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F. DE LARRARD AND H. COLINA Section i
a ggregates S. DECREUSE
S. DECREUSE, N. COMTE , AND C. RAILLON
B. CAZACLIU, L. LE GUEN, E. HAMARD, S. ROUX , AND S. BRAYMAND
S. RÉMOND, J.M. MECHLING , R. TRAUCHESSEC , E. GARCIA-DIAZ , R. LAVAUD, AND B. CAZACLIU
Section ii Binder incorporating recycled concrete fraction L. IZORET 4 Recycled concrete sand as alternative raw material for Portland clinker
L. IZORET, C. DILIBERTO, J.M. MECHLING, A. LECOMTE , AND P. NATIN
5 Recycled concrete as cement main constituent (CMC) or supplementary cementitious materials (SCM)
M. CYR , C. DILIBERTO, A. LECOMTE , AND L. IZORET
J.-M. POTIER AND B. CAZACLIU
7 Effect of recycled aggregate on fresh concrete properties
E.-H. KADRI , Z.A. TAHAR , M. MOURET, AND D. ROGAT
E. ROZIÈRE, A.Z. BENDIMERAD, A. LOUKILI, J.-C. SOUCHE, M. SALGUES, E. GARCIA-DIAZ, AND P. DEVILLERS Section i V
P. ROUGEAU 9 Microstructure of recycled concrete
E. GARCIA-DIAZ , G. LE SAOUT, AND A. DJERBI 10 Instantaneous mechanical
E. GHORBEL, T. SEDRAN, AND G. WARDEH 11
F. GRONDIN, A. Z. BENDIMERAD, M. GUO, A. LOUKILI, E. ROZIÈRE, T. SEDRAN, C. DE SA, F. BENBOUDJEMA , F. CASSAGNABÈRE , P. NICOT, AND B. FOURÉ
12 Durability-related properties
P. ROUGEAU, L. SCHMITT, J. MAI-NHU, A. DJERBI , M. SAILLIO, E. GHORBEL, J.M. MECHLING, A. LECOMTE, R. TRAUCHESSEC , D. BULTEEL , M. CYR , N. LEKLOU, O. AMIRI , I. MOULIN, AND T. LENORMAND 13 Behavior
F. ROBERT, A.L. BEAUCOUR , AND H. COLINA
T. SEDRAN
V
W. PILLARD, T. SEDRAN, AND P. ROUGEAU 15 Adaptation of existing methods
T. SEDRAN
F. BUYLE-BODIN, S. DECREUSE, A. FERAILLE , F. DE LARRARD, AND X. CHOMIKI
Committee
This book was written by participants to the French national project RECYBÉTON, managed by the IREX (Institut pour la Recherche et l’Expérimentation en Génie Civil) association from 2012 to 2018. The coordination was performed by the following list of fellows:
• Dr. François de Larrard, LafargeHolcim (editor)
• Dr. Horacio Colina, ATILH (coeditor)
• Mrs. Sophie Decreuse, CEMEX (coordinator of Section I)
• Dr. L aurent Izoret, ATILH (coordinator of Section II)
• Pr. E ric Garcia-Diaz, IMT Mines Alès (coordinator of Section III)
• Dr. Patrick Rougeau, CERIB (coordinator of Section IV)
• Dr. T hierry Sedran, IFSTTAR (coordinator of Section V, in charge of the manuscript preparation)
• Mr. B ernard Fouré, consulting engineer, retired (coordinator of Section VI)
• Mr. Patrick Dantec, consulting engineer (coordinator of Section VII)
• Dr. Adélaïde Feraille, Ecole des Ponts ParisTech (coordinator of Section VIII)
• Dr. Wilfried Pillard, EGF-BTP (coordinator of Section IX)
• Pr. E lhem Ghorbel, University of Cergy-Pontoise (representative from Ecoreb ANR project)
Foreword
This book, Concrete Recycling—Research and Practice, summarizes one of the most transversal and systematic teamworks that has been done so far around the world concerning the use of wastes in concrete production. I am referring to the French national project RECYBÉTON, which ran from 2012 to 2018, and benefited from the efforts of a large team of very competent researchers of the various scientific areas fundamental to understanding the behavior of concrete with incorporation of recycled materials and boosting its use by the construction industry.
The authors of th is book made an effort to summarize the results of the project, published in around 50 reports and many papers in international conferences and scientific journals, comprising thousands of pages. The subjects are treated in a self-contained way, meaning that each chapter and subchapter of th is book can be read and understood independently from the rest of th is book but, at the same time, gives references to the other chapters for further reading and holistic understanding.
This book is written in a very pedagogical style, where the sequence of presentation of the various subjects helps the readers in understanding the barriers that need to be overcome in order to implement this new and more environmentally solution of making concrete, by far the most important structural material in the 20th and 21st centuries.
This book starts with the definition of the sources, processing and characterization techniques of the wastes, and recycled aggregates resulting from them.
Then, the various uses of the recovered materials are identified: as raw materials for cement production, as recycled aggregates, and as supplementary cementitious materials, and the consequences of their use in concrete mix design are analyzed.
This alternative material poses new problems in terms of batching, fresh-state behavior, and early-age performance, and these are analyzed next.
The performance of recycled concrete in the hardened state can only be understood by analyzing its microstructure. This allows explaining the mechanical and durability-related properties and also how this concrete behaves when subjected to elevated temperatures.
The mix design and specifications on concrete are then discussed, not only to identify those that are already adapted to the use of recycled concrete but also to present proposals on how to do that, considering the specificities of this new material and its components.
Reinforced concrete’s performance depends on the interaction between a semihomogeneous composite material, concrete, and discreet elements of steel. Naturally, the different behaviors of recycled concrete relative to conventional concrete affects the performance of reinforced concrete, and several issues concerning that are analyzed: reinforcement bond, compression, and flexural and shear behavior.
Then, the various possible applications of recycled concrete are analyzed through real application case studies, in order to call attention upon the specific new problems that this use raises in each situation. Quality control on site is naturally a major issue.
It is frequent to see claims that certain materials are environmentally friendly, but it is less common that these claims are actually demonstrated in a scientific way. Th is book properly addresses this issue by discussing aspects such as availability and scatter of properties of the raw materials, life cycle analysis, leaching, multi-recycling, and industrial upscaling.
Th is book ends by discussing the issue of upscaling the use of recycled concrete, by making sure that barriers are removed from the point of view of the various actors in the concrete industry, from the authorities to the end users.
