CHAPTER XXIV

Back Over the Divide—A Horse Turns Three Somersaults Down the Snow Slope

The doctor, as usual, was first up. He rose at dawn, got the fire and the breakfast started, and then routed out the rest. The peak of Jefferson above them was hidden in mist, and Hunt’s Cove below was filled with white cloud, also. In fact, they looked out over a billowing sea of white, with the sharp lava spires of Three Fingered Jack to the south, rising up like an island.

“Looks like a phantom ship,” said Bennie.

They were scarcely through breakfast, when they heard horses coming up through the timber, and soon the guide appeared, leading a couple of pack animals to take the luggage down. An hour later they were once more in Hunt’s Cove. The luggage was repacked, the boys unscrewed the spikes from their boots and mounted into the saddle again, and Norman led the way almost due south, following a trail up the head wall, instead of trying to get back as they had entered across Grizzly Flats.

“We can get back to the cars this afternoon this way—if we can cross at all,” he said. “But I won’t promise we can cross, doctor. A week ago you couldn’t get up on the other side.”

“Just the same, we’ll try it,” the doctor replied. “Bennie needs some exercise.”

For the next few miles they traveled through woods and across open upland meadows, riding on deep snow. In the hot glare of the sun, they had to put on their glasses again, and repaint their faces. Their lips once more cracked open, and their noses were burnt a still brighter brick red. Then they came to the crest of the Divide, below the long south shoulder of Jefferson, and started down. They realized at once why Norman said it was impossible a week ago to climb up here. There was a drop of a couple of hundred feet where the trail was completely buried in a huge drift, which, Norman said, a week before had an overhang at the top, completely preventing any horse getting over. But this cornice had now melted and collapsed. They dismounted, grasped their horses by the bridles, and started down, taking the slope at an angle to lessen the pitch. The saddle horses got down well enough, but the pack horses, with the top-heavy loads on their backs, could not keep their footing so well, and half-way down one of them fell. He turned three complete somersaults as he pitched headlong. At first the load held, but at the second somersault the hitch slipped, and out burst the load, scattering and tobogganing in all directions—two rolled-up sleeping bags, a tent, alpenstocks, a dunnage bag, a coffee-pot, and what canned goods were still left in their provision supply.

The terrified animal landed in a small fir tree at the bottom, scrambled to his feet apparently unhurt—and made a dash right back up the slope! His fall, his snorts, his sudden dash, threw a scare into the other horses. The saddle horses, of course, were being led, and couldn’t get away, but the pack horses dashed after him.

“Quick!” shouted Norman, “give all the saddle horses’ bridles to one man, and then head ’em off!”

Everybody led his horse quickly to the cook, who tied the bridles to a tree, and then the men and boys ran up the slope as fast as they could, some going to the right, some to the left, in order to surround and get ahead of the runaways, and drive them back.

It was hard work. The snow was deep and soft and wet, the slope very steep, and a frightened horse, with four legs, can climb faster than a man with two. Jeff didn’t help any. He merely dashed wildly around, barking loudly, without sense to head the horses back.

“Call off that chickadee hound!” panted the doctor to Bennie.

The first horse, minus his load, actually got back to the top, and scrambled over, before he could be headed. Norman and Bennie followed him, sneaking on either side through the trees, for a quarter of a mile before he stopped abruptly at a spot where the snow was melted, and began to eat grass. Then they crept up on him, got hold of his rope bridle, and led him back.

By the time the train was rounded up again, everybody was reeking wet with perspiration from their knees up, and soaking wet with snow water from their knees down.

“My head is burning, and my feet freezing, and oh, boy, for a drink!” Bennie exclaimed.

The scattered luggage was collected, the horse repacked, and they moved on. In less than a mile of rapidly dropping trail the snow ceased entirely. The trail grew dry and dusty. The yellow pines began to appear again, and they came to a little lake at the head of a cañon—and everybody, horses and men and boys, drank and drank and drank.

After that there was no more snow, and before long the trail was in a forest of yellow pines, and wide as a country road, and all except the rustler and the cook, who had to look after the pack horses, broke into a trot.

In a couple of hours they reached a fine, clear, racing brook, and a Forest Service camp ground. Across the brook was a real road. The doctor and Mr. Stone trotted on three or four miles to get the cars, while the rest waited for the pack horses, and when they arrived got the packs off and sorted.

When the cars came back, the baggage was transferred to them, the boys said good-bye to Norman, Bennie made the cook shake hands with Jeff, and sinking back into the cushions of the motor cars, the boys sighed with the sudden sense of luxury.

“Beats the saddle of an old cayuse, when you’re tired,” Dumplin’ called from his father’s car.

“Just the same, I’m awful sorry it’s all over,” said Bennie. “I never have worked so hard in all my life—and I never had such a wonderful time.”

“Me, too,” said Spider.

“You’ve got a good time coming, and in about one hour, or less,” said Uncle Billy. “I don’t know whether you’ve noticed that lunch was pretty sketchy today.”

“Sketchy is the word,” Bennie answered. “Gee, it’s three o’clock, and we haven’t had a thing since five A. M.”

“You wait,” laughed the doctor. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”

In a short time he stopped the car at a ranch house beside the great springs of the Metolius River, which gush right up out of the open ground of a green meadow in the heart of the forest, irrigating the whole meadow and making a rich oasis of grass and crops in the arid soil.

“Dinner ready?” he called to a woman on the porch.

“All ready,” she answered.

“How did you order dinner here?” demanded Bennie.

“Radio,” the doctor grinned.

“He telephoned from the Ranger Station when he went for the car, you poor fish,” Spider said.

The two men and three boys washed up and went into the dining-room. There, on a table with a real cloth, was a huge dinner—steak, fried potatoes, green vegetables, hot biscuit, berries. They ate and ate, and when the food was gone the woman of the house reappeared bearing a huge lemon pie, with browned meringue three-quarters of an inch thick, all covered with little golden drops like honey.

“Wow!” yelled Dumplin’. “Lemon pie!”

“Oh,” sighed Bennie, “why did I eat so much steak!”

“I’ll take Bennie’s piece, then,” said Mr. Stone.

“I’d like to see you try!” Bennie answered.

When the pie was gone, everybody sat back and sighed with content.

“That pie was almost as wonderful as Mount Jefferson,” Bennie declared.

“And it didn’t make me dizzy,” said Dumplin’.

“It’s the kind Mother made,” said Mr. Stone.

“Gosh, I wish _my_ mother could!” Spider exclaimed.

“It was a good pie,” said the doctor, “but don’t forget you’ve lived on camp fare for a week. It would have seemed pretty good if it hadn’t been as good as it was.”

“Don’t try to run that pie down, Billy,” Mr. Stone declared. “I will defend that pie with my last breath.”

“All I can say is this——” Bennie began impressively.

“Yes?” the rest prompted.

“I am satisfied with Oregon,” he finished.

“It’s the lemon pie!” laughed Dumplin’.

They rolled into Bend at nine that evening, Jeff was left to sleep in the car at the garage, and for the next hour there was a grand splashing in bathtubs, a washing of clothes, a shaving by the two men, who hadn’t shaved for a week, a patching of burnt noses and cracked lips with salve, and a general clean-up and overhauling.

“Oh, dear!” sighed Bennie, “it’s almost over! I wish we hadn’t been able to get over the Divide today, so’s we’d been forced to go back over Grizzly Flats. That would have kept us out three days more. I don’t want to sleep in an old bed, with sheets!”

“I guess it won’t keep you awake,” laughed Spider. “If it does, I’ll set up the sodas tomorrow.”

But he didn’t have to.