Unexplored!. Chaffee Allen

each bounce, lathering in his effort to unseat his rider. But Ted had grown to his back.

      The broncho stopped, exhausted, flanks heaving.

      “SOME riding!” gasped Pedro.

      Then a shout went up. Ted was champion rider of the rodeo!

      To the ranch boy’s amazement, he now found his long legs dangling from a seat on the shoulders of his two college friends, while they marched about to the tune of “A Jolly Good Fellow,” – Norris himself laughingly joining in the chorus, and Long Lester thumping him breath-takingly between the shoulder blades.

      That was the day the camping trip had been planned. It was also the day Ace’s little Spanish ’plane, wirelessed from its hanger in Burlingame1, had given them all a surprise, and a trial sail. The pilot arrived shivering in leather jacket and heavy cap, woolen muffler and goggles, with similar wraps for Ace, whose leather chaps now served a purpose. For the intense cold of the upper levels it was necessary for the pilot to lend his outer apparel, as each of the prospective camp mates in turn took the observer’s seat, with Ace piloting.

      Ted was used to flying with him, – had, indeed, given him the nick-name which all had now adopted, as a compliment to his exploits as a birdman. But to the other three it was a new experience. He invited Norris first. Their route lay like a map below them, as they winged their way across the sky, steering first due South till the rim of King’s River Canyon threatened to suck them down into its depths, then circling to the East till they could see Mt. Whitney rising snow-capped above the surrounding peaks, and back to the waiting boys.

      Long Lester ventured next, and as he afterwards expressed it, he thought he was riding on the back of his neck as they soared into the blue deeps above them, while the ocean of the atmosphere tossed them about capriciously. This time Ace, running her into the cold strait above the river, headed her down canyon to within a hundred feet of the forest top, his grit based on sound mechanical training; his daring counterbalanced by his cool headed precision. He tried no stunts, however, as he had promised his father to indulge in no aerial acrobatics under 1,000 feet. When they finally returned to terra firma, right side up with care, the old prospector expressed himself as nowise envious of Elijah.

      Pedro belted himself in with a lack of enthusiasm that Long Lester did not fail to note with sympathy, and away they soared, fearlessly on Ace’s part, whose eyes, ears and lungs were in the pink of condition. But to the Spanish boy came first a dizzy, seasick feeling, coupled with a conviction that he could not draw breath against the head wind, then a chill that penetrated even the pilot’s uniform, as he watched the earth recede beneath them. The motor purred as they gained momentum and the propellers whirred noisily, and the changing air pressures so affected the stability of the light craft that he felt half the time as if they were lying over on their side. He also reflected that, should the engine stall, their descent would be a matter of seconds only. In the dry heat they had been traveling with what seemed terrific speed. He protested once, but Ace did not hear him.

      Then in the cold of the higher altitude, their speed was reduced and traveling was smoother. When at last the great white bird dropped back almost on the spot from which they had started, – the distinguishing feat of the Spanish ’plane, – he was almost a convert, though as Lester said, “a little green about the gills.” When later the opportunity came to try it again, he abdicated in favor of Ted.

      Norris assured them that there is air for 50 miles above the earth, and sometimes a tidal wave of atmosphere reaching as high as 200 miles, though after it gets about 190 degrees below zero, less is known about it. Its density is reduced fully half at 18,000 feet, – half a mile above the highest peaks, like Mt. Whitney, but though the air of high altitudes is more buoyant, the cold none the less reduces the speed of the air cruiser.

      While they were eating they discussed their itinerary.

      Norris had the large trail maps of both Sierra and Sequoia National Forests. These he laid out and pieced together into one big sheet ten feet long. On these maps were marked out the good camp grounds, and where bears, or deer, quail or grouse, might be found, where supplies were obtainable, or pack and saddle stock, guides and packers, or Forest ranger stations (little cabins flying a flag from their peaks, to make them show up on the map).

      There were the “roads passable for wagons,” “trails passable for pack stock,” and “routes passable for foot travel only.” There were areas marked with varying tiny green tufts of grass labeled “meadows where stock grazing is permitted,” and “meadows where it is not permitted,” “meadows fenced for the free use of the traveling public” and “meadows fenced for the use of Forest Rangers only.”

      Diminutive green pine trees indicated forest areas particularly interesting, striped red areas signalized National Forest timber sales, cut over or in operation, black triangles denoted Forest Service fire outlook stations, and a drawing that looked like a woodshed showed where Forest Service fire fighting tools had been cached in various out-of-the-way places. “TLP” indicated the free Government telephone boxes, red doughnutty-looking circles meant good mountains to climb, with some indication of the safest routes to the top, areas marked out in red diamonds were labeled as geographically interesting, and those in green as botanically of more than ordinary interest.

      A green feathery-looking line meant a canyon, a green triangle a waterfall, a plain green line a stream offering good fishing, and a broken green line a stream stocked with young fish, while an X meant a barrier impassable by fish, though what that meant, not one of them could say.

      There were various other marks, such as a hub surrounded by the spokes of a wheel (whatever it was intended for), the key to which explained that from that point a good view was to be obtained.

      But what most attracted their attention, all up and down the crest of the Sierra Nevada as it stretched from North, North-West to South, South-East, were the wide green areas “of special scenic interest,” most of which was marked “UNEXPLORED!” in great warning red letters.

      It was this part of the map that most fascinated the little camping party. Why should they choose a route that was all cut and dried for them, as it were, – where each day they would know when they started out just about where night would find them and what they would meet with on the way? Who wanted their views labeled anyway? That was all very well, very thoughtful of the Forest Service, for inexperienced campers, who would probably never venture into the unknown. But to Ace, the airman, to Ted, with his experienced wild-craft, and to Pedro the romanticist, no less than to the young Yale man whose thirst for far places had led him into the U. S. Geological Survey, the Mystery of the Unexplored called, with a lure that was not to be denied. Long Lester, they knew, was game for anything, – for had he not prospected through these mountains all his life? There was practically no place the sure-footed burros could not go, and there was no danger they were not secretly and wickedly tingling to encounter.

      It was a wild region, as rough and as little known as anything from Hawaii to Alaska, – only different. The John Muir Trail, named for the explorer, – a “way through” rather than a trail, – stretched along the crest of the range, the roughest kind of going, (absolutely a horse-back trip, it was generally pronounced), and from its glacier-capped peaks, from 14,500 foot Mt. Whitney, to the even more difficult though less lofty Lyell, ran the Kings’ River, North, Middle, and canyoned South Forks, the Kern and the Kaweah, the Merced and the San Joaquin, – to name only the largest.

      Unlike the older Eastern ranges, the Sierra is laid out with remarkable regularity, the one great 12,000- to 14,000-foot divide, with its scarcely lower passes, giving off ridges on the Western slope like the teeth of a coarse granite comb. Between ridges, deep, glacier-cut canyons, “yo-semities,” (to employ the Indian name), with their swift, cascading rivers make North to South travel difficult, though one can follow one side of the openly forested canyons to the very crest of the main ridge.

      Here and there was a grove of Big Trees, varying in size from the Giant Forest of Sequoia National Park to the few mediocre specimens at Dinkey Creek. But as a rule the hot, irrigated valleys of the Sacramento and San Joaquin gave way to patches of the small oaks and pines of the foothills, and these in turn, several thousand feet higher

1

Pronounced Blingam.