They were walking along, the boys perhaps a little carelessly, though Hugh’s vigilance never seemed to relax, when Jack’s left foot seemed to meet with no resistance as it struck the snow, and in a moment he was in a crack or hole in the ice far above his waist. Luckily he had turned his staff as he fell, so that it reached across the crack and held him, and but little strain came on the ropes which attached him to his companions. Hugh had heard the fall and had braced himself, and a second later Joe had done the same.
It took but a moment to pull Jack out onto the hard ice, and Joe, making a detour to the left, avoided the opening into which Jack had fallen. When they were all once more together and on the hard ice, Hugh said to Jack, “Son, you’re old enough not to have done a trick like that.”
“Yes, Hugh,” replied Jack, “I know that now, and I’m sorry and ashamed. If I had followed in your tracks, I wouldn’t have given you and Joe a scare, and I wouldn’t have had one myself. Every now and then I do some stupid thing that makes it seem as if this was my first trip out West, and I didn’t know anything at all. I was thinking of something else besides the trail and looking off toward the valley, and I left your tracks and tumbled into that hole.”
“Well,” replied Hugh, “of course, you’re new to traveling around on the ice. You can’t be expected to know much about it, but you can be expected to look out for yourself as well as you know how, and to try hard not to make other people uncomfortable. I guess Joe was scared up good when he saw you go down, and I know I wasn’t a bit comfortable.”
“No,” said Jack, “I know you weren’t and I know it’s a good thing for you to talk to me in this way. Your talking doesn’t make me feel any worse than I feel already, and I hope I’ve learned a lesson, but, of course, I don’t know.”
“We all make mistakes every day,” said Hugh, “and it’s no ways likely that you’ve made your last; only, as I’ve told you before, try not to make the same mistake twice. If you do that it shows that you don’t learn anything.”
The rest of the way to camp passed without adventure, and when they reached the moraine above the cliff, they took off the ropes and scrambled down the rocks, when a short walk, and a slide by the boys down a long snow bank, brought them to the little stream by which the tent was pitched.
The sun hung low over the western mountain and all were hungry after their long walk, and they at once busied themselves getting supper.
All through the evening Jack’s heart was low. He was sorry to have made such a blunder as he had, and knew that his carelessness had disappointed Hugh. It was certainly humiliating to have done what he felt Hugh might justly call a “fool trick.”
As they sat around the fire, Hugh, who for some time had been smoking thoughtfully, said, “Well, boys, we’ve seen quite a lot of things up here on this patch of mountains, and time is passing. What do you say to turning around and going back? I’d surely like to stay up here longer, but we must remember that son here has got to get back East, and we have quite a little way to go before we strike the railroad. I reckon if we roll to-morrow morning we ought to be able to get down to the inlet by night. We can stop there for a day or two and hunt and fish a little, and then pull out for the Agency and from there go to Benton.”