39. CHAPTER XXXIX.
ABOUT seven o'clock one blistering hot morning—for it was
now dead summer time—Higbie and I took the boat and started on
a voyage of discovery to the two islands. We had often longed to
do this, but had been deterred by the fear of storms; for they were
frequent, and severe enough to capsize an ordinary row-boat like
ours without great difficulty—and once capsized, death would
ensue in spite of the bravest swimming, for that venomous water
would eat a man's eyes out like fire, and burn him out inside, too,
if he shipped a sea. It was called twelve miles, straight out to the
islands—a long pull and a warm one—but the morning was so quiet
and sunny, and the lake so smooth and glassy and dead, that we
could not resist the temptation. So we filled two large tin canteens
with water (since we were not acquainted with the locality of the
spring said to exist on the large island), and started. Higbie's
brawny muscles gave the boat good speed, but by the time we
reached our destination we judged that we had pulled nearer
fifteen miles than twelve.
We landed on the big island and went ashore. We tried the
water in the canteens, now, and found that the sun had spoiled it; it
was so brackish that we could not drink it; so we poured it out and
began a search for the spring—for thirst augments fast as soon as it
is apparent that one has no means at hand of quenching it. The
island was a long, moderately high hill of ashes—nothing but gray
ashes and pumice-stone, in which we sunk to our knees at every
step—and all around
the top was a forbidding wall of scorched and blasted rocks. When
we reached the top and got within the wall, we found simply a
shallow, far-reaching basin, carpeted with ashes, and here and
there a patch of fine sand. In places, picturesque jets of steam shot
up out of crevices, giving evidence that although this ancient crater
had gone out of active business, there was still some fire left in its
furnaces. Close to one of these jets of steam stood the only tree on
the island—a small pine of most graceful shape and most faultless
symmetry; its color was a brilliant green, for the steam drifted
unceasingly through its branches and kept them always moist. It
contrasted strangely enough, did this vigorous and beautiful
outcast, with its dead and dismal surroundings. It was like a
cheerful spirit in a mourning household.
We hunted for the spring everywhere, traversing the full length
of the island (two or three miles), and crossing it twice—climbing
ash-hills patiently, and then sliding down the other side in a sitting
posture, plowing up smothering volumes of gray dust. But we
found nothing but solitude, ashes and a heart-breaking silence.
Finally we noticed that the wind had risen, and we forgot our thirst
in a solicitude of greater importance; for, the lake being quiet, we
had not taken pains about securing the boat. We hurried back to a
point overlooking our
landing place, and then—but mere words cannot describe our
dismay—the boat was gone! The chances were that there was not
another boat on the entire lake. The situation was not
comfortable—in truth, to speak plainly, it was frightful. We were
prisoners on a desolate island, in aggravating proximity to friends
who were for the present helpless to aid us; and what was still
more uncomfortable was the reflection that we had neither food
nor water. But presently we sighted the boat. It was drifting
along, leisurely, about fifty yards from shore, tossing in a foamy
sea. It drifted, and continued to drift, but at the same safe distance
from land, and we walked along abreast it and waited for fortune
to favor us. At the end of an hour it approached a jutting cape, and
Higbie ran ahead and posted himself on the utmost verge and
prepared for the assault. If we failed there, there was no hope for
us. It was driving gradually shoreward all the time, now; but
whether it was driving fast enough to make the connection or not
was the momentous question. When it got within thirty steps of
Higbie I was so excited that I fancied I could hear my own heart
beat. When, a little later, it dragged slowly along and seemed
about to go by, only one little yard out of reach, it seemed as if my
heart stood still; and when it was exactly abreast him and began to
widen away, and he still standing like a watching statue, I knew
my heart did stop. But when he gave a great spring, the next
instant, and lit fairly in the stern, I discharged a war-whoop that
woke the solitudes!
But it dulled my enthusiasm, presently, when he told me he
had not been caring whether the boat came within jumping
distance or not, so that it passed within eight or ten yards of him,
for he had made up his mind to shut his eyes and mouth and swim
that trifling distance. Imbecile that I was, I had not thought of that.
It was only a long swim that could be fatal.
