" ... for there would be no trace, no clue ... "

28,    Nov, 2018

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Coast Trails

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" Here the expedition narrowly escaped disaster. " No exaggeration
bespeaks Chase here, for the serious nature of the ' expedition '
was certainly in peril. Another outcome may have left us with
no ' Coast Trails ' or ' Desert Trails. ' But for our good fortune,
as well as Chase's and Chino's, Chase surmounts this very real
life-threatening encounter with nature. Let not modern sensibilities
discount this situation. This was circa 1914, at a California
coast where a day or more may have passed before seeing
another person, let alone ' aid. ' 

Chase recounts the incident, one believes, as he went through it, 
controlled, but on the fringe of ' losing it. ' He had no time to panic.
No time could be lost in his mental and physical efforts to save himself
and his companion. His considering shooting Chino where he lay
seemingly beyond help, is a Chase at ends. He even thought that
he himself would, ' cease to be. ' He talks of afterward making
" a rare supper to celebrate the adventure, " so relieved he was
of surviving. And as was his penchant he found solace in his
companion's well being, " and the manifold voices of the sea. "

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The country hereabout is monotonous and unattractive. Low undulating hills run for mile on mile, treeless, and scanty even of brush, and the cañons are dry and shadeless. We marched some miles before finding water, and I resolved to camp at the first creek I should see. At last I came to one, which afforded good pasturage also; and, dismounting, I led Chino down toward the beach, where I noticed a little bench of green grass at the mouth of the cañon and on the very edge of the shore sand.

Here the expedition narrowly escaped disaster. The inwash of the tide, meeting the water of the creek, had formed an area, a sort of pit, of quicksand. This we had to cross in order to reach the beach, and in a moment, without warning, I was up to my middle, and Chino, following close behind. plunged in beside and almost upon me. On the instant I threw myself backward, and tried to work myself out, but the sand clogged me as if it were liquid, lead, and I could not reach back with my hands to where the solid ground would give me support. Chino, meanwhile, was struggling desperately but helplessly, the heavy saddle-bags and other articles of his load weighing him down so that he was already half covered.

By great good fortune the cañon wall was near by, not over eight feet away. It was of weathered rock, soft and shaly, and I thought that if I could anyhow work over to it I could get grip enough on it to support myself. It seemed an impossible thing to do, with that fatal sand clasping and weighing me down. but I attempted it.

I remember that, as I struggled, a horror of the commonplace sunlit evening flashed over me, and, with it, the thought that no one would ever know what had happened to me, for there would be no trace, no clue. That horrible sand would close over me, the sun would shine on the spot, the roar of waves would go on unbroken; I should simply cease to be. I think I wondered whether there would not be any way of telling my friends; but I am not sure whether that thought came then, or in thinking it over afterwards.

All this can only have taken a very short time. during which I was struggling to reach the rocky wall. At last my fingers scraped the rock, and gradually I was able to draw myself backwards to firm ground. Then I ran round by the solid beach sand, crossing the creek, and came back to Chino. He had stopped struggling, but lay over on his side, and had sunk so that one of the saddle-bags was quite out of sight. Blood, too, was spattered all about him.

Coming as close as was safe behind him, I gradually loosened as much of his load as I could reach. Then I caught his rope and tried to get him to exert himself. For some time he made no move, and I thought he must have broken his off-side foreleg on a half-buried snag of dead wood that projected above the sand. Again and again I tried to get him to move, but he still lay on his side, drawing great gasping breaths, and I about decided I should have to shoot him where he lay. But I made a last effort, shouting and hauling at him with all my strength, until I literally forced him to bestir himself: when, putting my last ounce into it, I pulled and shouted, refusing to allow him to relax his efforts for a moment, and gradually working his head round somewhat toward where I stood. With a final wild spasm he scrambled up on to the dry, hard sand, and stood snorting and trembling pitifully, bespattered with blood and utterly exhausted.

I was vastly relieved to find that the blood was coming from his mouth and nostrils. He had broken some small blood-vessel in his first struggles. I took off the saddle and led him carefully over to a grassy spot, where I washed out his mouth and then gave him a thorough rubbing-down; and within half an hour I had the satisfaction of seeing my staunch companion of so many days and nights feeding with equanimity and even enthusiasm.


The incident was sufficiently dangerous to give me a lesson in caution, as well as cause for hearty thankfulness. There was not the slightest hint of treachery in the appearance of the sand, but thereafter I went warily in all doubtful places. I ransacked my rescued saddle-bags and made a rare supper to celebrate the adventure. As the bags were strongly made, and waterproofed, the contents had not been much damaged. Then I ran up my sleeping-tent, in view of the fog which I could see advancing from the sea. I chose a place on a little shelf of dry sand, sheltered by the angle of the cañon wall, and apparently above high-water mark by a safe though narrow margin. Then in the dusk I gathered a pile of driftwood and made a royal fire, by which I sat until long after dark, listening with more than usual enjoyment to the tinkle of Chino's bell and the manifold voices of the sea. "

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