CHAPTER XI

Dumplin’ Tests the Strength of a Snow Cornice on Garfield Peak

Their friend the California camper and his party were up bright and early. At least, they were up early. As Bennie woke up at their noisy shouting, and listened to their conversation, he didn’t think they were particularly bright.

“Oh, well, Irvin Cobb couldn’t make me laugh at half-past five in the morning,” Dumplin’ said at breakfast. “I heard ’em, but I went to sleep again. I just stayed awake long enough to hear whether they were talking about their cli—ha! you didn’t catch me!—about the atmospheric conditions of California.”

“Did they?” his father asked.

“Not’s I heard. One of ’em was pulling a merry jest. His idea of a joke, I s’pose. He was throwing cold water on the ones that weren’t up.”

“Gee, I’d have killed him!” the doctor said. “Maybe they’ll be gone by night. Well, what shall we do today? I don’t feel like going down to the lake again till the trail is open. It will be done by tonight.”

“Let’s climb Garfield!”

“Good,” said Mr. Stone. “I’d like to get a movie of you all up on that snow cap against the sky.”

“And I’m going to gather all the kinds of wild flowers I can, and identify ’em from those mounted specimens in the hotel,” said Spider. “Might’s well do some work for a botany honor medal, too.”

Bennie was looking up in the tree as Spider spoke.

“Look,” he said, “who’s your friend?”

“Who are your friends, you mean,” added Uncle Billy, also looking up.

Two large birds, fat and sleek, with gray and black plumage were hopping nearer and nearer to the tents, apparently much excited.

“Hello!” cried Spider. “They are new ones on me. Say, aren’t they tame!”

Mr. Stone laughed. “Tame is the word. Everybody look the other way, and pretend to pay no attention.”

They did so, and suddenly there was a flutter close by, a little peep, a flap of wings, and one of the birds was right down on the box by the stove that served as a kitchen table, and up in the tree again with half a slice of bread in his bill.

“Well, I’ll be switched!” Bennie exclaimed. “Can you beat that! What are they?”

“Ever heard of camp robbers?”

“Are _those_ camp robbers, eh? Canada jays is another name, isn’t it? Well, I thought camp robbers were ugly birds. Those are beautiful.”

“They are beautiful, but now they’ve discovered the camps up here, we’ll have to keep everything covered. They can’t take a hint worth a cent.”

“Let’s shoo ’em over to California’s camp,” laughed Bennie.

Presently they started off for Garfield.

“Hey, Uncle Bill, where’s the rope?” Bennie asked.

“Don’t need it today.”

“Aw, can’t we take it along and find a place to use it?”

“Nothing doing. We don’t carry any excess baggage out here, son.”

The climb up Garfield proved to be an easy one. The trail was clear of snow for half the distance, and the rest of the short thousand feet was over drifts that were neither difficult nor dangerous, till they reached a little flat place a hundred feet short of the summit. Here a sheer precipice confronted them, with the summit snow cap hanging out over it like the cornice of a gigantic house roof.

Mr. Stone set up his camera some distance out from the cliff.

“Now, I want you all to go up there, around on the side, where the trail goes, and come out into view on the left end of the top. Then walk in single file, slowly, along the cornice to the right, and then move back out of sight again. When you get to the top, don’t come into view till I yell, ‘Shoot!’”

“You mean you want us to walk out on that snow that hangs over the precipice, Pa?” Lester demanded.

“Sure, why not?”

“Well, if it breaks off with our weight, where do we go from there?”

“It won’t break. You don’t have to get right on the edge of it, of course. But it would hold up a team of horses.”

“Yes, but will it hold up Dumplin’?” said Bennie.

“Come on, boys, let’s get this Pearl White stuff over,” the doctor laughed.

They scrambled up around the side to the very peak, and waited till they heard the signal. Then one by one they walked forward toward the edge. The doctor led the way, and sounded with his alpenstock. He stopped five feet short of the extreme edge, however, turned and walked along that line, the rest following him holding their breaths, and half expecting to go pitching down any instant. But they didn’t. The snow cornice was many feet thick, and would probably have held up a far greater weight.