In my opinion, this book will be a definite reference to all participants in the process of designing, manufacturing, applying, and benefiting from the wonderful material that concrete is. Quite often criticized as an unbearable load on the environment and a stagnated solution, concrete has proven over and over that not only it is in constant mutation but also it is by far the best alternative as structural material, bearing in mind the balance between costs, technical performance, and environmental impacts.
I wish to congratulate the editors of th is book, and also all the participants in the various chapters and in the RECYBÉTON program, for their contribution to the enhancement of the knowledge on recycled aggregate and especially for their very practical common-sense view on how to go about research.
Jorge de Brito Full Professor, IST/ULisbon, Portugal Coauthor of Recycled Aggregate in Concrete: Use of Industrial, Construction and Demolition Waste, Springer, Berlin, 2013. Coeditor of Handbook of Recycled Concrete and Demolition Waste, Woodhead Publishing Limited, 2013. Lisbon, July 2018
Acknowledgments
The editors gratefully thank
• The Ministère de la Transition Ecologique et Solidaire/Direction de la Recherche et de l’Innovation for its financial support to the RECYBÉTON national project.
• The Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) for the funding of the ECOREB project, in the frame of which a number of RECYBÉTON-related works were carried out.
• The “Institut pour la Recherche Appliquée et l’Expérimentation en Génie Civil (IREX)” for its administrative and financial management of RECYBÉTON (with a special mention to Brice Delaporte).
• All t he participants of RECYBÉTON, with a particular thought for the owners of our six experimental construction sites, who dared to build a part of their projects with recycled concrete, for the advancement of construction sustainability practices.
• The members of the editorial committee and all the coauthors of this book. Thanks to their high competencies, good will, and hard work, we could achieve an important collective effort to summarize what we have learnt during a 6-year project about recycling concrete into concrete.
• Our external reviewers (François Toutlemonde, from ISTTAR, Fekri Meftah, from INSA de Rennes and Jacques Roudier, from IREX), who helped us in improving the quality of some of our chapters.
Editors
François de Larrard is scientific director of the R&D center of the LafargeHolcim group and the French national project RECYBÉTON. He formerly spent almost 30 years at IFSTTAR (formerly LCPC). He has been granted both the Robert l’Hermite medal and the G.H. Tattersall award by RILEM (Réunion Internationale des Laboratoires d’Etudes et de recherche sur les Matériaux), and is author of two books, including Concrete Mixture Proportioning (Taylor & Francis 1999).
Horacio Colina is the Research’s managing director of ATILH (Association Technique de l’Industrie des Liants Hydrauliques), Paris, France, and director of the French national project RECYBÉTON. He is at ATILH from 2005 and formerly he was a researcher at ENPC (Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées), Paris, France, from 1999 to 2005, and at LAEGO (Laboratoire Environnement, Géomécanique et Structures), Nancy, France, from 1997 to 1999. He has also been Professor at National University of Salta, Salta, Argentina, from 1994 to 1997. He is author or co-author of 41 papers on peer-reviewed publications.
Contributors
F. Al-Mahmoud
Institut Jean Lamour
Université de Lorraine
Villers-lès-Nancy, Meurthe-et-Moselle, France
O. Amiri
GeM
Université de Nantes Nantes, Loire-Atlantique, France
K. Apedo
Laboratoire ICube
Université de Strasbourg/INSA Strasbourg, Bas-Rhin, France
A. L. Beaucour
L2MGC
Université de Cergy Pontoise Pontoise, Val d’Oise, France
A. Ben Fraj
Laboratoire Eco-Matériaux Cerema Sourdun, Seine-et-Marne, France
F. Benboudjema
LMT
ENS Cachan Cachan, Val-de-Marne, France
A. Z. Bendimerad
GeM
Nantes, Loire-Atlantique, France
D. Blanc
INSA de Lyon - Laboratoire DEEP Villeurbanne, Rhône, France
R. Bodet UNPG Paris, Seine, France
R. Boissière
Institut Jean Lamour Université de Lorraine Villers-lès-Nancy, Meurthe-et-Moselle, France
S. Braymand ICube Laboratory Mechanical department University of Strasbourg Strasbourg, Bas-Rhin, France
D. Bulteel
IMT Lille Douai University of Lille Lille, Nord, France
F. Buyle-Bodin University of Lille Lille, Nord, France
F. Cassagnabère LMDC Université de Toulouse Toulouse, Haute-Garonne, France
B. Cazacliu IFSTTAR Bouguenais, Loire-Atlantique, France
X. Chomiki Conseil départemental de Seine & Marne Melun, Seine-et-Marne, France
H. Colina
ATILH
Paris-La Défense, Hauts-de-Seine, France
D. Collonge
LafargeHolcim
Paris, Seine, France
N. Comte
Syndicat des Recycleurs du BTP (SRBTP)
Paris, Seine, France
A. Cudeville CLAMENS
Villeparisis, Seine-et-Marne, France
M. Cyr
Université de Toulouse Toulouse, Haute-Garonne, France
P. Dantec
Consultant
Cournon d’Auvergne, Puy-de-Dôme, France
T. Dao
LafargeHolcim R&D
St Quentin-Fallavier, Isère, France
F. de Larrard
LCR (LafargeHolcim Research Centre)
Saint-Quentin Fallavier, Isère, France
C. De Sa
LMT
ENS Cachan
Cachan, Val-de-Marne, France
R. Deborre
Nacarat (groupe Rabot Dutilleul)
Euralille Lille, France
S. Decreuse Cemex
Rungis, Val-de-Marne, France
P. Devillers
Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Montpellier
Montpellier, Hérault, France
C. Diliberto
Institut Jean Lamour
Université de Lorraine Villers-lès-Nancy, Meurthe-et-Moselle, France
A. Djerbi
IFSTTAR
Marne-la-Vallée, Seine-et-Marne, France
S. Favre
Léon Grosse Paris, Seine, France
A. Feraille
Ecole des Ponts ParisTech Marne-la-Vallée, Seine-et-Marne, France
S. Fonteny
UNPG Paris, Seine, France
B. Fouré
