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 out 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 took 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.
