SURFACE. 25 



necessarily following. The bars being of such loose 

 shifting materials, the boat can, if there be men enough, 

 and a good foothold for them, generally be forced over 

 them, the corner to which the rope is attached acting as 

 a wedge in opening a way, which the men with poles 

 constantly widen, by pushing the stem of the boat up or 

 down stream, working it sideways while the ropemen 

 pull. If the bar cannot be forced in this way, the boat 

 is either pulled up stream, or allowed to drop down, 

 until the bar can be turned. It is a tedious process and 

 dangerous for men, but is often absolutely necessary as 

 the only means of crossing the stream. A raft on such 

 a stream would be utterly useless, even could the timber 

 to make it be found. The great danger of these rivers is 

 not only from swift channels and quicksands, but from 

 the great weight of the current, loaded as it is with sand. 

 A nian caught in one of these moving sand-waves seems 

 to lose the power even of struggling. Some soldiers 

 were one day fishing with a seine in the South Platte, 

 where the water was two or three feet deep. The three 

 men farthest from the bank suddenly went down. One 

 was caught by a comrade and saved. The others were 

 never seen again either in life or in death. The sand 

 never gives up its dead. 



There are many varieties of quicksand. Sometimes 

 the bottom seems to fall out and leave horse and rider in 

 a void of sand and water. This, though disagreeable, 

 is not very dangerous. At other times a horse will sink 

 to his knees, or to his belly, before finding a firm bottom, 

 the sand closing tenaciously to his legs and feet. If he be 

 new to the experience and the sand bad, he will probably 

 drown or cripple himself by straining. The most dan- 

 gerous and treacherous are those which not only catch 

 and grip tenaciously, but in which the victim sinks deeper 

 and deeper, slowly but most certainly, until buried in 

 unknown depths. A man or animal caught in one of 

 these has no hope but from outside assistance. Fortu- 



