Part 23 (1/2)

”Weighed him by his own scales,” Bob replied. ”And then Joe cooked him, and we had _some_ breakfast. Thank you all for your kind attention, ladies and gents. This concludes our portion of the entertainment.”

Everybody laughed but Mrs. Jones. She couldn't get over the idea that her son had really ”been exposed to a bear,” as she put it.

”Was Bob as gay as this last night?” Lucy asked Joe, as the party headed toward the dining-room.

”He was not!” Joe answered. ”Made me promise not to tell a soul that we'd been scared back to the hotel.”

”Aw, well,” Bob laughed, ”I got more fun out of telling than keeping an old secret. Besides, I don't care who knows you were afraid! Come on down and see the motor boats, while they're eating their whisk brooms.”

CHAPTER XIII--In Avalanche Basin, Where Bob Learns that the Story of the Englishman's Walk Before Breakfast Was No Joke

When Mills arrived after breakfast, he reported that the party was to spend the day going down the lake in a motor launch to the office of the superintendent of the Park, on the west sh.o.r.e, near the lower end, where they were to have dinner.

”That means a holiday for you, Joe,” the Ranger said. ”They'll spend the night here at the hotel again. But you'll get paid just the same. You're your own boss to-day.”

When the launch had left, Joe began the day by visiting the barber shop and getting his hair cut, for he had not been near a barber since he left Southmead. Then he made himself two or three sandwiches for a lunch, put them in his pocket, and set off back up the trail through the cedar forest. He had never been in such a wood before, a real piece of the primeval forest, where no axe had ever been, except to clear the trail, where the trees had fought for existence in such dense stands that they had to shoot up straight and high for sun, without any lower branches whatever, and where so many had died in the struggle that their trunks lay, right and left, blocking every pa.s.sage. It had always been Joe's ambition to become a forester, and this wood and these trails over the Rocky Mountains had more than ever made him sure that was the job for him. So now he headed up into the timber, intent on a long day's study of the trees, the way they grew, the effects of soil and water and winter storms.

It was a wonderful day he had, too, though he got only about four miles back up the range from the lake. The only part he did not like was being alone.

”If only old Spider was here!” he kept thinking. ”Golly, how he'd love these woods!”

He ate his lunch on a point of rock above the forest, where he could see, down over the tops, all the twelve green, dancing miles of Lake McDonald. He made a list of all the kinds of trees he knew (for he got up above the cedars), and looked carefully at the kinds he did not know, so he could ask Mills about them. He picked forty-six kinds of wild flowers, without half hunting, watched the different birds, especially the Clark's crows (a black and white bird, a little smaller than a crow), and just lazily enjoyed himself.

Not a very exciting day, you say? But wait till you get out in the Rocky Mountains. You'll find, after you've ridden the high trails for a while, and seen the tremendous precipices, and met up with a bear or two, and otherwise had a lively time, you will suddenly want to loaf for one whole day, too, and not put your foot into a stirrup or do much of anything but lie around in the lovely woods or upland meadows, and do nothing. It's great to loaf once in a while--not too often, nor too long.

But Joe had one little adventure before he got back. He had sat down at the edge of an open glade in the woods, to put a new film roll in his camera, when he suddenly saw a big buck deer and two does come out of the woods across the clearing. They did not see him for a full minute, and stood feeding, quite unconsciously. Then he either made some sound or they spied him, for the buck reared his head, stamped, and all three looked at him with great, startled brown eyes.

Joe was working with nervous haste to get that precious film roll in before they ran away. He didn't dare move more than his fingers and hands, and it was hard work; but he got it in at last, and turned it to position. But as he raised the camera to sight it, they finally took fright and bolted for the woods. Joe pressed the bulb, and got a picture of their three white tails disappearing, but, alas! he didn't get their faces. It was the nearest he had ever come to photographing a wild deer at close range, and he was mad enough that they had come just when he was filling his camera, and was not ready for them.

That night Mills looked at the sky, sniffed the wind, and announced rain before two days.

”We'll beat it with an early start,” he said ”Everybody ready at seven-thirty. Where are you going to bunk, Joe?”

He had been told about the bear, Joe saw.

”I'm going to bunk where I did last night,” Joe answered.

”In the hammock?”

”No, in the cedars.”

”Good-night, nurse!” said Bob. ”No more Big Ben for mine.”

”Are you really?” Lucy asked. ”Aren't you foolish?”

”Maybe,” said Joe, ”though it was probably a tame bear. But if I don't, Mr. Mills will guy me all summer. I'll stay there this time, if he eats me alive!”

”That's the right spirit,” said Lucy. ”If I were a boy, I'd stay with you!”