TALES OF ADVENTURE

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 213, 8 September 1923, Page 24

TALES OF ADVENTURE

Caught in a Death Trap.

By JOHN EDWIN HOGG.

The story of ivhat is surely the most remarkable adventure that ever befell two motor ry.!l»is. Uiclinp nrrnss the terrible Mojavo Desert of Cnllfornin. the author ani a (.'nm-KiTilnn pluncd with their machine over the rim of a precipice, falling Into a E'lecr-walloJ .-ha-m from which they presently discovered there was no means of escape: How the two men faced this appalling predicament, and how. in spite of further misfortunes, they fin:Ulj- won out. Is described helow—a wonderful record of enflnrapce and dogged pluck in tht> face of scemlugly overwhelming disaster.

and cooking supper, we roared across r the desert. We had been plunging v across tihe. desert for -perhaps ten miles c after leaving the mesa, at a speed of r between thirty and thirty-five miles an ( . hour, when ivi> <-ame to the foot of a l fairly steep sandhill, where our head- :1 lighU showed the sand to be unusuall} 1 soft, and loose. Thinking ito get over i this dune without losing speed and post siblv stalling the motor, X opened the t throttle wide, and we roared up the side t of the dune. We topped the summit— v mid then, without the slightest warning, t the machine dropped out from under us! ( I felt my feet leave the footboards, f felt t'lie handlebars twisted from my 1 grasp, and caught a grlimpue of Fletcher -oaring through the air head-downward 1 in the dim starlight. The next thing I t Knew was a sensation-of falling through i space -just, as I have sometimes done t in dreams, but always to wake up be- ' fore I readied the bottom of the fall, ' This fall, however, was a real one. It ! was no dream; and inste.t-d of waking ■ up before I reached the end of it, 1 ■ struck the ground—and then went to ' sleep. \\ lien I regained consciousness H seemed as it I could remember falling j through the air for hotire. Then 1 ,| recalled crashing down into the top of a mesqiiite tree; I remembered bumping through the branches and feeling tho thorns tear my flesh. Gradually I regained my full sense?, u> tind Fletcher standing over mc with a canteen, bathing a gash nea-r the top o-f mv forehead from 'which the warm blood was streaming dawn into my eyes and over my face. By this time our eyes had become sufficiently used to the darkness that followed the abrupt extinguishing of our headlights to enable us to learn something of the nature of the mishap that had befallen us. There was no moon, but in the clear desert atmosphere there appeared to be literally billions of brilliant stars, which shed enough light over the scene to enable us to make out the dim outline of our surroundings. To all appearances we had blundered up the side of the sanddune, and down the other side, to plunge off into space over the wall of a deep canyon. We had dropped almost perpendicularly over the face of the cliff—a plunge of about seventy-five feet—and had landed in a dense growth of mesquite and chaparral. We found the motor-cycle lying bottom upwards in the tangle of brush, which had undoubtedly saved us from instant death on the surrounding rocks by breaking the force of our fall. A superficial inspection of the machine —such as we were able to make in the darknessconvinced us that it was not damaged to any great extent. Gasoline from the I fuel reservoirs and sulphuric acid from the storage batteries were much in evidence in the atmosphere nearby, so that we dared nut run the risk of fire by attempting to make a further inspection with any form of artificial light. The leakage of gasoline was at that moment our greatest concern, for if we lost the fuel we should be stranded in the desert —probably a hundred miles from the. nearest water, and equally distant from any new source of fuel supply. Fletcher crawled under the sidecar, and to our great joy discovered that the fuel tanks were not damaged. The gasoline was leakin" from the air-vents, which he succeeded in stoppering by whittling off match-stems and driving them into the vents. Thinking that we had miraculously escaped what might easily have been a fatal mishap, we continued to congratulate ourselves upon our good fortune, never supposing for a moment that with the break of dawn we should not be able to make our way out of the canyon, repair any damage that the machine might have suffered, and return to civilisation. We had water and provisions sufficient to last us for several days if necessary, and felt little of no concern for our safety. Accordingly we proceeded to make ourselves as comfortable as we could. We recovered most of our camping outfit from the upturned sidecar and the surrounding brush, built a fire a safe distance away from the machine, and set about establishing a camp for the night, cooked a supper of bully beef, dried beans, coffee and biscuits, and later dragged in sufficient mesnuite wood for a roaring evening camp fire. We slept contentedly under our blankets that night., and awoke with the sunlight streaming among great , black shadows over the surrounding rock-cliffs. We breakfasted, and while meditating over our coffee began to plan how we were to get back into the desert again. Meanwhile I had been studying the surrounding walls of the canyon, and it was only then that the lirst inkling of our real plight dawned J upon mc. The walls on all sides were • almost perpendicular, and the floor of the gulch in which we found ourselves surpassed anything I have ever looked upon for ruggedness. There were rocks as big as houses about us, fashioned and tilted into the most • weird and fastastic forms and . positions imaginable. All the crags within our range of vision were unquestionably of volcanic formation, and as I observed this I felt cold chills coursing up and down my spine, for I came to a ' sickening realisation that we were prob- [ ably not in a waterworn canyon at ailbut in all probability trapped in the crater of an extinct volcano, or in some > tremendous earthquake "fault." '"In • that case." I mused, "we are going to c have a fine job getting outselves out." 1 With this new-born fear virtually confirmed to my own satisfaction, 1 walked 3 through the brush to the very lowest 3 portion of the ravine, hoping against r hope that I might find some traces of ? water having flowed through the place to bolster up my waning hope that we " might be in a canyon. If we were, we ' should probably have little difficulty in c making our way out and getting' the machine into the desert, where we would d be able to travel. On the other hand, •t if we were in a crater or "fault," getting f out would present difficulties. Wβ could

