“I guess you’re right,” Tom answered, as he fell wearily, helplessly, upon the soft spring, and almost immediately felt his eyelids close of their own accord. That was the last he remembered till a hand on his shoulder was shaking him,—it seemed about five minutes later.
CHAPTER XXX—Tom Gets Back with the Doctor, and Mills Pulls Through—Then the Scouts Have To Leave for Home
“Time to get up,” said the voice of the owner of the hand.
Tom opened his eyes. The room was still lighted by a lamp, but something told him it was morning, perhaps the gray light at the window. He rose stiffly, and helped his host get breakfast. Going out, he found the Chinook wind had passed, but it had been blowing, apparently, a good while, for the lake was open water all the way inshore now, except for a fringe of ice cakes piled up like ragged surf along the eastern side.
“The lake hadn’t frozen yet very far out, anyhow,” the caretaker said. “But the Chinook’s sure taken the snow down!”
It had. As if by magic, the eight or ten feet of snow that yesterday had covered everything except the trees was reduced to less than two. The air, too, while it had the sting of winter again, was not bitterly cold—just a nice winter temperature.
As the sun was beginning to redden the peaks above the lake, Tom heard the put-put of a motor boat far off, and in half an hour a launch had worked in through the floating ice to the end of the pier and a ranger accompanied by a young man threw their packs on the pier and climbed out.
“You the man that came over Swift Current yesterday?” the Ranger said, looking at Tom. “Why, you’re only a boy!”
“Well, I did it—and I’d do more’n that for Mr. Mills!” Tom answered.
“You were takin’ chances on the Swift Current head wall,” the Ranger said. “I’m mighty glad the Chinook came, before I have to go down that trail.”