More Adventures of the Great Brain

by John D. Fitzgerald

  Our tent was ripped in half, and our supplies were scattered all over the side of the canyon. We salvaged what we could and made a pack horse out of Bess.

  Papa mounted Dusty and led the pack horse, Sweyn and I followed close behind on foot, and Tom lagged behind again.

  We followed the stream downhill until afternoon of the following day. Then Papa pulled Dusty to a halt.

  “Don’t worry, boys,” he shouted over his shoulder. “When we round that bend up ahead, you’ll be able to see the mouth of the canyon.”

  I felt cheered up enough to start whistling. My whistling stopped suddenly as we rounded the bend in the canyon. Instead of the mouth of the canyon I saw a thousand-foot high wall of granite forming another blind canyon. The river ran downhill all right, just as Papa said it would, but this river went right under that thousand-foot wall of granite, forming an underground river.

  Papa dismounted. He folded his arms and stared at that granite wall as if it had a lot of nerve being there.

  I knew we were hopelessly lost and began to cry.

  “Stop that blubbering, J.D.,” Tom said. “It will upset Papa.”

  “I think Dad is already upset,” Sweyn said. “We are lost for sure. I’ve only about a dozen shells left for my rifle, and I doubt if Dad has any shells left for the shotgun.”

  “Who needs shells?” Tom asked. “Let’s build a lean-to for Papa first and then set some deadfall traps.”

  Papa sat down on a boulder and stared at the granite cliff as though if he stared at it long enough it would disappear.

  Us boys unsaddled Dusty and unpacked Bess. We put hobbles on them and turned them loose to graze.

  “Dad has got us into a mess,” Sweyn said as he got the axe we had salvaged from the wreck.

  “If it was just a mess, I wouldn’t care,” I said. “But I think Papa has got us lost in these mountains.”

  “Crying over spilt milk won’t do any good,” Tom said. “We’ve got to make camp, and make sure we have something to eat. Let’s get busy.”

  We followed Sweyn to a grove of aspen trees. We found two strong Y-shaped branches on them. Sweyn cut them off with the axe. Tom cut the small branches off them with his jackknife. We went back to where we were going to make our campsite. With his jackknife Tom dug two holes about six inches deep and about ten feet apart. We stuck the aspen poles in the holes with the Y on top and packed dirt around them. By that time Sweyn joined us with a straight branch of a tree from which he’d chopped off all the branches. Tom stripped enough bark from it to make thongs with his jackknife. Then we put the pole between the Y’s on the poles in the ground and lashed them together with the bark. We got the piece of tent we’d salvaged and draped it over the pole between the two Y’s. Then we put rocks all around the edge of the piece of tent so the wind couldn’t blow it away. Next we cut some pine branches and carried them into the tent to use for a mattress.

  “That will take care of Papa,” Tom said. “We can sleep in our blankets around the camp fire. Now for some deadfalls.”

  We walked along the bank of the river until we came to a game trail used by animals that came down to the river to drink at night. While Tom carved sticks for the deadfalls, Sweyn and I found three big flat slabs of rock, which we carried to the game trail. We waited until Tom had carved the notches in the sticks to spring the trap of the deadfall. Then I picked some wild clover along the bank of the river. Tom used some blades of wild grass to tie the clover to the end of the stick that would trigger the deadfall. Then he set the figure 4 of the deadfall with three sticks together in their notches. He held the figure 4 while Sweyn and I carefully placed one end of one of the flat slabs of rock on top of it. When a rabbit or any other small game animal nibbled on the bait on the end of the bait stick, it would dislodge the notches on the other two sticks and cause the flat rock to fall on it and kill it or stun it so that it would be under the rock in the morning.

  When we returned to our campsite, Papa was still sitting on the boulder. Tom and I made a camp fire. Sweyn went hunting and used two of his precious shells to kill a rabbit and one quail, which we had for supper.

  I was scared and felt like crying, and Papa sure didn’t help matters after we’d finished eating.

  “I don’t want to alarm you, boys,” he said as he puffed on his pipe, “but things look quite serious.”

