Meanwhile Spider was hauling himself up on the doubled rope. He didn’t stay up much longer than Bennie, though.
“Kind o’ ticklish up here,” he called back. “Glad the wind doesn’t blow.”
Then he slid down. Nobody else wanted to go up, so the rope was pulled down, and the party descended to the boats again, to eat luncheon, which had been long delayed. Afterwards, they fished for an hour, and got enough trout for a meal.
“Want to row us home, Bennie?” his uncle asked.
“Spider hasn’t had a chance to row all day,” Bennie answered.
The mile of zigzag trail up from the lake to the rim seemed endless to Bennie that evening, and when the rest went over to the hotel after dinner to hear the music and watch the dancing, he felt like refusing. But he didn’t. He went, too, rubbing his eyes to keep them open.
“I guess you’ll sleep tonight, eh?” Uncle Billy said, when they finally got back to camp.
“I’m going to sleep so hard I’ll puncture the mattress,” Bennie answered.
The next morning the doctor and Spider woke up before Bennie did, and they let him sleep till breakfast was almost ready. When he did get up, he stretched himself and discovered that his muscles were a bit stiff, but otherwise he felt, he said, “like a fighting cock.”
“Well, don’t feel so good you eat up all the pancakes before I get one!” Dumplin’ laughed, snatching for the plate.
“I guess what I need to take the kinks out of my back is exercise,” Bennie remarked, with a grin.
“We’d better get hold of Jack Dempsey, and let Bennie box with him every day,” Mr. Stone put in.
“Aw, I wouldn’t want to hurt him,” Bennie answered. “What we going to do today, Uncle Bill?”
“We’ll have to think it over,” his uncle replied.
But before anything was decided, a bell-boy came from the hotel with the news that someone had been taken sick there, and asking the doctor to come right over. It turned out that a man who had arrived the night before had eaten something on the road that poisoned him, and he was so sick that the doctor didn’t dare go far from camp that day. Mr. Stone wanted to stay near camp also, to make motion pictures of parties climbing up and down the rim, and he needed Lester to help him. So Bennie and Spider asked if they might go down to the water, get a boat, and row across the lake, taking their lunch with them.
“I don’t know,” the doctor said, frowning. “You can both swim, and you know how to row, but that lake can get pretty rough, and if you’re forced to land, there’s no way of getting back till somebody can come after you.”
“Oh, but look at the old lake! It’s calm as a mirror,” Bennie pleaded, “and there’s not a cloud in the sky.”
“We want to see what Llao Rock looks like when you’re right under it,” Spider added. “We’ll be awful careful.”
“Will you promise to keep fairly near shore, and if the water gets rough to beat it for home?” the doctor asked.
“Sure we will.”
“Well, I oughtn’t to let you go. I’m responsible to your parents for you chaps. But, after all, you’re big enough to take care of yourselves. All right, but be back at the landing before the sun gets off the middle of the lake. Promise me that?”
The boys promised, and set off down the trail in high spirits, some sandwiches, hastily made, and some sweet chocolate in their pockets for lunch. There were a dozen or more other parties starting down the trail, too, or getting ready to start, so the scouts made the descent in record time, in order to be sure of getting a boat.
Once out on the water, they decided it would be too much of a pull to try to circle the entire lake, under the cliffs—a matter of about twenty miles or more. But they could pull straight for the grotto on the east side of the lake, beyond the Phantom Ship, a matter of five miles, then cut across to Llao Rock, about four and a half miles, and then four miles home.
“Sure we can row that,” said Bennie. “That’s only thirteen and a half miles. Call it thirteen, ’cause we won’t land, probably, at Llao.”
“Sure,” answered Spider. “Easy.”
Well, it was easy to the grotto, which they finally found by rowing along the edge of the cliffs. The grotto is simply a shallow cave, only a few feet up from the water, but once you are in it you look out on the blue lake, through the opening, as if you were looking through a big window. The boys ate their lunch in here, and then started directly across for Llao Rock.
But the very first thing that they noticed was that the wind had come up, blowing directly against them, and with the wind a chop of water, which went slap, slap, slap under their bow. They pulled hard, and made slow progress.
