Part 23 (1/2)

We did not resent this, as it saved us the trouble of unrolling ourselves. It did not take us long to stow our breakfast away in the hatches and then, with an eager vim, we sprang to our work.

We had packed the necessary supplies and tools to help us in constructing a raft. We each had an axe. There were also big spikes and several sizes of nails. We had plenty of these. Jim led the way to the slope of the valley, just above our camp, where grew the tall pines and in a few minutes there was the ring of the axes as we jumped into the work, each anxious to get his tree down before the other.

It was jolly work as I made the big yellow chips fly, and swinging into the stroke with all the weight of my body, poised from the toes.

Jim and Tom stood squarely on their feet and struck in only with the weight of their shoulders, and as they sent in their blows with greater rapidity, it looked as if they would surely beat me out. But it was like a bad stroke in rowing, and was hard on their wind and taxed their strength.

”Oh, you're slow,” grinned Jim with a gleam of his white teeth as he glanced over his shoulder at me. ”I'll have this fellow down before you are half through.”

My only reply was to send another blow with precision and a big, perfectly blocked chip flew into the air and came down on Jim's back. It was my turn to grin. ”They laugh best who laugh last.”

It was true that Jim's first tree came down a few seconds ahead of mine, but after that I beat him easily, no matter how hard he struggled.

Oh, I tell you, it was great work, cheerful and invigorating in that resin fragrant air. We soon stripped off our s.h.i.+rts and, bareheaded, we swung out glittering axes into the trunks of the pines.

I don't think that any of the old knights used their great battle axes against the gates of beleaguered cities or on each other's iron top knots with any more enthusiasm than we three boys did as we slew the pines. I imagined that I was Ivanhoe or Richard Coeur de Lion and this added more vigor to my blows.

I think it would have pleased our old physical director if he could have seen the muscles on our arms and back and shoulders. Jim, long and rangy, Tom somewhat lighter, but with clear cut development, making for agility, while I was rather lithe, with symmetrical muscles and of tireless activity. It was a pretty strong, three-stand combination.

After the trees were cut and trimmed, the next thing was to get them down to the beach where the raft was to be constructed. Of course we had felled them as near the selected place as possible. Jim decided to press Coyote and Piute into service for snaking the logs down. Then there was something doing every minute, like in a three-ringed circus.

Jim fixed up a crude harness out of the ropes and hitched our broncho team onto the first log. They bucked and reared and kicked. Sometimes they varied matters by falling over backwards. We let into them with the whips, that is Tom and I did, while Jim held the ribbons or ropes.

Finally they started to run and the log went snaking down the slope, but in a minute they came to an abrupt stop, turning an unexpected somersault. But after an hour of gymnastics and acrobatics they settled into the harness like respectable animals.

After awhile we put Tom to work cutting saplings of cottonwood and quaking aspens. These were to be used for cross pieces to hold the raft together.

We had all the material gathered at the beach by the middle of the afternoon and we went to work to construct the raft. There was nothing so extremely difficult about it, but there was lots of hard work and it was not such a simple matter as making a raft to float on some quiet pond or down a gentle river.

There were some tough questions which came up and it took all of Jim's craft and strength to settle them, and Tom's ingenuity backed Jim up.

The very weight of our boat was a problem, but three strong boys buckling into a job of that kind can make pretty good progress.

You can imagine how anxious we were to start on our dangerous and memorable journey. The call of the river was continually in our ears, and we would look way down the stretch of water and wonder what lay ahead of us in that far and mysterious land surrounded with weird plateaus and strange ranges.

”I'm going to put a keel on our craft,” said Jim. ”That will be the only way to keep her to the current.”

”I'd like to know where you will find it?” I asked.

”Don't you worry about that,” replied Jim. ”I'll locate it all right.

You fellows rest while I look around.”

”I don't need a rest,” I answered. ”You lay out some work for us while you are scouting around.”

Jim stood with his boot upon one log and his hand on his knee, supporting his chin. His eyes had a dull glaze and from this symptom and his att.i.tude, I want you to know that Jim was cogitating, and it was a subject worth thinking about, too, for it was of great importance that we should have a raft that would meet the requirements of the river.

CHAPTER XVIII