I guess that you never heard how my Great Great Great Half Uncle Herman once saved an entire company of US cavalry from marauding indians.
The indians had been chasing the cavalry all across Arizona (as it would be) and had finally almost cornered them when they stumbled across my GGGHU Herman. Sizing up the situation quickly, he told the Captain to have his company follow and then lead the whole company up an almost impassible path to the top of a mesa.
Now the indians couldn't get up the path, and the soldiers couldn't get down, so it looked like it was a contest to see who could out wait the other.
Things looked pretty good, until the soldiers discovered that their water cask had sprung a leak and that they had almost no water left.
Things didn't improve much when the sun rose and the temperature started climbing, climbing, climbing, and climbing. But the soldiers made it through the first day.
The second day was a repeat of the first, except that it really got hot and, no matter how strictly they had tried to ration the water, by nightfall there wasn't a drop in the soldier's camp.
The soldiers were, needless to say but I will anyways, pretty ticked off with my GGGHU Herman - they figured that if they hadn't come up onto the mesa they might have had a slim chance to evade the indians. But my GGGHU Herman told them not to worry because he knew these indians well and they couldn't keep up a siege for very long.
When the soldiers asked my GGGUH Herman what he meant by that he told them that the longest that this tribe of indians had ever been known to keep siege was a week.
Well, since there were five days to go and no water to go with it, the soldiers started looking pretty mutinous, but my GGGHU Herman quieted them and quickly set them to work cutting down all of the saplings they could find on the top of the mesa.
The soldiers couldn't figure out what my GGGHU Herman was up to, but any action was better than nothing - although they did start to grumble when he told them to hollow the saplings out and join them together.
Finally, unable to take it any longer, the company's SgtMaj asked my GGGHU Herman what he was going to do with the hollow saplings.
"Get water.", my GGGHU Herman replied.
"Where?", he was asked.
"From down there.", he replied pointing to the small spring that bubbled (for some unknown geological reason) out of the side of the mesa and into a pool about half way down.
"How?", he was asked.
"Just wait.", he said and settled in to wait until the sum sank.
Finally the sun sank and my GGGHU Herman supervised the soldiers as the fitted the hollow saplings together and slowly lowered them over the edge of the mesa and down until they formed a pipe from the pool to the top of the mesa.
"Well?", the SgtMaj asked.
"Just wait.", my GGGHU Herman replied as he rummaged in his saddlebags and pulled out several glass jars.
My GGGHU Herman then walked over to the pipe, opened the jars, and dropped the contents carefully down the pipe.
Within minutes water started bubbling out of the pipe and soon the soldiers had all the water that they needed as well as full canteens and waterbags.
"What did you put down that pipe, man?", the Captain asked.
"Pickles.", my GGGHU Herman replied, "Everyone knows that dill waters run steep.".
By: Chuckles
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