Consulting engineer, retired Bougival, Yvelines, France
P. Francisco
CERIB
Epernon, Eure-et-Loir, France
E. Garcia
Lafarge Bétons France (groupe LafargeHolcim)
Clamart, Hauts-de-Seine, France
E. Garcia-Diaz
Centre des Matériaux des Mines d’Alès, IMT Mines Ales, France
E. Ghorbel
Université de Cergy Pontoise
Cergy-Pontoise, Val d’Oise, France
L. Gonzalez
INSAVALOR - Plateforme
PROVADEMSE
Villeurbanne , France
F. Grondin
GeM
Ecole Centrale de Nantes Nantes, Loire-Atlantique, France
M. Guo
GeM
Ecole Centrale de Nantes Nantes, Loire-Atlantique, France
A. Hamaidia
Laboratoire des essais non-Destructifs par Ultrasons
Université de Jijel, Algeria
E. Hamard
IFSTTAR
Bouguenais, Loire-Atlantique, France
R. Idir
Laboratoire Eco-Matériaux Cerema , Ile de France Department Sourdun, Seine-et-Marne, France
L. Izoret
ATILH
Paris-La Défense, Hauts-de-Seine, France
F. Jezequel
SIGMA BETON
L’Isle d’Abeau, Isère, France
E.-H. Kadri
L2MGC
Université de Cergy Pontoise Cergy-Pontoise, Val d’Oise, France
R. Lavaud
Technodes S.A.S. (HEIDELBERGCEMENT Group) Guerville, Yvelines, France
L. Le Guen
IFSTTAR
Bouguenais, Loire-Atlantique, France
G. Le Saout
Centre des Matériaux des Mines Alès, IMT Mines Ales, Herault, France
A. Lecomte
Institut Jean Lamour
Université de Lorraine Villers-lès-Nancy, Meurthe-et-Moselle, France
N. Leklou
GeM
Université de Nantes Nantes, Loire-Atlantique, France
T. Lenormand LERM Arles, Bouches-du-Rhône, France
A. Loukili
GeM
Ecole Centrale de Nantes Nantes, Loire-Atlantique, France
J. Mai-Nhu CERIB Epernon, Eure-et-Loir, France
J.M. Mechling
Institut Jean Lamour Université de Lorraine Villers-lès-Nancy, Meurthe-et-Moselle, France
H. Mercado-Mendoza
Laboratoire ICube
Université de Strasbourg/INSA Strasbourg, Bas-Rhin, France
L. Mongeard
ENS Lyon, Rhône, France
I. Moulin
Lerm Setec Arles, Bouches-du-Rhône, France
M. Mouret
LMDC
Université de Toulouse Toulouse, Haute-Garonne, France
P. Natin
Vicat Technical Centre
Isle d’Abeau, Isère, France
P. Nicot
LMDC
Université de Toulouse
Toulouse, Hautes-Garonne, France
G. Noworyta
CTG—Calcia
Paris, Seine, France
E. Perin
Lerm Setec
Arles, Bouches-du-Rhône, France
W. Pillard
EGF.BTP
Paris, Seine, France
J.-M. Potier
SNBPE
Paris, Seine, France
C. Raillon
Syndicat National des Entreprises de Démolition (SNED)
Paris, Seine, France
S. Rémond
LGCgE, IMT Lille Douai
Université de Lille
Lille, Nord, France
F. Robert
CERIB
Epernon, Eure-et-Loir, France
D. Rogat
Sigma Béton
L’Isle d’Abeau
P. Rougeau
CERIB
Epernon, Eure-et-Loir, France
S. Roux
IJL UMR 7198
Villers-lès-Nancy, Meurthe-et-Moselle, France
E. Rozière
GeM
Ecole Centrale de Nantes
Nantes, Loire-Atlantique, France
M. Saillio
IFSTTAR
Marne-la-Vallée, Seine-et-Marne, France
M. Salgues
Centre des Matériaux des Mines Alès, IMT Mines Ales, France
L. Schmitt
CERIB
Epernon, Eure-et-Loir, France
T. Sedran
Ifsttar
Bouguenais, Loire-Atlantique, France
N. Serres
ICube Laboratory
Mechanical department INSA Strasbourg, France
O. Servan
Setec TPI
Paris, Seine, France
J.-C. Souche
Centre des Matériaux des Mines Alès, IMT Mines Ales, France
Z.A. Tahar
L2MGC
Université de Cergy Pontoise
Pontoise, Val d’Oise, France
R. Trauchessec
Institut Jean Lamour
Université de Lorraine
Villers-lès-Nancy, Meurthe-et-Moselle, France
M. Verbauwhede
Bouygues TP Paris, Seine, France
E. Vernus
INSAVALOR - Plateforme PROVADEMSE
Villeurbanne , Rhône, France
P. Vuillemin
EQIOM Paris, France
G. Wardeh
Université de Cergy Pontoise Cergy-Pontoise, Val d’Oise, France
P. Wolff
Laboratoire ICube
Université de Strasbourg/INSA
Strasbourg, Bas-Rhin, France
Introduction
F. de Larrard
LafargeHolcim R&D
H. Colina
ATILH
Concrete is the most important construction material in terms of volume and turnover. Its success comes, among other reasons, from its amazing versatility and its availability in most parts of this planet, being essentially a local material. However, this 21st century sees humanity facing its most difficult challenge since its appearance on this planet: how to keep it livable for the next generations, with a population approaching 10 billions of inhabitants, and a general shortage of nonrenewable resources? Most informed people agree nowadays with the necessity of turning from linear to circular economy. Concrete cannot miss this major paradigm change.
Concrete recycling into concrete must be developed, for at least four main reasons:
i. Alt hough the mineral stock which can be used to produce concrete is almost unl imited—limestone, clay, and hard rocks—opening new quarries at accessible dis tances from cities becomes difficult in many countries. As a matter of fact, in the usage competition of land (residential, agricultural, industrial), the third category often loses the battle.
ii. Landfilling construction and demolition materials (C&DM) is more and more banned by public policies, as in Europe since the beginning of the millennium (1999/31/CE and 2003/33/CE European directives).
iii There is a social pressure to shorten material transportation distances from production to use sites, in order to limit CO2 emissions and impact of truck traffic on the populations. Hence, demolition materials are mostly generated in cities, where new construction sites need to be fed. Using C&DM in new construction is a double win, tackling transport generated by both material export and import at the urban zone scale.
iv. Finally, concrete must catch up with regard to others materials (steel, asphalt, etc. where recycling processes and streams have been established for years. It is not the place to perform a comprehensive life cycle analysis of concrete as a construction material compared to other solutions. Let us just note that, although concrete solutions have many merits, their ability to incorporate their own waste is an important aspect according to most environmental assessment methods.
