they picked blackberries along the way during the hour or so preceding noon and made bags of their handkerchiefs and stored the berries in them. at noontime they sat down by the wayside and made a royal feast.
the country was rugged and in the distance were always the great hills with here and there some mighty peak piercing the blue sky. there was a wildness in the surroundings that they had never seen before. perhaps they felt it as much as saw it. for one thing there were no distant habitations, no friendly, little church spires to soften the landscape. the towering heights rolled away till they became misty in the distance, and it seemed to these hapless wayfarers that they might reach to the farthest ends of the earth.
but the immediate neighborhood of the road was not forbidding, the way led through no deep ravines nor skirted any dizzy precipices and it was hard for the boys to realize that they were in the rocky mountains. they lolled for an hour or so at noontime and talked as they might have talked along some road in their own familiar catskills.
one thing they did notice which distinguished this storied region from any they had seen and that was the abundance of great birds that flew high above them. they had never seen birds so large nor flying at so great a height. they appeared and disappeared among the crags and startled the quiet day with their screeching, which the boys could hear, spent and weak by the great distance. they supposed these birds to be eagles. their presence suggested the wild life to be encountered in those dizzy fastnesses. the boys saw no sign of this, but their imaginations pictured those all but inaccessible retreats filled with grizzlies and other savage denizens of that mighty range. as westy looked about him he fancied some secret cave here and there among the mountains, the remote haunt of outlaws and of the storied “bad men” of the west.
they hiked all day assured of their direction by the friendly sun. now and again they passed a house, usually a primitive affair, and were tempted to verify the correctness of their route by comforting verbal information. but westy thought of mr. madison c. wilde and refrained. they were not often tempted, for houses were few and far between. once they encountered a lanky stranger lolling on the step of a shabby little house. he seemed to be all hat and suspenders.
they hiked all day assured of their direction by the friendly sun.
“shall we ask him if this is the way?” warde cautiously asked.
“no,” said westy.
“i’m going to ask him,” said ed.
“you do——” said westy threateningly, “and——”
but before he had a chance to complete his threat, the blithesome ed had carried out his fiendish purpose.
“hey, mister, is this the way?” he said.
“vot vay?” the stranger inquired.
“thanks,” said ed.
“you make me tired,” westy said, constrained to laugh as they hiked along. “if that man could have spoken english——”
“all would have been lost,” said ed, “and we would be sure of going in the right direction; we had a narrow escape. that’s because i was a good scout; i saw that he was a foreigner; i remembered what it said in my school geography. ‘montana has been settled largely by germans who own extensible—extensive farms—in this something or other region. the mountains abound in crystal streams which are filled with trout—that can easily be caught with safety-pins.’ it’s good there’s one scout in the party. if we had some eggs we’d fry some ham and eggs if we only had some ham; i’m getting hungry.”
“now that you mentioned it——” said warde.
“how many miles do you think we’ve hiked?” asked westy.
“i don’t know how many you’ve hiked,” said ed, “but i’ve hiked about ninety-seven. i think we’ve passed yellowstone park without knowing it, that’s what i think. maybe we went right through it; the plot grows thicker. i hope we won’t walk into the pacific ocean.”
it was now late in the afternoon and they had hiked fifteen or eighteen miles. once in the midafternoon they had heard, faint in the long distance, what they thought might be a locomotive whistle and this encouraged them to think that they were still within a few miles of the railroad line.
westy would not harbor, much less express, any misgivings as to the reliability of the sun as a guide. perhaps it would be better to say that he would not admit any inability on his part to use it. yet as the great orb began to descend upon the mountain peaks far to the right of their route and to tinge those wild heights with a crimson glow, he began to imbibe something of the spirit of loneliness and isolation which that vast, rugged country imparted. after all, amid such a fathomless wilderness of rock and mountain it would have been good to hear some one say, “yes, just follow this road and take the second turn to your left.”
“that’s west, isn’t it?” westy asked, as they plodded on.
“you mean where the sun is setting?” asked warde. “oh, absolutely.”
“it sets there every night,” said ed, “including sundays and holidays.”
“well then,” said westy, feeling a little silly, “we’re all right.”
“we’re not all right,” said warde; “at least i’m not, i’m hungry.”
“well, here’s a brook,” said westy. “do you see—look over there in the west—do you see a little shiny spot away up between those two hills? away up high, only kind of between the two hills? it’s only about half a mile or so. it’s the sun shining on this brook away up there. that shows it comes down between those two hills.”
they all paused and looked. up among those dark hills in the west was a little glinting spot like gold. it flickered and glistened.
“maybe it’s a bonfire,” said warde.
“i think it’s the headlight of a ford,” said ed. “a ford can go anywhere a brook can go.”
“you crazy dub,” said westy.
“my social error,” said ed.
“what do you say we go over there?” westy said. “do you see—notice on that hill where all the rocks are—do you see a big tree? if one of us climbed up that tree i bet we could see for miles and miles; we could see just where the road goes. it’s only about fifteen or twenty miles to the entrance of the park; maybe we could see something—some building or something. then we could camp for the night up there and catch some fish. wouldn’t you rather not reach gardiner by the road? maybe we can plan out a short-cut. anyway, we can see what’s what. what do you say?”
“the fish part sounds good to me,” said ed.
“how are we going to cook the fish?” warde asked.
ed pulled out a handful of matches and exhibited them, winking in his funny way at warde.
“i thought you threw them away,” said westy. “do you think we couldn’t get a fire started without matches?”
“a scout never wastes anything,” said ed. “the scouts of old never wasted a thing, i learned that out of the handbook. again it shows what a fine scout i am. do you suppose mr. madison c. wild west lights his cigars with sparks from a rock?”
“the indians——” began westy.
“the indians were glad enough to sell massachusetts or connecticut or hoboken or some place or other for a lot of glass beads,” said ed. “they would have sold the whole western hemisphere for a couple of matches. you make me weary with your indians! i wish i had a chocolate soda now, that’s what i wish. the indians invented indian summer and what good is it? it comes after school opens, deny it if you dare. hey, warde? if i’d lived in colonial days i bet i could have got the whole of cape cod for this safety-pin of mine.”
“well, what do you say?” laughed westy. “shall we go up there and camp? and that will give us a chance to get a good squint at the country.”
“decided by an unanimous majority,” said ed.
“when do we eat?” said warde.
“leave it to me,” said ed slyly. and again he went through that funny performance of appearing to throw his matches away by pulling them nonchalantly from one pocket and depositing them in another. “if there are no trout up there i’ll never believe the school geography again. i may even never go to school again, i’ll be so peeved.”
