When Stack’s transit came in sight, Sandy placed the stadia rod upright so that it could be seen against the skyline and started the slow business of moving it about in response to the surveyor’s hand signals.
Several times he stopped and listened intently. Off to his right, hidden in the underbrush that choked the crater, he thought he heard some large animal moving. A deer, probably, he tried to reassure himself, although he remembered that one of the other crewmen had had a nasty brush with a bobcat several days previously.
“That’s it, Sandy,” the surveyor in the valley bellowed through cupped hands at last. “Call it a day.”
The boy was beating a quiet retreat down the slope when a tired bleat stopped him in his tracks. The animal in there was either a sheep or a calf, and it seemed to be in trouble.
“Better take a look,” said Sandy. (He had got into the habit of talking to himself these last few lonely weeks. The noise seemed to keep the homesickness away.)
It was a calf, he found, when he had fought his way into the thicket. And it seemed to be sick. First it would nibble at some plants where it stood, then, lifting its feet high and putting them down gingerly, it would move slowly to another location and repeat the performance. Every so often it let out that piteous bleat.
“Poor thing,” Sandy murmured. “Maybe I ought to take it back to camp.”
He fished a length of cord out of his knapsack, looped it around the calf’s neck and tugged. The animal gave him a glassy stare and wobbled forward.
“Probably a Navajo stray,” he said. “Its owners will be looking for it.”
When he reached the temporary camp half an hour later, Ralph took one look at the calf and let out an astonished whoop.