.Anions American motor cycle clubs |a and trade organisations "endurance ! t , ru?'.s" have always been a favourite a form <>: content for -testing tho stamina a of machines and the prowess of riders, b Each eiuveeding year has seen endur- i h anco rnns of a. more strenuous nature, f; Not lons ";-'.> < !,(, Bakerslield Motor J Cyclo Club, of Rikerslield, California, t announced its intention of staging an » cndurp.nc-e run that was intended to be t tho '-worst ever.!' It was to ibe a batitle to a finish over a course so severe that t no rider Wild be expected to make a perfect score. The man who got the f> furthest would be pronounced the win- ? ncr, and an attractive list of prizes was offered. In considering possible routes X for the run file desert was chosen as the s region where Nature shows her teeth " most menaring-ly to both men and motor cycles, so it was decided to lay „ out a course to cover a it-rip of live v hundred miles through the least Ire- S qiu'iitpj and most formidable portion of the Mojavo Desert, which occupies al- g most half of the second largest State t in America—a State nearly six times r , tht' area of the British Isles. a \ = a motor evi'list of extensive desert- '■ touriii" experiences, and as one interested = in the activities of the motor S cycle clubs, writer was called upon » to as-sist in layina out the most formid- ' able desert route" that could bo chosen. Several routes were under consideration, J and over these a corps of pathfinders l on motor cycles 'were dispatched, to return a few days later to report to £ the club with information. I Carrying sufficient food and fuel in < the sidecar to last for five days, and s enough water to take us over the longest stretches between water holes, barring ' •unforeseen delays, tny friend Jack ' Fleiteher and I set out from Ba-kersfield, travelling east through the desort after j' topping ti'.ie Tehachapai Pass, over the of precipitous mountains which j separate the Jan Joaquin Valley, in : which Bakcrsfield is located, from the ' desert beyond. Fletcher, whom I have 1 known intimately for a number of years, ' is an experienced desert man, as well an expert motor cycle mechanic, a ' thoroughly congenial fellow for a companion on such a trip, and a giant in. power and physique. Tlie club had aligned to us the task of prospecting the endurance run course through what was considered ito be the most dangerous, waterless, and trackless portion of the desert, to the west of Death Valley. The region that we were to investigate incfculed the Owl Mountain district, the nearby Argus Mountains, and other adjacent territory, where it • is doubtful if any other motor vehicle had ever been .before. All this region is a burned out, waterless waste, seldom visited by human beings, except an occasional prospector in search of unknown mineral wealth. For three days we made our own path through the desert, covering three hundred miles of the course, which we considered was severe enougih to eliminate, all but the stoutest-hearted contestants. Indeed, the run we were planning would ■have been decidedly dangerous, but for tJie plan of the motor cycle club to follow the competitors wiitih motor lor■ries to pick up those who fell by the wayside. As we toured through the cactus and sagebrush on the second dayout Fletcher and I discussed the unpleasant fact 'that we ourselves were taking the longest chances of any of the pathfinders or the actual contestants in tiic proposed run, for we were prospecting alone in a region where a machine failure -would be disastrous, with no advance arxangemen'ts for a rescuing convoy in case we failed to put in an appearance at Bakersfield in due time. It has been said that "familia-rity breeds contempt," and undoubtedly it wag our familiarity with the desert and its known dangers that took us into the unexpected death trap I am about to describe. It was near sundown of the fourth day of the trip, When we were almost on the point of turning back toward our starting poinit, that we came up on to thp summit of a low desert mesa (tableland), there to let our curiosity lure us on into a predicament that came very near removing us from the land of ithe living without leaving a trace of our fate. From the mesa we could see in the distance an area that had the appearance of being the most weird and picturesque jumble of volcanic rocks that we had ever looked upon. When examined through our field-glasses it appeared tv be many miles in extent. 'Hinre were rocks as big as a city skyscraper standing on end, leaning slantwise, lying flat, and heaved into almost every conceivable position. We musti investigate this place before turning back, we thought; possibly H offered some -Waterloo" labyrinth that we could make the route of the endurance run. The sun was now getting so low that w,. knew it would only be a matter of m. mates beiore nightfall, for there is little or no twilight in the desert. When the sun goes down the light goes outalmost as H an electric switch has been turned off. We would go on, we planned, •nave a peep into this desert rock-heap, camp for the night, and then start back at sunrise the following day. ( ousting down the side of the mesa we -n uiit through the sagebrush strain, Heading in tlie general direction of the rock country. We drove for half an hour, and presently the daylight van-isnc-ti: but with two powerful electric Bca.rehli.-at- that pierced the gloom betore n> n-f pushed on. In the clear dry atmosphere of tuo desert it is very diflieult even for an experienced man to judL-e cli-taiK-w accurately, and undoubtedly it iva- a miscalculation of distant,- that led Jack Fletcher and mc into trouMe. I was driving the sidecar ouftfc, and with no though* other tian tihat of getting to tie edge of tiae rock country

