they left the road and made their way across country toward the hills whose lofty peaks were now golden with the dying sunlight. they followed the brook which had flowed near the roadside up to where it came through a rocky cleft between two hills.
as they climbed up to the spot, the glinting light which had been their beacon faded away and only the brook was there, rippling cheerily over its stony bed. it seemed as if it had bedecked itself in shimmering gold to guide these weary travelers to this secluded haunt.
to be sure they had not penetrated far from the unfrequented road, but they were able now to think of themselves as being in the rocky mountains. the cleft through which the brook flowed was wide enough for a little camping site at its brink and here, with the rushing water singing its soothing and incessant lullaby, they resolved to rest their weary bodies for the night.
one side of this cleft was quite precipitous and impossible of ascent. but the side on which the boys chose their camp site sloped up from the flat area at the brook side and was indeed the side of a lofty hill. it was on this hill that westy had noticed the tree from the upper branches of which he had thought that he might scan the country southward, which would be in the direction of the park. a very much better view might have been obtained from neighboring mountain peaks, but the ascent of such heights would have been a matter of many hours and fraught with unknown difficulties. from the hill the country seemed comparatively low and open to the south.
“this is some spot all right,” said warde. “it looks as if jesse james might have boarded here.”
“or william s. hart,” said ed. “anyway i think there are some fish getting table board here; it’s a kind of a little table-land. if we can’t get any trout we can kill some killies. i wonder if there’s any bait in the rocky mountains? i bet the angle-worms out here are pretty wild.”
“hark—shh!” said westy.
“i’m shhhhing. what is it?” asked ed.
“i thought i heard a kind of a sound,” said westy.
“i hope it isn’t a grizzly,” said warde. “do you suppose they come to places like this? come on, let’s gather some branches to sleep on; i know how to make a spring mattress. is it all right to sleep on branches, westy?”
it was funny to see ed sitting on a rock calmly unraveling some worsted from his sweater, all the while with his precious safety-pin stuck ostentatiously in the shoulder of his shirt.
“it’s good you happened to have your sweater on,” said warde.
“i hope i don’t lose my railroad ticket now,” said ed. “i had it pinned in. i tell you what you do. big chief,” he added, addressing westy, and all the while engrossed with his unraveling process; “you climb up that hill and take a squint around and look for a patch of yellow in the distance. that will be yellowstone park. look all around and if you see any places where they sell hot frankfurters let us know. by the time you get back we’ll have supper ready, what there is of it, i mean such as it is. i’m going to braid this stuff, it’s too weak. look in the sink and see if there are any sinkers, wardie.”
“all right,” said westy, “because if i wait till after supper it might be too dark.”
“if you wait till after supper,” said ed, “maybe the tree won’t be there. we may not have supper for years. how do i know that fish are fond of red. i always told my mother i wanted a gray sweater, same color as fish-line, and she goes and gets me a red one. i wonder what stove polish catches fish with.”
“maybe with the string that mr. wilde west was stringing us with,” said warde.
“i guess i’d better go,” laughed westy.
