CHAPTER XVIII--Joe Gets Good News From the Doctor, And The Scouts Name

Their Camp, "Camp Kent"

The next morning Dr. Kent arrived, rather cross, at the boys' camp, for the hikers had waked him up early, and he told Joe nothing but a good breakfast would set the world right. Joe did his best, and then put up some lunch for him, and he went off presently in better spirits, to spend the day, as he put it, "loafing with the wild flowers and inviting my soul." Joe also cooked his dinner when he returned at night. The next day, he said, would be his last, and he insisted that Tom go with him up on Grinnell Glacier.

"We'll have a little more practice with the rope," he said, "and you can see if you can tumble into a crevasse the way your friend Joe did."

So Joe, for a second time, took charge of the camp, and Tom left with the doctor, bright and early. It wasn't a hard climb up to the glacier, and they crossed it, using Tom's scout axe for cutting steps when necessary, and the doctor sent Tom ahead a little way up a cliff, and then reversed positions on the rope, and let Tom take number two position. They climbed far enough up on the great gray shoulder of Gould Mountain to look down on the glacier, on the lake far below that, on the green meadow, and then returned leisurely to camp.

On the way back Tom got up courage to ask Dr. Kent what he had been longing to ask him ever since he learned of his profession. That was, to examine Joe. He told his new friend of Joe's condition, and why they were in the Park, and how he was responsible for him, and did not want him to go on trips and do hard work if it wasn't safe.

"I'll see if I can borrow a stethoscope from the hotel," Dr. Kent said. "There must be a house physician there. Then I'll give him the once over, gladly. Anybody who can make coffee like his mustn't be allowed to die! But he doesn't look like a sick boy to me."

True to his word, he got the instrument, and before dinner took Joe into the scouts' tent, stripped him, and examined him very carefully.

"Who told you you had tuberculosis?" he finally said.

"Dr. Meyer," Joe replied.

"What Dr. Meyer--not Julius Meyer?"

"Yes, sir, in Southmead."

"Well, if _he_ said you had, then I suppose you did have," Dr. Kent replied. "But, frankly, I can't find any trace of it in your lungs now."

"But ought he to do hard work?" Tom asked.

"I wouldn't let him over-strain," the doctor said, "and if he climbs, make him climb rather slowly. But out here in this wonderful land I don't believe he need worry much any more. If you can keep him here for a few months more, living this outdoor life, and then if he is careful when he gets back, I think he'll be a well man by the time he gets his full growth."

"But we have to get back to go to school," Joe said. "I couldn't let old Spider lose out on school, even if I did."

"What are you planning to become? What are you studying to be?" the man asked.

"We want to go into the forest service," both scouts answered.

"Oh, fine! That's a coming job, boys, but one that Joe can't take, if he isn't cured thoroughly. Think of this--your life out here is the best training you could have for the forest service. You can afford to miss six months of school to learn how to live in the big woods and the wild places. If you should camp with Mills till Christmas, say, you'd really be going to school, and Joe would be taking tonic twenty-four hours a day. Think it over, boys."

That night, after dinner, which he again ate at the scouts' camp, the tepee camp being again filled up with hikers, he paid Joe at the regular rate of three dollars a day for cooking his meals, and paid for the food, all except the dinner Joe had got ready the night of the first climb, which the scouts declared was their treat. Then he picked up his Alpine rope and handed it to Tom.

"How'd you like this for a souvenir?" he asked.

Tom gasped. "For _me_!" he exclaimed. "Oh, Dr. Kent, I--I--why, what'll you do?"

"I'm taking the bus out in the morning," the doctor said. "I've other ropes at home. You boys might like to do a little climbing. But promise me you'll pick easy grades to learn on, unless Mills is with you."

"Thank you!" Tom cried. "I--I never guessed I'd own a real Alpine rope. Feel of it, Joe--ain't it soft?"

"I move we name this shack of ours Camp Kent," said Joe.

"Carried!" Tom cried. "Camp Kent it is--and I guess we won't forget whom it's named for in a hurry, either."

"Thanks, boys," the doctor laughed. "And I won't forget you. I wish I were going to stay here a month, and use the rope with you. But I've got to get back to the sick people who can't come to the Park for a tonic. Good-bye--and good luck. Joe, keep up the good work--live out-of-doors, keep dry, don't worry, and you'll live to be ninety-nine. Tom--don't forget to test your anchor stone! I'll be out in the morning early, and get my grub at the hotel. Good-bye."

"Good-bye," the boys said.

And when he was gone they looked at each other, at the coil of soft, strong, beautifully braided Alpine rope, and Tom exclaimed:

"Well, by gosh! you never can tell. When he blew in, with those funny old blue socks on, and the spectacles, and his talk about the Matterhorn, I thought he was a freak or hot air artist, and so did Mr. Mills. Instead of that he's a prince--that's what he is, a prince!"

