CHAPTER XIII

The Scouts Are Driven Ashore by a Storm and Have To Climb Llao Rock—and They Learn a Lesson

The next morning the doctor and Spider woke up before Bennie did, and they let him sleep till breakfast was almost ready. When he did get up, he stretched himself and discovered that his muscles were a bit stiff, but otherwise he felt, he said, “like a fighting cock.”

“Well, don’t feel so good you eat up all the pancakes before I get one!” Dumplin’ laughed, snatching for the plate.

“I guess what I need to take the kinks out of my back is exercise,” Bennie remarked, with a grin.

“We’d better get hold of Jack Dempsey, and let Bennie box with him every day,” Mr. Stone put in.

“Aw, I wouldn’t want to hurt him,” Bennie answered. “What we going to do today, Uncle Bill?”

“We’ll have to think it over,” his uncle replied.

But before anything was decided, a bell-boy came from the hotel with the news that someone had been taken sick there, and asking the doctor to come right over. It turned out that a man who had arrived the night before had eaten something on the road that poisoned him, and he was so sick that the doctor didn’t dare go far from camp that day. Mr. Stone wanted to stay near camp also, to make motion pictures of parties climbing up and down the rim, and he needed Lester to help him. So Bennie and Spider asked if they might go down to the water, get a boat, and row across the lake, taking their lunch with them.

“I don’t know,” the doctor said, frowning. “You can both swim, and you know how to row, but that lake can get pretty rough, and if you’re forced to land, there’s no way of getting back till somebody can come after you.”

“Oh, but look at the old lake! It’s calm as a mirror,” Bennie pleaded, “and there’s not a cloud in the sky.”

“We want to see what Llao Rock looks like when you’re right under it,” Spider added. “We’ll be awful careful.”

“Will you promise to keep fairly near shore, and if the water gets rough to beat it for home?” the doctor asked.

“Sure we will.”

“Well, I oughtn’t to let you go. I’m responsible to your parents for you chaps. But, after all, you’re big enough to take care of yourselves. All right, but be back at the landing before the sun gets off the middle of the lake. Promise me that?”

The boys promised, and set off down the trail in high spirits, some sandwiches, hastily made, and some sweet chocolate in their pockets for lunch. There were a dozen or more other parties starting down the trail, too, or getting ready to start, so the scouts made the descent in record time, in order to be sure of getting a boat.

Once out on the water, they decided it would be too much of a pull to try to circle the entire lake, under the cliffs—a matter of about twenty miles or more. But they could pull straight for the grotto on the east side of the lake, beyond the Phantom Ship, a matter of five miles, then cut across to Llao Rock, about four and a half miles, and then four miles home.

“Sure we can row that,” said Bennie. “That’s only thirteen and a half miles. Call it thirteen, ’cause we won’t land, probably, at Llao.”

“Sure,” answered Spider. “Easy.”

Well, it was easy to the grotto, which they finally found by rowing along the edge of the cliffs. The grotto is simply a shallow cave, only a few feet up from the water, but once you are in it you look out on the blue lake, through the opening, as if you were looking through a big window. The boys ate their lunch in here, and then started directly across for Llao Rock.

But the very first thing that they noticed was that the wind had come up, blowing directly against them, and with the wind a chop of water, which went slap, slap, slap under their bow. They pulled hard, and made slow progress.

About half-way across, Bennie, who was rowing, said, “You pull a while, Spider. I’m through for a bit.”

Spider took the oars and tugged. The wind and waves were certainly rising. They were slapping the how hard now, and swinging around so that the rower was half the time tugging at one oar or the other to keep his course.

“You know what your uncle said,” Spider panted. “Strikes me we’re a long way from shore, and this old lake is kicking up a sea. I think we better turn with the wind, and beat it back to the other shore, and then make for home.”

“We got to make for home, all right,” Bennie answered, his face getting white as he looked first at the waves and then up at what were unmistakably gathering clouds over the rim. “But if we go back to that east shore we get the full force of the sea, ’cause the wind is west. If we get in under the west side, we’ll be out of the wind, in shelter. Then we can run for home that way.”

“There’s something in that,” Spider assented. “If we can get there.”

“We _got_ to get there,” Bennie cried. “Look at that old black cloud up there.”

Spider took one look, and began to pull for all he was worth.

It was dangerous business changing places in that sea, but finally he had to give up to Bennie again.

