“The moral is,” said her father, “have a good rope.”
“I should say the moral was, don’t climb in foolish places,” Mrs. Jones declared, for the two women had of course been told the story at once.
“Gee, ma,” Bob declared, “if everybody was like you, we wouldn’t know there were any Rocky Mountains. Somebody’s got to take a chance!”
Mills had said nothing. Now he spoke, in his brief, quiet way.
“It was a sound rope. Nobody took a chance,” he said. “We don’t let ’em in the Park.”
There did not seem to be any reply to this. The girls went into their tent to rest, Joe changed his wet boots—which were soaked with the snow—and his wet shirt, and set busily about getting dinner. After all, he was the cook, and there was no further time for being a hero.
CHAPTER XII—Over Gunsight to Lake McDonald, and Joe and Bob See a Grizzly at Close Range
There was no story telling that night. Dinner was late, and afterwards the dusk came earlier up here under the shadows of the great cliffs, and every one except the two women was glad enough to crawl in early. Joe was gladdest of all. He had to confess that he was tired, as well as sore—and now he realized that he had disobeyed all orders not to climb and take strenuous exercise. But he felt of his head, as his mother used to do, and could detect no fever, and he had not coughed once, so he did not worry enough to keep himself awake more than one minute and a quarter. In the morning, he was awake almost as soon as the Ranger, and sat up feeling fine. Lucy was the next up, as usual, and once more her cheerful self. She gathered fresh wild flowers—a great bunch of yellow columbine and blue false forget-me-nots, for the “table,” while Joe was cooking, and asked him how he felt, and sang softly to herself, and then asked him again if the fresh, clear, morning air way up here in these high mountains was not the most wonderful thing in the world.
“It’s medicine to me, all right,” Joe answered, looking up and watching the sun come over the rock bastions of Citadel and turn to pink and gold the snow-fields on Fusillade. “Gee, I think mountains—big mountains—are just the best ever!”
“The best ever, that’s what they are, Joe, and you’re going back East so big and strong that your own mother won’t know you. You must write to me and tell me about it, won’t you?”