"I never said anything at the time," Joe answered. "But I liked him all along. Gee, I bet he's a good doc, all right."

"I bet he is, too--and he says you're all right now!" Tom cried, giving Joe a punch and a hug. "We can go climbing with this old rope together pretty soon. By jiminy, we _got_ to carry our cameras up a cliff and get some goat pictures. Say, that's the sport! And I'm going to see Mr. Mills about staying on with him, and write home about school, and we'll just stay here and see the snow come, and get our skis sent on, and, gee, it'll be wonderful!"

"If we do that, I got to get busy and earn money," Joe replied. "I'm going over to the Saddle Company offices at the hotel to-morrow and see about another cooking job."

"Go to it," said Spider. "I'm willing, now the doc says it's O.K."

But he didn't have to go over to the hotel. That very evening a bell-boy from the hotel came for him, and he set out the next morning with a party on a four day trip. They went over Piegan Pass again, then up into the Red Eagle country south of St. Mary Lake, then up on to the top of the Divide over Triple Divide Peak, where the water from the snow-fields flows in three directions--to the Pacific, to the Missouri River, and so to the Gulf of Mexico, and to the St. Mary River, then the Saskatchewan River and so to Hudson Bay and the Arctic Ocean.

They descended to the headwaters of the Cut Bank River (so called because of its steep banks) and camped in a lovely canyon. Then, for the next stage, they climbed practically over the old war trail of the Blackfeet Indians, who went across the Divide over Cut Bank Pass to attack their foes, the Flathead Indians, on the west side. Then, for their final stage, they took the so-called Dry Fork Trail, to Two Medicine Lake. This was a thrilling trip, over a portion of the Divide that truly deserved the Indian name of the backbone of the world. At one point the knife-blade ridge was only thirty feet wide, with yawning precipices on either side. The chief guide said, "This is the place where they say you can spit down into the lake three thousand feet on the east, and throw a stone more than that on the west." Joe didn't have to get off his horse and try, in order to believe him. And he was glad enough there was not a gale blowing, too!

The trail finally led down around the base of old Rising Wolf Mountain to the Two Medicine chalets, on the lake, where the party spent the night.

Early the next morning, the party left for the railroad by bus, and Joe went with them to Glacier Park Hotel, where he caught the Many Glacier morning bus back to his own camp. It was a fine trip, with splendid scenery, but he missed Mills as the chief guide, and still more he missed the friendly companionship of Bob, Alice and Lucy, who had made his first trip so much like a family party. On this second trip he was just the cook for a group of three men and their wives. But it meant twelve more precious dollars for his fund--or, rather, it meant six dollars for his fund, and six to send home to his mother.

When he got back "home," as he called it, he found Tom had carved a sign, "Camp Kent," on a piece of board, and nailed it to a tree by their tent. He also found Tom full of an exciting piece of news.

"There's going to be a Blackfeet Indian pow-wow here at Many Glacier to-morrow," he said, "and it's going to end with a barbecue, which Big Bertha says is almost as good as a Hi-yu-Mulligan-potlatch."

"As a _what_?" Joe demanded.

"No, not a _what_, a Hi-yu-Mulligan-potlatch," Tom laughed. "Big Bertha says out in Washington, where he comes from, when they want to give the Indians a good time they give 'em a potlatch, which means a free feed, and a Mulligan potlatch is one where the free feed is Mulligan stew, and a Hi-yu-Mulligan-potlatch is just a jim-swizzler of a potlatch that makes an Indian yell, Hi-yu! Get it now?"

"I get it," Joe laughed. "But what's a pow-wow, and why's it being held here?"

"I guess a pow-wow is short for an Indian good time, and it's being held here to give the folks at the hotel something to look at--as if the mountains weren't enough. The hotel is crammed full, and so are the chalets, and I had three people in every tepee last night. I've been doing nothing since you left but chop wood, and haul water, and air blankets."

"Poor old Tom," said Joe. "Well, I got twelve cartwheels in my jeans--feels like a ton o' coal, too. That'll help toward the autumn. Now I'll help you get the camp ready for the hikers that are coming in to-night."

"It's all ready," Tom answered. "The crowd last night got away early this morning. The Indians are going to get here this afternoon, and set up their tepees down on the flats below the falls. We're going to walk down there now and see 'em come in, so hurry up and get yourself some grub. I've had mine. I was up at five to-day and couldn't wait for your old bus to get in at one-thirty."

"I'll be with you in fifteen minutes," said Joe, as he put some bacon in a pan.