But Spider, who knew something about cars, was poking into the engine.
“I don’t think it’s the carburetor,” he said. “You’ve flooded that trying to start her. Let me have a screw-driver, and you turn her over slowly.”
He traced the ignition around till he found a spot where there was no spark, and behind that found a loose connection, into which had settled an insulating film of dust and grit. When this was cleaned and tightened, Methuselah coughed and spit and roared again, and once more they started on their way.
Methuselah had no more mishaps, though they expected to find him stalled around every bend, and after a couple of hours they came out of the yellow pine forest into open country, right under the big mountains, and presently before them lay Elk Lake, with the white reflection of South Sister, 10,000 feet high and snow covered, mirrored in the dark water. The road ran along beside the lake to the upper end, and there, in a grove of pines and fir trees, was a big camp, and men and women just sitting down to luncheon at long board tables. Methuselah had been parked beside the road, and Pep was bobbing about talking and laughing with the crowd.
“What’s the big idea?” Bennie asked. “Gee whiz, a whole bunch of strange people, and no chance for a swim!”
“I guess they don’t own the whole lake,” the doctor laughed. “Anyhow, they’ll give us some grub.”
The crowd, they found, was a convention of Oregon editors, with their wives. They were having a fine time, no doubt, but the newcomers didn’t seem exactly to fit.
“Spider was one of the editors of our high school paper last winter,” said Bennie, “but all I did was get an advertisement for it from Dad. I thought we were going to hunt bears, not editors.”
As soon as lunch was over somebody got up and began to make a speech. The crowd sat back and got ready to listen. Whereupon Uncle Billy beckoned to the boys and Mr. Stone, and they silently sneaked away from the tables.
“I didn’t go on a vacation to listen to speeches,” the doctor said. “It will be too late to get into camp at Newberry Crater tonight if we hang around here till that bunch gets through telling each other what’s wrong with the newspaper business. You wait here while I have a heart-to-heart talk with Pep.”