BEGINNING THE BOAT
After we had got thoroughly rested, Jim from being rescued and Tom and I from doing the rescuing act, we went back to our camp.
"It's rather nice," remarked Jim, "to camp under cottonwoods after having nothing but pines over us, or the sky."
"It does seem sort of civilized," said Tom. "This is one of the nicest places we have struck. Just the kind for a picnic."
The broad-leaved trees were over our heads, and there was an open space amongst them for our camp. The trees were old, and some with bent trunks on which we could sit and swing our feet. After the wide and lonely extent of plains that we had been journeying over, our camp among the trees seemed a cosy shelter.
But as evening came on our enthusiasm received a severe jolt, for swarms of mosquitoes came in from the levels between the two streams. We began to slap around our ears in frantic efforts at self-protection.
"Does this remind you of anything?" asked Tom.
"You bet it does," said Jim. "It was way back in Kansas where they came near eating us alive. I know when I tried to take aim at some ducks they settled so thick on the gun that I could not see the sight."
"Yes, I recollect building a smudge back of black Carl and setting his tail afire, too," I put in.
"We won't stay any longer around here than we have to," said Jim.
"How long do you suppose before we will be ready to start down the river?" I asked.
"We will get to work to-morrow," said Jim, "and we won't waste any time. It would not surprise me if we were ready to launch out after two days."
The reader will wonder what we will do now that the river is reached. Of course we had no boats with us and there was no place within five hundred miles where we could have them made. Nor did we have the materials wherewith to construct a boat.
As to our ponies we had no other course than to leave them at this point. We could not take them with us because we did not expect to build a Noah's ark. If we had been in striking distance of a settlement, Jim would have taken the horses and sold them.
However, we would not be out anything, as the ponies had cost us nothing, as we had captured them from the Indians, but we regretted having to leave our faithful companions who had once saved our lives when we were in desperate straits.
Of course we had not come so far without some definite plan of action when we struck the river.
"I don't think we could have reached the Green at a better point than this," said Jim, "because we have different kinds of trees to make a raft."
"It's a pity we couldn't have a boat," I said. "It would be so much easier to manage than a raft, and it would make better time."
"I don't know as it would be any safer," remarked Jim. "You could stove in a boat on one of those sharp rocks, but it would take something worse than that to break up a solid raft."
"If we are going to get up so early, we might just as well turn in now," said Tom.
"It will be a good way to keep off the mosquitoes," I said.
But we soon found that these pests were very persistent and kept serenading around our ears and settling on any exposed parts of our anatomy, so that we had to keep our head ducked down under the blankets, and thus curled up, we were soon fast asleep.
It was not uncomfortably warm, either, as there was a nip in the air that made the blankets seem all right. We slept a little later than was usual with us, for the deep shade of the trees shut out the rays of the sun, and it was a half hour before Jim roused us.
"Get up, boys, or we will miss our train," he cried, and he rolled us out of our blankets onto the ground.
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 shirts 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 C[oe]ur 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 attitude, 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.