Part 40 (1/2)

”Saves time, all right,” the Ranger agreed, ”but what's to become of me?”

”Get on the back of the toboggan, let one foot hang out and steer with it, and come along,” Joe laughed. ”It's easy.”

”I never steered one of the blamed things,” said Mills.

”Here, you sit on top of the bags, and hold my skis. I'll show you.”

Joe took his skis off, put Mills on the front, and pushed the toboggan over. A cloud of snow rose over the curl of the b.u.t.ter box prow, powdering the Ranger in the face, and they flew down the hill in Tom's tracks, and stopped at his side.

”Well, I'll be darned--here we be!” was all Mills said, as he brushed off the snow.

”Tom, I believe there's something we can teach Mr. Mills!” Joe laughed.

”I believe he was afraid of a toboggan!”

Mills' blue eyes twinkled a little.

”By gosh, I'll go down the next one on your skis, just for that!”

They pushed on steadily down the Swift Current Valley, taking the easiest way over the frozen lake, into the sunrise, and then, at the valley's mouth, swinging south and cutting across toward the end of Flat Top. Mills did put on Joe's skis at the next favorable slope--and the scouts had to dig him out of the snow half-way down!

”Take your old skis,” he spluttered, grabbing for his snow-shoes again.

”I'll stick to what I'm used to--and the toboggan. I don't have to balance the toboggan.”

After that, he steered the toboggan down the hills, while the scouts ran on skis.

For the up grades, the boys put on their snow-shoes, also, because even on a gentle slope you back-slide with skis if you are pulling a load.

They reached the ridge over Lower St. Mary Lake at noon, ate lunch, lowered the toboggan down the slope to the lake, and then ran on the white, level snow surface above the ice insh.o.r.e, due south, till at evening they had pa.s.sed St. Mary Chalets at the foot of Upper St. Mary Lake, and went on into a stand of thick woods, where they decided to camp.

The tent was pitched in the most sheltered spot, on packed snow, facing a rock, and on logs laid across the snow packed in front of the rock they built a roaring fire. With the heat of this fire, Joe was able to cook supper without his mittens on, though he could not go far away from it without them. When supper was over, they built the fire up afresh, laid in a big supply of wood, and crawling into their sleeping-bags, under the shelter of the tent, itself sheltered by the evergreens, with the flap facing the fire left wide open and the rock reflecting the heat in to them, they were surprisingly warm, when you consider that they were sleeping on snow, with the mercury in the thermometer outside playing tag somewhere below the zero mark--or it would have been, if there had been a thermometer outside.

It was ”anybody's job,” if he woke up, to crawl out and throw more wood on the fire, and Joe twice did this. Both times, however, must have been long before morning, because when he finally woke up there was a faint hint of dawn in the sky, and the fire was practically out--only the logs they had placed on the snow for a fire base were smouldering.

He crawled out again, and built a new fire. Then he took a kettle and went to see if he could find any brook open, it was such a slow job melting snow. When he got back, the others were up, stretching and warming themselves by the blaze. The coffee certainly tasted good that morning! And how fragrantly the hot bacon sizzled and spluttered in the pan!

They made the second stage of their journey chiefly over the prairie, more or less following the motor road, but cutting off all the corners they could to reduce mileage, and getting dozens of wonderful ski runs over the treeless slopes, while Mills, who by now had become quite an expert steering the toboggan, came on behind.

”When I get back,” he kept saying, ”I'm going to learn to use those blooming things, too--but on a little hill first!”

The early twilight was deepening into night, and the northern lights were playing when they came over the final slope and saw the railroad signal lights--the first sign of other human beings than themselves they'd laid eyes on since October.

Half an hour later they were at the station, Mills was telephoning to Park headquarters at Lake McDonald, and the boys were getting their acc.u.mulated mail--letters from home, newspapers for two months past, a big box of cakes and sweet chocolate for Tom from his mother, and, for Joe, a long letter from Lucy Elkins, enclosing the pictures she had taken on their trip.

That evening they slept in beds at the house of the station agent, after they had spent the evening hearing the news from the outside world. The ma.s.s of newspapers they kept to read in the long evenings back in the cabin. Laying in some additional provisions, and carefully packing their precious papers, they started back in the morning, over their old tracks, which, except in windy places where they were drift covered, afforded now pretty easy sledding for the toboggan. They made camp again in the same spot, and were up before daylight for the last stage, Mills looking scowlingly at the sky.

”Don't like it to-day, boys,” he said. ”We're in for a storm. Let's beat it home, if we can.”

And that day he gave them little rest, driving on at a fast pace, with the toboggan rope straining over his shoulder. The sun went under before noon. By mid-afternoon, as they entered the Swift Current valley mouth, the peaks of the Divide were lost in a cold, gun metal cloud, and the wind was rising. They faced this wind all up the valley, with no chance now to coast--only a steady, grinding up-hill pull.