About half-way across, Bennie, who was rowing, said, “You pull a while, Spider. I’m through for a bit.”
Spider took the oars and tugged. The wind and waves were certainly rising. They were slapping the how hard now, and swinging around so that the rower was half the time tugging at one oar or the other to keep his course.
“You know what your uncle said,” Spider panted. “Strikes me we’re a long way from shore, and this old lake is kicking up a sea. I think we better turn with the wind, and beat it back to the other shore, and then make for home.”
“We got to make for home, all right,” Bennie answered, his face getting white as he looked first at the waves and then up at what were unmistakably gathering clouds over the rim. “But if we go back to that east shore we get the full force of the sea, ’cause the wind is west. If we get in under the west side, we’ll be out of the wind, in shelter. Then we can run for home that way.”
“There’s something in that,” Spider assented. “If we can get there.”
“We got to get there,” Bennie cried. “Look at that old black cloud up there.”
Spider took one look, and began to pull for all he was worth.
It was dangerous business changing places in that sea, but finally he had to give up to Bennie again.
“Look out for those oars!” Bennie shouted. “We’d be goners if we lost one of them. We got to make shore, and wait till this is over. Oh gee!”
This last exclamation was caused by a wave that hit the boat almost broadside, drenching both boys to the knees and putting an inch of water on the bottom.
Bennie got hold of the oars, headed the boat into the sea again, and Spider began to bail with his cap. Wave after wave now hit their bow, and came spraying over, soaking them. There were whitecaps all around. The sun had disappeared behind the dark cloud, and the wind seemed rising steadily. Bennie pulled with every ounce of strength he had, and Spider bailed madly. Slowly, very slowly, almost as if they were standing still, Llao Rock drew near. They had to make the dangerous change once more, when Bennie’s strength gave out, and once more the boat swung broadside, and shipped a dangerous quantity of water.
“If she’ll only stay afloat till we make the shore!” Bennie cried. “Gee, it don’t seem to be a bit calmer over here.”
“If it is, I’m glad we ain’t out there,” Spider panted as he tugged at the oars.
In spite of all he could do, with only his cap to bail with, the boat was perilously full of water before the great lava precipices of Llao Rock finally towered right above them, and they saw and heard the waves on the stony shore.
“How are we going to land without smashing the boat?” Spider puffed.
“Hang the boat! How are we going to land without smashing our heads?” Bennie answered. “Hold her right inshore, and when I see a place pull for all you’ve got left!”
“Pull!” he yelled a moment later.
Spider drove the boat in. A wave caught it and threw it forward, but the bow drove between two lava fragments which rested half in water, half on shore, and while Bennie grabbed one oar and pushed at the stern, Spider jumped from the bow with the painter in his hand. He landed on a stone at the water’s edge, slipped back above his waist, scrambled out dripping wet, hauled on the painter, and got the bow in close. Bennie got out, and between them they hauled the boat up where the waves couldn’t knock it free, and tipped her over to let the water run out.
Then they both sat down and panted.
“Well, I’d rather be here than out there,” Bennie finally said.
“I don’t mind saying I didn’t know whether we’d ever get here,” Spider answered. “I guess that was a close call, all right. Gee, but my arms ache!”
“Mine don’t—they haven’t any feeling left in ’em,” said Bennie. “Well, what are we going to do now? We can’t stay here all night and freeze to death.”
“I sure am wet and cold,” Spider answered. “And you can’t make a fire out of lava and pumice. Funny thing, not a drop of rain has fallen. Look, there’s the sun again over on the top of Scott.”
“No more sun here, though,” Bennie said, looking up the 800 foot sharp slope of pumice above them, that ended at the 1,200 foot absolutely precipitous and terrifying leap of Llao Rock. “We’re under the shadow of that old rock.”
“Well, we’ll just have to hop round and keep as warm as we can, till the old lake quiets down and we can row home.”
“She don’t show any signs of quieting down,” said Bennie. “Hear the old wind. ’Sides, it’ll take a long while for those waves to quit. And I don’t want to go out on that water again! Gee, I couldn’t row a hundred feet.”
“We could if we had to,” said Spider, bravely. “Anyhow, probably your uncle will send the launch out after us.”
