“If you want them—you can—go back and—get them,” Jelly retorted with a grin. He pulled the parcel to him, threw back the paper and exposed his treasures; nine small potatoes, two eggs, two slices of buttered bread and two pink chops covered with dirt and leaves. Jelly took up the chops and lovingly cleaned them while the others looked on laughing.
“They’re perfectly good chops,” asserted Jelly, faintly indignant.
“Of course they are,” answered Rob soothingly. “A few leaves and a little dirt will give them a fine, gamey flavor. They look like mutton to me, Jelly.”
Jelly held one to his nose and sniffed it critically.
“N—no, I think they’re veal,” he replied gravely. “I wish these eggs were hard boiled; then they wouldn’t have broken.”
“So do I,” said Rob. “I only allowed you to come, Jelly, because I am extremely fond of eggs. And now you have only half an excuse for your presence.”
“Say, Jelly,” Malcolm suggested, “you’d better stuff that truck in your pockets. Then you won’t lose it.”
“Guess I will,” muttered Jelly. He wrapped the chops tenderly in a piece of the newspaper and then distributed his rations about him. “Now,” he said, “it won’t be so hard to climb.”
“Well, let’s get on then,” said Rob. “I used to think, fellows, that I’d like to be a Swiss mountaineer and leap from crag to crag and yodel merrily in my glee, but I’ve changed my mind. Where’s my— Thank you, Evan. As I said before, I love my little alpen-stock.”
A quarter of an hour later they left the trees behind them and found themselves on a rocky slope sparsely grown with low bushes and tough, wiry grass. Here the sticks were no longer of use and they discarded them. Boulders and stones made progress slow and uncertain, and several times they had to climb on hands and knees up the face of some bare ledge. This was hard work for Jelly, and near the summit they were forced to stop and allow him to recover. A final scramble along the side of Table Rock and they were on top, breathless and weary but triumphant.