“But it’s not a safe trip,” the manager added. “We don’t advise anybody to try it. The government is going to begin shoveling the snow out of the trail tomorrow morning. You’d better wait a day or two.”
They thanked him, bought some souvenir post-cards to send home, and went back to camp.
“Have we got to wait?” the boys demanded.
The two men only smiled.
“Better be up early,” they said. “We might have a try at it. Can’t tell. Bennie seems to want a bit of real wild stuff. Maybe we can give it to him.”
There was not wood enough in camp to make a camp fire, and no chance to get any more till daylight. Everybody had put on his sweater, and the air was getting colder and colder.
“Nothing for it but to go to bed,” Mr. Stone declared. “And be thankful you have those blankets you didn’t need at Rogue River.”
“It’s the climate!” said Bennie, as he shivered in his pyjamas and wriggled hastily in between all the blankets he could stuff into his sleeping bag. “Oh, you blankets!”
“And down in Medford, eighty miles away, they’re probably kicking off the sheets,” laughed Uncle Billy. “What do you think of Crater Lake now, eh?”
But Bennie only grunted. He was already half asleep.