“They don’t know where we are, and we can’t make a fire to signal.”
“They’ll have field-glasses,” Spider suggested. “We can wave our handkerchiefs.”
“’Sides,” Bennie went on, “maybe the launch is out, too, and it’ll be dark before they can get here, and maybe they won’t come across in this sea. I’ll be frozen stiff by that time. I move we climb up to the rim road and walk home. It’s only eight miles from Llao Rock to camp, according to the map.”
“Climb up!” exclaimed Spider, looking aloft at the terrific precipice. “This has gone to your head, Bennie.”
“You poor fish, we wouldn’t climb the rock itself,” Bennie answered. “Don’t you remember, Uncle Billy said somebody worked up to the base, and then along on top of the pumice slope to the rim? If somebody else did it, we can do it. If we see the launch coming after we get up a ways we can come down. Anyhow, it’s better’n freezing to death here. It’ll keep us warm.”
“Looks to me like an awful job,” Spider objected.
“Well, you can stay here then, I’m going,” Bennie declared. His voice was shrill, and Spider realized that he wasn’t quite himself. Besides, he was shivering with cold. Spider was shivering, too, here in the gloomy shadow of Llao Rock, with the wind beating upon them.
“All right,” he decided, “if you go, I go. Come on. We got to hit the rim road before dark. But take it easy, Bennie, for Pete’s sake. We got to save our strength, and this old stuff’s awful treacherous, too. Test your footing.”
“I’ll test my footing, all right,” Bennie answered, starting up the long, steep incline of powdered pumice and loose conglomerate, out of which here and there thrust up jagged lumps and spikes and little cliffs of harder lava.
It was hard work, all the harder because they were so wet and tired. And they soon found it was dangerous work. Drive your foot down into the soft stuff too hard to get a brace, and you start a little landslide right under your own feet. That releases a lot of stuff above you, which starts down, too, and it is only too easy to get carried down with the rush. The boys found this out, fortunately, before they had climbed very far, so that they didn’t slide far enough to hurt them. After that, they climbed side by side, ten feet apart, instead of one behind the other, and zigzagged across the slopes, instead of going directly up.
It seemed ages before they reached the top of the loose stuff, at the very base of the mighty precipice. From here they could see the whole lake, and scanned the water for any sign of the launch, but no launch was to be seen. So they kept on.
Their troubles, which they thought would be over when they reached the base of the cliff, were not over. They still had a long, soft slope to climb at the foot of the lava, which was impeded by huge broken fragments fallen from the cliff above. Often they couldn’t go around these, because if they did they got too near the edge of the slope, and were in danger of starting down on a landslide. They had to work over them. However, they toiled on, getting warm, at least, with the exertion, until they reached the long and almost level stretch that led rapidly to the rim.
Here, for the first time in ten minutes, Bennie spoke. “We’re going to make it!” he cried.
“And we’re going to make it before dark!” Spider answered.
They hurried on now, with renewed courage, and gained the rim at last, coming up out of the cold shadows into the sharp mountain gale and the last low rays of sunset.
Both boys flopped for a minute on the dry pumice back from the rim, and lay there getting back some of their strength.
Spider was the first up. “Come,” he said, “we got to find the rim road before it’s dark.”
“Eight miles!” Bennie sighed. “Oh, you automobile!”
“Come on—no use crying for automobiles. We got to find that road and hoof it. We can’t stay out all night in these wet clothes, without any blankets.”
Bennie got up wearily. “All right. The old road’ll be pretty close. All we got to do is walk down the back slope, away from the rim.”
“But it’s all snow,” said Spider. “How’ll we know the road when we see it?”
“If we can’t tell a road when we come to it, snow or no snow, we’re bum scouts and deserve to stay here and freeze to death,” Bennie retorted.
As a matter of fact, in spite of the snow, they did find the road, by catching at a distance a cut through trees, and then by picking up a long open space bare of snow, which the road crossed, showing plainly. Once on it, the chance of missing it again was not great unless the night got very dark. With bright starlight, even without a moon, the tired scouts, as they plodded along, now for brief welcome stretches on the bare ground, but mostly on the soft drifts where every step was an effort, reckoned they could keep the trail.
