"And how long ago were these ca.n.a.ls dug?" asked Roger.

"No one knows," was the truthful and unhesitating reply. "It is a puzzle that so far archaeologists have tried in vain to solve. They must be older than the Aztlan civilizations----"

"What are those?" asked Phil.

"Aztecs, Toltecs, and that bunch, aren't they?" queried Roger, wanting to show his knowledge.

"Mayas, too," said the other, smiling a.s.sent, "and they must be older than the Nahoa empire, of which little is left except in the south of Peru. Just how old is impossible to say, and the only clew we have is that these ca.n.a.ls and ditches are in part filled up with volcanic lava and debris from the Bradshaw mountains, and geologists are able to show that these eruptions cannot have taken place less than two thousand years ago."

"That's as old as Rome!" said Roger in surprise.

"That means that the end of it, at latest guess, was older than the beginning of Rome, practically. And, though this volcanic action has been later than these immense works of early man in America, there is left neither a tradition of the millions of people who lived then, nor even of the forces which led to the decay of the empire and the overwhelming volcanic disaster in which it may have closed."

On their way back to the train, the old traveler gave Roger a long account of the early settlement of that part of the country by the Spaniards, and pointed out, as they pa.s.sed through Tucson a few hours later, the quaint mediaeval architecture of a town which claims its beginning as far back as 1560, and in which many houses three centuries old are still standing; the oldest town in the Southwest, with the exception of Santa Fe.

A mirage, or rather a succession of them, formed the basis for some thrilling African desert tales, with which Phil's father was well-primed, and when, pa.s.sing round the mile-long horseshoe curve, the train pulled into El Paso, Roger was extremely sorry to leave the friends who had made his trip such a pleasant one.

A few hours sufficed for the boy to purchase some trifles needed to make up his equipment, and bright and early the following morning he started for Aragon, where he would find out the location of the party he was to join. It was quite dull after the jollity and interest of the trip to El Paso, and Roger began to wish that he had arrived, and was pining to get into action again. But the incident for which he was anxious did not fail him. As the train pulled up at Chispa, a station about fifty miles west of Aragon, it was seen that almost the whole population of the village was at the depot, a crowd numbering perhaps twenty people, and foremost among them a man carrying a little girl, about eight years old, in his arms.

In answer to questions put to him in Spanish, for he could speak no English, the father explained his trouble by pointing to six little marks on the girl's leg, three groups of two, all near each other. No sooner was it seen what the trouble was than a big six-footer shouldered his way through the car.

"When?" he asked.

In a torrent of Spanish and gesticulation, the man explained that the child had been struck by a rattlesnake three times, fortunately, a small one, just half an hour before the train came in, and that he was going to take her to the nearest doctor, who was in Marfa, a town some few stations down the line.

"Well," said the big man, "I can fix her, I guess. That is, I've got the regular serum here, but I haven't a syringe. Any gentleman got a hypodermic needle?"

But none of the pa.s.sengers would confess to the use of a needle, because of its implication that its owner would be a "dope fiend," and the querist shrugged his shoulders.

"Are you a doctor?" asked one of the men in the car.

"I'm not a little girl doctor, I'm a cattle doctor," answered the big man with a laugh, "or at least I'm a government inspector, and I haven't anything smaller than this!" He pulled out of his case a hypodermic syringe used for injecting fluid into cattle.

But the father sent up a cry of protest at the sight of the instrument, and would not allow it to be used. The matter was explained to him in Spanish, in English, and in half a dozen different dialects of each, but he only shook his head.

"Has anybody got a sharp knife? I mean really sharp," next asked the inspector, who had a.s.sumed control of the situation and was in no wise disconcerted by the opposition of the girl's father. There was a moment's pause and then Roger stepped forward.

"I was taught on the Survey," he emphasized the words to give them weight with the government official, "to keep a blade sharp, and I guess this is about as good steel as you can get."

The inspector took it, opened it, and ran his thumb along the blade.

"It's a good knife, son," he said, "but it's no surgical instrument.

Some one lend me a razor, I use a safety myself."

Of the stock of razors that were handed to him, the big man took one, sterilized it in some boiling water from the dining car, and prepared to make an incision in the girl's leg just above the fang marks.

But no sooner had the blade touched the skin and drawn a little blood, than with a yell the father leaped straight at the inspector, flashing a knife as he did so. Not expecting an attack, the government man would have been taken unawares, but that is a land of quick action, and before the Mexican could bring his arm down, he found his wrist seized, and a revolver barrel an inch from his nose stopped his onward rush.

