This command, briskly delivered, came from Billy Worth who leaned, tired and dusty, on the steering wheel.
"All O.K.! Come ahead!" shouted Phil Way a second later. "The track down the bank is here all right, but under the grass. Gently, Bill!"
With a sudden plunge and stiff jerk the car went down the incline leading from the road and across a broad, shallow ditch. Then slowly it rolled onto the grass and weed-grown trail leading up to the valley.
Way walked rapidly in advance looking out for pitfalls or possible causes of danger to tires. "Might as well get the road cleared at once, fellows," he said, and the hint was sufficient. Paul and Dave jumped down from the slowly moving machine to lend assistance.
Heavy wagons in summers that were past and the logging sleds of the timber crews in winter had broken a well-marked road. It was still rough but odd chunks of wood and the stones found here and there could be and were thrown to one side.
Paul Jones voiced with considerable earnestness the opinion that he would rather pilot the car than "heave dornicks" out of the road; but a subdued chuckle from Billy, lazily driving forward as the course was announced clear, was all the comfort his observation brought him.
"S'pose we needn't go more than thirty or forty miles back from the road!" ejaculated MacLester grimly. He was quite out of breath from the effort of up-ending a heavy pole that had lain across the trail. Also, as has been noted earlier, he was just the least bit tired and impatient.
"No farther back than we have to go to find a snug camping place," Phil responded with extra good humor. For cheerfulness is contagious and does a great deal more to brighten up another's despondent mood than any sort of remonstrance against being glum could do. "Maybe that little point down by the creek is just what we want, now," Way went on gayly. "Hold up, Bill, till we peek around here some."
The point did offer many advantages, being a low, grassy place, like a small peninsula, where a water course curved about till it finally reached the main stream. The creek formed a considerable pool just below the junction with the water-worn trench; for, while the latter, though deep, was now nearly dry, it was apparent that in time of rain its torrents rushed into the larger stream with both force and volume.
"Rather flat and low, but pretty good at that," observed Way, hopefully surveying the situation. "But maybe we'd better look a little further. What do you think, Mac?"