But that night, after they were washed, they sat down to a fresh venison steak, and forgot their weariness, as only men can who have lived largely on canned goods for many weeks.
“M-m, m-m!” said Tom. “This is good! Somehow I ain’t so mad at that old lion as I was!”
“What did you kill him for, then?” Mills laughed. “You might have had eleven other deer to eat if you’d let him go.”
“Kind o’ mixed, isn’t it?” Tom confessed. “I sure would kill him every time—but I’d rather eat the deer than leave ’em for the wolves, just the same.”
“If you want something good to eat, get one of your lion friends to kill a sheep for you, and bring us some mutton,” said the Ranger. “I haven’t had a piece of mutton for ten years, I guess. Before this was a Park, and we used to hunt here, my! the feasts I’ve had!”
“Well, I could stand tinned beef all my life, to see the sheep alive,” Joe declared. “I’m glad it’s a Park now.”
The next day the hides were spread to cure, and the meat was all cleaned and hung, and the three then overhauled their equipment and packed up to make a start the next day for Glacier Park station. No mail had come to anybody since October, they had been able to send no letters to their parents, and the Ranger had not even been able to report to the Park superintendent, or the boys to send telegrams since the storm before Thanksgiving, because the telephone wire between Many Glacier Hotel and the railroad had been broken. As a rule, Mills used this wire in winter. One of the objects of their trip was to see about this break.
The trip out to the railroad, which was about fifty-five miles by automobile road, could now be reduced to about forty-five, because they could cut cross lots, over the deep snow, shaving the end of Flat Top Mountain (not the Flat Top of the Valley Forge camp, but another on the eastern edge of the overthrust), and by good hiking reach Glacier Park station in two days. They planned to take the toboggan, loading on it their provisions, sleeping-bags, a small tent, axes, and the scouts’ snow-shoes. The boys planned to wear skis for a good part of the trip, and to put Mills on the toboggan on the down grades, thus saving time. He laughed at the idea, but as the shoes were light made no objection.
That night was clear and cold, and the next day promised to be fair. Joe and Tom sat up late, getting letters ready to send home, and Joe spent an hour on a letter to Lucy Elkins, telling her about his life in the Park, and promising to send snow pictures as soon as he could get them developed. But they were up long before the sun in the morning, and set off by starlight, all three on the ropes of the toboggan, down the trail.
When they came to the first long, snowy slope, Mills said, “Let me see one of you go down it on your skis.”