After ten minutes the doctor came back with the long, lank Peters.
“Sorry, boys,” Pep said. “I thought there were a couple of good sports in this outfit who really wanted a bear hunt. But when I told ’em they’d have to sleep out, and get up at three A. M., they decided they’d rather listen to the speeches. Some folks would do anything rather than get up in the morning. Well, come on, we’ll get our bear even if there isn’t anybody to write it for the papers.”
“Oh, ho!” cried Uncle Billy, “so that was it! Well, I am a dumb-bell, as Bennie would so elegantly put it. I didn’t realize before why you were so set on having some editors along. You want to be boosting Bend all the while, don’t you? Maybe Spider will write it up for his school paper. That’s something. Cheer up, Pep, and see if Methuselah is still alive.”
Pep spun the crank till the drops of sweat fell from his forehead before she coughed and started.
“I get a fine lot of exercise with this car,” he panted, wiping his face before he climbed aboard.
They cut south from the winding road after a little way, and presently arrived in the hamlet of La Pine, the town which Bennie said one of Uncle Billy’s friends once lost out of his pocket. Not far from this town, in an extraordinarily green meadow beside the Deschutes River, a long meadow like a rich oasis in the dry desert soil, they came to the Vreeland ranch, where the house sat beneath great poplar trees, and the barns were full of fresh-cut alfalfa and the cattle were browsing as they do in the East, along the river bank.
“Give this soil some water,” said Spider, “and instead of a desert, it’s like our richest farms at home.”
“Yes, sir. Irrigation is all we need in Oregon to grow anything,” said Uncle Billy, as the three cars pulled up in the yard.
Pep found Mr. Vreeland out in a field, and brought him in. He was a big, bronzed man, who looked hard and wiry for all his gray hair and beard, and at the suggestion of a bear hunt his eyes lit up and he smiled. A long, low whistle brought an answering joyous yelp from a near-by barn, and four hounds, with thin bodies and long ears and sad faces, came jumping and wriggling up to him.
“Them pups’ll get you a bear, if there is a bear,” said their master proudly. “I guess we can rustle up the horses. Let’s see, we’ll need six for you, and one for me, and one for the rustler, and a pack animal—that’s nine. We’ll start in an hour. Hi—Tom!” he shouted to a man out in the paddock.