What are the most significant data to assess the potential of concrete recycling? At the European scale, 196 Mt of recycled concrete aggregates (RAs) were produced in 20151 (mostly from C&DM). About 40% of the total aggregate productions were devoted to either ready-mix or precast concrete, which constituted a market of nearly 1 Bt. Therefore, according to this simple calculations, there would be a potential to substitute 20% of the aggregate phase by RA in the whole concrete production. We will see later that this figure is an underestimation of the potential, if we account for all inert materials coming from
1 www.uepg.eu.
demolition (including natural rocks or granular materials from road subbase courses). In addition, to reach 20% as a mean percentage of recycling rate in concrete means to be able to reach locally much higher values, depending on the resource geography. Although genera l statistics for Europe were not found regarding the proportion of recycled aggregate in the aggregate consumption of concrete industry, it was found that in UK, this amount was about 5% in 2008. This country being the most advanced in this respect (followed by the Netherlands and Belgium),1 the figure for the whole Europe is probably not higher that some 1%–2%, to be compared with the 20% potential. So it can be concluded that the European concrete industry could recycle substantially, but is not doing so significantly at the moment. A large proportion of current RA streams is consumed in road subbases and embankments. Is this situation satisfactory? Should it be considered as fully sustainable in the present and near future? We don’t think so for the following reasons:
• The R A stream will probably increase in the next years, because a large stock of residential buildings built during the 1950s and 1960s is coming to its end of life (especially in Europe). The need to cut the global energy expense in buildings leads not only to vast retrofitting plans but also to demolition/reconstruction given the difficulty to provide thermal insulation to old buildings;
• In the same countries, there are less and less new roads to be built, but mainly mai ntenance works to perform. As a matter of fact, these works deal with the road top layers and only require a low amount of good-quality natural aggregates. Therefore, the stream is growing, and the well is shrinking;
• Even if RA are excellent materials to build subbase layers, less noble materials (mixed C&DM, low-grade natural aggregates, municipal solid waste incineration bottom ash, nontoxic industrial wastes, etc.) can be used for the same purpose. Therefore, reserving RA for new concrete is a way to make a better use of the whole waste materials resource by the civil and construction sectors.
So there is a need to reorient the RA stream towards concrete, whatever the production process. Why haven’t we seen yet such a trend to appear spontaneously? The academic com munity has long been paying attention to concrete recycling, through, for example, RILEM (TC 37-DRC working group started his works as early as in 1976). Numerous con ferences have been devoted to this topic since this date. However, the concrete prac titioners have been reluctant to turn to recycling. Indeed, the construction sector is still one of the most conservative ones, with many small enterprises and a rather low level of qualification, impairing a quick dissemination of innovative practices. Moreover, used (or second hand) goods generally bring an image of low quality and poor reliability, while the life expectancy of any construction ranges from 50 to 100 yea rs or more. Fortunately, from time to time the construction sector also displays the ability to accelerate progress through collective, multipartner R&D projects. In France, such Projets Nationaux (National Projects, a process sponsored by the Ministry in charge of Public Works) have taken place since the mid-1980s. Within the French National Projects devoted to concrete, after having dealt with highperformance concrete (VNB, BHP 2000), fiber-reinforced concrete (BEFIM), new placing processes (CALIBE), and self-compacting concrete (BAP), it was decided in 2010 to prepare a project promoting concrete recycling.
After 2 yea rs of preparation, the RECYBÉTON (“RECYclage complet des BETONs”) National Project was launched in 2012. It encompassed 47 partners from both academic and practitioner sectors, including all professional unions of the aggregate, cement, adm ixtures, ready-mix concrete, precast concrete, building, and public works industries.
The main objective was to study and to promote the use of all materials generated by the demolition of concrete structures, either as RA used in substitution of natural aggregate or as a raw material in the cement production. A comprehensive R&D program was carried out through four internal calls within participants and covered all aspects from material processing to environmental analysis. Around 40 scientific and technical reports were produced. Furthermore, the feasibility of concrete recycling into concrete was demonstrated through a series of five experimental construction sites, covering a variety of areas (from building to civil engineering constructions). The project was partly financed by a subsidy from the French Ministry in charge of Ecology, by the member subscriptions, by donations from professional unions, and by self-support of active participants, for a total of 4.7 M€.
A part of the R&D program was also financed by ANR (Agence Nationale de la Recherche) through the ECOREB (“ECOconstruction par le REcyclage du Béton”) project.
This book aims at presenting to the international public a summary of the work done. However, care was taken to place RECYBÉTON’s output in the light of the general stateof-the-art, so that the reader can access to the most updated knowledge regarding the art of recycling concrete into concrete:
• Sec tion I deals with RAs: how they are produced, and what are their key characteristics.
• Sec tion II explains how ground, old concrete can be used in the cement process, either as an alternative raw material (to produce clinker) or as a supplementary cementitious material (to produce blended cements or to be added into the concrete mixer).
• Sec tion III provides information on how to produce, cast, and cure recycled aggregate concrete (RAC).
• Sec tion IV covers all important properties of hardened RAC, from microstructure to durability-related properties and behavior under fire.
• Sec tion V is devoted to the RAC mix design: how to adjust an existing mix or to design a new one while matching specifications.
• Sec tion VI addresses the combination of RAC with steel reinforcement. Classical design of reinforced concrete is revisited in the light of recycling.
• Sec tion VII presents the various experimental construction sites carried out within RECYBÉTON, together with a collection of RAC utilizations in the precast industry;
• Sec tion VIII raises the question of sustainability of concrete recycling: what is the available resource, should it be used in concrete, and at which conditions, could it be repeated in the future, etc.
• Sec tion IX closes the topic by summarizing standards and national practices.
Each section is divided into several chapters having the format of a journal paper. Chapters start by an abstract followed by a state-of-the-art and then by the specific outputs produced by RECYBÉTON. Efforts were made to help the reader in readily finding relevant answers to his questions in a straightforward and concise way.
Most often th is book is not providing suggestions for standards and code evolutions (this task being performed elsewhere by the RECYBÉTON project), although it is expected that a higher level and a better mastery of recycling will be permitted in the next editions of the various key documents. Th is book is complemented by a guide being currently written for all practitioner communities (as owners, material producers, consulting, and site engineers). It is the authors’ hope that the corpus of experimental results and scientific analyses collected in this book will help the construction community to adopt more sustainable practices in its resource management. It can also inspire researchers to further study and optimize all aspects of concrete recycling.
Section I
Recycled a ggregates
S. Decreuse
CEMEX
In order to foster the construction and demolition waste recycling process, it is necessary to have good quality aggregates. Furthermore, to allow the increase of recycling rates and the use of recycled aggregates in new concrete, it is necessary to have good quality sources of sorted wastes.
