“I’m going to have a real bed to-night,” he called to Mills, “if you don’t look. I know it’s against the rules to cut bough beds in the Park.”
“I won’t look, if you won’t tell,” Mills called back. “We have to make that rule to protect the trees, but way up here in the wilds Uncle Sam won’t miss a few twigs, I guess.”
They were now nearly under the clouds again. To their right a steep débris pile rose, and ended in a jagged cliff wall, which disappeared in the vapor. To the left was a wooded slope, and ahead the trail climbed sharply to a ridge which could barely be seen under the clouds.
“We’re almost at the north end of Flat Top Mountain,” the Ranger said. “That cliff to the right is the Divide, and dead ahead that ridge you see is the Divide turning sharp left and running across to the western range. From here on into Canada the western range is the watershed. We could climb to the top of that ridge—only half a mile, and camp on the Divide, if you want to.”
“And spend the night in the cloud? Excuse me!” Mr. Crimmins said. “This is bad enough.”
“All right—all off,” the Ranger answered.
He called to Joe and Tom, and the three of them pitched the two tents in a sheltered spot, in the centre of a grove of balsams about twenty feet tall.
“And peg ’em down hard,” he said. “Anything may come out of those clouds to-night. Now, Tom, get a good big supply of wood, and stack it up dry, under a pack cover, while I turn out the horses.”
While Joe was getting supper, the three tourists gathered balsam boughs for beds, following Mills’ orders to take only a few twigs from any one tree.
“It’s against the rules,” he said, “but we may need to sleep as warm as we can to-night.”