“Look out for those oars!” Bennie shouted. “We’d be goners if we lost one of them. We got to make shore, and wait till this is over. Oh gee!”

This last exclamation was caused by a wave that hit the boat almost broadside, drenching both boys to the knees and putting an inch of water on the bottom.

Bennie got hold of the oars, headed the boat into the sea again, and Spider began to bail with his cap. Wave after wave now hit their bow, and came spraying over, soaking them. There were whitecaps all around. The sun had disappeared behind the dark cloud, and the wind seemed rising steadily. Bennie pulled with every ounce of strength he had, and Spider bailed madly. Slowly, very slowly, almost as if they were standing still, Llao Rock drew near. They had to make the dangerous change once more, when Bennie’s strength gave out, and once more the boat swung broadside, and shipped a dangerous quantity of water.

“If she’ll only stay afloat till we make the shore!” Bennie cried. “Gee, it don’t seem to be a bit calmer over here.”

“If it is, I’m glad we ain’t out there,” Spider panted as he tugged at the oars.

In spite of all he could do, with only his cap to bail with, the boat was perilously full of water before the great lava precipices of Llao Rock finally towered right above them, and they saw and heard the waves on the stony shore.

“How are we going to land without smashing the boat?” Spider puffed.

“Hang the boat! How are we going to land without smashing our heads?” Bennie answered. “Hold her right inshore, and when I see a place pull for all you’ve got left!”

“Pull!” he yelled a moment later.

Spider drove the boat in. A wave caught it and threw it forward, but the bow drove between two lava fragments which rested half in water, half on shore, and while Bennie grabbed one oar and pushed at the stern, Spider jumped from the bow with the painter in his hand. He landed on a stone at the water’s edge, slipped back above his waist, scrambled out dripping wet, hauled on the painter, and got the bow in close. Bennie got out, and between them they hauled the boat up where the waves couldn’t knock it free, and tipped her over to let the water run out.

Then they both sat down and panted.

“Well, I’d rather be here than out there,” Bennie finally said.

“I don’t mind saying I didn’t know whether we’d ever get here,” Spider answered. “I guess that was a close call, all right. Gee, but my arms ache!”

“Mine don’t—they haven’t any feeling left in ’em,” said Bennie. “Well, what are we going to do now? We can’t stay here all night and freeze to death.”

“I sure am wet and cold,” Spider answered. “And you can’t make a fire out of lava and pumice. Funny thing, not a drop of rain has fallen. Look, there’s the sun again over on the top of Scott.”

“No more sun here, though,” Bennie said, looking up the 800 foot sharp slope of pumice above them, that ended at the 1,200 foot absolutely precipitous and terrifying leap of Llao Rock. “We’re under the shadow of that old rock.”

“Well, we’ll just have to hop round and keep as warm as we can, till the old lake quiets down and we can row home.”

“She don’t show any signs of quieting down,” said Bennie. “Hear the old wind. ’Sides, it’ll take a long while for those waves to quit. And I don’t want to go out on that water again! Gee, I couldn’t row a hundred feet.”

“We could if we had to,” said Spider, bravely. “Anyhow, probably your uncle will send the launch out after us.”

“They don’t know where we are, and we can’t make a fire to signal.”

“They’ll have field-glasses,” Spider suggested. “We can wave our handkerchiefs.”

“’Sides,” Bennie went on, “maybe the launch is out, too, and it’ll be dark before they can get here, and maybe they won’t come across in this sea. I’ll be frozen stiff by that time. I move we climb up to the rim road and walk home. It’s only eight miles from Llao Rock to camp, according to the map.”

“Climb up!” exclaimed Spider, looking aloft at the terrific precipice. “This has gone to your head, Bennie.”

“You poor fish, we wouldn’t climb the rock itself,” Bennie answered. “Don’t you remember, Uncle Billy said somebody worked up to the base, and then along on top of the pumice slope to the rim? If somebody else did it, we can do it. If we see the launch coming after we get up a ways we can come down. Anyhow, it’s better’n freezing to death here. It’ll keep us warm.”

“Looks to me like an awful job,” Spider objected.

“Well, you can stay here then, _I’m_ going,” Bennie declared. His voice was shrill, and Spider realized that he wasn’t quite himself. Besides, he was shivering with cold. Spider was shivering, too, here in the gloomy shadow of Llao Rock, with the wind beating upon them.

“All right,” he decided, “if you go, I go. Come on. We got to hit the rim road before dark. But take it easy, Bennie, for Pete’s sake. We got to save our strength, and this old stuff’s awful treacherous, too. Test your footing.”