This section is subdivided in three chapters:
• Chapter 1 is a short review of demolition techniques and their impact on the quality of wastes and aggregates. No specific work has been done in the RECYBÉTON project on demolition techniques, so this chapter deals only with the state of the art of techniques used for demolition techniques. To complete this state of the art, a point is also made within the framework of RECYBÉTON on the current quality of aggregates on different recycling platforms in France to assess the efficiency of sorting on those platforms. More data dealing with the characteristics of these materials are provided in Chapter 29.
• Chapter 2 deals with the processing techniques of recycled concrete aggregates. The techniques of air sifting for light contaminants or dedusting, wet or dry density stratification, sensor-based sorting with different sensors’ technologies, and multistage crushing and other mechanical, physical, or chemical methods to improve the release of the original natural aggregate.
• Chapter 3 concerns the characterization of recycled aggregates (RAs). The main physical and chemical characteristics of RA were measured in the RECYBÉTON project on coarse and fine recycled aggregates using experimental methods devoted to natural aggregates, in order to assess if they can be applied to this kind of product without any modification and if the variability of RA affects their accuracy.
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INTO “INDIAN COUNTRY”
“Indian country” applies to all lands to which the Indian title has not been extinguished, even when not within a reservation expressly set apart for the exclusive occupancy of Indians “Indian country” includes reservations set apart for Indian tribes by treaty, Executive order, or Act of Congress. M : The Legal Status of the Indian
The next morning was another day, as I have often heard remarked since; and whatever the terrors of the night, the crisp, cheerful Arizona morning brings with it renewed hope and assurance.
The town waked-up; the air held the tonic thrill that comes only from pine-clad peaks; the yellow dust of yesterday now kept its place. At this season in Arizona one may expect the wind to rise about noon and continue its nerve-racking tyranny until sunset. The blessed sunlight prevents one from remaining depressed, however, and there is always an end to the windy season, whatever the nerves meantime. When the last shriek has died away in early summer, it seems there lives a vacuum, a strange stillness, like that which follows the stopping of a clock.
I found the station platform quite busy that morning. Trains discharged their hungry freight, and the hotel kitchens fed them in battalions. A well-stocked news-stand promised that I would not lack for entertainment. The general spirit of moving life and activity caused one to forget that the Desert lurked beyond, that these rails [23]were simply a tiny causeway spanning it for many miles, desolation on either side.
Chance acquaintance is made easily in the Southwest, and it was not long before I answered the query of a young man as to where I headed. I replied that there was a long journey to make, out into the Desert, among the Indians perhaps. He seemed not to be aware that Indians were of the immediate locality, and asked: “How far?”
“Oh—about thirty miles.”
“Humph!” he commented, drily; “people in this country go that far to water a horse.”
The pastime and humor of Arizona is exaggeration. I know now that the ranchers of the Southwest, and the so-called nomadic Indians, for that matter, are people of definite localities. An Indian of the Desert will name and locate his hogan or home camp as specifically as the man of a city street. Indians are born, live, and frequently die within a very small area of the Desert. That is why Indians—and you may scoff—are likely to be lost at night during storms. Their distant travels are well planned, by daylight, much the same as anyone breaks monotony with a holiday or business trip. Only those of the most remote desert places make long journeys as a part of daily routine, and then when need compels. I have yet to see the man who lived miles from water. Water decides where any man may live in the Desert—and his animals too.
It was a different story when I aroused a very fat individual who dozed complacently with his chair propped back against a livery barn. I inquired about a team for the immense hike I had to make. There were no automobiles then to traverse the desert, and few were in the little towns. To-day gasoline and tires, coupled with much swearing, grease, and shoveling of sand, have conquered [24]most of the desert distances, and the last time I covered that road was in one of those striped metallic potato-bugs hatched by that Detroit genius who could not place Benedict Arnold in his country’s history, but who
has made possible thirty miles the hour as against a former five. Then, or once upon a time, the horse—or his superior relative, the mule—was indispensable, and the keeper of a stable was a king of transportation, something akin to Jim Hill. This one acted just that way. Evidently he had not lost anything out back.
“Well—” he hummed, doubtfully, “that’s a longish trip, that is. I’ve made it—” giving me the impression that it had been an unusual effort, fraught with courage. “I went out there once, but it was two days’ hard travel, ’cause yeh have to rest the horses over night, returnin’ next day. That spoils two good days for me, and I have to charge yeh accordin’. It’ll be thirty dollars. When do yeh want to start?”
“Never, at that rate!” I declared very promptly.
So I went back to the hotel and sent a telegram up the line stating that I would there remain in comfort until some reasonable means of travel came in sight. The answer indicated that I had been heard from. Several days after a rather rough-looking individual called for me and introduced himself as the Boss.
“I was coming to town anyway,” he said, “but usually I don’t freight my employees.” Waiving this little matter of custom, I inquired: “How far is it to the Agency?”
“Twenty-five miles. We’ll make it in less than four hours.”
And we did, for he drove an excellent team of mares, and his reputation as a driver was like unto that of Jehu.
On the way I explained the purpose and definite length [25]of my visit. He seemed relieved, for it had been his original suspicion that I, being from Washington direct, came seeking his job. Having worked
in a newspaper office long enough to learn that one must build absolute loyalty to the chief, I assured him that his interests were mine, and thereafter we got along famously. He was a lovable fellow when one had punctured the sun-dried skin of him, under which there was much to admire; and not the least was that he felt his tight little Agency to be the finest spot on earth. And why should he not?
Some few years before this he had drifted into that loop of the Little Colorado River, a place that for sterile barrenness could not be matched and that justified few visions. Armed with a single letter of authority, he had taken charge of the empty landscape. He pitched his tent beneath an old spreading cottonwood tree. I can imagine his lonely vigils and his planning under the brilliant desert stars. First, the well to tap the subcurrent of the river; then, one by one, the Government buildings, of rough rock quarried from the near-by mesas, meanwhile engaging and lodging and feeding rougher laborers, and disputing with contractors, and keeping them all from liquor, until a little town grew in this river-angle that for centuries had known only the withered trees, the cooing of many doves, and driftwood. The grounds were marked and leveled and drained. In springtime the river flooded the place, but he was not dismayed. An office, warehouses, shops, and barns were built. Then arose a wellappointed school, with dormitories for the Indian children, queer desert gamins that for a time were as frightened rabbits and wept for their smoky camps. There were kitchens, baths, a laundry, a plant to furnish light and ice and heat; for while the summer may be broiling, [26]the winter brings its snow and bitter wind in that unprotected waste. He saw the sick and built a hospital. There were quarters for his staff of employees. He planted trees along cement walks; he broke ground for a farm, and planned an irrigation system with its pumping-plant. His barns held feed against the winter, and his commissaries flour and clothing. A trader came for license, and then another; and a grant was made to a little mission church. Last, but
not the least necessary to his desert kingdom, was a guardhouse for those who disputed his sage counsels. High above it all floated the Flag, stoutly whipping in the desert wind.
