“
Well, Jesse, how’d you sleep last night?” inquired Billy in the morning, as he pushed the coffee pot back from the edge of the little fire and turned to Jesse when he emerged from his blankets.
“Not too well,” answered Jesse, rubbing his eyes. “Fact is, it’s too noisy in this country. Up North where we used to live, it was quiet, unless the dogs howled; but in here there’s towns and railroads all over—more than a dozen towns we passed, coming up from the Great Falls, and if you don’t hear the railroad whistles all night, you think you do. Down right below us, you can throw a rock into the town, almost, and up at the Forks there’ll be another squatting down waiting for you. All right for gasoline, Billy, but we’re supposed to be using the tracking line and setting pole.”
“Sure we are—until we meet the Shoshonis and get some horses.”
“Well, I don’t want to camp by a railroad or a wire fence any more.”
“No? Well, we’ll see what we can do. Anyhow, one thing you ought to be glad about.”
“What’s that?”
“Why, that you don’t have to walk down into that ice water and pole a boat or drag it for two or three hours before breakfast. Yet that’s what those poor men had to do. And three times they mention, between the Forks and the mountains, the whole party had to wait breakfast till somebody killed some meat. Anyhow, we’ve got some eggs and marmalade.”
“Well, they got meat,” demurred Jesse, seating himself as he laced his shoes.