so at last they cooked the fish. warde cleaned them with his jack-knife on a flat stone while westy and ed gathered enough wood for a little fire. westy was now so affluent in heroism, and had so far regained his poise in consequence, that he could stand calmly by and witness the civilized proceeding of lighting a fire with a match. or perhaps he was too weary and hungry to experiment with any of those primitive devices for striking a spark with nature’s raw materials.
and it might be observed that if you should happen to have escaped from train robbers in the rocky mountains and have walked a dozen miles more or less in the night, a mess of fish cooked loose upon a wood fire is not half bad. you will find them charred and tasting of smoke (which is well) and elusive when subjected to the rules of table etiquette. they crumble and fall apart and have to be sought for in the glowing fastnesses of consuming wood and extracted like the kernels of hickory nuts. they have to be caught all over again. but they are delicious—if you have lately escaped from train robbers in the rocky mountains.
in such a country as they were in one is much less likely to suffer from cold and exposure at night, notwithstanding the biting air, than in some tamer woodland where the ruggedness of nature offers no natural shelters and wind-breaking rocks.
the boys, refreshed by their meal, but staggering from fatigue, walked around the little lake in search of a shelter along the precipitous shore. they found a place which seemed to have been made for three weary scouts, a place which, as ed remarked, any boarding-house keeper in the east could get ten dollars a week for. it was not high enough to sit up in, but none of them felt like sitting up. only a few pine branches were necessary to transform this little recess into a dormitory. and here the three award boys slept with a profundity which there is no word in any language capable of describing.
it was midmorning when westy awoke, finding his companions still sleeping soundly. his joints were stiff and he found it soothing to his knees to hold his legs out straight. but he was not exactly tired. it was the aftermath of fatigue.
the sun was well up over the little mountain lake, glinting the water as it made its slow progress across the blue sky. how cheering it was! it seemed to radiate hope. how companionable—like a friend from home. the same genial sun that rose over the hills at temple camp and flecked the lake there with its glinting light. and here it was in the rocky mountains! what a change it wrought in the country and in the award boy’s spirit. oh, he could do anything now, and all was well!
he stretched one leg out stiff and held it that way and lingered upon the ineffable relief that this afforded his knee.
westy did not know how far they had walked in the brook during the night, nor in what direction, but the great mountains seemed still to be far away. he tried to identify the landscape with that he had last been able to see, which was from his vantage point in the big elm, but there was nothing recognizable now, only the brook.
he had thought that perhaps daylight would find them amid the wild fastnesses they had seen from a distance. but as he looked about he saw that the immediate neighborhood was not forbidding though it was wild and unpeopled. could it be that he was in the heart of the rockies? in such a place as lewis and clark, for example, had camped in their adventurous journey of exploration? the rockies that he had dreamed of were always in the distance, holding themselves aloof as it seemed, from these hapless pilgrims. it was strange. was he, in fact, in the rockies?
he was, indeed, only the rockies were too big for him. he had expected to find them under his feet. he had thought of them as something quite limited and distinct. of course, there were dizzy heights and remote passes, terrible in their primeval wildness, and these it was not vouchsafed him to visit. but he was in the vast, enchanted region, just the same. had he not escaped from train robbers in these very wilds? he, westy martin?
he felt in his pocket and made sure of the precious wallet of which he was the proud custodian. it was there, smooth and bulging; the whole thing was real. he had slept and awakened and the whole thing was real. if he had shot a grizzly, as dan darewell in the rockies by captain dauntless had done, he could hardly be more incredulous of his own achievement. he began to reflect how it had all happened.
he was glad that the others were not yet awake. their sprawling attitudes bespoke rest rather than grace. there seemed no danger of their rousing. he did not know whether they were farther from the yellowstone park than they had been the day before or nearer to it. if their journey of the night had tended in a fairly straight course toward it then they might be now within four or five miles of it, perhaps even less.