"That's a Greaser's grat.i.tood, every time," said the holder of the gun.

"Go ahead with your job, pard, and if this ornery cayuse so much as squirms, I'll give you an elegant opportoonity to perform a little operation for bullet extraction."

The inspector, who, seeing that the danger was averted, had gone back to his task, merely nodded. He made several wide and deep incisions, thinking that scars were better than death, and then, despite the crying of the girl and the fluent curses of the father, rubbed soda in the wounds with a vigorous hand.

"There!" he said, as he completed the task. "I think she'll do all right now!"

"But is that a sure preventive?" asked the boy.

"No, son," was the reply. "To be honest with you, nothing's sure against a rattler, because, you see, some folks' const.i.tutions are worked on more easily than others, but in a certain number of cases the soda fixes it. That is, if you're not afraid to cut deep enough."

"Then," Roger said, "it just means that you've probably saved the girl's life?"

"Well," replied the other, "that's putting it a little strongly. And, anyhow, if you're on the Survey, you know mighty well that when government men do that sort of thing they don't talk about it."

CHAPTER XI

WHERE PRIMITIVE JUSTICE REIGNS

Roger had thought he had seen a few varieties of cacti in the Amargosa Desert, but as he stepped off the train at Aragon, he realized that all his previous ideas had fallen far short. To the eye unfamiliar with cacti, their c.u.mbrous ungainliness looked unnatural and forced, and standing by the little shanty which was dignified with the name of station, the boy looked over a dusty plain wherein fantastic and th.o.r.n.y shapes ran riot. If the Grand Canyon was a bizarre dream of rocks, then the cacti of the Arizona plains looked to Roger the nightmare of the vegetable world.

But the boy, arrived at the point where he must strike off for the party, realized that the time for delay was over, and turning to the station agent, who had been eyeing him curiously, he asked for information about the government surveyors. There was no difficulty in finding out roughly the direction in which the party had traveled, but the description of the route over the apparently interminable cactus plains somewhat perturbed Roger, accustomed though he now felt himself to be to find his way over the faintest trails. But he was a boy, just the same, and the cacti looked forbidding and menacing, and the lad wished profoundly that the old frontiersman, who had been his companion on the first ride to Death Valley, were with him now. But there was no help for it, he had to join his party no matter what the trail was like or whither it led.

His next question, implying the desire to buy a good mule and the ability to pay for it, aroused considerably more interest, and the station agent so bestirred himself in the matter that Roger felt sure he had a commission in view. It was but a short time before three mules were brought for his inspection, all sound beasts so far as the boy could judge, and he counted himself fortunate to strike an agreement with the owner of the mule, whereby, for a little extra payment, one of the herders should accompany him on the trail to the Survey camp.

The ride was long and dry, and the boy was amazed to learn from his companion that a few years before these arid plains had been a grazing country.

"Where has all the gra.s.s gone?" he queried.

"Senor," replied the Mexican, "it was thisa way. Alla the gra.s.s has been eaten. There wasa too moocha the cattle on the land, they eata the gra.s.s moocha too short, and the gra.s.s cannot maka the seed."

"But," objected Roger, "aren't the roots still there?"

The herder shook his head.

"No, Senor," he answered, with a sweeping gesture; "if the gra.s.s get moocha short, the rain not soaka in but runa right away, the ground all same as dust, and wind blowa the earth away from the roots and alla dry up."

"I see," said Roger thoughtfully. "Then putting too much cattle on land is like cutting the forests on the mountains too heavily. Deforest the mountains and the water floods the streams and is wasted, crop the plains and they become a desert. I see."

The distance to the Survey camp was not great, being but little over twenty miles, but the country was not conducive to rapid traveling, and as the boy allowed his companion to set the pace it was almost evening when they arrived. The party had just come in from the day's work, and Roger immediately presented his letter to Mr. Barrs, by whom he was warmly welcomed.

Roger's new chief was a quiet man, as indeed most of his leaders had been, but Mr. Barrs bubbled over continually with a certain sedate humor. He promptly put the lad through a catechism with reference to his work and experience since he joined the Survey, and little by little, drew out from Roger almost the entire story of his adventures up to and including the incident of the rattlesnake-bitten girl on the train the previous day.

"That, my son," said Barrs, "is a fitting prelude to your stay here.

This is the first and only original headquarters of the snake, spider, and insect tribe, and anything with the usual number of legs is out of place."

"And are they all poisonous, Mr. Barrs?" asked the boy.