  Sweyn doubled up his knees and held them with his hands. “Mom certainly must have told Uncle Mark to come look for us when we didn’t get back on time,” he said.

  “Where would he look?” Papa asked. “He had no idea where we were going except up Beaver Canyon.”

  “But he could find the tracks of the horses and buckboard,” Sweyn said.

  “You are forgetting that cloudburst we had,” Papa said. “It certainly washed out any tracks made by the horses and the buckboard.”

  I couldn’t hold back the tears any longer and began to cry. “We are going to die,” I sobbed.

  “We certainly aren’t going to die,” Papa said. “I read an article one time about a man who was lost in the Rocky Mountains for five years. He managed to live on small game, fish, pinenuts, and wild berries until finally he was rescued by some trappers.” Then Papa stood up and stretched. “I think it is time to bed down now,” he said.

  Papa went into his lean-to. We wrapped ourselves in our blankets and lay down around the fire. Papa sure didn’t make me feel any better with that story of the man lost for five years. We were going to die in these mountains. I would never see Mamma or Aunt Bertha or any of my friends again. Someday some renegade Indians might find us and scalp us and torture us to death. That would perhaps be better than living the rest of our lives in this wilderness. But we hadn’t seen any sign of Indians. That meant only one thing. Someday some intrepid explorer or trapper would come across our bleached bones and wonder if they were the bones of white people or Indians. We were doomed. Doomed to die in this wilderness.

  Tom touched my shoulder. “For gosh sakes, J.D.,” he whispered, “stop that bawling and go to sleep.”

  “I can’t help it,” I cried softly. “We are doomed to live the rest of our lives in these mountains like Paiute Indians, eating grasshoppers, ants, wild berries, pinenuts—”

  “Will you shut up with that doomed business,” Tom interrupted me. “You don’t think for a minute I’d let my great brain let us get lost in these mountains, do you?”

  I felt like laughing and crying at the same time. What a fool I had been when I had my brother and his great brain with us.

  “God bless your great brain,” I said and promptly fell asleep.

  The next morning we found we’d caught two rabbits in our deadfalls and four trout on our night fishing poles. We ate the trout for breakfast and saved the rabbits. Papa was very quiet. After we had finished eating, Papa went back to the boulder and sat staring at that thousand-foot-high granite cliff as if trying to come to some decision. We had just finished washing the tin plates and knives and forks when he motioned to us.

  “Boys,” he said as we stood in front of him. I’d never seen his face so serious. “I think we should start building a log cabin.”

  “How are you going to build a cabin without a saw and a hammer and nails and things?” Sweyn asked.

  “The same way the early pioneers did,” Papa answered. “Using the bark of aspen trees to bind the logs together and mud from the banks of the river to chink up the cracks between the logs. And there is a ledge of flat rock over there we can use to build a fireplace. We must prepare for the worst and hope for the best. It may be years before some friendly Indians or some trapper finds us.”

  Tom shook his head. “Isn’t it silly to start building a cabin when Uncle Mark will be riding in here in a few days?” he asked.

  “That is impossible,” Papa said. “That cloudburst washed away all our tracks.”

  “No it didn’t,” Tom said. “I knew when we turned off the logging camp road that we might get lost. I used rocks to make mar
kers that wouldn’t wash away, and I cut markers on trees no cloudburst could destroy. That is why I was lagging behind all the time. If my calculations are correct, Uncle Mark should be riding in here in two or three days, if we just stay here. You didn’t think my great brain would let us get lost, did you, Papa?”

  Papa and Sweyn stared at Tom bug-eyed for a moment, and then they both began to smile happily. Papa got off the boulder and patted Tom on the shoulder.

  “I’m proud of you, son,” he said. “It was foolish of me to try and find a shortcut out of these mountains without marking our trail.”

  Then Papa had a second thought about what he had just said. He staggered back to the boulder and sat down. He covered his face with his hands as if he were going to cry.

  “What’s the matter with him?” Sweyn whispered.

  “I don’t know,” Tom answered. “Suppose we find out.”

