For supper that night Joe got out a can of lobster he found in the storeroom. He thought it would be a special treat, and it was to Mills, but Tom didn’t like lobster, and Joe himself didn’t care much for it, either, when he came to taste it. So Mills ate it all.
“Came near death this morning—might as well risk my life again to-night,” he laughed.
CHAPTER XXVIII—Tom Starts on a Long Hike in the Deep Snow, Over the Divide, Risking Snow-Slides, to Save the Ranger’s Life
The Ranger spoke in jest, but in the night the boys were awakened by his groans, and they found his words were anything but a joke. He was suffering terrible pain, in his stomach evidently, and they had never seen anybody look so sick. They scrambled into clothes; Joe made up the fire and put on water to heat, while Tom got out their first aid kit, and made an emetic, which they got down the poor Ranger’s throat. The results eased his pain a little, but the boys were certainly scared.
“We got to get a doctor,” Tom cried. “We got to—a doctor or somebody who knows what to do. I got to get over Swift Current, and down to Lake McDonald, to the Park superintendent’s office. That’s all there is to it.”
“You can’t—you can’t!” Joe exclaimed. “Think of that head wall if a slide hit you! Besides, it’s thirty miles to the hotel at the head of the lake, and you don’t know the way. I do. I’ll have to go.”
“A lot I’ll let you go! No such over-exertion for you, and you just well. Besides, I know the way over the pass and down to Mineral Creek. Then I turn south, through the woods, and just follow the one trail. I couldn’t miss it, and if I did, all I’d have to do would be to take the creek bed. I can start before daylight, get to the head wall at sunrise, be over the pass and down the other side before noon, and have five hours of light to make twenty miles.”
“What if there shouldn’t be any caretaker at the hotel at the head of the lake?” said Joe.
“I’ll break in and use the ’phone, and make a fire. Anyhow, I’ll pack my sleeping-bag on my back, and get to the superintendent’s camp the next morning.”
He flew to make his preparations, putting on all his warmest clothes, with extra socks and mitts stowed in his sleeping-bag, while Joe put him up tea, bacon, matches, raisins and sweet chocolate, in the smallest possible space, got his axe and compass, and extra snow-shoe thongs in case of accident, and finally cooked him some bacon and made tea.