“And a hotel!” cried Mrs. Jones. “You can all camp where you like, but I’m going to have a room with a bath to-night.”
“I wouldn’t mind one myself,” said her husband.
“Me, too,” the other congressman put in.
“Well, I suppose that means we have to sleep in a stuffy old room to-night, Alice,” said Lucy, “and eat in a dining-room with a lot of people. Oh, dear, I prefer Joe’s cooking!”
“Looks as if you were going to have a snap to-night, Joe,” said Mills. “You want a room with a bath, too?”
“Oh, no,” said Joe. “I’m going to take my blankets up into those cedars and sleep.”
“You are?” Bob cried. “Then I’m with you. We won’t be quitters, anyhow. Us for the rough life—and the bears.”
“No, Bob, you’ll come to the hotel with the rest of us,” said his mother.
“Aw, no, ma, let me go with Joe! Gee whiz, here we come three thousand miles to rough it in the Rocky Mountains and you go and bunk up in a flossy hotel—roughing it with hot and cold water, and a valet to black your boots!”
Everybody laughed, and Mr. Jones said, “Let the boy have a good time, mother. I guess he’ll fare as well with Joe as he would in the hotel. Joe’s a Boy Scout, aren’t you, Joe?”