unquestionably scramble out on foot, ■but if we could not get the machine out as well we should be afoot in the desert —an utterly impossible distance from tho nearest "water, food, or civilisation! Returning to our camp I imparted my thoughts to Fletcher. He listened intently, and then, with his characteristic optimism, he said: "Well, maybe you're right, but we'd better go easy on our water and provisions until we find out. We'll get out all right:" For my own part, however, T was not so sanguine. I had seen other desert craters and earthquake faults, and realised only too well that if we were in one like some I had seen, getting the motor-cyclo and sidecar out was going to be a job somewhat like trying lo get an automobile out of a mine-shaft; while without the machine we should be in as sorry a plight as if we were to fail in getting out of the hole ourselves. Before going any farther with plans for escape, we decided to get the sidecar outfit on its wheels, and determine whether or not the vehicle was beyond repair. If it was hopelessly damaged we faced a prospect too bnrrible even to contemplate. The machine, with its reserve supplies of fuel, water, and what equipment remained in it. weighed close mi a thousand pounds. but with Fletcher's enormous strength we managed to lower \\ n> the ground partly by brute force and partly by cutting tho brush out from under it. After this there was little difficulty in gcttine our shoulders under the sidecar and toppling (he whole outfit over on to its wheels. To our ureal delight the motor started at tho first stroke, and a detailed inspection revealed no damage greater than a bent handlebar and a broken footboard. With this much of our task accomplished we set out to inspect the bottom of the chasm. From north to south it was so narrow a* to have all the earmarks of a large canyon, but tho walls were so high and bo steep that we knew it was useless to begin our search in either of those directions. Accordingly, we set out toward the west. An hour's walk, however, showed us nothing but towering rock-walls, and a few minutes later our worst fears were half realised when we came to the .place, where the frowning cliffs closed in to form the end of the chasm. There was nothing to do but retrace our steps

