CHAPTER XXV

Bennie Loses Jeff, but Brings Home Something Else to Last Him Many Years

The doctor routed everybody out at five the next morning.

“It’s the last time, boys,” he said. “But we’ve got to get an early start today. I must make The Dalles tonight, and Portland tomorrow night. My vacation is over then.”

“Don’t go back on _my_ account,” said Bennie. “I’ll stick around the mountains another week or two with you, if you really want me to.”

“Yes, and I’ll stick, too,” Spider laughed.

“I wish we could,” Uncle Billy answered. “But while we’re getting hard and healthy, a lot of folks up in Portland are getting sick, so you see I have to be back. Hustle along, boys. No time to lose!”

It was so early that they had to get breakfast at an all-night lunch room, where Bennie bought some meat scraps for Jeff, who was still on the job. He had slept in the car that night.

“Good gracious, are you really going to take that mutt back with you?” his uncle demanded. “All the way East?”

“You’ve said it. Why, I bet he’d follow the train, if I didn’t take him. He appreciates me at my true value, this blooded collie does, don’t you, Jeff, old thing?”

Jeff responded by leaping up and licking his face.

They were off at six, and rode all day northward through the “desert” country, sometimes down in the bottom of bare, desolate looking cañons, sometimes up on the plateau where nothing but endless miles of sage brush lay between them and the Cascades. In the morning Jefferson was the nearest mountain, and they could see the whole eastern face, snow-white and precipitous, with the summit pinnacle looking from this distance like a tiny little white button on top. Later they had to descend by a long, winding road cut out of the bank, without any guard rails, into the Deschutes Cañon, across the river on a bridge, and climb out on the other side. As afternoon came on, Jefferson dropped behind them, and Mount Hood grew nearer, 11,225 feet of snow, shaped like an almost perfect pyramid.

Again they descended into a cañon, and climbed out of it for six miles by a road so steep that they had to keep in low speed all the way, so narrow Bennie prayed they wouldn’t meet anybody, and without any sign of a guard rail, or fence, or wall, to keep a car from skidding off into the hole below.

“Say, if I drove a car out here much, I’d have nervous prostration,” Spider said, as Uncle Billy crawled past a descending Ford, with his right wheels about eight inches from the rim of the cañon.

“And if I had to drive down Fifth Avenue, I’d probably have it,” the doctor laughed.

The sun was setting as they finally came into a region of orchards and endless grain fields, hit a good road, and whizzed rapidly down hill, steeper and steeper, into the gorge of the Columbia River, and ran right into a thriving, lively town called The Dalles.

While the cars were being looked after in a garage, Bennie went to a butcher’s shop to get some more food for Jeff, fed him, and put him up in the car again, for the night. Then they all went to the hotel, registered, got the dust off their faces and clothes, and went in to dinner.

The next morning Jeff was not in the car. The garage man said he stayed there a while the night before, and then, when nobody was looking, evidently jumped out and ran away.

“Oh, gee, he was looking for me!” Bennie cried. “I ought to have tied him. Poor old Jeff, he’s just hunting for me, all over this town!”

“Too bad,” said Uncle Billy. “But he’ll find a home somewhere—he seems to make friends easily, and your mother’ll be awful glad.”

“Well, I got to find him. Please drive around town while I look for him!”

“But I have to be back in Portland, Bennie. I’ve got to be at the hospital tomorrow morning.”

“Aw, just ten minutes! Please!”

“Well, we’ll take a look. Get in.”

They started slowly down a residential street, Bennie hanging out of the car and whistling. One block, two blocks, three blocks they went, turned a corner, and began on another street.

Suddenly Spider gave a yell. “Hi, Bennie, there’s your pup!”

The doctor stopped. Sure enough, in a yard beside a small house, playing with a boy of ten, was Jeff!

Bennie jumped out, ran to the gate, and whistled.

Jeff cocked his ears, looked toward Bennie, wagged his tail, took three jumps toward the fence—and then turned around and went back to the small boy!

“Sure, Bennie, that dog would follow your train all the way to Chicago,” laughed Spider.

“He appreciates you at your true worth,” called Uncle Billy.

“Just the same, he’s my dog, and I’m going to have him!” Bennie said, angrily, laying his hand on the gate.

