ON TABLE ROCK
A howl of laughter arose from Rob and Evan and Malcolm. Jelly peered up
at them disgustedly.
“I don’t see anything to laugh at!” he cried. “All I’ve got left is two
eggs and three potatoes!”
“That’s enough for anybody,” answered Malcolm. Rob had seated himself
on a tree-root and was laughing helplessly.
“I’m going back to look for them,” called Jelly. “You fellows wait.
Don’t you run off and leave me, now!”
“We won’t,” gurgled Rob. “But――but get a move on!”
“Poor Jelly,” chuckled Evan. “He’s nearly dead already. If he can’t
find his ‘pair of chops,’ Malcolm, have we got enough for him to eat?”
“Nobody ever had enough for Jelly to eat yet,” answered Rob, wiping
his eyes on his sleeve.
“There’ll be enough at a pinch,” Malcolm replied. “Personally I’m not
sorry to get a chance to sit down a moment. This is something of a
climb, isn’t it?”
“You bet it is,” replied Evan, following the example of the others and
seating himself with a sigh. “How much further is it?”
“We’ve done about half,” Malcolm answered, “but the rest of the trip is
the hardest. What time is it, I wonder.”
It was twenty minutes to eleven.
“Time enough,” muttered Rob, leaning back against a tree, “if Jelly
doesn’t delay the game too long. Isn’t he funny with his ‘pair of
chops?’”
“There he comes, I think,” said Evan. “I hear something down there. O
Jelly!”
“Hello!”
“Did you find ’em?”
“Yes, most of them,” was the faint reply. After another minute Jelly
appeared below. Stopping to recover his parcel, he toiled up to them,
his face as red as a beet and the perspiration running down his cheeks.
He sank to the ground and puffed and panted.
“I found the chops,” he said. “And six――potatoes――but the
eggs――were――smashed.”
“Didn’t you recover any of them?” asked Rob solicitously.
“If you want them――you can――go back and――get them,” Jelly retorted with
a grin. He pulled the parcel to him, threw back the paper and exposed
his treasures; nine small potatoes, two eggs, two slices of buttered
bread and two pink chops covered with dirt and leaves. Jelly took up
the chops and lovingly cleaned them while the others looked on laughing.
“They’re perfectly good chops,” asserted Jelly, faintly indignant.
“Of course they are,” answered Rob soothingly. “A few leaves and a
little dirt will give them a fine, gamey flavor. They look like mutton
to me, Jelly.”
Jelly held one to his nose and sniffed it critically.
“N――no, I think they’re veal,” he replied gravely. “I wish these eggs
were hard boiled; then they wouldn’t have broken.”
“So do I,” said Rob. “I only allowed you to come, Jelly, because I am
extremely fond of eggs. And now you have only half an excuse for your
presence.”
“Say, Jelly,” Malcolm suggested, “you’d better stuff that truck in your
pockets. Then you won’t lose it.”
“Guess I will,” muttered Jelly. He wrapped the chops tenderly in a
piece of the newspaper and then distributed his rations about him.
“Now,” he said, “it won’t be so hard to climb.”
“Well, let’s get on then,” said Rob. “I used to think, fellows, that
I’d like to be a Swiss mountaineer and leap from crag to crag and yodel
merrily in my glee, but I’ve changed my mind. Where’s my―― Thank you,
Evan. As I said before, I love my little alpen-stock.”
A quarter of an hour later they left the trees behind them and found
themselves on a rocky slope sparsely grown with low bushes and tough,
wiry grass. Here the sticks were no longer of use and they discarded
them. Boulders and stones made progress slow and uncertain, and several
times they had to climb on hands and knees up the face of some bare
ledge. This was hard work for Jelly, and near the summit they were
forced to stop and allow him to recover. A final scramble along the
side of Table Rock and they were on top, breathless and weary but
triumphant.
On all sides the country was visible for miles, although the mist
to-day hid the further distances. South-eastward Narragansett Bay
stretched out to the Sound, dully blue. White sails appeared here and
there, and a steamer was making its way westward with a dark streak
of smoke trailing ahead. The school buildings, directly below, looked
no larger than cigar-boxes. Northward the country stretched away in
wooded hills and meadows, sprinkled with farms and tiny white houses.
Riverport was like a toy village and only a haze of smoke told where
Providence lay at the head of the bay. Lake Matunuxet wound its long
length toward the west like a wide blue-gray ribbon. The roads were
buff scratches that dipped and turned across the green and russet
landscape. The distant screech of a locomotive drew their eyes to where
a freight train crawled along the edge of the bay beyond Riverport.
“It’s a dandy view, isn’t it?” asked Evan, who had seated himself
on the edge of the great flat ledge with his legs hanging over a
sixty-foot drop.
“Yes, but it’s all-fired cold,” answered Rob. “Let’s get over on the
other side and start a fire. I’m hungry enough to eat Jelly’s dirty
chops.”
The wind which, since they had left the protection of the trees, had
been growing stronger each moment, blew coldly from the water. Overhead
the clouds were drifting fast, and now and then a faint yellow radiance
momentarily gave promise of sunlight. The others were glad to follow
Rob’s suggestion. The ledge sloped westward to a litter of giant
boulders and slabs, and among these there were traces of many former
fires. The boys set about collecting wood: small branches of bushes and
the remains of previous stores. Malcolm viewed the result dubiously.
“This isn’t going to be nearly enough fuel, fellows,” he said.
“Somebody will have to go down and get some more.”
Rob looked interestedly at the distant hills. Jelly continued emptying
the treasures from his pockets into a crevice in the rock. Evan looked
thoughtfully at the pile of wood.
“How far do we have to go?” he asked.
“Down to the trees. It’s not so far on this side. You and I will go,
Evan, and leave these lazy duffers to start the fire. I want a good
big bed of coals to cook on.”
“All right,” said Evan, “but let’s wait a few minutes more. Gee, I
haven’t really got my breath back yet.”
“I wish you’d let me go,” murmured Rob. “What a beautiful view it is,
to be sure.”
“I’d go for wood,” said Jelly earnestly, “but I’m pretty tuckered,
Malcolm. I suppose it’s being so fleshy that――”
“You’re not fleshy,” said Rob, “you’re _fat_, Jelly. Fleshy is much too
polite a name for your trouble.”
“Never mind,” said Malcolm. “You sit down and get rested, Jelly. At
least, you had the decency to _offer_ to go, which is more than I can
say for somebody.”
“I believe you are insinuating, Malcolm Warne! Your words and manner
are alike insulting. I challenge you to mortal combat, up here above
the clouds.” Rob picked up Jelly’s two precious eggs, “Behold the
weapons! Eggs _au naturel_, at a distance of forty paces!”
“Here, you put those down, Rob!” shrieked Jelly in alarm.
“I shall be glad to put them down when they’re cooked, Mr. Jell.”
“Please don’t break them,” begged Jelly. “Malcolm, make him let my eggs
alone.”
“That’s right, Rob. If you must play with those do it over the
frying-pan so they won’t be wasted. Let’s go down and get the wood,
Evan. How about it――rested enough?”
“Yes, I’m ready.”
“Just to show you that you have misjudged me sadly,” said Rob, “I will
go along and help. You start the fire, Jelly, and keep it going until
we get back with more supplies.”