Sure enough, the very next day Tom did hear from his application. He rushed over to Mr. Rogers" studio.
"Look," he cried. "I get a job all right, but I don"t know just what it means. It says I"m to be in charge of the Many Glacier tepee camp, if I turn out to be big enough, and suit the boss. Otherwise, I"ll be a bellhop in the Many Glacier Hotel. I"ll get forty dollars a month and board at the camp. What"s a tepee camp?"
"You know as much about it as I do," the scout master said. "I suppose it"s a camp composed of Indian tepees, which the hotel rents to people who"d rather camp out than stay inside. Anyhow, I hope you get that job, for I don"t like to think of one of my scouts taking tips all the time, the way a bellhop gets to do. It"s un-American. Probably Joe could help you "round the tepee camp, anyway with the cooking. And speaking of Joe, the first thing we must do is to take him "round to Dr. Meyer"s again, and find out just what he can and can"t do, and what you"ve got to feed him, and so forth. Suppose we go right now."
The doctor gave Joe another thorough examination, from head to foot, and then put him on the scales. He smiled as the weight had to be pushed twelve pounds beyond where it hung in May.
"You see what rest, food and minding the doctor does," said he. "Well, my boy, you"re on the mend. As a matter of fact, there isn"t very much the matter with you now except a weakened condition and, of course, a tendency to relapse without proper care. A year in the Rocky Mountains ought to make a well man of you."
"A year!" Joe exclaimed. "We"re only going for the summer."
"Well, the summer will help," said the doctor. "Keep on eating your milk and eggs, if you can get "em, but probably after you"ve been in the woods a while you won"t worry much about your food--you"ll gobble what you can get, and so long as you feel right, go ahead. I"ll give your friend a clinical thermometer to take your temperature, and you must get weighed once in so often. It wouldn"t be a bad idea to have a doctor look you over now and then, too, if one comes into the Park. The things you must look out for are over-exertion and exposure. I wouldn"t do anything but light work for a month yet, at least, and no climbing or long walks. If you must go somewhere, go on horseback, at a slow pace.
And keep warm and dry."
"Well, Joe, that"s a fine, encouraging report!" the scout master declared as they left. "You keep on minding the doc, and you"ll be a well man."
"He"ll keep on minding him, all right, all right," said Tom, putting his arm around Joe"s shoulder, and then tightening it around his neck till Joe"s head was forced over where he could give it a friendly punch.
Joe started to duck and punch back, but Spider cried, "Here--cut that out! No over-exertion!"--and then the three laughed and hurried on, to make arrangements for the departure of the boys.
Clothing, of course, was the most important thing, and the boys got out their trunks and selected what they would need, with the aid of a folder describing conditions in the Park. They took their scout suits, of course, with leggins, and their heaviest high boots. Tom also added a box of steel spikes and a key to screw them in with. They also took their sweaters, and mackinaws, though it seemed foolish to be taking mackinaws for a summer trip. Then they packed two suits of winter underwear, several pairs of heavy wool socks for tramping, two flannel outing shirts, and rubber ponchos, which both boys had bought the year before when the scouts took a five day hike. Then, of course, they took their knapsacks, and both boys sent for dunnage bags of stout canvas.
They took their scout axes and cooking kits, knives, Tom"s camera, compa.s.ses, and notebooks to keep diaries in. Tom had a folding camp lantern for which they got a box of candles. For bedding, each packed two pairs of heavy double blankets, and Joe"s mother insisted on making a separate bundle of a winter bed puff, which, as it turned out later, he was glad enough to have. They also put in their winter pajamas, their scout hats, and some old leather gloves. Finally, they got some packages of dehydrated vegetables, soup sticks, powdered egg, army rations, and tabloid tea, to use on walking trips if Joe got strong enough to tramp.
Such condensed and light weight rations, Mr. Rogers thought, probably could not be purchased in the Park.