“Besides,” Bennie said, “if we lost it, we could always sort of follow the rim.”
“Yes, and have to climb up over the top of the Watchman and Glacier Peak. No, thanks. I’ve climbed enough today. It’ll be in woods a lot of the way, and we can always feel the opening. You know how we can follow a wood road at home in the dark.”
“Oh, you home!” sighed Bennie. “Think of bacon, and coffee, and baked potatoes! Oh, boy, I’m going to cry in a minute, I’m so empty.”
“Take up a hole in your belt, like the Indians,” Spider suggested.
It was getting dark now rapidly, and they were plodding wearily across a long opening on the heavy snow, which was like walking on a pile of rock salt, and wondering where the road was on the other side, when suddenly Spider stopped.
“Look!” he cried.
“What is it? I don’t see anything.”
“Look, in the trees. I saw a light!”
“How do you get that way?” Bennie demanded. “Light! We’re about six miles from nowhere here. Haven’t any campers been around the rim road. Can’t get around. Buck up, Spider. Don’t cave now!”
“Oh, quit,” said Spider crossly. “There! There it is again!”
This time Bennie saw it. There was a light in the woods ahead of them. Moreover, it wasn’t a camp fire. It was moving.
“Somebody with a lantern!” Bennie exclaimed. He stuck two fingers into his mouth and blew a long, shrill blast.
The answer was a “Hoo-oo!” in Uncle Billy’s voice!
“How’d they know we were here?” said Bennie, as they both shouted back, and stumbled on more rapidly toward the light.
A moment later they were beside Uncle Billy and Mr. Stone, and out of his pack Uncle Billy was taking a thermos bottle of hot tea, and the boys were drinking it. Around his shoulder, they saw, the doctor had his alpine rope.
“I guess that doesn’t go to the spot!” Bennie exclaimed.
“Never knew tea was so good,” said Spider.
And now followed rapid questions and answers, as the tramp to camp was resumed. No trouble about finding the road now! They had a lantern, and the back tracks of Uncle Billy and Mr. Stone.
“How’d you know where we were?” the boys demanded.
“Watched you with a glass,” said the doctor. “I saw the lake getting rough, after you started across, and I saw that cloud coming. Stone went down the trail to send the launch for you, but the launch was out with a party. Finally it got in under the lee of Wizard Island, and everybody tried to signal it to come across, but it didn’t come, and finally somebody rowed over from it and reported the engine had gone dead and they couldn’t start it. They’re bringing the passengers back now, when the lake’s got quieter.
“By that time, we’d seen you land at Llao Rock, so we planned to row over and get you just as soon as we could, if they didn’t get the launch started up. But then you began to climb.”
The doctor paused.
“Well,” he finally went on, “I had a bad five minutes then, I can tell you. But there was nothing to do about it, so we watched to make sure you were really going to try to make the rim, and then we beat it over here. You made better time up than I thought you could. We expected to get to the rock before you got up. I brought the rope to—to help you.”
“Why did you keep on into the wind?” Mr. Stone asked. “Why didn’t you turn back and run with it to the east shore where you came from?”
The boys explained how they thought they were going to get out of the wind under the protection of Llao Rock.
“There’s no protection on that lake in a storm,” the doctor said. “Fortunately, there aren’t many storms. I told you to keep near shore, though, and you crossed right over. Well, never mind that now. Guess you’ve had your lesson.”
“Guess we have,” said Bennie, as he stumbled wearily along, hardly able to drag one foot after the other. “But we thought we were pretty near the north shore when we crossed. Only to get there, we’d have to go broadside, and besides, it was taking us away from camp.”
“Still,” said his uncle, quietly, “you didn’t quite live up to your promise, did you?”
“No, sir,” Bennie admitted. “It won’t happen again, Uncle Billy.”
The six miles back to camp turned out to be seven. It seemed to the boys that they would never get there. But at last they did. Dumplin’ had a roaring fire going, both in the stove and the camp fire ring of stones. Coffee was ready to boil, and bacon to fry. He had eggs, too, bought from the hotel.
The scouts fell into their tent and ripped off their clothes, getting a rub-down before putting on dry ones. By the time they were ready, their dinner was cooked, and they came out to the table, dragging their feet wearily, and slumped down on the camp chairs.