  Tom walked up close to Papa. “What is the matter?” he asked. “I told you we were going to be saved.”

  Papa raised his head up. “I’ll never live this down,” he cried as if being tortured. “Your mother will never forgive me for trying to take a shortcut and endangering all our lives. And I can just hear people in town bringing up the subject every time some neighbor’s cow wanders away. I’ll be the butt of jokes for years.”

  Then Papa got real dramatic and held his arms out in a hopeless gesture. “That is the only answer,” he cried. “I’ll stay right here. Better to live out my life in this wilderness than to go back and have people point me out as the town fool. You boys return with your Uncle Mark. I’m staying right here.”

  Tom stared at Papa for a moment as his great brain began to click. Then he looked at Sweyn.

  “Did you see me mark the trail?” he asked.

  Sweyn looked surprised for a second and then smiled. “No,” he answered.

  Tom looked at me and winked. “Did you see me mark the trail, J.D.?”

  “No,” I lied.

  “Well,” Tom said with a shake of his head, “I sure don’t remember marking our trail, and that leaves only Papa.”

  The look of despair on Papa’s face gave way to one of hope. He looked as though he might enjoy the comforts of home more than living like a savage in the wilderness.

  “Thank you, boys,” he said. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

  I figured Tom would have liked it better to be thanked from the bottom of Papa’s purse but didn’t say anything.

  We lived for two and a half days on small game we caught in our deadfalls, fish we caught, and roasted pinenuts. On the afternoon of the third day Uncle Mark rode into our camp on his white stallion, leading two pack horses. I was never so glad to see anybody in my life. But Papa folded his arms on his chest and looked positively angry.

  “What in the name of Jupiter took you so long?” he demanded. “Leaving me all this time trying to keep up the spirits of my boys?”

  I didn’t know what spirits Papa was talking about. He sure hadn’t kept up my spirits with that story of the man lost for five years in the mountains.

  Uncle Mark grinned as he dismounted. Then he looked at Papa. “If you’d just stayed in one place after you knew you were lost,” he said, “instead of wandering up and down one blind canyon after another, I would have caught up with you a few days ago. It is a good thing you had sense enough to mark your trail, or I would never have found you.”

  “What kind of a tenderfoot do you think I am?” Papa asked as if insulted. “You certainly don’t think for a moment that I’d try to take a shortcut out of these mountains without marking my trail, do you?”

  Uncle Mark turned sideways so Papa couldn’t see him wink at Tom. “Of course not,” he said. “But you really gave me a scare when I saw the wrecked buckboard and the dead horse. It is a good thing you didn’t let anybody ride in the buckboard when you tried to bypass that waterfall. They might have been killed if you had.”

  Papa must have forgot his wild leap from the buckboard. “I certainly wouldn’t do a fool thing like that,” he said.

  “Gosh, T.D.,” I whispered to Tom, “Papa is lying like all get out.”

  “Would you rather have him tell a few little white lies, or have everybody in Adenville think he was a fool?” Tom asked.

  “But your great brain saved us, and Papa is taking all the credit,” I protested.

  “I know, and you know, and Sweyn knows, and Uncle Mark knows I marked the trail,” Tom said. “But that is as far as it will ever go. We aren’t even going to tell Mamma.”

  I thought about it for a moment and knew Tom was right. It would be bad enough for everybody in Adenville to think Papa was a fool. But letting Mamma know she had married one would certainly break her heart.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Tom Scoops Papa’s Newspaper

  EVERY TUESDAY IT WAS TOM’S and my job to deliver the weekly edition of Papa’s newspaper. The second Tuesday after we’d returned from our fishing and camping trip, we entered the Advocate office after doing our morning chores at home. Papa usually wrote his editorial and set the type for it and for the advertisements during the first five days of the week, in addition to any extra printing jobs he had. He also set the type for news items from other Utah newspapers which he thought might interest his readers, and national news items received by telegraph, and the mail edition of the New York World. He waited until Saturday to set the type for the local news items he had collected during the week. The four-page weekly newspaper was printed on Monday and delivered to subscribers on Tuesday morning.