“Hold on,” said his uncle. “Is he your dog? Where did you get him? Seems to me _he_ has most to say about whose dog he is. He chose you, so’s he could get a trip to the mountains, and now you’ve quit camping, he’s chosen this kid.”

“Well, he chose me first.”

“Come here, son,” the doctor called to the small boy, who came to the gate, Jeff at his heels. “Where did you get this dog?”

“He followed me home from the store last night,” said the boy. “He’s a fine dog. Is he yours?”

“He’s mine,” said Bennie, sternly. “Come here, Jeff!”

At the sound of his angry voice, Jeff got behind the small boy’s legs.

“I didn’t do nothin’ to make him follow me,” the little fellow said. “Honest, I didn’t. He just came. Ma said I could keep him. I—I never had a dog.”

He was almost in tears, both because he thought he was being accused of stealing Jeff, and because he feared they were going to take his new pet away.

“Have a heart, Bennie,” Spider said. “He wants the pup worse than you do.”

Bennie hesitated, but his fondness for Jeff was too much. “No, sir, he’s my dog,” he declared.

“Let Jeff decide it,” said Uncle Billy. “He doesn’t really belong to either one of you. That’s fair, isn’t it?”

“Yes, I guess so,” Bennie confessed.

“Now, you go ten feet up the sidewalk. Son, you walk down as far as that tree. Spider, hold Jeff till they are set. Now, both of you, call him!”

“Here, Jeff! Here, Jeff!” called Bennie.

“Come here, Buster, Buster!” called the little boy.

Spider released Jeff as they called—and the pup jumped up and licked Spider’s face!

“Gee whiz, he’s _my_ dog!” Spider shouted, while the doctor sat in the car and roared with laughter.

“Try again,” he said, after a second.

The two boys called once more, and Jeff, without hesitating longer, sprang to the little fellow, nearly knocking him down.

“All right, you keep him,” Bennie declared. “He’s a fool pup. I won’t guarantee he’ll not run away from you tomorrow.”

“I bet he _won’t_!” the little chap declared, throwing his arms around Jeff’s neck.

Bennie didn’t look back.

“Yes,” Uncle Billy mused, “Jeff certainly regarded you at your true worth, Bennie. He was certainly a one-man dog, too, true to his master till death.”

“Aw, quit it,” Bennie pleaded. “I always really knew he was a mutt, but I—I was kind o’ fond of him, just the same.”

“Never mind,” said Spider, “you’ve done your good turn for today. You’ve given him to that kid.”

“Yes, I have!” said the honest Bennie. “He did the good turn, I’ll say. He gave _himself_ to the kid. A lot I had to do with it!”

They picked up the Stone car at the garage again, and set off at last for Portland, down the Columbia Highway, which is one of the finest motor roads in the world. It is laid out beside the great green river, sometimes down on the bank, beside the railroad, sometimes climbing up a thousand feet to the top of the cliffs, sometimes cut out of the sides of the cliffs, sometimes having to go right through a headland of lava by a tunnel. All the way through the Columbia gorge, from The Dalles nearly to Portland, the car rolled along the wide macadam highway, with the green river on one side, and the towering cliffs and waterfalls on the other, or else climbed up and down these cliffs by cleverly engineered grades.

The highest waterfall they passed was Multnomah, which dropped hundreds and hundreds of feet over the cliff, almost on the very road. And near it were several superb basaltic lava pinnacles, towering 2,000 feet above the car.

“Oh, Uncle Billy, haven’t we time to stop and have a try at that one?” Bennie cried, pointing to a great dome-like pinnacle which jutted out from the cliff like the tower at the front of a church.

“That’s St. Peter’s Dome,” his uncle said. “We wouldn’t have time to climb that if we had a year. Nobody has ever succeeded in getting up it.”

“Why not?”

“Because a couple of hundred feet or so below the top, it is not only perpendicular all around, but the wall overhangs a shade. Nobody can climb an overhung precipice. I suppose we could carry up a coast guard mortar, and shoot a rope over the top, and then hoist you up in a breeches buoy, maybe. But I’m afraid there won’t be time to do that today.”

“You folks out here have it pretty soft, I’ll say,” Bennie commented.

“How’s that?”

