CHAPTER VI--Tom Becomes Boss of the Tepee Camp, and the Scouts PitchTheir Tent in the Evergreens
Just around the lower end of the lake from the great Many Glacier Hotel,perched up on a little slope, were two or three chalets, like those atSt. Mary Lake, where tourists could stay at less expense than at thehotel. A little farther along, directly on the shore of the lake, theboys saw a group of tall white tepees.
"There's our home, I guess--if I get the job," said Tom. "We won't havefar to haul the water, anyhow."
Tom led Joe into the big lobby of the hotel, which was supported to theroof by huge tree trunks for pillars, and found that he ought to reportto the manager of the chalet camp, so he and Joe walked back over thebridge by the falls, and climbed to the office of the chalets.
"So you are Seymour, eh?" the manager said. He was a big, merry lookingman, with a high, squeaky voice, and was always bustling about. But theboys liked him at once. "I don't know whether you're old enough tomanage the tepee camp or not. Can you cut wood?"
"Yes, sir," said Tom.
"Can you make a bed?"
"Yes, sir."
"Can you count change?"
"When I've got any."
The man laughed, his large shoulders shaking up and down.
"Well, I'll try you a week--I've got nobody else. What's your friendgoing to do?"
"I brought a tent of my own," Tom explained, "and I thought I couldpitch it just into the woods somewhere, out of sight, and we'd live inthat, and Joe's going to get our meals, so's I can give all my time tolooking after the tepees--couldn't we do that?"
The man turned to Joe. "Are you a good cook?" he asked.
"I can cook camp stuff all right, and make bread, and things like that,"said Joe.
"Can you throw a diamond hitch?"
"I don't know--I never tried," Joe replied.
The man tipped back his head and squeaked with mirth again. "That's likethe man who said he didn't know whether he could play the violin ornot--he'd never tried," said he. "My boy, it takes years and years ofpatient practice to learn to throw a diamond hitch. But if you onlycould throw one, you could probably help us out this summer as a campcook on lots of expeditions. We are going to be hard up for cooks thisyear."
"I bet I can learn!" cried Joe. "I can tie all kinds of knots,--theBecket hitch, and the bowline, and the false reef and the fisherman'sbend, and the sheep-shank and the timber hitch----"
"Whoa!" the man laughed. "Well, we'll see. Come on now, and get yourtent and stuff, and we'll go over and look at the camp. I suppose,though, you'd like some grub first, wouldn't you?"
"I could eat a couple of prunes," said Tom.
"I got space for an olive and an oyster cracker, myself," said Joe.
"Well, pile in there and get a bite," the man said, pointing to a smallroom where the few helpers he needed in the chalets were eating. Thescouts needed no second invitation, after their fifty mile motor ride,and they fell on the food hungrily.
"Say, Big Bertha's all to the good," Joe whispered to Tom, "if he doestalk like a lady."
"Sure he is--he can't help havin' a squeaky voice," Tom answered. "He'streating us white, all right."
As soon as they were partially filled up--(they ate until they dared notask for more)--the scouts went back to the hotel, with two borrowedwheelbarrows, and got their trunks and luggage. Then Big Bertha joinedthem, and they all three continued to the tepee camp, which was pitchedbetween the trail and the shore of the lake. There were six or eighttepees, of stout white canvas stretched on a frame of lodge pole pines.Each tepee had a wooden floor and one of them contained a few cookingimplements and a small cook-stove. The rest were for sleeping, andcontained a couple of cots apiece.
"Now, this camp is used mostly by tourists who are going through thePark on foot," Big Bertha explained. "You are to charge them fifty centsa night per bed. They get the use of the range and cooking utensilsfree, and they're supposed to wash 'em, but they probably won't. Yourjob is to keep the camp clean, have wood always cut up for fires, makethe beds, change the linen (you get that from me), collect the fees,attend to the latrine carefully, and--oh, just run the place as if itwas the Waldorf-Astoria! The store where they buy grub, and you getyours, is up at the chalets."