there was no particular direction which attracted westy’s gaze; he just gazed about. mountains, mountains, mountains! they appalled him. he could see the mountains, but not the way through them. and they seemed impenetrable. one thing did attract his attention; this was a great tree far off, one of those big, lonely trees which serve as landmarks. from the position of the sun he thought this was south. but this fact afforded him no enlightenment. east, west, north, south, were all the same; there was no telling where yellowstone park was.
then suddenly, he noticed something else which did arouse his interest. beyond the tree was a little dab of gray in the clear sky. he thought it a tiny cloud, but it dissolved even as he watched it. immediately another appeared a short distance from where it had been and likewise dissolved. then another.
“those aren’t clouds,” said westy. “they’re—— i bet it’s a train.”
he listened, but could hear nothing. but a little farther along, in line where the little dabs of white had appeared and disappeared, there straggled up a faint, half-tangible area of flaky whiteness which was gone instantly it was discernible.
“it’s a train all right,” westy said, delighted. “i bet—i know it is.”
beyond the point where he had been looking, the rugged landscape rolled away, magnificent, majestic, endless. here and there among the crowded mountains some mighty peak pierced the sky. no touch of human contamination was there, no gray streak imaginable as a road, no steeple, no green area of farm-land, with thin lines scarce discernible as fences. so it might have been a hundred thousand years ago. if man were there with all his claptrap he was swallowed up in the distance and vastness and all unseen by the scratched and tattered boy who stood barefooted in his wild refuge and gazed and gazed.
it was only scenery that he saw, and it would have been about the same had he glanced in another direction. only the little, gray, dissolving specks had drawn his gaze there, and he looked long and wonderingly on the stupendous glory that was spread before him. he knew not what it was, in particular, that he was looking at.
thus, westy martin, award boy, saw the yellowstone national park for the first time. saw it as a scout should see it, divested by the kindly distance of every vestige of human handiwork or presence that it has. saw it in all its awesome grandeur, and saw not its boundaries or its artificial comforts, only its primeval magnificence extending mile upon mile and not distinguishable from the vast, mountainous country in which it lies.
westy did not know that the area he was gazing at was within the boundaries of yellowstone park. his interest was centered in the little flickers of smoke that he had seen. if these indicated the railroad it would not be difficult to reach it, and from there on the way would be easy and perhaps short. for the hundredth time since he had become its custodian, he felt in his pocket to make sure the wallet was safe.
then for a few moments he thought, standing there alone. he had always liked, at times, to be alone; he was that kind of a boy. but now he could not bring himself to end this romantic, musing loneliness. well, fate had been kind to him (he gave all the credit to fate) and he had done something, something worth while. to be sure, there was nothing so very primitive about it, he mused. shining sun doubtless could have made nature yield him up a hundred various delectables out of which to make a feast. poor westy knew nothing about herbs and edible roots nor other commissary stores which the forest holds for those who know her secrets.
again, he felt his pocket to make sure the wallet was safe. “i—i bet shining sun never even saw a wallet,” he said. “i bet he doesn’t even know how valuable money is.” poor westy, he could not hope to be a scout, free of all the prosaic contaminations of civilization, like shining sun. but at least no one could say now that he and his friends were just parlor scouts playing games in a backyard. . . .
he lingered just a moment more, gazing upon the vast, rugged panorama as if it were his, something he had won. then he looked, not ruefully but with a thrill of pride, on his scratches and tattered raiment. well, at least he could look shining sun in the face, and mr. madison c. wilde, too, if he should ever encounter that jarring personage again.
then he went over and aroused his friends. if the money in the wallet had been his, he would have given it for a cup of hot coffee. “come on, get up,” he said; “we’ll have to catch some more fish if we can, but anyway, i think we’ll get there this morning; i think i know where the railroad tracks are. have—i hope—have you got any matches left, ed?”
“absolooootly,” said ed, sitting up refreshed and cheery as always. “and my trusty safety-pin is always at your service, scout martin. where do we go from here?”
