“Oh, gee, he’s all wet, and he’s shaking himself on me,” from Spider.
“Aw, let him sleep at my feet, Uncle Billy,” from Bennie.
“No, sir; he’ll hunt fleas in the night. I want a good sleep. You get up and take him outside!”
So poor Bennie got stiffly up again, and led Jeff out of the tent, making him a little bed out of a canvas pack cover by the flap. Jeff curled up contentedly, with a good-night lick and whimper, and Bennie went back.
Already he could hear Spider breathing hard, and in one minute he, too, had dropped off like a soldier after a battle.
CHAPTER XXI
The Pack Train Has to Toboggan Into Hunt’s Cove, and Bennie Puts “Action” Into It
The next morning Bennie expected to be sore and stiff, but somehow he wasn’t. He felt fine. The day began at sun-up with a plunge in the lake, and then an early start, because the horses hadn’t had enough to eat, and Norman wanted to get to pasturage. It was a wonderful day for Spider. They were now on the western side of the Cascade Divide, the side on which the rain and snow falls all winter, so that the woods, instead of being dry, were as rich and dark and damp as an Adirondack forest. The yellow pines had vanished, but in their place were great cedars, and stands of Douglas fir trees bigger even than those on the way to Crater Lake. About the middle of the morning they picked their way down a steep, broken, rocky trail into a cañon, and at the bottom they rode for a long way through a forest of fir trees so big that when anybody rode around one, both horse and rider vanished from sight! These trees rose 150 feet without a limb, straight as masts, and they were over 200 feet tall.
“Some shrubs!” cried Bennie. “My neck’s nearly broken trying to see the tops of ’em.”
“How’d you like to shin up one, Bennie?” Mr. Stone called.
“I’d rather shin up it than saw it into wood for the stove,” Bennie answered.