Part 4 (1/2)
”And garlic?” teased Ace.
”Surest thing you know! And vermicelli, and noodles, and all those things. They're all made of flour, and they're different.”
”A little bulky,” protested Norris.
”Oh, well, for the start of the trip, then. They're not so heavy, parked up on top of a burro's regular pack.”
”Good!” agreed the leader of the expedition. ”We may come to cattle ranches where we can get beef and mutton occasionally, though not after we get into the higher alt.i.tudes. And we can start off with a few fresh eggs, for compactness and safety broken a dozen at a time into gla.s.s jars. After that--I don't know whether you fellows would like scrambled eggs or not, made of egg powder. Personally I don't. Nor the famous erbswurst.”
”Aw!” drawled Ted, barely concealing his impatience. ”The thing that stands by you best on a hard trip, after all, is jerky and pemmican. I think old Lester jerked some venison himself last fall, and he's probably got it yet. And he'll grind us some pemmican, if we get him word before he starts.”
”Gee Whiz! Those are emergency rations!” vetoed Ace.
”We'll have to have a long distance conversation with him to-night,” said Norris. ”Meantime we mustn't forget pilot biscuit and peanut b.u.t.ter for a pocket lunch and sh.e.l.led peanuts, of course, and rice, and tea and coffee, and sugar, and baking powder.”
”There are two things that can compactly,” conceded the Castilian boy at this point. ”The best grade of canned beets and spinach are pretty solid weight. I'll make no kick if we load on some of that until we get to the steeper grades.”
”Hey!” shouted Ace. ”In all this time n.o.body's mentioned bacon.”
”We took that for granted,” laughed Norris. ”I'll bet Long Lester would never start out without it, whether we told him to or not. But I'm awfully afraid we'll use more tea than coffee. It's bulky, and worse, it loses flavor.”
”Oh,” said Ted, ”I know the answer to that. Powdered coffee isn't one quarter so bulky, and put up in little separate tins, we keep opening them fresh, don't you see?”
”I've never yet seen a powdered coffee that could compare with the real thing,” Ace complained.
”Why couldn't Les buy the real thing and then get it powdered and sealed into little separate tins for us?”
”He could,” agreed Norris, ”I suppose,--if we're going to be as fussy as all that.” (Ace flushed.) ”But with our woods' appet.i.tes----”
”Oh, and citric acid tablets,” the Senator's son hastened to change the subject. ”For lemonade, you know.”
The discussion was cut short by Pedro's discovery that a bear had invaded the lean-to.
The American black bear, and his California cousin whose coat has generally lightened to the cinnamon brown of the soil, is all but tame in the National Parks, where for years he has been unmolested. A friendly fellow even in the wild state,--for the most part,--he roams the Giant Forest as much a prized part of the landscape as the Big Trees themselves. He has learned to visit the garbage dump regularly every night, and it causes no sensation whatever to meet one on the trail. It was much the same about the lumber camp.
But to have him visit uninvited, and serve his own refreshments from their selected stores, was a less attractive trick. Nor did he show the slightest inclination to take alarm and vacate when the boys returned. On the contrary, he snarled and showed his teeth when they would have driven him from the maple sugar can, and even Ace felt at the moment that discretion was in order. It was not till Old s.h.a.ggy-Sides had pretty well demolished everything in sight, and then carried the ham off under his arm, that he took a reluctant departure.
This would never do. That night the unprotected edibles were hoisted just too high for a possible visitor to reach, on a rope slung over the limb of a tree. The boys still slept under the stars, for they knew enough about bears, (all but Pedro), not to be afraid. Pedro, however, got little sleep that night, though he would not have confessed to the fact for anything on earth.
”There was one bear in Sequoia Park,” remembered Ace, ”who got too fresh, that way, and raided some one's tent, and they had to send for help to get him out. When it happened half a dozen times, he was ordered shot.
But he was the only one I've ever heard of acting that way. Now I'll bet, if we'd inquire, we'd find this bear had been half tamed, and altogether spoiled by these lumbermen.
”We were driving through Yellowstone last summer when one of those half tame bears came out to beg. We stopped the machine and I fed him some candy. Then we parked, and went up to the hotel for dinner. When we came back, we found he had mighty near clawed the back seat to pieces,--and why do you suppose?--To get at a side of bacon we had stowed away in there.”
”Did he find it?”
”We never did.”
”That reminds me of something I heard,” laughed Norris. ”Some friends of mine in Sequoia left their lunch boxes in the machine while they went to climb Moro Rock. When they came back they found a cub calmly sitting up there behind the wheel, eating one lunch after another.”