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It was several minutes before I even ventured to creep up the sand-spit into the denser blackness of the over-hanging bank, but, once there safely, I discovered the drift had landed me at the mouth of a narrow gully, apparently a mere crevice in the rocky shore-line. It was the occasional downpour of water after rain which had caused the accumulation of debris on which my log had grounded.
Those whom he was able to warn dressed hurriedly, took their rifles, and went out into the drifting night, leaving empty cabins and weeping women. The great fight was on. Towards daylight the remnants of the Vigilantes straggled into the big blank warehouse on the sand-spit, and there beneath the smoking glare of lanterns cursed the name of McNamara.
The Snake River, a sluggish, unnavigable stream, coming from the back-lying hills and through the tundra, empties into the sea where the town tapers off at the north, and thereby forms a sand-spit. The first impressions after landing were those of confusion, waste, and filth.
Knowing that the ordinary food must be repulsive to my new and delightful companions, I went back to a certain island, where, during my journey from the little sand-spit to the main, I had hidden a quantity of corn beneath a cairn. This corn I now brought back to my Gulf home, and planted for the use of the girls.
Speculation of this kind must not be indulged in; time enough to cry out when the troubles come. Providence was with us as guide, and across the lake we dodged from sand-spit to sand-spit until we had beaten it, and not one animal was bogged. The night of the 10th our supply was down to three gallons.
This matter having been arranged, they continued on up the bank, going at their leisure. On arriving at that part of the bank where the sand-spit projected into the river, they were about stepping out upon it, when the quick ear of Ivan caught the sound of some animals moving among the underwood.
There are also weedy patches, bare sand-banks of limited extent, uncovered at low water, and muddy depressions both in the deep and shallow portions and clean sand. Strong currents race past the sand-spit and across the bay, carrying, no doubt, continual supplies of spat from elsewhere to settle in quiet places.
I tell you, words can never describe the horror of the agonising months as they crawled by. "My island" was nothing but a little sand-spit, with here and there a few tufts of grass struggling through its parched surface. As a matter of fact the sand was only four or five inches deep in most places, and underneath was solid coral rock.
All machinery which had rested upon the beach was buried in the sand. The entire sand-spit where we had first camped was washed by the surf. Lumber in great piles was strewn all along the water-front, and there were general loot and consequent drunkenness. The saying that the "Bering Sea is the graveyard of the Pacific" seemed verified.
What I am trying to get at, is that we have all a lost Eden in the past and a Paradise Regained in the future. 'Twixt two unbounded seas of happiness we stand on the narrow and arid sand-spit of the present and cast a wishful eye. In hot weather particularly the wishful eye, when directed toward the lost Eden of boyhood, lights on and lingers near the Old Swimming-hole.
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