tanks of the machine. We could pick up the cans as we go, and after getting to Owl Hole relay ourselves on to Paradise Spring in the same manner. If we can get to Paradise Spring we should be safe, for it's only thirty-two miles from there to liarstow, and we could make that easily. Barstow is on the transcontinental railroad, and from there we could get a train to Bakersfield. The other chance that I can see is to lake, the motor-cycle and eidecar to pieces, lug them out, and reassemble it again. 1 reckon we'd have to carry the pieces a good five miles, and we couldn't carry more than about fifty pounds at a time up those cliffs. The job would probably take us a week, and we should be working on short rations of both food and water. Then, if anything went wrong to seriously delay us, we'd be done. As to j our supply of food, I believe wo could make it—but water is a different story. But if we could find water in this place we'd bo safe. ' "All right, then," replied Fletcher. ] "Which is it to be—start tearing down I the machine, or lind water?" ; we compromise,? 3 supi gested. "You hunt the water, and I'll start tho work of taking the machine j to pieces." I "That's enough!" said .Tack, and we i shook hands on it. Forthwith he I shouldered a canteen and set out j through the chaparral and rocks, while T broke open the tool-roll, and began the work of dismantling the sidecar I outfit. J I had .been at work fur perhaps an j hour, during which time I was twice driven to make inroads upon the precious contents of the canteens, when I was startled to hear a pistol-shot fur off up the chasm in llie direction taken by Fletcher. "What U he shooting at?" I asked myself, and then I went on with my w.jik, thinking that perhaps he'd come upon a rattlesnake. For another hour I worked busily, and though I made every effort to keep my mind ofT the ever-present annoyance of thirst, I was again compelled to seek tho canteens. Hy this time tlie f=un I was well up in the heavens, beating down upon my back -with unrelenting desert fury as I stooped at the work. i The parts of the machine became so hot that I could scarcely touch them with my bare hands, and 1 was finally driven

back to our camp, and then renew the I search in the other direction, Prospect- i ing this lust remaining lead, it took us just forty minutes to find ourselves ; again face to face with nearly per- : peudicular walls of gnarled rock, and to feel our last hope vanishing! We were trapped, and we knew it —trapped ! just as completely as two mice that i might have fallen into an upright metal i ■barrel. We might make our way out j into the desert by climbing up any one ■ of a score or more of places, but getting j the machine out appeared to be utterly j hopeless—and without the machine we faced no prospect other than a wild attempt to escape from the desert on foot, a journey for which we could never hope to carry sufficient water and food. Death from thirst or starvation was only a matter of hours ahead, whether we remained in the hole or attempted a dash through the desert on foot. We returned to the machine, and sat down to talk things over. Fletcher's usual attitude of cheerfulness had vanished; he looked serious and sorely troubled. "John," he said, as we sat down, "it looks as if we're marooned here for keeps. If we climb out without the machine -we'll only jump from the fry-ing-pan into the fire. We've got thirtysix quarts of water, and if we lie around and don't work, we ought to be able to live at least six days. If we try to hike it. through the desert heat, we'll never even make Owl Hole, which I figure is the nearest-chance of water. That's seventy-five miles, and from Owl Hole to Paradise Spring it's a hundred and twenty miles. There isn't a burglar's chance of making that stretch! It would take live gallons of water apiece each day to march in this heat, and we haven't enough water to even make a start. I believe our only chance is to sit tight until they miss us back at Bakersfield and come out after us. Tin , }' won't suspect anything is wrong with us until we're at least two days overdue. Then it would take them at least three days to get here, even if our tracks are not already drifted over with sand. It'll be five days before we can even hope for a rescuing convoy, and inuybc not then. By that tinie ' f'H be down to our last drop of water and our last biscuit. After that, God only knows what's in store for us." T agreed with Fletcher most emphatically that to climb out of the chasm afoot and attempt to walk to water or civilisation was nothing short of suicide. "There's just two chances T can see, Jack, for getting ourselves out of this." I said. "The llr»t of these chances is to find water h,.|v ii. this hole. If we could find water we ought t<. be able to put out bases of supply between here and Owl Hole. We've got six sixquart canteens that can be used for the purpose, and we oan also tiee the fuel