When they were out of the picture again, they looked around. The view was tremendous, and the first one they had got from a high summit. (Garfield is a shade over 8,000 feet.) To the south they saw the glistening white snow cone of Mount McLaughlin, and then far, far away, 150 miles, floating almost like a cloud on the horizon, the great white bulk of Mount Shasta in California, more than 14,000 feet high. To the eastward, they looked out over the desert country of southeastern Oregon, stretching for endless miles. North of them, they looked right down for 2,000 feet into the blue caldera of Crater Lake. North of the lake, beyond the farther rim, they could see Mount Thielsen, which looked like a huge needle of lava sticking straight up into the air, and beyond that the white pyramid of Diamond Peak. Everywhere near by, on the outer slopes of the crater, they looked down into dark mysterious forests marching up the ravines.

“Well, Bennie, is this big enough and wild enough for you?” the doctor demanded.

“I never saw so much land all at once in my life,” said Bennie, “or such a big hole in it. And to think I’ve seen old Shasta, way off in California! This beats the old geography!”

“You loosed a larynxful then,” came from Dumplin’.

“Not very poetic, Dump, but true,” the doctor smiled.

The boys found the steepest drift on the descent, and tried to ski down it on their boot soles, but they hit such a rate of speed that all three of them toppled over, and landed at the bottom head over heels. After they had reached the open trail once more, Spider cut away from the path, and worked down the side slope, through the pumice drifts and the tumbled piles of broken lava, gathering specimens of wild flowers. You would hardly have supposed anything would grow in such unpromising looking soil, but volcanic stuff rapidly breaks up into a soil rich in chemical plant foods, especially potash, and soon his hands were full. Bennie, who had followed him, began to help, and rapidly got interested in the game of finding new varieties. It was a big bunch they finally brought into camp, half an hour after the rest had reached home.

That afternoon Spider took his flowers and a note-book over to the hotel, where a large case of mounted specimens is exhibited, and spent two hours identifying them, and listing the names in his note-book, with his specimens pressed between the leaves. Bennie bought some candy, and a bunch of post-cards, and scribbled messages to his mother and father and friends. Finally he came over to Spider.

“Gee whiz, you’re a studious one,” he said. “Wish I was. How do you get that way?”

“I don’t know. I just can’t help being interested in birds and plants and things like that. You’ve just got to find something you’re awfully interested in, I guess.”

“Well, I’m interested in mountains, but that won’t get me any merit badge. I’m gettin’ kind of interested in supper about now, too. What say we beat it over to camp?”

They walked back along the rim. The snow cap on Garfield was growing pink behind them, and the lake below, ruffled by a little wind, was like a wrinkled carpet of vivid ultramarine blue. The trail, they heard, was now dug out all the way to the landing. Rested by the quiet afternoon, they felt keen for fresh adventures.

“I feel’s if I could walk all the way around this old rim,” Bennie declared. “You know, there’s a motor road runs around it, only it’s full of snow now. Has to cut down behind Dutton Cliffs and Garfield, way down to the road we came up on. But the rest of the way round it’s up on the rim. Uncle Bill says it’s about thirty or thirty-five miles around, he thinks, by the road. Bet you we could do it in a day, right over the old snow. That ought to help toward a merit badge for hiking.”

“I’d rather row around the lake at the base of the cliffs,” said Spider.

“Well, let’s do that tomorrow. Shall we?”

“I guess we’ll do what the rest do. Your uncle will have something good on, sure.”

“Hope so, I need the exercise,” Bennie laughed, plunging across the snow-drift toward the tents.

“Bennie’s feeling awful good,” Spider told the rest. “Says he’s not getting exercise enough.”

“The wood-pile is rather low,” the doctor remarked quietly.

Bennie saluted. “Yes, sir, thank you, sir!” he said, and picked up his ax.