“I’ll test my footing, all right,” Bennie answered, starting up the long, steep incline of powdered pumice and loose conglomerate, out of which here and there thrust up jagged lumps and spikes and little cliffs of harder lava.

It was hard work, all the harder because they were so wet and tired. And they soon found it was dangerous work. Drive your foot down into the soft stuff too hard to get a brace, and you start a little landslide right under your own feet. That releases a lot of stuff above you, which starts down, too, and it is only too easy to get carried down with the rush. The boys found this out, fortunately, before they had climbed very far, so that they didn’t slide far enough to hurt them. After that, they climbed side by side, ten feet apart, instead of one behind the other, and zigzagged across the slopes, instead of going directly up.

It seemed ages before they reached the top of the loose stuff, at the very base of the mighty precipice. From here they could see the whole lake, and scanned the water for any sign of the launch, but no launch was to be seen. So they kept on.

Their troubles, which they thought would be over when they reached the base of the cliff, were not over. They still had a long, soft slope to climb at the foot of the lava, which was impeded by huge broken fragments fallen from the cliff above. Often they couldn’t go around these, because if they did they got too near the edge of the slope, and were in danger of starting down on a landslide. They had to work over them. However, they toiled on, getting warm, at least, with the exertion, until they reached the long and almost level stretch that led rapidly to the rim.

Here, for the first time in ten minutes, Bennie spoke. “We’re going to make it!” he cried.

“And we’re going to make it before dark!” Spider answered.

They hurried on now, with renewed courage, and gained the rim at last, coming up out of the cold shadows into the sharp mountain gale and the last low rays of sunset.

Both boys flopped for a minute on the dry pumice back from the rim, and lay there getting back some of their strength.

Spider was the first up. “Come,” he said, “we got to find the rim road before it’s dark.”

“Eight miles!” Bennie sighed. “Oh, you automobile!”

“Come on—no use crying for automobiles. We got to find that road and hoof it. We can’t stay out all night in these wet clothes, without any blankets.”

Bennie got up wearily. “All right. The old road’ll be pretty close. All we got to do is walk down the back slope, away from the rim.”

“But it’s all snow,” said Spider. “How’ll we know the road when we see it?”

“If we can’t tell a road when we come to it, snow or no snow, we’re bum scouts and deserve to stay here and freeze to death,” Bennie retorted.

As a matter of fact, in spite of the snow, they did find the road, by catching at a distance a cut through trees, and then by picking up a long open space bare of snow, which the road crossed, showing plainly. Once on it, the chance of missing it again was not great unless the night got very dark. With bright starlight, even without a moon, the tired scouts, as they plodded along, now for brief welcome stretches on the bare ground, but mostly on the soft drifts where every step was an effort, reckoned they could keep the trail.

“Besides,” Bennie said, “if we lost it, we could always sort of follow the rim.”

“Yes, and have to climb up over the top of the Watchman and Glacier Peak. No, thanks. I’ve climbed enough today. It’ll be in woods a lot of the way, and we can always feel the opening. You know how we can follow a wood road at home in the dark.”

“Oh, you home!” sighed Bennie. “Think of bacon, and coffee, and baked potatoes! Oh, boy, I’m going to cry in a minute, I’m so empty.”

“Take up a hole in your belt, like the Indians,” Spider suggested.

It was getting dark now rapidly, and they were plodding wearily across a long opening on the heavy snow, which was like walking on a pile of rock salt, and wondering where the road was on the other side, when suddenly Spider stopped.

“Look!” he cried.

“What is it? I don’t see anything.”

“Look, in the trees. I saw a light!”

“How do you get that way?” Bennie demanded. “Light! We’re about six miles from nowhere here. Haven’t any campers been around the rim road. Can’t get around. Buck up, Spider. Don’t cave now!”

“Oh, quit,” said Spider crossly. “There! There it is again!”

This time Bennie saw it. There _was_ a light in the woods ahead of them. Moreover, it wasn’t a camp fire. It was moving.

“Somebody with a lantern!” Bennie exclaimed. He stuck two fingers into his mouth and blew a long, shrill blast.

The answer was a “Hoo-oo!” in Uncle Billy’s voice!

“How’d they know we were here?” said Bennie, as they both shouted back, and stumbled on more rapidly toward the light.