  Sweyn really thought he was something, helping Papa at the Advocate, wearing long pants, a printer’s apron, and a green eye shade. The way he lorded it over Tom and me!

  “It’s about time you got here, Old Man,” he said to Tom as we entered the Advocate office with its smell of ink and paper.

  “Sorry we are late, Grandpa,” Tom said, “But Mamma made us weed the vegetable garden this morning.”

  Sweyn’s eyes popped open. “What is this Grandpa business?” he asked.

  “If I’m an old man,” Tom said, “you must be my grandfather.”

  Boy, how I wished I could have thought of that snappy comeback, which positively stunned my oldest brother for a moment. Then he got a sly look on his face as he pointed at the two neatly piled stacks of the weekly on the counter.

  “Papa went to the barbershop for a haircut,” he said, “but he told me to make sure you little grade-school kids did a good job.”

  From the look on Tom’s face I could tell he would rather be called Old Man than a little grade-school kid. But he didn’t say anything as he grabbed his pile of the weekly and me the other pile. We carried them outside and Tom put his copies in the basket on his bike. It was his job to deliver the Advocate to the homes of all subscribers in Adenville because he had a bicycle. It was my job to drop off all copies of the newspaper that had yellow name stickers on them at the post office. These were mailed. I left the rest of my copies on the counter of the Z.C.M.I. store and on the desk at the Sheepmen’s Hotel for people to buy for cash.

  I don’t know if Sweyn calling Tom and me little grade-school kids started it but after supper that night Tom got what Papa called growing pains. Mamma and Aunt Bertha were doing the supper dishes. Sweyn, the big sissy, had left to go sit on the Vinson’s front porch and hold hands with his girl, Marie. Papa was reading The Farm Journal. Tom was pacing back and forth in the parlor with his hands behind his back. I guess this made Papa nervous.

  “What is the matter with you?” he asked as he dropped the magazine into his lap.

  Tom stopped pacing and looked at Papa. “Sweyn wants to be a doctor when he grows up, and I want to be a journalist just like you,” Tom said.

  Papa nodded. “That is what you have both always said.”

  “Then why don’t you let Sweyn start learning how to be a doctor working with Dr. LeRoy and let me help you at the Advocate?” Tom asked.

  “S.D. couldn’t possibly be of
any help to Dr. LeRoy now,” Papa said. “It takes years to become an intern. But he can help me at the Advocate.”

  “There isn’t anything Sweyn can do that I can’t do better with my great brain,” Tom said. “I could learn how to run the Washington Press and set type twice as fast as he can.”

  “I’m afraid you aren’t old enough,” Papa said. “Don’t forget that your brother is almost two years older than you.”

  “I’m not a kid anymore,” Tom said as if Papa had insulted him.

  “I know how you feel, son,” Papa said gently. “You just have growing pains, but you will get over them.”

  Tom looked as if he’d just lost the ball game. He joined me on the floor where we played checkers until it was bedtime. I knew he didn’t have his mind on the game because I beat him two times out of six.

  As we got undressed for bed that night, I looked closely at Tom. I couldn’t see any difference in him.

  “Do they hurt?” I asked.

  “Does what hurt?” he asked.

  “The growing pains,” I said.

  Tom folded his britches over the back of his chair. “Some kids grow too fast and that makes their bones and muscles ache,” he said. “That is what they call growing pains. But that isn’t what Papa meant. He thinks I’m just a kid and too young to help him at the Advocate but I’ll show him some way that I’m not.”

  “You must be sick,” I said. “You take on any more work and you won’t have any time to play.”

  “When you get as old as me, J.D.,” he said shaking his head, “you will understand there are more important things than just playing.”

  “Boy!” I said. “I hope I never get so old I’d rather work than play, especially during the summer vacation.”

  * * *

  Tom’s great brain must have been working in his sleep because he was smiling when we got up the next morning. I didn’t find out the reason for the smiles until we’d finished breakfast and Papa was having his second cup of coffee.