“Why, all you have to do is get in a car and drive out a few miles on a macadam road, and there you are right at the foot of rock climbs so hard nobody has ever climbed ’em! Out East, we either have to sail to Europe and tackle the—the Spitzes, or else ride 3,000 miles across the U. S. A. when we want a climb. I’m going to get a job in Oregon when I get through school.”

“So you’re satisfied with Oregon?” his uncle laughed.

“I’ll tell the world I am!” Bennie answered.

They rolled into Portland in time for dinner, which they all ate at Dumplin’s house. The next day the scouts spent in packing their trunks, and seeing the city with Dumplin’ for a guide. They took the evening limited for home. The doctor took them to the depot, and Mr. Stone and Dumplin’ came down to see them off. The depot was full of men and women, in khaki clothes, with packs and alpenstocks. They were members of the Mazamas, going to take another train to get them to Diamond Peak, for a week’s climbing.

“If one of them spoke a kind word to me, I’d swap my ticket East in three and four-fifths seconds, and go with ’em,” Bennie declared. “I don’t want to go home, Uncle Billy.”

“Don’t you want to see your father and mother?” the doctor asked.

“And get your little old Algebra out and nicely dusted?” added Dumplin’.

“’Course I want to see the folks, but I don’t want to leave these old mountains,” Bennie answered. “I guess Spider and I will never forget old Jefferson. And say, Mr. Stone, don’t you forget you’re going to send us the movie films when they’re printed. We’ll have ’em at the Town Hall, for the benefit of the Boy Scouts.”

“I won’t forget. And don’t you forget you’re coming back some day.”

“A swell chance of forgetting that!” laughed Bennie. “And don’t forget, Dump, that you’re coming East to college, with Spider and me.”

The train was made up now. The boys shook hands and shouted a dozen more messages of farewell as they went through the gates and climbed aboard.

It was dark when the train got up into the Columbia gorge. They saw no more of the Cascade Mountains. The next ones they saw were the Rockies. There was little snow left now, in mid-August, on the Rockies.

“Give me the old Cascades,” said Bennie.

“Just the same, I’d like to stop off a few days and climb the Rockies, and see Glacier Park, and Yellowstone Park, and the Grand Canyon, and——”

“Did you say a few days?” Bennie laughed. “Spider, you and I have got to get busy the next few years, and make a bunch of money, so’s we can really see America.”

“We’ve done pretty well for one summer, at that,” Spider answered. “And I’ll tell you one thing, it’s up to us to do something to pay for it. I’ve got a scheme, too.”

As they traveled homeward, Spider developed his scheme. It was to raise some money for the scouts by showing Mr. Stone’s movies, and with the money have a lot of signs made, to mark trails with. Then Spider and Bennie and the scout master, maybe, would lead the scouts in opening up footpaths for trampers over the highest hills and cliffs around Southmead. Some of these trails used to exist, but they had long since grown over, and the summer boarders were always getting lost trying to find them. But many of the wildest places, the spots where there were the best views, had no trails at all.

“We’ll make trails,” Spider declared.

“Yes, and we’ll build some shelter lean-tos where we can go and spend the night,” Bennie offered.

“Sure, and we’ll make some easy trails, and some hard ones, with cliff climbs in ’em.”

“Sure, and put warning signs on the bad ones—‘Dangerous—only for experienced climbers.’”

“Like us,” Spider laughed. “Seriously, though, I bet we can do a lot to help the scouts and the town, and everybody, and have a lot of fun, and you and I can survey and map out the trails first, and get our merit badges in hiking that way, at the same time!”

“Great!” cried Bennie.

They continued to lay their plans all the way home, but they forgot them for a day or two in the excitement of greetings, and seeing their parents, and the old town, and all their fellow scouts. Bennie spent half his time for the next few days trying to cut up wood and weed the drive, while half a dozen boys stood around, making him tell them about Crater Lake, and the climb up Llao Rock, and how Dumplin’ fell on Jefferson.

But after the first week was over, and they had settled back into the life of Southmead, Spider and Bennie got together with Mr. Rogers, the scout master, and outlined their trail plans. He was enthusiastic about them, and they set to work at once, with the help of his suggestions. They went out every afternoon till school opened, hiking through the woods and up the small 2,000-foot mountains around Southmead, surveying practical routes for paths, and making sketch maps. After school opened, they had to abandon the daily trips, but got in long ones on Saturdays. By October they had enough work planned out to keep the scout troop busy for months, and the task of opening the trails with scout axes, brush hooks, and pruning shears began.