“Good old Dumplin’!” said Bennie, as he waded into the food, “I never loved you so much as I do at this minute.”
“P’r’aps you’d like to kiss him,” Spider suggested, also cheering up as he felt the warmth of the food.
“No, I’m not strong enough yet to do that,” Bennie laughed.
“You never will be!” Dumplin’ retorted, filling his plate again.
After their supper the boys hung their wet clothes by the camp fire, and huddled by it themselves for a while, but Uncle Billy soon ordered them to bed, and they didn’t need to be told twice.
The doctor came into the tent after they had crawled into the grateful, warm blankets on the comfortable air cushions of their sleeping bags.
“All right?” he asked.
“Uncle Bill,” said Bennie, “it was my fault we crossed the lake. Spider didn’t have a thing to do with planning the trip.”
“No, we were both to blame,” put in Spider. “We knew we couldn’t row all around the lake, and we wanted to see the grotto and Llao Rock both, so we cut across. I—I guess we didn’t really think.”
“We won’t say anything more about it,” the doctor answered. “It’s come out all right. But maybe next time you’ll believe that I know more about this country than you do, and when I ask for a promise, it isn’t just an old maid’s fancy.”
“Yes, sir,” they both answered.
When he had gone out, Spider whispered across the tent, “He’s a peach, your uncle. Gee, he didn’t bawl us out a bit.”
“Made me more ashamed than if he had,” Bennie replied.
“Me, too.”
“I guess we gave him a bad time of it, worrying about us. I guess we deserved to get ours.”
“Well, we got it, all right.”
“Kid, you’ve enunciated a history full!” Bennie answered. “We’re bum scouts. Never again.”
“Never again,” echoed Spider.
They were sound asleep when Uncle Billy returned from a last call on his patient at the hotel and went to bed.
The next day neither of the scouts felt much like strenuous exertion. Their arms ached from pulling the boat, and they both had blisters on their hands, and the excitement had left them rather tired.
Mr. Stone looked at them while they were eating breakfast.
“Well, Bennie,” he said, “what are you and Spider going to do today? I can’t seem to think of anything left around here that will give you as much exercise as you want. Of course, you haven’t yet run all the way down the trail and run all the way back again. You might try that. Or you might row to Llao Rock and tow your other boat home, before the launch has to go for it.”
“Naw, that’s too easy,” Bennie grinned. “I kind of thought we might hike around the rim road. How far is it—forty miles? We’d be back in time for dinner.”
“A good idea!” Uncle Billy exclaimed.
“What’s a good idea?” asked Bennie, beginning to be sorry he’d made the joke.
“A hike,” said the doctor.
Spider and Bennie groaned.
“Not today!” the doctor laughed. “Tomorrow, maybe. We haven’t had a real hike yet, and I heard you talking the other day, didn’t I, Bennie, about wanting to work for a merit badge in hiking?”
“Where’ll we hike to—how far?” put in Dumplin’. “Look at those two lovely automobiles, just doing nothing. Don’t seem right to me to let ’em loaf so.”
“Well, you can stay back in camp, and have the wood all cut and the dinner cooked for us when we get back,” said his father.
“Yes, I will!” Dumplin’ retorted. “I may be fat——”
“It’s just possible,” put in Bennie.
“I may be fat, but I can keep goin’ as long as any of you, I guess!”
“You may not be so fat when we get back,” Uncle Billy went on. “I think it would be a great idea to give Bennie some regular exercise, about tomorrow, also the day after, and the day after that. We’ll hike over to the base of Mount Scott, because that’s the highest point around here, packing our blankets and grub. Then the second day we’ll climb Scott, and the third day we’ll hike back again.”
“Ho, that’s no hike at all, if you take three days for it!” Bennie said. “I been looking on the map. It’s less ’n ten miles from here to the top of the mountain, and the top is only 8,938 feet high, so it’s only a 2,000-foot climb.”
“How much better you know this country than I do,” said his uncle, quietly, “and how skilfully you can read the contour intervals on a map. Well, you may go over and back the same day, if you want to. The rest of us will take three, however.”
