The Boy with the U. S. Survey (Paperback)

Excerpt: ...of a second apiece. This was answered in the same manner, telling the boy that not only had his signal been seen, but also that his answer to the response had been observed and that everything was right. Thus, across seven miles of the roughest country in the world, did Roger receive his official release and message of farewell from the Grand Canyon party he had served so faithfully. Pg 190 CHAPTER X AMERICANS THAT ARE FORGOTTEN The elation that Roger felt over the successful issue of the heliograph message with which he had been intrusted soon dwindled away under the realization that he did not know what was coming next. The only instructions he had received were that he was to take Duke to Prescott, Ariz., there to leave him with certain friends of Masseth's who would take care of him. Masseth had also told him to call for his mail, and of course the presumption was that he would there receive notice as to the next step in his Survey work. But for the moment he was masterless, and the boy felt a little lost. So when Roger had packed the little heliograph instrument in as small compass as possible, in order that it might not be ungainly in the saddle, and gone to the edge of the Canyon to look over, the scene struck him with loneliness. In precisely the same place, two months before, he had stood and made up his mind to risk the peril of that single- Pg 191 handed journey, and his courage began to revive as he remembered how well it had resulted. Down below him he could see Bright Angel Creek, and far away, the peak to which he had signaled, all redolent of the interest of the summer now fast waning. Even the trail upon which he set out to return was full of the memories of his frontiersman friend, who had lightened the way with anecdote and information on his first journey there. But while Roger was inly conscious of a feeling of isolation in being thus cut off from all the Survey parties, and looked forward to his ride to Needles with little...