The sea was running high and the storm increasing. It was
growing late, too—three or four in the afternoon. Whether to
venture toward the mainland or not, was a question of some
moment. But we were so distressed by thirst
that we decide to try it, and so Higbie fell to work and I took the
steering-oar. When we had pulled a mile, laboriously, we were
evidently in serious peril, for the storm had greatly
augmented; the billows ran very high and were capped with
foaming crests, the heavens were hung with black, and the wind
blew with great fury. We would have gone back, now, but we did
not dare to turn the boat around, because as soon as she got in the
trough of the sea she would upset, of course. Our only hope lay in
keeping her head-on to the seas. It was hard work to do this, she
plunged so, and so beat and belabored the billows with her rising
and falling bows. Now and then one of Higbie's oars would trip on
the top of a wave, and the other one would snatch the boat half
around in spite of my cumbersome steering apparatus. We were
drenched by the sprays constantly, and the boat occasionally
shipped water. By and by, powerful as my comrade was, his great
exertions began to tell on him, and he was anxious that I should
change places with him till he could rest a little. But I told him
this was impossible; for if the steering oar were dropped a
moment while we changed, the boat would slue around into the
trough of the sea, capsize, and in less than five minutes we would
have a hundred gallons of soap-suds in us and be eaten up so
quickly that we could not even be present at our own inquest.
But things cannot last always. Just as the darkness shut down
we came booming into port, head on. Higbie dropped his oars to
hurrah—I dropped mine to help—the sea gave the boat a twist, and
over she went!
The agony that alkali water inflicts on bruises, chafes and
blistered hands, is unspeakable, and nothing but greasing all over
will modify it—but we ate, drank and slept well, that night,
notwithstanding.
In speaking of the peculiarities of Mono Lake, I ought to have
mentioned that at intervals all around its shores stand picturesque
turret-looking masses and clusters of a whitish, coarse-grained
rock that resembles inferior mortar dried hard; and if one breaks
off fragments of this rock he will find perfectly shaped and
thoroughly petrified gulls' eggs deeply imbedded in the mass. How
did they get there? I simply state the fact—for it is a fact—and leave
the geological reader to crack the nut at his leisure and solve the
problem after his own fashion.
At the end of a week we adjourned to the Sierras on a fishing
excursion, and spent several days in camp under snowy Castle
Peak, and fished successfully for trout in a bright, miniature lake
whose surface was between ten and eleven thousand feet above the
level of the sea; cooling ourselves during the hot August noons by
sitting on snow banks ten feet deep, under whose sheltering edges
fine grass and dainty flowers flourished
luxuriously; and at night entertaining ourselves
by almost freezing to death.
Then we returned to Mono Lake, and finding that the cement
excitement was over for the present, packed up and went back to
Esmeralda. Mr. Ballou reconnoitred awhile, and not liking the
prospect, set but alone for Humboldt.
About this time occurred a little incident which has always
had a sort of interest to me, from the fact that it came so near
"instigating" my funeral. At a time when an Indian attack had
been expected, the citizens hid their gunpowder where it would be
safe and yet convenient to hand when wanted. A neighbor of ours
hid six cans of rifle powder in the bake-oven of an old discarded
cooking stove which stood on the open ground near a frame
out-house or shed, and from and after that day never thought of it
again. We hired a half-tamed Indian to do some washing for us,
and he book up quarters under the shed with his tub. The ancient
stove reposed within six feet of him, and before his face. Finally it
occurred to him that hot water would be better than cold, and he
went out and fired up under that forgotten powder magazine and
set on a kettle of water. Then he returned to his tub.
I entered the shed presently and threw down some more clothes,
and was about to speak to him when the stove blew up with a
prodigious crash, and disappeared, leaving not a splinter behind.
Fragments of it fell in the streets full two hundred yards away.
Nearly a third of the shed roof over our heads
was destroyed, and one of the stove lids, after cutting a small
stanchion half in two in front of the Indian, whizzed between us
and drove partly through the weather-boarding beyond. I was as
white as a sheet and as weak as a kitten and speechless. But the
Indian betrayed no trepidation, no distress, not even discomfort.
He simply stopped washing, leaned forward and surveyed the
clean, blank ground a moment, and then remarked:
"Mph! Dam stove heap gone!"—and resumed his scrubbing as
placidly as if it were an entirely customary thing for a stove to do.
I will explain, that "heap" is "Injun-English" for "very much." The
reader will perceive the exhaustive expressiveness of it in the
present instance.