"I get you," said Tom. "Doesn't look as if it had been used much thisyear."
"It hasn't. There's still so much snow on the passes that not manyhikers have been over. But they'll be along in a week or so, though. Yougo ahead and pitch your own tent now, for Joe--somewhere out there inthe woods. I guess if you boys are scouts you know how to do it right."
"Is the lake good to swim in?" Joe asked.
Big Bertha looked at him with a funny expression. "Sure," he said. "Tryit, after you've got your tent up! Oh, and say, look out for porcupinesat night, boys."
Only a few feet beyond the tepees the heavy woods began, not high woods,but a thick stand of fir about thirty or forty feet tall. The scoutstook the tent and baggage in far enough to be out of sight of the camp,and screened from the view of the hotel across the lake, but still closeto the shore. They found a dry, well-drained, level spot, threw a ropeover it from tree to tree, and slung the tent. Then they cut pegs,fastened it down, set up their cots inside, and while Joe was making thebeds, Spider hauled a lot of rocks up from the edge of the lake andbuilt a fire pit.
"I s'pose it's going to rain sometimes," he said. "We ought to have ashelter over the kitchen."
"Don't look now as if it ever rained here," Joe answered, from the tent."I'll build a lean-to over the kitchen while you're running the camp.Gosh, I'm goin' to feel like an awful grafter, just doing nothing, whileyou're working all the time."
"Aw, cut it out," Tom answered. "You'll be cooking for me, won't you?You're my housekeeper. I'm going to call you wifey."
"If you do, I'll put chestnut burrs in your bed," Joe laughed.
"Where are you going to get the chestnuts?" asked Tom. "I don't seeanything around here but evergreen. Come to think of it, I've not seen asingle hardwood all day."
"Golly, that's so," Joe answered. "I don't believe I have. It's going tobe hard cooking with nothing but pine. How's a feller going to get a bedof coals?"
"I guess he isn't. But I'll see what can be done."
Tom went into the woods with one of the axes, while Joe busied himselfabout camp, making a shelf on a tree for the provisions, getting thetrunks stowed away under the cots, rigging up a rough table out of twopieces of board he went back to the tepee camp and hunted up, andplanning for a lean-to to be built later as a shelter while cooking.
Tom came back presently, his arms loaded with dry wood.
"All soft," he said, stacking it near the fire-pot. "There's not ahardwood in the forest anywhere. Come on, now, we've got to get a supplycut for the camp, in case anybody comes. If they don't come, we can cookon the stove there, I guess. It'll be easier than here."
"And not so much fun," said Joe.
The two boys worked industriously for the next hour, Tom doing the heavychopping, and got a good pile of wood stacked up beside the stove in thecamp. It was nearly five o'clock now, and still no one had appeared, sothey went back to their tent, being hot and tired, put on a set ofsummer underclothes for bathing suits, and ran down to the lake. Thebottom dropped away rather gradually, over rough stones, so they couldnot dive. Tom was the first in. He went in up to his knees, and emitteda yell that echoed from the wall of pines across the water.
"Wow!" he cried, "sufferin' snakes!"
"Is it cold?" said Joe, still standing on the shore.
"Oh, no, it ain't cold! Oh, no, it's warm as a hot potato!"
Spider took another step forward and slipped into a hole nearly up tohis waist, lost his balance, and went under. He came up spitting water,and made a wild leap for the shore.
"You keep out o' this, Joe," he spluttered. "It's too cold for you to goin. Talk about glacier water--not for me!"
"I want to try it," pleaded Joe.
"No, you d
on't!"--and Spider grabbed him by the arm and dragged himback.
As Tom peeled off his suit and reached for a towel, Joe ran for theirlittle camp mirror.
"Look at yourself," he said.
Tom looked. He was as red as a boiled lobster from head to foot.
"It's a wonder there ain't icicles on my elbows," he laughed. "You heatyourself some water on the fire, Joe, if you want a bath!"
Which was exactly what Joe did.
