“I must be getting fat, like Dump,” he said. “I wasn’t very cold, and I’m not very sore.”
“You’re getting harder,” said his uncle. “If we did this a couple of weeks, we could all sleep out like tops.”
The third day they hiked back to their camp on the rim, using the rim road to get around the cliffs and ridges—a long grind with the heavy packs, but quite uneventful.
And when they got to camp, the doctor announced, “We leave to-morrow, at six o’clock. Everybody out at four-thirty. Won’t need any grub except for tomorrow’s breakfast and lunch, so we can clean up the larder for dinner. Bennie, go over and smile sweetly at the hotel cook, and see if you can coax him to sell you a big beefsteak, and a loaf of bread, and a head of lettuce.”
“Get a lemon meringue pie if he’s got one,” Dumplin’ added.
“The cook’s an awful grouch,” the doctor laughed, when Bennie had gone. “He’ll throw him out of the kitchen.”
Everybody was busy about camp, getting dinner ready, when Bennie returned with a large package. He opened it with a grin. It contained two steaks, a head of lettuce, a loaf of bread—and a lemon pie!
“The cook’s an awful old grouch,” Mr. Stone remarked to Uncle Billy, winking at the boys.
“How did you do it?” demanded the astonished doctor.
“It’s my fatal beauty,” said Bennie airily. And that’s all he would tell.