Bennie turned red. “I—I guess I’m a dumb-bell,” he stammered.
“It’s just possible,” Dumplin’ put in, while the rest shouted with mirth at the hit.
Spider, meanwhile, had gone to his pack and got out the government topographical survey map of Crater Lake Park.
“Do we go along the rim?” he asked.
“More or less. We’ll have to climb part way up Garfield, and then find a way down on the other side, and work along back of Dutton Cliff to Kerr Valley.”
Spider was studying the contour interval lines of the map closely now.
“Let’s see, we go up at least 500 feet for a start, and then we go along a mile or two, and then we—holy mackerel!—then we drop right down ’most a thousand! And then——”
“Yes?” said Bennie.
“And then we go up again ’most a thousand, and then we walk a mile, and then—jumping bullfrogs and little fish hooks!—then we just fall down, let’s see, about a thousand feet into Kerr Valley. That’s less than 6,500 feet above the sea. Scott is almost 9,000. We’ve still got a climb of 2,500 feet ahead of us.”
“Aw, go on, you’re making that up,” Bennie insisted. “You can’t tell all that from the map. Let me look.”
“Maybe you can’t tell,” Spider retorted. “I always told you you didn’t half read a map. Go on—look for yourself.”
And he passed the map over.
Bennie studied it carefully. “I guess maybe you’re right,” he finally confessed. “Well, exercise is just what I need! How’s the path, Uncle Bill?”
“Path!” the doctor laughed. “You’ll cross the rim road at the bottom of Kerr Valley, where it comes down from the rim to get around the cliffs back to the hotel here. But that’s the only path you’ll see. This is going to be a hike, not a Sunday School picnic or a young ladies’ seminary out for a walk.”
“Suits me fine.”
“Good!” said his uncle. “I advise you to rest up for it today, though.”
“I know what I’m going to do today, all right. Anybody got any dirty clothes?”
“I haven’t got much else,” said Dumplin’.
“Fine. Bring ’em out, all of you. Mrs. Murphy’s on the job this morning. I’m going to wash things up.”
“Want me to help?” Dumplin’ asked.
“No, you go off with Spider and collect pretty little flowers. Don’t let ’em bite you, though. They’re wild flowers, remember.”
Everybody groaned at this pun.
“Mrs. Noah threw a belaying pin at her husband for making that one on the ark,” said Uncle Billy.
“What’s the difference,” Bennie began, “between Noah’s ark and Joan of Arc?”
But everybody dove, with another groan, into the tents, to get their dirty clothes.
When everybody but Bennie had gone from camp, he heated a big pail of water, got out a cake of soap, and washed all the dirty clothes, hanging them on a tent rope in the sun to dry. Then he picked up camp as neat as he could, aired all the bedding and remade the sleeping bags, and finally went off and hunted up dead branches for fuel, dragging them back to camp. After lunch, while the rest were loafing, he took the fishing rod and sneaked away unseen, went rapidly down the trail, and working around on the rocks by the shore, managed to hook three trout. He was just coming up over the rim with them when Spider and Lester, wondering at his long absence, had started out to look for him.
“I sure hate a man who pins roses on himself,” Bennie remarked, as he was cleaning the fish for dinner, “but I just can’t help admitting that I’ve been mamma’s little white-haired boy today. I’ve washed all your dirty shirts and socks, and I’ve got wood, and I’ve cleaned up camp, and now I’ve dragged my poor old aching bones down a thousand feet and back again to catch you three sweet little fishie-wishies for supper. Won’t somebody please say ‘Thank you, Bennie, you are a good boy’?”
“Bennie doesn’t like himself a bit, does he?” remarked Dumplin’, addressing a camp robber in a tree overhead.
“Can’t you prescribe something for his poor old aching bones, Doc?” asked Mr. Stone.
“Try rubbing ’em with a little fish oil, Bennie,” Spider put in.
“I think I shall prescribe exercise,” Uncle Billy laughed.
“Well, of all the ungrateful bunches, you sure get the loving cup!” Bennie exclaimed. “I hope you all choke on a fish bone.”
“The Bible says virtue is its own reward, Bennie,” remarked Mr. Stone.