They were hardly dressed again, and beginning to prepare supper, whenthey heard a great clatter of hoofs and shouting coming down the trail.They ran through their fringe of woods, coming out on the trail a littleway above the camp, and galloping toward them they saw a procession onhorseback, shouting, laughing, screaming. At the head rode a cowboy,well in the lead, and holding his horse back. It was a big, bay horse,with a white star in its forehead, and full of ginger. The cowboy worewhite fur chaps on his legs, and spurs, and a broad-brimmed felt hat.Behind him came another guide, also in cowboy costume, and then almost adozen men and women, evidently tourists. Some of them knew how to ride,but more of them evidently did not. The women were bouncing around intheir saddles and screaming, but nobody stopped. The race for home hadbegun, and the horses intended to finish at a gallop. As the leaderthundered past the two boys, they saw with admiration how firmly he satin his saddle, like a part of the horse, and looked calmly back over hisshoulder with a laugh. Then they saw him touch the horse with his spurs,and it sprang forward with a bound, while the rest came tearing onbehind. As one woman passed the scouts, her last hairpin flew out, andher hair came tumbling down in a braid, which began bobbing up and downon her back.
"Gee, that's the life!" Tom cried. "We simply _got_ to learn to ridehorseback, Joe. I bet they've been over a pass, or something, to-day."
"I bet some of 'em are going to eat off the mantelpiece to-morrow," Joereplied.
They went back by way of the camp, to see if any hikers had arrived, andthen got their supper, a rather smoky job, with only soft wood to cookby. But they were too hungry to mind the smoke. After supper they walkedaround to the great hotel, which was not yet lighted up, for though itwas now seven o'clock, it was still broad daylight, and bought souvenirpostcards to send home to their parents and the other scouts. As yetthe hotel had few guests, for the season had hardly begun, the snow hadlain so late on the passes that year, but there was music and bustleabout the place, just the same, and another party on horseback was justgalloping in, so the boys could watch the tired riders dismount, and thecowboy guides drive the horses away, down the road to their nightfeeding on the lower meadows. Joe longed to ask one of those cowboys toshow him what that mysterious thing, a diamond hitch, was, but he didnot have the nerve.
It was still quite light enough to read a newspaper when they returnedto camp. Nobody had come, and as it had been a hard day, and Tom saw Joewas tired, he gave orders to turn in, though the lights in the greathotel across the lake, under the vast wall of Allen Mountain, were justtwinkling on.
"Seems foolish to go to bed by daylight," he said, "but it's nineo'clock, and you're a sick little wifey."
"You'll be a sick little hubby, in about a minute and a quarter," Joeretorted, swinging at him. "Still, I feel as if I could sleep, daylightor not."
"Come here," Tom went on, "and let's see how your old temperature is. Ifyou've got a fever to-night it means you got to stay still for the nextweek, and rest up."
He shook down the little clinical thermometer Dr. Meyer had given him,and put it under Joe's tongue. "Smoke that a while," he laughed.
After a couple of minutes he took it out again and inspected it.
"Ninety-eight," said he. "That's normal, ain't it? Hooray, old Joey, notemperature even after this day! I guess you're getting better, allright."
"Sure I am," Joe laughed. "I'm going to climb to the top of the GreatDivide to-morrow!"
The night came on as they were getting ready to bunk, and with it came asudden coolness.
"I guess we're going to be glad of these blankets, after all," Tom said,"and you won't be sorry your mother put in that puff."
"You bet I won't," Joe answered, climbing into his cot, and pulling thepuff up about him.
Tom took a last look at the fire, at the still woods, at the lakeglimmering down through the trees, picked up his sweater, which he haddropped on the ground, and hung it idly over a log by the fire, pulledthe tent flap together, blew out the candle in the camp lantern, andalso crawled in.
"Well, Joe," he said, "we've begun our life five thousand feet up, atthe feet of the glaciers."
Joe's answer was a snore.
Boy Scouts in Glacier Park Page 8