One day he folded up his tent and walked into his capital. The town was not finished—true; it was not perfect—true. Already he could see the mistakes of a pioneer hand, similar to those of the Mormons who had settled in that country generations before, and whose record was a graveyard. It is not finished to-day, and several successors have added their work to his. It may eventually be a folly and a failure in the sense of profits, for where the Mormons failed in those early days of zealotry who can hope to succeed? Ah! in the sense of material profits—Yes! But where had been nothing but the blind Desert and the savage river, nothing but the blow-sand and the horned toad, he had created an outpost of civilization to reach and serve and protect a helpless people who, theretofore, had only their desert demons.
As far as he could see to the north, where the red-toned mesas raised their twisted shoulders above the desert rim, where the dim blue crowns of monster lava-buttes loomed against the sky, to the edge of the world, it seemed, the domain was his kingdom. Twelve hundred human beings hailed him “Nahtahni,” which is Chief, and listened to [27]his advice. His was the only voice they heeded without suspicion, for had they not been driven from this land in midwinter, by armed men, packing their few possessions through the snow? And had it not required a fighting President of the United States to restore to them this pitiful inheritance? No less, indeed!
But to them, people of no contrasts, was it not a wonderful inheritance—that all-embracing stage, from the Red Mesa where the tumbled rocks stood in rings, “Children at Play”; from the Sapphire Lakes and the restless river to the country of the Moqui, guarded by
the lava buttes, those somber blue-clad gods of the northern sky? And was it not the Desert!
Perhaps—no doubt of it—that Great White Father had sent this curious Nahtahni from his own household. The world has four corner-posts, one the Desert and one that is Washington. They could remember those nights when they first gathered around his tent under the gnarled old cottonwood, the surly river’s murmur in their ears, their glowing fires matching his against the stars. He had told them of his mission. And he was not afraid of white men—had sent some of them briskly about their business. His commission read— they knew it by his action—that all pertaining to their peace and welfare devolved on him; that he was responsible for their best interests. His mark upon a “nultsose” was the money of the land. His police wore the eagle button. Truly this was a man to be respected; and he was their Chief.
So at his command they brought children to the school, for it seemed he had a peculiar fondness for children; and yet he had no sheep to herd. A strange fellow! They came in from their corrals and patches to work for implements and livestock; they hauled the stores and coal from the [28]railroad, herding their wiry ponies with many a wild cry; they found that his queer blue papers could be exchanged for the hard silver dollars of the West.
And to this Chief they came too with foolish complaints and childish misfortunes; to him they came when ill and trembling, and him they sought when old and hungry, shivering against the desert wind, forsaken by their own cruel kindred, fearing that the jackals would pick their bones. In all that trading country they knew him as the one who would not barter.
His real title was—no matter; there must be tags and labels; actually, by law and practice, he was a desert czar, distributing his bounty,
holding his courts of justice. Of course he was, and so are they all, each and every one. What came you out to see? A jurist splitting hairs and fearing to say too much, a ferret of accounts, a listening politician, a sutler and his bales? How many such can boast that they have constructed anything? This man had built a sanctuary, and he ruled a kingdom. He was the “Nahtahni!” That was enough, and what is needed, in the Desert.
When they did not call him that, affectionately they dubbed him “Sack-hair,” because he wore a wig, and since one day, to their general consternation, his scalp had blown off into a bush. From Beck-a-shay Thlani, the man of many cattle, to the blind old woman of the tribe, he was counselor and friend. The curious, animal-like children loved him. They would scramble down the walks to take his hand and toddle by his side. He was justly proud of his work and of his industrious alien people; perhaps, in their silent desert way, they were proud of him.
A little of this he told me modestly as we rolled over the road along the river. The greater part I learned in [29]my own time, as did the Indians before me. He enlivened the recital by a few choice Southwest legends, made for and kept alive by greenhorns like myself. He showed me where the last great flood had eaten away huge sections of the lower flat and spread all over. The river was now a wide desolation of sand, glowing, sullen in the sun. In flood time this was no plaything of a stream. Its mark was on the country, a mile wide. I could have walked across it dry-shod, and since that time I have crossed it swimming a horse, and wondering when I should go off to tow at his tail. Tangled masses of matted greasewood, like shingle of the beaches, and trunks of cottonwoods, picked clean of bark and twig, white as bleaching bones, were piled on the bars. Over at one side remained a shallow pool, holding dull fish as captives; and several lean ponies came to suck eagerly at the
turgid water. Away off in the flat, he pointed out my first mirage: the pretty view of a marshy place bordered by reeds, cool, inviting—yet a dusty desert falsehood. Suddenly it faded, vanished in thin air, to reveal nothing but brilliant sunlight on a baking floor. Drifting clouds cast long shadows on the sand. A tiny whirlwind twirled its dustspout higher and higher and glided across the plain.
Then, from a little rise, he waved his whip toward a distant object, black against the western sun. It was very far away, and looked like a bird-house on a pole.
“That’s the Agency,” he said.
And indeed it was, for without it existence there was impossible. It was the stand-tank, most necessary thing in that land of precious water. Just at dark we swung through the gates. I had reached my first desert camp, on the edge of the Enchanted Empire. [30]
[Contents]
OLD TRAILS AND DESERT FARE
We may live without poetry, music and art; We may live without conscience, and live without heart;
We may live without friends; we may live without books;
But civilized men cannot live without cooks
—M : Lucile
When I crossed the border of the Enchanted Empire, in the dusk of that entry to the Agency, I re-lived fancies caught out of Nicholas Nickleby, his winter journey into Yorkshire, coaching in company with the incomparable Squeers; his arrival at the bleak and cheerless Dotheboys Hall, and the atmosphere of that strange institution; and while there was something forlorn about them, there was also enough of their humor to keep me alive.
Considering what I have written concerning “the Boss,” who would have to be Squeers, this may seem a sorry and unkind reflection. But really, forgetting for the moment his generous heart and his earnest pride in the little desert kingdom, there was a superficial resemblance to old Squeers—the odd cock of the head, a certain quaint expression, a quizzical look after some solemn pronouncement, the rough exterior,—which in this case belied the man,—and that rare touch of the grotesque given by his wig: “Sackhair.” The atmosphere of the Agency supported these impressions.