A moment later they were beside Uncle Billy and Mr. Stone, and out of his pack Uncle Billy was taking a thermos bottle of hot tea, and the boys were drinking it. Around his shoulder, they saw, the doctor had his alpine rope.

“I guess that doesn’t go to the spot!” Bennie exclaimed.

“Never knew tea was so good,” said Spider.

And now followed rapid questions and answers, as the tramp to camp was resumed. No trouble about finding the road now! They had a lantern, and the back tracks of Uncle Billy and Mr. Stone.

“How’d you know where we were?” the boys demanded.

“Watched you with a glass,” said the doctor. “I saw the lake getting rough, after you started across, and I saw that cloud coming. Stone went down the trail to send the launch for you, but the launch was out with a party. Finally it got in under the lee of Wizard Island, and everybody tried to signal it to come across, but it didn’t come, and finally somebody rowed over from it and reported the engine had gone dead and they couldn’t start it. They’re bringing the passengers back now, when the lake’s got quieter.

“By that time, we’d seen you land at Llao Rock, so we planned to row over and get you just as soon as we could, if they didn’t get the launch started up. But then you began to climb.”

The doctor paused.

“Well,” he finally went on, “I had a bad five minutes then, I can tell you. But there was nothing to do about it, so we watched to make sure you were really going to try to make the rim, and then we beat it over here. You made better time up than I thought you could. We expected to get to the rock before you got up. I brought the rope to—to help you.”

“Why did you keep on into the wind?” Mr. Stone asked. “Why didn’t you turn back and run with it to the east shore where you came from?”

The boys explained how they thought they were going to get out of the wind under the protection of Llao Rock.

“There’s no protection on that lake in a storm,” the doctor said. “Fortunately, there aren’t many storms. I told you to keep near shore, though, and you crossed right over. Well, never mind that now. Guess you’ve had your lesson.”

“Guess we have,” said Bennie, as he stumbled wearily along, hardly able to drag one foot after the other. “But we thought we were pretty near the north shore when we crossed. Only to get there, we’d have to go broadside, and besides, it was taking us away from camp.”

“Still,” said his uncle, quietly, “you didn’t quite live up to your promise, did you?”

“No, sir,” Bennie admitted. “It won’t happen again, Uncle Billy.”

The six miles back to camp turned out to be seven. It seemed to the boys that they would never get there. But at last they did. Dumplin’ had a roaring fire going, both in the stove and the camp fire ring of stones. Coffee was ready to boil, and bacon to fry. He had eggs, too, bought from the hotel.

The scouts fell into their tent and ripped off their clothes, getting a rub-down before putting on dry ones. By the time they were ready, their dinner was cooked, and they came out to the table, dragging their feet wearily, and slumped down on the camp chairs.

“Good old Dumplin’!” said Bennie, as he waded into the food, “I never loved you so much as I do at this minute.”

“P’r’aps you’d like to kiss him,” Spider suggested, also cheering up as he felt the warmth of the food.

“No, I’m not strong enough yet to do that,” Bennie laughed.

“You never will be!” Dumplin’ retorted, filling his plate again.

After their supper the boys hung their wet clothes by the camp fire, and huddled by it themselves for a while, but Uncle Billy soon ordered them to bed, and they didn’t need to be told twice.

The doctor came into the tent after they had crawled into the grateful, warm blankets on the comfortable air cushions of their sleeping bags.

“All right?” he asked.

“Uncle Bill,” said Bennie, “it was my fault we crossed the lake. Spider didn’t have a thing to do with planning the trip.”

“No, we were both to blame,” put in Spider. “We knew we couldn’t row all around the lake, and we wanted to see the grotto and Llao Rock both, so we cut across. I—I guess we didn’t really think.”

“We won’t say anything more about it,” the doctor answered. “It’s come out all right. But maybe next time you’ll believe that I know more about this country than you do, and when I ask for a promise, it isn’t just an old maid’s fancy.”

“Yes, sir,” they both answered.

When he had gone out, Spider whispered across the tent, “He’s a peach, your uncle. Gee, he didn’t bawl us out a bit.”

“Made me more ashamed than if he had,” Bennie replied.

“Me, too.”

“I guess we gave him a bad time of it, worrying about us. I guess we deserved to get ours.”

“Well, we got it, all right.”

“Kid, you’ve enunciated a history full!” Bennie answered. “We’re bum scouts. Never again.”

“Never again,” echoed Spider.

They were sound asleep when Uncle Billy returned from a last call on his patient at the hotel and went to bed.