“Who’s Billy?” Warde asked.
“He’s camera man,” said Mr. Wilde.
As the men opened the door to depart, the strains of dance music could be heard louder in the big hall below. Weary as he was, Westy lay awake after his companions (a hopeless pair in the matter of slumber) were dead to the world. And when he did fall asleep he dreamed that he was doing a toe dance on the very apex of Pelican Cone, when suddenly a grizzly bear approached and asked him to dance the Three O’Clock in the Morning Waltz. He accepted the invitation and fell off the mountain into the Devil’s Kitchen, where they were serving sandwiches and chicken salad in the intervals of the dancing.
CHAPTER XXXII
OFF TO PELICAN CONE
So it happened that Westy Martin, who had called himself and his companions back-yard scouts, was now afforded the opportunity to do something really big in the line of scouting. Little he dreamed how very big that something would be.
We need not pause to accompany our three heroes on these tours of the Park. They saw the sights in true tourist fashion. They saw Old Faithful geyser, they went down into the Devil’s Kitchen, they gazed at the petrified forests—and thought of Pelican Cone. Where was Pelican Cone? Somewhere away off the main traveled roads, no doubt. They asked fellow tourists about it, but none had ever heard of it. And the more remote and inaccessible and unknown it seemed to be, the more they longed to penetrate its distant and intricate fastnesses.
At last, at the appointed time, Westy waited in the big office of the Mammoth Hotel near the Gardiner entrance of the Park. A little group of envious boys, belonging to tourist parties, stood about curiously and enviously.
“Aren’t the other two fellows going?” one asked.
“Sure, they’re getting ready,” said Westy.
“Gee whiz, I’d like to be going up there,” said another. “I bet it’s wild, hey?”