The ensemble of an Indian school, the cast of characters, their point of view, their quarters and customs—is [31]something unique and quite beyond comparison with normal things. One is often first conscious of odors; and the Navajo have many sheep. Once a
desert station is given over to Indian school purposes, where a number of children and their mentors must be fed, it acquires the fragrance of boiled mutton for its very own. There is nothing else like it. Even an abandoned school retains this poignant atmosphere for years.
Bare—stark naked—calcimined walls, grim in their poverty and unashamed; bare pine floors; cheap pine trimmings covered with hideous varnish, the gloss of which seemed an uncaring grin; the whole sparsely strewn with Government-contract furniture, feeble in the beginning and now in the last stages of pathetic senility. This was the quarters for unmarried employees. And when you take such a scene and thoroughly impregnate it with the clinging atmosphere of yesterday’s, and last week’s, and last year’s boiled mutton; animate it with characters gathered by the grab-bag method from the fortyeight States, persons warped and narrowed by their monotonous duties, impressed by the savage rather than impressing him, fulsome with petty gossip and radiating a cheap evangelical virtue, you have the indescribable—and invariable—locale of an isolated desert school. Dickens would have made it immortal, and his gallery of portraits would have gained many varieties of Bumbles and Mr. Chucksters and Sairey Gamps. I have walked in the Desert with Dick Swiveller and Mr. Cheggs; Mark Tapley I have known intimately; and I have dined several times with Pecksniff in the flesh, he lacking only a large shirt-collar to complete the picture. Hugh Walpole has glimpsed something similar to this in The Gods and Mr. Perrin. “It will be all right next term” is the fiscal cry of the restless, [32]unsatisfied, and for the most part misfitted employees of the Indian Service. And the Indian stands mute, inarticulate, unable to express his confused amazement at this bizarre and ever-changing exhibition.
A strong sense of humor may keep one from going mad, but even the keenest humor grows blunted after a few months of such stolid
association. If one has no relief in other mental pursuits, he succumbs finally to a moroseness that is not good in the unchanging, uncaring Desert.
We sat at a belated meal in the dining-hall. The drive of twenty odd miles and the tang of the desert air had given me an unusual appetite that promised the making of weight, when behold! in the doorway giving on to the kitchen appeared a vision, perhaps I should say an apparition, the cook! The expression turned on me was intended, I have no doubt, to be one of welcome; but whatever it was supposed to register, I have never forgotten the sardonic leer of that unkempt individual, promising worse to come. And it arrived. Leathery mutton, cold; baking-powder biscuit, lacking character; coffee, lukewarm, weakly concocted from the Arbuckle blend that retreated westward after the Civil War; milk, fresh from tin-plate Holsteins, mixed with water from an alkali pump; and last, but not least for a sick man’s stomach, the “bull butter,” innocent of ice, slimy, having the flavor of kerosene.
Farewell! a long farewell to Maryland cooking!
I remember having been snowed-in, on a time, back in the farthest Arizona hills, with a Government physician recently from the East. He had sought Arizona to stimulate a lagging constitution that threatened to initiate him as one of the Club. He had traveled westward, visioning the tropic palms, the date trees, the pomegranate [33]hedges of Phœnix; and there we were at an altitude of 7000 feet above sea-level, with the snow two feet deep, and a frigid blast coming straight off the range. He had been lost that night and nearly frozen on the desert where the roads were obliterated, and only the sense of his team had brought him to this haven. We tore the harness from them first, and an engineer helped me to warm him into amiability after the horses were cared for. The time came for
retiring, and I recall his diving between dank sheets in an unheated room at this little hill station, his teeth chattering, his lips blue, and the fervid expression of him:—
“Blank! And blankety-double-blank the damned Philadelphia fool who told me Arizona was warm!”
And as I surveyed that tempting array of victuals, I had the same feeling toward those kindly disposed men of Washington who, out of a crass ignorance, had assured me that their desert stations possessed food.
Later, a couple of obliging employees carried my trunk upstairs to a room that would have been a credit to a penitentiary. It welcomed one with four walls and possessed a window. There were also a ceiling and a floor. These necessary ornaments, together with a bed and a decrepit chair, which had crashed under many disconsolate employees and had been skillfully and maliciously fitted together again to lure me, comprised the generous list of fittings. All and several extras thought to be necessary to comfort could be supplied by the employee from his salary, the proportions of which had been established during the administration of Carl Schurz, and have changed but little since, despite wars and rumors of wars and the coming of the income tax, “which includes the quarters as part of the compensation.” [34]
Next morning I was aroused about dawn, or a little before, by the business of breaking stove-wood, a bombardment of mishandled crockery, and the hiss of vicious cooking. A thick wave of reanimated mutton-grease fogged upward and invaded my boudoir, which I sought to vacate as quickly as possible. I encountered the cook at the foot of the stairs, and she had not improved during the night.
“Good morning,” I tried to say cheerfully, which caused her to notice me. “Who cares for the rooms?” I asked. She bent on me a sinister eye, as if divining my thought.
“You mean, who cleans ‘em, an’ all that?”
“Just so,” I admitted.
“Well—you’ll care for your own.”
And that was that. It was final, with the wall-eyed finality that had become unwritten law in all properly conducted Agencies.
At table I met an Irrigation Service man who had just returned from a survey of farther desert conditions. He expressed great joy in having accomplished his journey without accident or delay, and in successfully returning to this oasis. He said he was always sure of decent meals at this place, whereas, at that post from which he had arrived, life was unbearable because of the atrocious and altogether impossible menu. I requested that he repeat this statement. There could not be two such places. But he was certain of his facts, and his wife confirmed the story. They cautioned me never to go to that other post—an entirely superfluous piece of advice.
Then I learned that at each of the Government establishments was maintained a Thing (as Carlyle would have phrased it), a fixture, an Institution Horrible, that dominated the people and to which they suffered allegiance. [35]It was termed “a Mess.” And such had been its ascendancy and its acquired power, that they were more or less proud of its traditional horrors in due proportion to the misery produced. I learned that Washington recognized this thing, and actually advertised it to innocent incoming employees, suppressing with a cautious diplomacy its evils, and sounding aloud the one thing to be praised—the small cost per individual. The nomenclature is
good. Never before was an hideous evil so briefly and so thoroughly described.
