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Updated: August 1, 2024
At daylight they made a change of horses at a far-lying Mexican rancheria, Zurich's check paying the shot; they bought two five-gallon kegs and lashed them to the pack, to be filled when needed. At nine in the morning they came to Fishhook Mountain. Fishhook Mountain is midmost in the great desert; Quijotoa Valley, desolate and dim, lies to the east of it, gullied, dust-deviled, and forlorn.
I was paddlin' down the creek, bound for nowhere special, when along comes a sporty-dressed young gent, wearin' puttee leggin's and a leather cap with goggles attached. He's luggin' a five-gallon can of gasoline, and strikes me for a lift down the shore a bit. "Keepin' your car in the Sound, are you?" says I, shovin' in towards the bank. "It's an aërohydro," says he. "Eh?" says I. "A a which?"
Charley exclaimed. "Either that boat is a daisy, or we've got a five-gallon coal-oil can fast to our keel!" It certainly looked it one way or the other. And by the time Demetrios made the Sonoma Hills, on the other side of the Straits, we were so hopelessly outdistanced that Charley told me to slack off the sheet, and we squared away for Benicia.
For had not Browne rigged up a shower, consisting of the Standard five-gallon tin? A muchacho filled it with water and pulled it up over a pulley, and you got an excellent shower from the holes punched in the bottom. In fact, the Standard five-gallon tin is as well known in the East as its contents, and is carefully preserved and used. We had several opportunities to bless its existence.
The puncher had brought them along, apparently with a hazy idea that the descent of the cañon would be something on the order of mining. There were also in the wagon two five-gallon kerosene cans to use in carrying water up the mountain, a sack of oats, Gowan's saddle, and two packsaddles.
The stretch was called the "water scrape." All the five-gallon kegs hanging under the wagons had to be filled, and the teams were hustled day and night in order to get across as quickly as possible. It was a hot country, of soft sand hub-deep and of wind-swept tracts so hard that the wagon wheels left no trace.
He also bought several bushels of salt, as well as two barrels of hake heads to start them in lobstering. The Barracouta's tank was filled with twenty-five gallons of gasolene, and six five-gallon cans were purchased besides. The boat would require about seven gallons a day for ordinary fishing, so this would supply them for more than a week.
When they reached a house soon after, where there lived a chief named Nicolai, they found a five-gallon kettle full of meat boiling on the fire. They drank large quantities of the broth, and ate about five pounds of meat apiece. Much of this meat was pure tallow from the moose. They all fell asleep immediately after eating. When they awaked, they were almost as hungry as before.
About a week later one of your companions drags out of the alforja something crumpled that resembles in general appearance and texture a rusted five-gallon coal-oil can that has been in a wreck. It is only imperceptibly less stiff and angular and cast-iron than rawhide. "What is this?" the discoverer inquires.
The five-gallon oil can, probably punctured by Long Brown's bullets, furnished the climax to the volcanic display by blowing up and filling the air with burning canvas, blankets and hardware, and out of the fire and smoke rushed the blazing bear straight toward Long Brown and the creek. Even Long Brown's nerve was not equal to facing a ton of Grizzly headed toward him in a whirlwind of flame.
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