The Boy With the U. S. Survey

by Francis Rolt-Wheeler

But, about two hundred yards down the river, there stuck out above the water a large projecting snag, which had been carried down the stream from the forests hundreds of miles above, and which had been partly buried in silt and thereby held firm. The snag being on the further side of the river, just as it took a sharp curve, had made a tiny shoal and the burro was slung by the current against the snag and held there by the force of the water. The donkey had hardly struck the snag before Roger, gasping and exhausted, came whirling down upon him, but his smooth wet sides afforded no handhold and Roger was slipping away from him when his hands unconsciously touched and grasped the animal's tail.

A violent jerk followed, and for a moment it seemed doubtful whether the wrench would not tear the burro from the crotch of the limb in which he was imprisoned, but the anchored tree held fast, and Roger, though his arms were nearly pulled from their sockets, fought inch by inch his way to the lee of the burro, grasped the snag, and finally got footing on a part of it below the water, where the current was not so swift. But there was no time to lose, so Roger, rapidly unfastening his shoes from around the burro's neck, threw them to the shore, which was about sixteen feet distant; then to get a start for a jump he balanced himself on the topmost branch of the snag and gave a wild leap for safety.

He could jump six feet, and with arms outstretched reach five, leaving scarcely two yards to cover. This the impetus of his leap should give him, Roger figured, but even those few feet were almost too much, and had not the shore curved a trifle at that point he might have been carried out toward the center of the stream again. But the initial velocity of his spring was just enough, and a moment later, with his heart beating like a trip-hammer and trembling with the exertion, Roger flung himself upon the other shore. The Colorado was crossed!

Roger's first thought, after a sense of gratitude and relief, was for the burro, but for whose providential capture in the snag and whose most convenient tail, he would probably have been dashed upon the rapids below. He got nimbly to his feet, though considerably bruised and sore, and hurried up stream the thirty or forty feet to where he had left the animal. As he reached there, he saw that the burro had found shoal water under his feet and was pawing away for a foothold, thus loosening the hold of the snag upon the bottom, and the boy saw the tree begin to shift.

"Don't, Jack," he called, as though he believed the burro could understand, "keep still till I help you out!"

But the companion of the boy's perilous trip took the shouting for encouragement and kicked all the harder, till a few seconds later, amid a swirl of mud and sand, the huge wreck of a tree rolled over and whirled down in the river in a confusion of branches amid which the poor burro seemed to have no chance. The very size of the tree evinced to Roger how furious must be the torrent of the Colorado in the spring floods, for the snag showed that it must have come from a pine not less than thirty inches at the base. The forking, broken and splintered limbs, however, projecting on all sides, caught in the bed of the river now that the stream was low, and this prevented the burro from being swept into the middle of the current, and suddenly, to the surprise and delight of the boy, a swift back eddy caught the animal and threw him up upon the shore.

Roger ran to him, but there was no sign of motion, the poor burro lay quiet as though dead. Heaving a sigh, for their twin peril had made Roger quite fond of the little animal, he turned to go, half-thinking that, if there were any future state for the four-footed part of the world, he would have a candidate to present. Then, sitting on a fallen rock, he put on his boots, his feeling of pride at the great achievement of having crossed the Colorado River only dimmed by his sorrow for his faithful comrade. Before leaving, however, he went back to where the burro lay.

"It's a shame to leave you lying there, Jack," he said, "but there's nothing I can do for you. Of course, I know you're only just a burro, but I do hate to say 'Good-by.'"

There was a great big lump in the boy's throat.

"I'd like to dig a grave, or—or—something," he added, "but I can't. It seems playing it low down on you, Jack, when I couldn't have got across but for you, but there's no help for it. It's got to be good-by!"