CHAPTER XXVIII--Tom Starts on a Long Hike in the Deep Snow, Over the

Divide, Risking Snow-Slides, to Save the Ranger's Life

The Ranger spoke in jest, but in the night the boys were awakened by his groans, and they found his words were anything but a joke. He was suffering terrible pain, in his stomach evidently, and they had never seen anybody look so sick. They scrambled into clothes; Joe made up the fire and put on water to heat, while Tom got out their first aid kit, and made an emetic, which they got down the poor Ranger's throat. The results eased his pain a little, but the boys were certainly scared.

"We _got_ to get a doctor," Tom cried. "We _got_ to--a doctor or somebody who knows what to do. I got to get over Swift Current, and down to Lake McDonald, to the Park superintendent's office. That's all there is to it."

"You can't--you can't!" Joe exclaimed. "Think of that head wall if a slide hit you! Besides, it's thirty miles to the hotel at the head of the lake, and you don't know the way. I do. I'll have to go."

"A lot I'll let _you_ go! No such over-exertion for you, and you just well. Besides, I know the way over the pass and down to Mineral Creek. Then I turn south, through the woods, and just follow the one trail. I couldn't miss it, and if I did, all I'd have to do would be to take the creek bed. I can start before daylight, get to the head wall at sunrise, be over the pass and down the other side before noon, and have five hours of light to make twenty miles."

"What if there shouldn't be any caretaker at the hotel at the head of the lake?" said Joe.

"I'll break in and use the 'phone, and make a fire. Anyhow, I'll pack my sleeping-bag on my back, and get to the superintendent's camp the next morning."

He flew to make his preparations, putting on all his warmest clothes, with extra socks and mitts stowed in his sleeping-bag, while Joe put him up tea, bacon, matches, raisins and sweet chocolate, in the smallest possible space, got his axe and compass, and extra snow-shoe thongs in case of accident, and finally cooked him some bacon and made tea.

"I'm coming with you to the foot of the Swift Current switchbacks," said Joe. "I _got_ to know whether you get up to the top safe!"

"But the Ranger?"

"I can't help him much if I stay--and I guess he's in no more danger than you'll be. Oh, Spider, I _got_ to know if you get up there safe!"

Poor Joe was close to anxious tears as he spoke, and Tom grasped his hand.

"I'll get there!" he cried.

Mills was now only half conscious, moaning on his bed, and the two boys slipped out into the starlight and pushed up the Swift Current trail. It was bitterly cold. Joe carried the pack all the way to the foot of the switchbacks, so that Tom could be as fresh as possible. Then, at the foot, as day was beginning to redden in the east and give light enough to follow the windings of the trail by, for, on this steep slope, even such a deep snow could not quite hide the cuts the trail made in the bank, the two scouts shook hands silently, and Tom started up.

"It's Mills' life, or mine," he said, grimly.

Joe watched him go up, slowly, carefully, following the trail wherever he could detect it by the contour of the snow. Two or three times his snow-shoes started a small slide of loose snow, but as he was above the starting point, it left him secure, rushing down past Joe with a whirl and shower of snow powder. But on this slope, steep as it was, the tiny trees and shrubs seemed to anchor the snow, and there were no large slides at all. After an hour, from far above him, Joe heard a faint, thin, "Hoo-oo!" and knew that Tom was beyond danger.

His heart seemed to come back into his breast again, and with a great sigh of relief he hurried back in the level sunrise light, to the cabin, to do what he could for the sufferer.

There followed for Joe a long vigil, almost helpless, with a very sick man. He gave him hot water to drink, and improvised a hot water bag with a hot stone wrapped in flannel, but he had no medicines, and could do little but watch the poor Ranger suffer, and wonder, and wonder, how Tom was getting on, until a great, dark, ugly cloud suddenly began to come over the top of the Divide, from the west, and his wonder changed to fear and then almost to terror. It looked as if the worst blizzard of all was raging already on the west side of the range, where Tom was tracking, all alone, miles from any human being, in the deep forests of the canyon!