It was a lovely day, almost at the end of June, when the two boys finally started. There had been a scout meeting the night before, at which Bob Sawtelle, who was to act as patrol leader in Spider"s absence, had made a speech for the rest and presented Joe with a pocket camera, the gift of the entire troop. It was a short speech, but to the point.
"Old Joey"s pipes have gone on the blink," he said, "and he"s got to beat it out West to pump "em full of ozone. We other fellers thought we"d like to see what he"s seen, when he gets back, so we all chipped in and got a camera. Here it is, Joe, and don"t try to snap Spider with it, or you"ll bust the lens."
Joe tried to make a speech in reply, but he couldn"t do it. He just took the camera, and said, "Gee, fellows, you"re--you"re all to the good."
"And don"t you worry about your mother"s coal, either," Bob added.
"We"re going to keep right on fillin" the hods, and if anybody forgets when it"s his turn, I"m goin" to beat him on the bean."
"That"s a good one," cried little Sam Cowan. "You forgot yourself yesterday!"
"Well, I ain"t goin" to forget any more, or let you, either," Bob answered.
Bob and several more scouts, as well as Mr. Rogers, Joe"s mother and little brother and sister, and Tom"s family, were all down at the depot to see the boys off in the morning. There were kisses and some tears from the women, and a scout cheer from the boys, and cries of "Have you got your axe, Spider?" and "Joe, dear, are you sure you put in your comb and brush?" and "Tom, dear, now don"t forget to send mother a postcard just as soon as you get there," and "Say, Joey, bring home a Rocky Mountain sheep"s head for the clubroom," and "Hi, Spider, don"t forget a grizzly bear rug for me, so my little tootsies won"t be cold when I hop out of bed."
The train came, the boys got aboard, it pulled out, and looking back they saw their friends and parents on the platform, waving good-bye, and the church spires and housetops of their village vanishing into the June green of the tree tops.
"Well," said Tom, "we"re off for the Rocky Mountains!"
Joe rubbed his eyes. "Sure we are!" he answered. "I kind of hate to leave ma, though, and the kids."
Tom slapped him on the shoulder.
"Sure you do," he said. "But it"s so you can come back a husky, well man, to look out for "em better than ever. Don"t you forget that, old scout!"
CHAPTER IV--Tom and Joe Cross the Continent With Their Faces Glued to the Car Window and Reach the Rocky Mountains
Neither Tom nor Joe had ever been West before, even as far as Chicago.
As soon as they had changed cars to the through train, not far from their home town, each armed with a ticket about a yard and a half long, and got settled in their seats in the sleeping car, they glued themselves to the windows, and watched the country. There was something new to see every minute--the Berkshire Hills, the Hudson River at Albany, the great factories at Schenectady, the Mohawk River and the Erie Ca.n.a.l, Utica, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo. They slept soundly that night, and woke up as they were pa.s.sing along the southern sh.o.r.e of Lake Michigan. In Chicago they had to change cars again, to another station, and they had time, after seeing that their baggage was transferred, to walk around a little, among the high buildings, and out to the lake front.
"It"s an awful dirty place, strikes me," said Joe. "All the buildings look as if somebody had spilled soot over "em."
"I guess somebody has," Tom answered. "I guess they burn soft coal here.
The air"s full of it. Wait till we get to the Rockies, though; there"s the air!"
The trip from Chicago to St. Paul was even more interesting than the first stage, because after a while the train followed the bank of the Mississippi River (the scouts had a railroad folder with a map spread out in their seat, to see where they were every minute), and there was something thrilling to both of them about the first sight of the great river, which they had heard about all their lives.
"Say, it"s yellow, all right," Joe exclaimed. "I"d rather go swimming in our old hole back home, I guess. It ain"t so awful big, either."
"Not way up here. We"re a thousand miles from the mouth. But you"d better not try to jump it, even here--not till you get well," Tom laughed.
At St. Paul they changed once more, for the final train, the trans-continental limited which would take them right through to the Park.
