If either of them snored, no one knew it, except the porcupine that came sniffing around the tent, and then, disappointed, went off through the forest.
CHAPTER XVI—Tom Goes Up a Two Thousand Foot Wall, With an Alpine Rope, and Learns the Proper Way To Climb
The scouts were up again before five, and hurried to the camp, where the doctor was still sound asleep.
“Sound is right!” Spider laughed.
But he woke when he heard them getting breakfast, and by the time he was dressed and breakfast was ready, Mills came up, followed by Popgun and the packhorse, both saddled.
As soon as breakfast was over, the two men and Tom stowed away in their pockets the sandwiches Joe made for them, made sure that all the spikes were in their boots, and swung into the saddle.
“Good-bye, old Joey,” Tom called. “Have some good hot dinner ready when we get back.”
“Yes, and you come back with your neck whole, to eat it,” said Joe, waving his hand and watching the three riders trot up the trail in the cool, level, early morning sunlight.
It was a fine, clear day, a real Rocky Mountain day, when you could almost see the buttons on a man’s coat a quarter of a mile away. And it was Tom’s first trip away from Many Glacier, into the high places, though he had walked around the camp as far as he dared, and even climbed a little way up a steep shale pile at the base of the cliff behind the chalets. However, hikers were apt to show up at any time of the day, and he had never been able to venture more than a mile or two. But now he was bound for Iceberg Lake, and then up the very main precipice of the Great Divide, the backbone of the continent, with the Park Ranger and a man who had climbed the Matterhorn!
It was only a short ride to Iceberg Lake—about six miles. The trail was a fine one, of easy grade, and for some distance wound through the woods, over tumbling brooks, and through beds of wild flowers. The doctor seemed as much interested in these flowers as he was in the coming climb.