One thing was plain at any rate: we could do nothing towards finding the source of the underground stream until the snow cleared off the mountain, and that was likely to be later than usual this year, for the fall had been exceedingly heavy in the higher parts. We could see from the ranch that many of the familiar hollows were obliterated—leveled off by the great masses of snow which had drifted into them and filled them up.
We therefore went about our work of hauling stone, and so continued while the cold weather lasted, interrupted only once by a heavy storm about the end of January, which, while it added another two feet to the thick blanket of snow already covering the mountains, quickly melted off down in the snug hollow where the ranch lay, so that our work was not delayed more than two or three days.
One advantage to us of this storm was that it enabled us to learn something—not much, certainly, but still something—regarding the source of the stream in the fissure. It did not show us where that source was, but it proved to us pretty clearly where it was not.
On the morning of the storm, Joe, at breakfast-time, turning to my father, said:
“Wouldn’t it be a good plan to go and measure the flow of the water down in the crevice, Mr. Crawford? We might be able to find out, by watching its rise and fall, whether the melting of the snow on the Second Mesa, or on the foot-hills beyond, or on the mountain itself affects it most.”
“That’s a very good idea, Joe,” my father replied. “Yes; as soon as we have fed the stock you can make a measuring-stick and go up there; and what’s more, you had better make a practice of measuring it every day. The increase or decrease of the flow might be an important guide as to where it comes from.”
This we did, and thereby ascertained pretty conclusively that the source was nowhere on the Second Mesa, for in the course of a couple of weeks the heavy fall of new snow covering that wide stretch of country melted off without making any perceptible difference in the volume of the stream.
Though there were several other falls of snow up in the mountains later in the season, this was the last one of any consequence down on the mesas. The winter was about over as far as we were concerned, and by the middle of the next month, the surface of “the bottomless forty rods” beginning to soften again, the freighters, who had been coming our way ever since the early part of November, deserted us and once more went back to the hill road—to our mutual regret. For a few days longer the stage-coach kept to our road, but very soon it, too, abandoned us, after which, except for an occasional horseback-rider, we had scarcely a passer-by.
As was natural, we greatly missed this constant coming and going, though we should have missed it a good deal more but for the fact that with the softening of the ground our spring work began, when, Marsden’s cattle having been removed by their owner, Joe and I started plowing for oats. With the prospect of a steady season’s work before us, we entered upon our labors with enthusiasm. We had never felt so “fit” before, for our long spell of stone-hauling had put us into such good trim that we were in condition to tackle anything.
At the same time, we did not forget our underground stream, keeping strict watch upon it as the snow-line retreated up the foot-hills of Mount Lincoln. But though one of us visited the stream every day, taking careful measurement of the flow, we could not see that it had increased at all. The intake must be either high on the mountain, or, as I had suggested, the spring must come up through the sandstone underlying the Second Mesa and was therefore not affected by the running off of the snow-water on the surface.