“Pretty skinny pickings for some of you guys, then,” Bennie grinned.
But after supper Uncle Billy strolled out with Bennie to the point of Victory Rock, to see the lake like a great blue mirror in the twilight, and he said, quietly:
“We were all much obliged to you for what you did today. Never mind the joshing.”
Bennie laughed. “Ho! I didn’t mind. Can’t get my goat so easy as that! Besides, the old Bible is right, I guess. You don’t do a good turn because you’re going to be thanked for it. You do it ’cause it makes you feel better inside.”
“That’s the idea, exactly,” Uncle Billy answered. “Bennie, you’re a good scout. Your heart is just where it ought to be every time. The only trouble with you is that you haven’t quite got your head working yet. If you are going to amount to anything as a mountaineer or explorer—anywhere in the wilderness—you’ve got to learn to use your head, and never bite off more than you can chew. Will you try to remember that?”
“I sure will, Uncle Bill,” Bennie answered. “I’m awful fresh, I guess, and I talk a lot, but I’m learning right now, every day. You just sit on me hard when I need it.”
“You needn’t worry about my doing that,” the doctor grinned.
“No, you’re some sitter,” said Bennie.
Bright and early the next morning preparations for the hike began. This was to be no ordinary jaunt. They were going out for three days and two nights into a wilderness, where they would have to make long, severe climbs up and down treacherous lava ledges; where they would have to sleep out in the open, tentless, in a climate where water freezes at night; where they couldn’t get a mouthful of food except what they could carry with them.
“You see, boys,” said the doctor, “it’s going to be quite a problem how to take along enough stuff to keep us warm, and keep us fed, and yet be able to travel with it on our backs.”
Each member of the party put in his shoulder pack his own food ration, consisting of tea (because it is lighter than coffee), some bacon, powdered egg, a little dehydrated vegetables, a small bag of flour, a small bag of sugar, a package of bouillon cubes, a can of preserved fruit, a small can of condensed milk, two pounds of raisins, two boiled potatoes, and several cakes of sweet chocolate. In addition, each person put in two extra pairs of wool socks, and a set of underclothes. Then, out of their sleeping bags, they each took a double blanket, and made a blanket roll, fastening the ends with straps from the motors. Bennie and Spider each had a boy scout individual cook-kit, in a khaki case with a shoulder strap. These two kits, with a tin cup and plate and spoon for the others, and one, larger frying-pan and kettle carried by Uncle Billy, was all the cooking outfit they carried. However, the doctor made everybody carry a canteen, and Bennie, Spider and Mr. Stone each carried a camera. Everybody had a sweater, also, and two belt axes were taken. The doctor had his rope.
When the shoulder packs were on, and the blanket rolls, and the canteens, and the cameras and camp kits, everybody was glad enough of the alpenstocks which the doctor handed around.
“Say, I need this stock to help me stand up,” said Dumplin’. “I feel like a walking department store.”
“I’ll bet we aren’t toting any more than a soldier has to carry on a march, at that,” said Spider. “Are we, doctor?”
“No, I don’t believe we’re packing so much,” Uncle Billy answered. “A gun’s heavier than a stock, too. But it’s enough. Going to be hot today.”
As the little procession filed past the hotel (which by now was full of tourists), a crowd came out to watch them go past.
“Going on a hike, boys?” somebody called out.
“No,” Bennie answered, “we’re going over to Wizard Island to play tennis.”
“Wonder what makes people ask foolish questions?” Dumplin’ mused.
“It’s the——” Bennie began. Then he caught himself. “Ha! thought you had me, didn’t you?—it’s the altitude!”
“You chaps won’t talk so much at three o’clock,” remarked Mr. Stone.
For the first half mile, they had a trail, the trail they had already taken up Garfield Peak. But half-way up, they left the trail, and struck right out, without any path at all, around the tumbled crags of broken lava, and over the snow-fields and patches of soft pumice soil that crown this part of the rim on the southeastern side of the lake. The going was very slow and difficult, up hill and down, in and out among the rises and dips, with the sun beating down upon them till their packs and hot blankets seemed almost unbearable. At first, they could see the blue lake almost 2,000 feet below them, while they worked along the crest of Eagle Crags, but after a while they had to drop down behind the rim to avoid a climb up Dyar Rock, and lost all sight of it.
