"Back to the hotel."
"What good"ll that do? n.o.body"ll be up to let you in." He looked at his watch. "It"s two o"clock," he added.
"Well, there"s a couple of hammocks on the veranda. That"s good enough for yours truly."
"Going to leave me here alone?"
"I don"t give a hang what you do. You can let the old bear sleep with you if you want to. It"s me for the hotel." And he began lacing up his boots.
"Well, I"m not going to stick around here all alone--besides, you"d never find your way back alone in the dark."
"_That"s_ a good alibi!" said Bob. "Guess you don"t want to stay much yourself."
"As a matter of fact, I don"t--not alone," Joe admitted.
They gathered up their provisions and blankets, poured the water for their morning coffee on the fire, and started back for the trail. It was hard work finding it, in the inky dark, and every time they heard a noise in the blackness around them Bob yelled, "Beat it, you bear!" with the evident idea that would drive the creature away. They knew when they reached the trail only by the feeling of hard, even ground under their feet, but at the hotel the starlight over the lake was clear and comforting, and sneaking up on the veranda, they spread their blankets in the hammocks, and went to sleep again, with the soft lap, lap, lap of the water on the beach just below as a lullaby.
Joe woke early and roused Bob.
"Say, if we don"t want to be guyed for the rest of the trip, we"ve got to beat it from here now, "fore anybody spots us, and get our breakfast up the sh.o.r.e some place."
"I know!" Bob whispered. "We"ll take a fish-pole and a boat from the boat-house and catch a breakfast! We can pay for the boat when the man gets up. What time is it?"
"Four o"clock."
"Only four? Gee, it"s day already, too. Come on."
They piled their stuff into a boat, took a fish-pole from the eaves of the boat-house, found some bait in a pail, and rowed out as noiselessly as they could, and up along the sh.o.r.e. Joe rowed, while Bob kept casting from the stern. Finally he gave a yell, and Joe saw his line go under, and stopped rowing to watch the sport. He had a big one, all right, and it fought well. Bob was fifteen minutes in landing him, but had him in the boat finally, and hit him over the head.
The fish was as much as eighteen inches long, or more, and must have weighed four pounds.
"What"s it, anyhow?" Bob asked.
"Cut-throat trout," said Joe. "I saw a man catch two or three at Lake McDermott. I"ll bet it"s good, too. Come on--we"ll have some breakfast!
Good job you did landing him, too, without a reel. I thought your old line would bust two or three times."
They rowed in to the heavily wooded sh.o.r.e, built a fire right by the lake, cleaned the fish, and Joe fried the choicest parts, with a few thin strips of bacon, coffee and biscuits.
Then they fell to. The grizzly, the restless night, the early rise--they"d really had only four hours of good sleep--were all forgotten while that hot, sizzling, delicious breakfast lasted.
"Say," Bob remarked, as he swallowed his last mouthful, "I feel like licking my chops, the way our old cat does! You sure are some cook. I"m going to learn to cook, too, and go camping every summer. This is the life!"
"Bears and all," Joe laughed.
"Aw, forget the old bear! Don"t seem so bad, now it"s daylight.
Say,--not a peep, remember, about that old bear."
"I won"t say anything if you don"t," Joe promised.
They rowed back now, and found the boat-keeper up. Bob explained why they took the boat, and paid the rental for it, and for the fish-pole.
The man was good-natured and made no complaint.
"Guess it"s all right," he said. ""Course, if you hadn"t got a fish I"d had to charge you more."
"I suppose if we"d got two fish you"d have given us the boat free," Bob laughed.
They carried their stuff back to the stable, where the rest of the packs were, and had returned to the hotel lobby and were busily writing souvenir postcards to all their friends back at home when the party came down to breakfast.
"Hullo, boys!" everybody said. "Where"s that fish?"
Bob rubbed his stomach.
"Did you really get one?" Lucy demanded. "And you"ve eaten it all yourselves? Oh, you mean, greedy things!"
"Well," Bob declared, "you folks wouldn"t camp with us. Go in and eat your old canned peaches and hunks of whisk broom and condensed cream.
Gee, Joe "n" I have had some night, all right! Old Big Ben woke us up----"
"Careful!" Joe cautioned.
"What do you mean--Big Ben?" asked Bob"s mother.
"Oh, just our name for a pet bear we"ve acquired," Bob laughed, ignoring Joe"s caution. "A dear, pretty, tame old silver tip who came right into camp and tried to kiss old Joe, but Joe slapped his face and said, "Naughty, naughty," and he got real cross."
"What _do_ you mean? Did a bear come into your camp? Oh, how lovely!"
Alice cried.
"Lovely! Well, I must say----" Mrs. Jones began.
"What _really_ happened?" Bob"s father demanded.
"Yes, tell the truth, Bob, now you"ve put your foot in it," Joe laughed.
"Oh, gosh, I can"t keep an old secret," said the boy. "Me and Joe--Joe and me----"
"Joe and _I_----" said his mother.
"Well, Joe and I were snoring away like a couple o" buzz saws, when snap went a stick, and woke me up, and Joe was sitting up already, and gosh all hemlock, but it was dark! And then the fire flickered, and we saw old Big Ben on his hind legs not two feet away----"
"Oh, six feet, make it six!" Joe laughed.
"Well, six, and he was ten feet tall, and growling like anything, or sort of snarling, and I said, "Go "way, you spoiled my dream"--just like that, and he went, and then Joe said he wouldn"t stay there any more, "cause he didn"t like to be disturbed that way, so----"
"_I_ said it! Well, I like that!" Joe cried.
Bob grinned. "Well, anyhow, you wouldn"t stay after I went, you know you wouldn"t," he said. "So we beat it for the hotel, and slept in the hammocks on the porch till four, and then we got a boat and I caught a four pound trout----"
"How do you know it was a four pounder?" his father asked.