment.

We were now in Colorado, having crossed the State line and left Utah behind. We found Mack a very neat little place, with about a dozen houses, and at the end of a wagon road which led straight down along the railroad track to Grand Junction, with a fence on both sides, and irrigation ditches and ranches along the way for twenty miles. It seemed like another country, sure enough. We had travelled so long in the desert and without a real road that we were surprised when we saw one, and the fences looked strange. Here were real people along the road in buggies and wagons and on horseback. We just looked, and said nothing.

We drove about four miles along this road and then made camp, fifteen or sixteen miles from Grand Junction, feeling quite sure we could get into town about noon the next day. We still had Kate with us and I told Doc we ought to feel pretty good, as we were going to ”make it,”

bringing all the horses through and on schedule time. He didn't say much, but that night as we lay on the tarpaulin trying to sleep and dodging a few rain drops from a thunder shower, I asked him what he was thinking about, and he said, ”Nothing at all.” About an hour after that he suddenly asked me what I was thinking about. I had supposed he was asleep long ago and was too surprised to answer at first. I had been thinking how much nicer it was camping out in the desert, and how shut in I felt between fences, and how disgusted the horses must feel to be tied to a fence post, and that if I were left to my own inclinations I would turn around and go out into the desert again. I did not want to admit this, however, as it seemed so foolish, so I quickly said, ”I asked you the same thing an hour ago; you answer first.”

What do you suppose he said?

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