h> wearing my gloves, for the tools got so hot that I could no lonjicr wnrk with them. All this time T had soon nothing of TJietrher', and the thought suddenly Hashed through my mind that he might have accidentally shot himself. The terror of this fear, whether real or imaginary, whs such that I dropped my tools, and set out up the chasm in the direction he had taken. I followed his tracks for half a mile, lost them in a pile of rocks, and then began shouting through the brush in an effort to locate him. Presently he answered niv call, and I came upon him down on all fours 'between two huge rocks, pawing away at the earth like a terrier endeavouring to unearth a bone. He was so Intent upon his work that he never even stopped digging when T approached. lie merely glanced around over his shoulder. "I've found it! I've found it!"' he shouted. "Found what?" I asked. "Water! Man, Water! Look at that earth! it's moist!"—nnd he went on clawing away at the. ground. I saw at a glance that the earth was moist as he had said, and almost simultaneously my spirits soared high as my eye fell "upon a dead jack-rabbit placed on a rock alongside Fletcher's hat and pistol. The mystery of Ihe shot I had heard was solved. heavens. Jack:" I exclaimed. "We're surely in luck! We've got meat to eat and a line prospect for writer'" "Prospect:" he yelled. "We've got it: Look in the hole!" By this time Fletcher had scooped out the hole to a depth of about four feet, , and now, using a flat stone to di L r with! he was pulling out quantities of slimy mud. Then, as he ceased to dig for a moment, the hole bosun to till. "unci ; n live minutes more there was nearly a gallon of murky liquid at the holto-m of it. It didn't look very appctiziti"but it ivns water just the -ame. ami water of any sort was prirclo- in the circumstances. We waited a fow minutes for the mud pud.He to settle, and then Fletcher got down on all fours ami put his face to the pool. He sucked up a mouthful; then he rose to his foot, ami spat upon the ground with an expression of disgust and disappointment. "Pure !>rine!" lie eiaoi.lato.l. "We'll have i o j find another water-hole!" -lust to satisfy my own curio.-ity I sampled a mouthful of it myself, only to promptly spit it out. It was at least twice or tiiree times as salty as sea-water! A moment before our hopes had soared high, but now witli this, disheartening discovery, they sank to altogether now levels. "Fletcher dropped upon the rock •beside hi- jm-k-rnbbit. with his heal in his hands. Kor a moment he was silent. i Then he said, "Well there's nothing for it but to dig another water-hole! The only thing I'm hoping tor is that the entire floor of this holo isn't a bed of salt."

