THE CAMPING SITE
They left the road and made their way across country toward the hills
whose lofty peaks were now golden with the dying sunlight. They followed
the brook which had flowed near the roadside up to where it came through
a rocky cleft between two hills.
As they climbed up to the spot, the glinting light which had been their
beacon faded away and only the brook was there, rippling cheerily over
its stony bed. It seemed as if it had bedecked itself in shimmering gold
to guide these weary travelers to this secluded haunt.
To be sure they had not penetrated far from the unfrequented road, but
they were able now to think of themselves as being in the Rocky
Mountains. The cleft through which the brook flowed was wide enough for
a little camping site at its brink and here, with the rushing water
singing its soothing and incessant lullaby, they resolved to rest their
weary bodies for the night.
One side of this cleft was quite precipitous and impossible of ascent.
But the side on which the boys chose their camp site sloped up from the
flat area at the brook side and was indeed the side of a lofty hill. It
was on this hill that Westy had noticed the tree from the upper branches
of which he had thought that he might scan the country southward, which
would be in the direction of the park. A very much better view might
have been obtained from neighboring mountain peaks, but the ascent of
such heights would have been a matter of many hours and fraught with
unknown difficulties. From the hill the country seemed comparatively low
and open to the south.
“This is some spot all right,” said Warde. “It looks as if Jesse James
might have boarded here.”
“Or William S. Hart,” said Ed. “Anyway I think there are some fish
getting table board here; it’s a kind of a little table-land. If we
can’t get any trout we can kill some killies. I wonder if there’s any
bait in the Rocky Mountains? I bet the angle-worms out here are pretty
wild.”
“Hark—shh!” said Westy.
“I’m shhhhing. What is it?” asked Ed.
“I thought I heard a kind of a sound,” said Westy.
“I hope it isn’t a grizzly,” said Warde. “Do you suppose they come to
places like this? Come on, let’s gather some branches to sleep on; I
know how to make a spring mattress. Is it all right to sleep on
branches, Westy?”
It was funny to see Ed sitting on a rock calmly unraveling some worsted
from his sweater, all the while with his precious safety-pin stuck
ostentatiously in the shoulder of his shirt.
“It’s good you happened to have your sweater on,” said Warde.
“I hope I don’t lose my railroad ticket now,” said Ed. “I had it pinned
in. I tell you what you do. Big Chief,” he added, addressing Westy, and
all the while engrossed with his unraveling process; “you climb up that
hill and take a squint around and look for a patch of yellow in the
distance. That will be Yellowstone Park. Look all around and if you see
any places where they sell hot frankfurters let us know. By the time you
get back we’ll have supper ready, what there is of it, I mean such as it
is. I’m going to braid this stuff, it’s too weak. Look in the sink and
see if there are any sinkers, Wardie.”
“All right,” said Westy, “because if I wait till after supper it might
be too dark.”
“If you wait till after supper,” said Ed, “maybe the tree won’t be
there. We may not have supper for years. How do I know that fish are
fond of red. I always told my mother I wanted a gray sweater, same color
as fish-line, and she goes and gets me a red one. I wonder what Stove
Polish catches fish with.”
“Maybe with the string that Mr. Wilde West was stringing us with,” said
Warde.
“I guess I’d better go,” laughed Westy.