CHAPTER XIV

Bennie Takes a Day Off to Do a Good Turn—He Washes All the Dirty Clothes

The next day neither of the scouts felt much like strenuous exertion. Their arms ached from pulling the boat, and they both had blisters on their hands, and the excitement had left them rather tired.

Mr. Stone looked at them while they were eating breakfast.

“Well, Bennie,” he said, “what are you and Spider going to do today? I can’t seem to think of anything left around here that will give you as much exercise as you want. Of course, you haven’t yet run all the way down the trail and run all the way back again. You might try that. Or you might row to Llao Rock and tow your other boat home, before the launch has to go for it.”

“Naw, that’s too easy,” Bennie grinned. “I kind of thought we might hike around the rim road. How far is it—forty miles? We’d be back in time for dinner.”

“A good idea!” Uncle Billy exclaimed.

“What’s a good idea?” asked Bennie, beginning to be sorry he’d made the joke.

“A hike,” said the doctor.

Spider and Bennie groaned.

“Not today!” the doctor laughed. “Tomorrow, maybe. We haven’t had a real hike yet, and I heard you talking the other day, didn’t I, Bennie, about wanting to work for a merit badge in hiking?”

“Where’ll we hike to—how far?” put in Dumplin’. “Look at those two lovely automobiles, just doing nothing. Don’t seem right to me to let ’em loaf so.”

“Well, you can stay back in camp, and have the wood all cut and the dinner cooked for us when we get back,” said his father.

“Yes, I will!” Dumplin’ retorted. “I may be fat——”

“It’s just possible,” put in Bennie.

“I may be fat, but I can keep goin’ as long as any of you, I guess!”

“You may not be so fat when we get back,” Uncle Billy went on. “I think it would be a great idea to give Bennie some regular exercise, about tomorrow, also the day after, and the day after that. We’ll hike over to the base of Mount Scott, because that’s the highest point around here, packing our blankets and grub. Then the second day we’ll climb Scott, and the third day we’ll hike back again.”

“Ho, that’s no hike at all, if you take three days for it!” Bennie said. “I been looking on the map. It’s less ’n ten miles from here to the top of the mountain, and the top is only 8,938 feet high, so it’s only a 2,000-foot climb.”

“How much better you know this country than I do,” said his uncle, quietly, “and how skilfully you can read the contour intervals on a map. Well, you may go over and back the same day, if you want to. The rest of us will take three, however.”

Bennie turned red. “I—I guess I’m a dumb-bell,” he stammered.

“It’s just possible,” Dumplin’ put in, while the rest shouted with mirth at the hit.

Spider, meanwhile, had gone to his pack and got out the government topographical survey map of Crater Lake Park.

“Do we go along the rim?” he asked.

“More or less. We’ll have to climb part way up Garfield, and then find a way down on the other side, and work along back of Dutton Cliff to Kerr Valley.”

Spider was studying the contour interval lines of the map closely now.

“Let’s see, we go up at least 500 feet for a start, and then we go along a mile or two, and then we—holy mackerel!—then we drop right down ’most a thousand! And then——”

“Yes?” said Bennie.

“And then we go up again ’most a thousand, and then we walk a mile, and then—jumping bullfrogs and little fish hooks!—then we just fall down, let’s see, about a thousand feet into Kerr Valley. That’s less than 6,500 feet above the sea. Scott is almost 9,000. We’ve still got a climb of 2,500 feet ahead of us.”

“Aw, go on, you’re making that up,” Bennie insisted. “You can’t tell all that from the map. Let me look.”

“Maybe _you_ can’t tell,” Spider retorted. “I always told you you didn’t half read a map. Go on—look for yourself.”

And he passed the map over.

Bennie studied it carefully. “I guess maybe you’re right,” he finally confessed. “Well, exercise is just what I need! How’s the path, Uncle Bill?”

“Path!” the doctor laughed. “You’ll cross the rim road at the bottom of Kerr Valley, where it comes down from the rim to get around the cliffs back to the hotel here. But that’s the only path you’ll see. This is going to be a hike, not a Sunday School picnic or a young ladies’ seminary out for a walk.”

“Suits me fine.”

“Good!” said his uncle. “I advise you to rest up for it today, though.”

“I know what I’m going to do today, all right. Anybody got any dirty clothes?”

“I haven’t got much else,” said Dumplin’.

“Fine. Bring ’em out, all of you. Mrs. Murphy’s on the job this morning. I’m going to wash things up.”

“Want me to help?” Dumplin’ asked.

“No, you go off with Spider and collect pretty little flowers. Don’t let ’em bite you, though. They’re wild flowers, remember.”

Everybody groaned at this pun.

“Mrs. Noah threw a belaying pin at her husband for making that one on the ark,” said Uncle Billy.

“What’s the difference,” Bennie began, “between Noah’s ark and Joan of Arc?”

But everybody dove, with another groan, into the tents, to get their dirty clothes.

When everybody but Bennie had gone from camp, he heated a big pail of water, got out a cake of soap, and washed all the dirty clothes, hanging them on a tent rope in the sun to dry. Then he picked up camp as neat as he could, aired all the bedding and remade the sleeping bags, and finally went off and hunted up dead branches for fuel, dragging them back to camp. After lunch, while the rest were loafing, he took the fishing rod and sneaked away unseen, went rapidly down the trail, and working around on the rocks by the shore, managed to hook three trout. He was just coming up over the rim with them when Spider and Lester, wondering at his long absence, had started out to look for him.

“I sure hate a man who pins roses on himself,” Bennie remarked, as he was cleaning the fish for dinner, “but I just can’t help admitting that I’ve been mamma’s little white-haired boy today. I’ve washed all your dirty shirts and socks, and I’ve got wood, and I’ve cleaned up camp, and now I’ve dragged my poor old aching bones down a thousand feet and back again to catch you three sweet little fishie-wishies for supper. Won’t somebody please say ‘Thank you, Bennie, you are a good boy’?”

“Bennie doesn’t like himself a bit, does he?” remarked Dumplin’, addressing a camp robber in a tree overhead.

“Can’t you prescribe something for his poor old aching bones, Doc?” asked Mr. Stone.

“Try rubbing ’em with a little fish oil, Bennie,” Spider put in.

“I think I shall prescribe exercise,” Uncle Billy laughed.

“Well, of all the ungrateful bunches, you sure get the loving cup!” Bennie exclaimed. “I hope you all choke on a fish bone.”

“The Bible says virtue is its own reward, Bennie,” remarked Mr. Stone.

“Pretty skinny pickings for some of you guys, then,” Bennie grinned.

But after supper Uncle Billy strolled out with Bennie to the point of Victory Rock, to see the lake like a great blue mirror in the twilight, and he said, quietly:

“We were all much obliged to you for what you did today. Never mind the joshing.”

Bennie laughed. “Ho! I didn’t mind. Can’t get my goat so easy as that! Besides, the old Bible is right, I guess. You don’t do a good turn because you’re going to be thanked for it. You do it ’cause it makes you feel better inside.”

“That’s the idea, exactly,” Uncle Billy answered. “Bennie, you’re a good scout. Your heart is just where it ought to be every time. The only trouble with you is that you haven’t quite got your head working yet. If you are going to amount to anything as a mountaineer or explorer—anywhere in the wilderness—you’ve got to learn to use your head, and never bite off more than you can chew. Will you try to remember that?”

“I sure will, Uncle Bill,” Bennie answered. “I’m awful fresh, I guess, and I talk a lot, but I’m learning right now, every day. You just sit on me hard when I need it.”

“You needn’t worry about my doing _that_,” the doctor grinned.

“No, you’re some sitter,” said Bennie.