Before onr hunt for water could be re- t sumed it was necessary for both of us < to go back to our camp to further re- ' duce the dwindling contents of our canteens. By this time we had fully realised that our plan to get tne machine out of . the chaem and make our way to civilisa- | tion without first finding water was | merely an idle dream. We should never live to accomplish the job. Accordingly, we decided to find water, if there was any to be found, before attempting to go on with the work of dismantling the i machine. We therefor set out in oppo- | site directions through the ehaem, with the understanding that neither of us was to return until we had found water, or were compelled to return to our rapidly disappearing supply. In the ! event of either of us wanting the other, we agreed that four pistol shots sred in quick succession would be the signal. Taking up my hunt through the chaparral, I had scarcely gone a quarter of a mile before a coyote jumped "up and ran away through the brush. This gavj mc food for thought. 1 knew that coyotes can go a long time without a drink, and that they frequently travel great distances to water, but the sight of the animal helped to confirm my belief that i there might be drinkable water in our rocky prison. 'I had gone bui a few hundred yards farther before up jumped a rabbit out of the brush. He hopped along for a : little way and then stopped. This : was my chance for something to eat, if not drink. and -with a single, well-directed bullet, I laid him ■ low. I wanted that rnV.it for what information I might be able to gain from its body almost as much a* for food. In '• another minute 1 had ripped up the body with my hunting-knife. The contents of ' the stomach were quite moist—unmistak- | able evidence that there must be water | somewhere near, and in the hope of find- j ing it, I began following the rabbit's j tracks through the gravelly sand, but only in lose thorn a few yards farther on where the creature had gone through the rocks. After hunting around for fully an hour, 1 found the track again, leading away from the rocky ground, and ' for half an hour trailed him down the bottom of the gulch, crawling at times for considerable distances on all fours through the brush. I was wriggling along on my hands and knees under a clump of thorny mesquite j when I put my hand down on something ' cold and clammy. Sly fir.-t instinct, of course, was to shrink away from whatever it was. but long experience in tiie desert had steeled my nerves against the normal instincts of reflex action and taught mc wisdom. I knew almost the i instant I touched it that I had put my i hand down upon the loathsome body of i a coiled rattlesnake, and that if I attempted to withdraw it the snake would j undoubtedly get his fangs into mc before 1 could beat a retreat through the dense • brush. For several seconds I simply , croiiched tiiere, wondering what I was going to ,!,->, with cold chills coursing up and down my spine. I believe I should h;ive beep, huddled there yet, paralysed with fear, had not the snake itself broken the suspense. Keeling the warmth of my hand, and evidently knowing that sonic enemy was upon him, the snake wriggled his tail and body out from under my: hand, and set bis rattles poinjr. I had often heard rattlesnakes rattle, but never before at such close range. With his . thrashing the air within a foot , of my head, and in the dead silence of the canyon, it seemed to mc that the noi;e was as loud as that of a drum in an orchestra. 1 still had the snake's head pressed firmly to the ground. I"i wanted to 1.-t go and bolt, but at the j same time 1 knew lull well that any attempt to do so won] 1 undoubtedly spell my doom. My brain and nerves were ail a-flutter, but 1 managed to retain enough self-composure to realise that my only hope of getting away from the serpent j unharmed was to hang on, at least to • the head, if not to the tail and body that j were thrashing and buzzing about my face, arm, and shoulder. ■Still pressing the snake's liead firmly down,l managed to drag out my hunt-ing-knife with my free hand, set the blade-edge against the back of the rattler's head, and push the knife into the the ground with every ounce of strength left in my arm. The writhing body fell ! away, spattering blood along my sleeve, and the rattles ceased to sound—evidence enough that the sght was won. Even then, however, 1 was half afraid there ) might be sufficient life left in the head to close the fangs upon my Singers, and , for a minute or more I crouched there I half fearful to let go. When I finally ! did muster sufficient courage. I did it j with a single instantaneous motion. The | knife, however, had done its work clean, for the snake's head was guillotined just back of the skull, and the fangs were holding a death-grip upon a dead mes<]uite twig. The snake was nearly five feet long, and on the tail there were sixteen rattles and a " button." I trimmed oIT the rattles to take back to Fletcher as evidence of the encounter, but the incident put an end to my further search for water—at least, in so far as crawling through the brush in search of it was :oncerned. After getting back to camp from a fruitless all-day search for water, I told Fletcher thnt I'd die of thirst before I'd again crawl through the brush hunting for it. Fletcher had likewise returned to camp without having found a trace of anything save, undrinkable salt water, but he had made one important discovery. He had found a clump of barrel cactus, and had dragged a huge stem of one into camp. We chopped this open with our camp axe, and spent an hour or more chewing the pith. From each pound of pith we chewed up and spat out, we managed to extract a fluid ounce or more of the watery juice. The cactus juice had an acrid, metallic taste, and was a miserable substitute for water. />ut it partially alleviated our parched throats and mouths, and enabled us to get through the balance of the day without further reducing the precious water I supply in our canteens. I We ate the two rabbits for supper, I and after an evening by the camp fire, j discussing various plans for escape, reI tired to our blankets —thirsty, tired, disI cournged. and seemingly no nearer a j solution of our problem than we were ! at the outset of our mishap. Daylight •'dawned again—one of those cruel cloudi le>* desert d:i\> with the :-un beating down upon like the concentrated rays . uf H burning-glass. We breakfasted from our dwindling store, but thoughtfully refrained from eating bacon or other ealty food that would tend to create thirst. During the previous evenI ine- we had virtually put aside the i tliou'.'bt of attempting to carry the ■ machine out of the ilui.-m. piece by ' piece, without lirst finding water. We ' had done this only because we now thought it to be a forlorn hope, the accomplishment of which we would never live to see. With the rations we still had on hand, and the brush about the . gulch undoubtedly containing more rab- . bits, the food problem was not causing us any particular worry: but the water , <|ue-lion would have to be solved within the next forty-eight hours if our doom ■ were nut to be sealed. We compromised i upon a plan of activity whereby Fleti cher, who was the best mechanic, was to : push on with the work of dismantling the machine, while I MMwod. my search

