“We might run down to Medford and see the parade,” the doctor suggested.
This was hailed with delight, so they unpacked the cars, and started off for the day. Medford was full of people. There was a parade and a ball game and a lively time generally.
“Well, this is what I call wild life in Oregon,” Bennie laughed. “We came 4,000 miles to get into the wilderness, and here we are with about ten thousand other people watching a parade in a city. Some wilderness!”
“You wait,” his uncle cautioned. “In about a week, you’ll have so much wilderness you’ll be crying for home and mother.”
That night, back in camp, they set off their own fireworks, shooting the rockets from an improvised chute out over the water, and the next day they spent in exploring two or three old gold diggings they found by the bank—shafts which some prospector had laboriously dug far into the earth, but without getting much gold, apparently, for the diggings had all been abandoned. Bennie and Spider spent two or three hours searching everywhere for nuggets, but they found nothing. It was hot and sultry, too, and everybody was getting impatient.
“I’m going to start tomorrow for the lake,” the doctor said that night. “We’ll camp below the rim if we can’t get up. It’s too hot here.”
“It’s the climate,” said Bennie—and the doctor and Dumplin’ fell upon him and rolled him on the hard ground till he howled for mercy.
CHAPTER VIII
Up to the Rim of Crater Lake at Last, Through the Snow-drifts
Everybody was out at 4:30 the next morning. The hot weather still held. In fact, it was hotter than the day before. Bennie waited till he was on the extreme edge of camp, with a clear field to run in, and then remarked, “It’s the climate.”
But everybody was too busy packing to chase him.