After about two miles, they came out on the crest of a slope that led down to Sun Creek, and saw the Sun meadows below them. They would have rejoiced at this sight if they hadn’t also seen the wall of the deep ravine rising up on the other side, steeper and higher than under their feet.
“Oh, for the wings of a dove!” sighed Dumplin’.
“Lot o’ good a dove’s wings would do you,” said Bennie. “Take a dirigible to lift you.”
“A bridge across would do me,” said Spider.
“Meanwhile, we’ll get a little exercise crossing on our own feet,” Uncle Billy smiled. “Come on, now, and watch your step. Sound your footing with your alpenstocks, and keep out of line, so if anybody starts a slide, it won’t spill all the rest.”
They made the descent slowly and painfully over the first steep pitches, and then more rapidly till they sank at last on the ground by the water of Sun Creek, which came down from a snow-bank up on the rim at the head of the ravine, threw off packs and blankets, and plunged their mouths in.
“Do we lunch here? I’m hungry——” from Dumplin’.
“We do,” the doctor answered. “And it’s a brief lunch, too. Everybody take one handful of raisins, and half a cake of chocolate.”
“Oh, gee, is that all?” cried Dumplin’.
“That’s all. John Muir used to climb for two or three days in the high Sierras on a pocketful of raisins, and didn’t even carry a blanket. Come on, get busy.”
Everybody obeyed, and the doctor saw to it that they didn’t take too many of their raisin supply, either.
“I consider this a Lucullan feast,” remarked Mr. Stone.
“Whatever that is,” said Bennie. “If you mean some banquet, I’m right along with you. Always did like these seven-course dinners.”
“Anyhow, it won’t take long to wash the dishes,” Spider reflected.
As soon as the raisins and chocolate were eaten, and the canteens refilled, they picked up their packs and blankets again and put them on.
“Gosh! mine weighs more’n it did,” said Bennie. “Somebody’s put something into it.”
“Mine, too.”
“Mine, too.”
“Mine, too.”
“Wait till they get really heavy before you kick,” said Uncle Billy. “Forward, march!”
The thousand-foot wall of the Sun Creek ravine which faced them was just about the height from the lake to the rim at the hotel, but it was not so steep, except for a little distance at the start. On the other hand, there was no trail at all, no sign that any other human being had ever been up it, and when the going was not amid treacherous lava fragments which broke if you put your weight on them, it was over soft pumice into which your feet sank deep, and then began to slide backwards. Finally Bennie took his uncle’s rope and scrambled up ahead with it, till he could find anchorage, so the rest could have its help. When he was fagged, somebody else took a turn. It took them more than an hour to make the half mile up the wall, and at the top they pitched off their packs and blankets, their shoulders and backs dripping wet with perspiration, and everybody set his mouth to his canteen and drank.
After a rest, they crossed Dutton ridge, a mile of broken going, and then began to descend into the next ravine, called Kerr Valley, which is the deepest ravine on the slopes of old Mount Mazama, and lies right at the foot of Scott Peak. The descent was not dangerously steep till the last three hundred feet, and there they used the rope again to help them.
As they came out at last into the mile wide ravine of Kerr Valley, out of which the snow had pretty well melted except under the trees, and in which the wild flowers were springing up, they saw where the rim road came down from the rim and descended the valley to get around the mass of ledges and ravines they had been crossing. It was now three o’clock, and, as Mr. Stone had predicted, nobody was saying much.
They could see the round, dome-like pile of Scott’s Peak, directly across the valley, and Bennie did ask how far it was from there to the top.
“Thinking of keeping on up today?” his uncle asked.
“Aw, don’t rub it in,” said Bennie. “I couldn’t climb an ant-hill now.”
“Well, a mile more will take us across the valley to water,” his uncle laughed. “Guess we can all stick that out.”
On the other side of the valley, across the still deserted and useless rim road, they found a stream, called Sand Creek, which came down, the doctor said, from a spring on the cliffs of Scott, just above them.
Here they dumped their packs again, stripped off their clothes, and the three boys were only restrained by main force from falling in.