for water. Wβ brought another barrel cactus into the camp for Fletcher to assuage his thirst with as he worked, and 1 set off on the. hunt. I returned to camp that evening, almost exhausted and feeling as parched and dry as a cinder, after tramping the gulch all day without fond, and with nothing to alleviate my thirst save cactus juice. 1 had seen no rattlesnakes, and not even a rabbit. I was discouraged and well-nigh hopeless when I came into camp, but 1 found that Fletcher had made excellent progress at tearing down the machine. He had sections of it scattered all round him, al! ready to be carried up the chasm wall, lie told mc that near noon he had heard some desert ; quail whistling in the nearby brush, and had taken time from his work to construct and set some enarea, which he had baited with hard-tack crumbs. " I didn't figure there was much of a chance to catch them,' , he said, " but I thought the plan might be worth trying anyway. We'll go out and have a look at them shortly." Forthwith we visited his traps, and to our great delight found that two of the despised snares contained a bird apiece. Here was food for supper at least, even if we did have to wash it down with cactus juice! Neither of us had touched a drop of water all day, since we were endeavouring to conserve our meagie (supply for the task of fretting the machine parts out of the gulch and reassembled. We decided, however, 1 that we had earned a drink, and so we ! shared a quart of water. In the morning, and at the risk of dying from thirst before we saw the task I completed, we began the work of lugging the parts of the motor-cycle and side car up the rock walls and into the desert. ■ Fletcher took all three wheels, and the ! frame of the motor-cycle, while I slung the motor on my back. At this juncture I got out my camera and began taking pictures. Fletcher paid little or no attention to what F was doing until I set the camera on the tripod, affixed an automatic timer to the shutter, and j asked him to pose for the picture so as to have both of us included in the view. Evidently he thought 1 had gone insane, for he dropped the load of machine parts under which he was struggling, and cried: "Say! What in the name of Caesar's ghost is the idea of that., , "Just this, Jack." I replied, "I haven't said anything to you about it, but I'm keeping a diary of this trip in my pocket notebook. This morning 1 made an entry in the book that I'll read to you." At that moment the camera clicked. Then I produced the notebook, and read the entry aloud to Fletcher. I still have that notebook, and the entry I made reads as follows: " Fourth day imprisoned in Desolation Gulch. ]legan packing the. machine out of the chasm. Thirsty as Hades, and water supply running too low to take a chance of drinking the little water we've got left. Have hunted all over this hole for water —and none to be found but salt stuff that we can't drink. It looks as if our chances for petting out alive are getting slimmer every minute. Death from thirst will probably overtake us beforewe get the pieces of the machine out and reassembled for a clash without any water across the desert to Owl Hole. If our bodies and outfit are ever found, the

entries in this notebook will identify us. To-day I am going to begin taking photographs, which will serve as a pictorial ' record. The films will be found in the side-pocket of the side car body, and some may be left in the camera. Finder please take good care of these, for when they can be developed they will tell the tale of how we tried to save ourselves." As I finished reading the last line Fletcher said, "Well, of all the things I've ever heard of! You're methodical to the last ditch, aren't you? I'll give you credit for being full of ideas, and I reckon those pictures will help our wives to collect our life insurance. Go ahead with your picture-taking. It's a good scheme!" So saying he picked up his burden of wheels" and motor frame, and plodded, on toward the cliffs. (To be continued.)