Having been deceived as to nearly everything concerning this Vale of Sharon, with the exception of the climate,—there it was before one, three hundred square miles of it in sight, unlimited, free and untaxed as yet; I learned of the altitude when I went to purchase a pair of shoes,—dispatched a telegram for a case of prepared food, the kind that has everything from soup to nuts in one bottle, and began to debate whether it would be braver to die unflinchingly silent or to carry my views to the chief. The bottled food came in, and I tightened my belt on it for seven days, learning meantime that there was no dairy herd other than the kind that comes nested forty-eight tin cows to the case; that only the chief was rich enough to afford poultry, and therefore there were no eggs; there was no fruit save the oranges that dried at the trading-post, and an occasional wagonload of melons sold by the pound. One could buy a very fair sample of undernourished watermelon for a dollar.
The refrigerator freights, however, booming east from California, carrying fish and vegetables and fruit, passed that place twice a week and within thirteen miles. One could see the railroad watertank from the mess-kitchen window. But it required three things to procure food from [36]that refrigerator service, to wit: desire, energy and money; and they were all noticeably absent from these people. I decided to protest.
The Chief had wearied of such complaints, as indeed I did later when I faced the same problem. But it was his duty, nay his very safety, to settle everything. The skipper of this desert ship had no first-officer to take the deck with pride and responsibility, to smother complaints, and to avoid or crush mutinies. He must do it himself. Quelling revolts was one of his regular tasks; and he had become
unusually—not to say cunningly—proficient in the various methods. Some he roared down, and others he trapped into submission.
“What’s the trouble?” he asked, sourly.
“Well, sir, I came here to keep alive, and aside from my natural intelligence, several physicians of the East urged me to absorb food food—as little of it tinned as possible. Now I have been out to survey the can-pile, and have arrived at the conclusion that your employees must consume several tons of embalmed materials each year. And too, my food must be cooked. My ancestors quit eating acorns several centuries ago. The true state of your people is that of slow starvation. They have somehow got used to it. I shall not last that long. Their tradition has it that they can maintain life on a mealbill of eleven dollars per month—”
“Give ’em credit,” he interrupted, darkly; “they got it down to nine once.”
“Which recalls your Mormon’s idea of luxury,” I hurried on. “Remember that story you told me coming in? Said the tourist —‘What would you do if you had a million dollars?’ ‘A million dollars!’ cried the Mormon, his eyes shining; ‘I’d buy a six-mule team, pull freight, an’ [37]eat nothing but canned goods!’ That Mormon was weaned at this mess.”
The Chief rubbed his wig reflectively, and from his rueful smile I knew that he possessed the remnant of a starved sense of humor. He glanced furtively about his office, and when he spoke it was in a low, cautious tone.
“True,” he said; “The mess would drive a goat to suicide. But what can I do? They like it. It is a dangerous thing, young man, to disturb anything the proletariat likes. Thank God! I am married and have
separate quarters. It has been a mystery to me for years how they keep alive, and turn out each morning for work.”
And where Squeers’s face would have cracked into a malevolent leer, the countenance of the Boss suddenly bubbled over with a wholesome expression that announced the winning of my case. He slapped his hand on his knee. He had found a solution—a Machiavellian scheme calculated to strike down at one blow the system and its latest critic. He leveled his finger at me.
“I’ll make you manager of the mess!” he cried, triumphantly. “That’s the ticket. It’ll be up to you to provide real food, cooked, an’ all, an’—”
Evidently a very hopeful light came into my eyes. He paused, grinned somewhat shamefacedly, and hastened to advise me.
“Don’t accept too hastily.” He avoided my gaze. “At best it is a thankless job, this nourishing those who would rather starve that they may pay installments to California land-boosters. You’ll be no benefactor. You will find it depressing. You will be ostracized, and it may even be unsafe for you to stroll around unguarded at night.”
Notwithstanding these perils, I accepted.
The unwritten law, like most futile and messy things [38]requiring the democratic knowledge of all and the wisdom of none, demanded that a solemn conclave of those to be fed was necessary in any change of the routine of it, and that a vote be taken, after devious discussion and debate. Imagine convening a group of circus lions to inform them that hereafter, at feeding time—and so on!
The Chief knew that a popular vote would demonstrate the usual popular row. There are only two kinds of Indian Agents: those who
compromise with everything and have interminable hell on their weakling hands, to the end that they are respected neither at home nor abroad, and those who compromise with nothing. The first sort is never defeated, and never resigns. He remains continually in service, shifted from point to point, cluttering it with his inefficiency and indecision. Neglected plants and chaotic systems are monuments, kept at national expense, to these amiable benchwarmers and trimmers. The second variety rides the waves for a season or two, and crashes down finally, as all tyrants, however benevolent, before the clamorous indignation of outraged and inefficient democracy.
The Chief being one of the last sort, the electorate was disfranchised. There was no session of Parliament. The whole thing was done in much the same fashion as had cost Charles the First his head.
B
Beginning with the first of the coming month, and until further orders, the Chief Clerk will administer the affairs of the Mess
It was received in a grim, not to say stony, silence. Like a tenderfoot, I rushed in where an angel would [39]have sought the cyclone cellar. Cooks were employed monthly, and it was midway in the month. That night I gave the cook her time.
Now, having ended one dynasty, it behooved me to create another. I went to the Chief.
“When can I have the transportation necessary to my duties as maître d’hôtel hereabouts? I’ll drive in to the railroad town.”
“Do you know the road?” the Boss asked, doubtfully.
“That doesn’t bother me. When do I get a team?”
“To-morrow,” he replied, and left me to my fate.
Now I had traversed the road but once, when coming in a month before. The doubtful tone in his voice disturbed me. Perhaps the route-finding would not be so easy as a trick with cards. I sought out the pleasantest of the range men, and asked his advice concerning the matter.
“It’s as plain as the nose on your face,” he assured, and as this would have been very plain indeed, it heartened me. “Keep to the main-traveled road, and take all the turns to the right—going in.”
This seemed a very simple matter, and I gave no thought to the turns I might encounter coming out. I was then, of course,—and because of some mental defect am yet,—notoriously the worst road-finder in all the Southwest. And when I departed next day, with “the old woman’s team,” there was no one to crowd additional information on me.
In the city, to lose one’s way may be foolish without being unfortunate; but in the Desert one must arrive at his destination, or the results may be serious. And all the road directions from oldtimers are similar. The Plains [40]Indian can be more definite. He may say, “Three hills and a look.” The Arizona guide is a despair.
“You can’t miss it,” they invariably prelude. “Take the main road until you reach that little cornfield just beyond the hogan of Benally Bega’s—remember that draw before you come to Black Mesa? That’s it. Then the left trail until you reach that scraggy cedar; then head down across for that old corral, where the sheriff caught Bob
