“Our lights probably had something to do with the retreat of the big brute,” Case suggested. “I wish we had found him there!”
Gran ate bear steak and drank coffee when he awoke, and the boys loafed about the Rambler and made merry. During the day the injured boy talked of almost everything except the things in which his chums were interested.
He told of some of his experiences in crossing the mountains to the headwaters of Gold creek, but did not say how he came to be in that wild region all alone, nor why he had written the note saved from the river. Naturally the boys were consumed with curiosity, but they asked no questions, leaving the solution of the problems to time and to future moods of their patient. Gran’s leg mended fast, and he was soon as full of fun as the others. Still no hint of the reason for his disappearance!
All the boys enjoyed the leisurely progress down the river which followed. They were often obliged to work their way around falls and long, foaming rapids, but they did the work cheerfully, and took all the more comfort in smooth stretches of water when they came to them. Below Gold creek the valley widens to the west, and a high plateau presents a vast area of growing timber. Only a short range of mountains divides this fertile stretch of country from the high plains drained by the Fraser river.
The boys tied up one night at Seymour creek which flows into the Columbia from the west, about thirty miles below Gold creek, and made a camp on shore.
“This,” Clay, said in the morning, “is one of the finest timber sections in the world, and I’m not going to run through it. Some day there will be great farms here, with wheat growing luxuriantly during the short season. Now there is plenty of game, and I’m going to get some of it.”
“I think I’ll take a trip to Sir Donald mountain,” Alex said, pointing across the big river, where the white cap of the peak shone in the sunlight. “I want to see how the country looks from the roof.”
“You should have been with me on my excursion over the mountains!” Gran remarked. “You’ll find it cold up there, and you’ll find slippery rocks and precipices which reach down into the bowels of the earth!”
“I want to see things!” Alex exclaimed. “If I had been looking for a peaceful life, I would have rented a boat in Chicago and sat out in the South Branch with it! Me for the high spots!”
“I think I’ll go along with him,” Case observed. “I want to see the high spots, too, and, besides, I may be able to keep this rash youth from getting treed by a grizzly again! He’s always getting into trouble!”