"Golly, we won"t see any of Minnesota," Tom complained. "It"ll be dark while we go through that. And look at all those lakes we pa.s.s." He pointed to the map.
"Well, there has to be night as well as day out here, just like home. I guess we can"t do anything about it," said Joe. "I"m kind o" glad to sleep, at that."
"Poor old Joe, I forget you get tired," Tom cried, penitently. "Seems to me I _never_ want to go to sleep, with so much to see!"
"Oh, I"m not tired any more,--just sleepy," Joe said, bravely. But Tom saw he was tired, and called the porter to make up the berths.
They woke up in the prairie country of North Dakota--or, rather, Spider did. He was sleeping in the upper berth, of course, so Joe could have all the air possible, and he climbed down as quietly as he could and went into the observation car to see where they were. It was bright sunlight, almost as it would be at home at eight o"clock, yet his watch told him it was only a little after four. He looked out of the window on a strange land--on the prairies about which he had read all his life and never seen before. He had been disappointed in the Mississippi River, but there was no disappointment here. They were more wonderful than he had ever dreamed--just one endless green sea of growing wheat stretching to the horizon, without a hill or a valley, as flat as the floor of the ocean. Indeed, they looked like a green ocean, with the small houses, the big red barns and silos, the little groves of trees behind the barns for a windbreak, rising like islands every mile or so. The whole world here seemed to be grain. Everything was under cultivation, there were no trees at all except the groves planted beside the farmhouses, mile after mile as far as the eye could see to the far horizon rolled the sea of young wheat, or else the golden stubble where the winter crop had been harvested.
For the first time, Tom understood what men mean when they speak of "the great wheat fields of the West," for the first time he realized the bigness of America. He wanted to go wake Joe at once, and if Joe hadn"t been sick, he certainly would have done so. As it was, he let him sleep till six, and then he couldn"t stand it any longer, and shook him awake.
"Joe! we"re on the prairie!" he cried.
All that day, mile after mile, they traveled through the wheat, with never a break in the vast monotony of the level land, the endless procession of houses and barns far off, like islands in the green sea.
The sun did not set till late, and even at nine o"clock they could read on the back platform of the observation car, as the prairie turned dusky, and in the west the lingering sunset was like a sunset over the sea.
"My, it"s been a wonderful day!" Joe sighed, as they went to bed. "I feel as if I"d just been soaked in _bigness_. I guess the Rockies aren"t any bigger than these prairies. But what gets me, though, is how the kids here go sliding in winter."
A man on the platform beside them laughed.
"Say, I never saw a toboggan till I went East after I was twenty-one years old," he said. "But I"ve seen some drifts that were twenty feet high, and that"s quite a hill for us."
The next morning Tom again was the first awake, and he hurried out to see the prairie once more--but there was no prairie. The world looked exactly as if there had come a great wind or earthquake in the night and kicked the calm prairie sea up into waves. There were still no trees, only a great expanse of grayish gra.s.s and wild flowers, but you couldn"t see far from the train in any direction, because the land was so cut up with the billows, little rounded hills and earth waves maybe fifty feet high. This was the cattle country now, and every little while a rough log cabin and log stables, half dug out of the side of a bank, would appear beside the track, and there would be cattle and horses grazing over the slopes. Again Spider waked Joe, and they watched for a cowboy, but none appeared.
As they were eating an early breakfast, the train seemed to be running into more level prairie country again, though it never settled back into the really flat prairies. Presently they stopped at a little town, with a single street of low wooden and brick stores and houses, and no trees, and the two scouts got out to stretch their legs. The first thing they saw as they alighted was a cowboy! Clad in a flannel shirt, with big black fur chaps down his legs and a wide-brimmed felt hat mysteriously sticking on his head, he came dashing up about a mile a minute, kicking up a tremendous dust, and pulling his horse down with a quick sweep that stopped him exactly against the platform. The boys were so interested in him that it was not till they were getting aboard again, at the conductor"s shout, that Joe looked to the west, and cried, "Spider, quick! Look there!"