The first trail opened was an old, steep path, long since overgrown by laurel and other bushes and small trees, up the mountain to the top of the cliffs the boys had climbed the previous winter. It took them five Saturdays, working with a gang of ten scouts, to get this trail, two miles long, cleaned out. By that time, Mr. Stone’s pictures had come, and the scouts made twenty-five dollars by exhibiting them at the Town Hall, so that everybody could see what the Oregon mountains were like. Mr. Rogers kept the money, and the first use made of it was to have three or four white signs made, to mark the newly-cut trail. Every sign carried, in black letters, the name of the trail—“Cliff Path to Monument Mountain,” and, below, the name of the organization erecting it—“Southmead Boy Scouts.”

As soon as these signs were ready, the troop took them out and put them at the proper places—at each end, and at the points where old wood roads crossed, to make confusion.

During the winter, Spider and Bennie hiked on snowshoes many miles, over all the surrounding hills, trail planning, and visited the scouts in the next town, planning with them a foot-trail over the long, rocky ridge of wooded hills between the two villages. When spring came, this work, too, was started, the two troops working from their respective ends. They finally met at the town boundary, erected a shelter there, and had a big camp fire and celebration.

By the end of the summer, Bennie and Spider saw real results—not so many as they had planned, but yet enough to cause the local Board of Trade to get out a little trail map for summer visitors, which Spider was asked to draw, and to cause the summer visitors to hike in larger numbers than ever before. And wherever they hiked, on the new trails, they saw the neat signs to guide them, posted by the Boy Scouts.

“It’s fine work, boys,” said Mr. Rogers, after the two scouts had passed their examinations for merit badges in hiking. “We’ve got a long trail to the next town, we’ve got one up Monument, we’ve cleaned the old path to Eagle Rock, and we’ve built one to the Cave. If we keep these cleared out, and add one new one a year, we’ll soon have Southmead the best town for tramping in the United States!”

“Just the same,” said Bennie, a little wistfully, “I wish I was going to climb old Jefferson tomorrow, where there isn’t any trail at all!”

“If you hadn’t climbed him, though, you wouldn’t have been so keen for this work we’ve been doing,” Spider said. “It’s because we got into the real wilderness that made us want to help folks around here to get out and hike.”

“Right—as usual,” Bennie laughed. “I’m not kicking. It’s great stuff, making trails. I like it. But some day!—Oh, you Crater Lake, I’m going back to you!”

“We might get in shape for it by taking a crack at the Monument cliffs tomorrow,” Spider laughed. “We haven’t climbed them since spring.”

“You’re on,” said Bennie. “Let’s carry packs and blanket rolls, and hike on down the other side, and spend the night at Wilson Pond.”

“That’s only fourteen miles—I’m your man,” cried Spider.

“’Course, it isn’t much, but it’ll keep us in condition,” Bennie declared, with great pretended airiness of manner. “We’ll hike back home in time for breakfast.”

Mrs. Rogers, who overheard this conversation, came out on the porch when the boys had gone.

“Bennie’s a great joker,” she laughed.

“He is—and he isn’t,” the scout master answered. “As a matter of fact, it _is_ fourteen miles to Wilson Pond, over the mountain, and as a matter of fact, those two boys _will_ get up tomorrow at four, have a swim, and be home for breakfast at half-past seven or eight.”

“Now you’re the joker,” his wife laughed.

“You take a climb with them once, and see how much of a joke it is,” said he.

THE END

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By Walter P. Eaton _Scouting_ The Boy Scouts of Berkshire The Boy Scouts in the Dismal Swamp Boy Scouts in the White Mountains Boy Scouts of the Wildcat Patrol Peanut—Cub Reporter Boy Scouts in Glacier Park Boy Scouts at Crater Lake Boy Scouts on Katahdin

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Transcriber’s Notes

--Copyright notice provided as in the original—this e-text is public domain in the country of publication.

--Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and dialect unchanged.

--In the text versions, delimited italics text in _underscores_ (the HTML version reproduces the font form of the printed book.)

End of Project Gutenberg's Boy Scouts at Crater Lake, by Walter Prichard Eaton