CHAPTER III--Spider Finds a Way to Get to the Rocky Mountains,

to "Pump Joe's Pipes Full of Ozone"

There are no doubt a lot of good people in the world, as Mrs. Clark said, but there is no doubt that a great many of them are forgetful. Tom Seymour found this out in the next few weeks. The scouts meant well, but every two or three days the one whose turn it was to look after the Clark wood and coal and do whatever heavy work there was to be done,--work too heavy for Joe's little brother and sister--would forget the duty. Tom, however, never forgot, for he went there every day, to study his lessons with Joe so Joe could keep up in his school work, and when the kindlings had not been split or the coal brought up, he did it.

"I don't know what I should do without you, Tom," said Mrs. Clark. "I feel guilty, too, because I feel as if you ought to be at home doing it for your own mother."

Tom laughed. "It's a funny thing," he said, "but having this on my mind has stopped my forgetting at home. I used to forget all the time, but now, when I go home, ma's wood-box is the first thing I think of. I kind of got the habit, I guess!"

Meanwhile Tom was turning over and over in his mind plans for getting Joe out into the high, dry air of the Rocky Mountains as soon as school was over. The first thing to think about was how to raise the money to get there. In his own case, it would be easy, because he had over a hundred dollars in the savings bank, which he had earned in the past five years, or which had been given to him at Christmas, and which he had saved up. But Joe had never been able to save his earnings--he had needed them all for his clothes and to help his mother out. It was Bob Sawtelle who solved that problem.

"Let's us scouts give a dance and a strawberry festival for old Joey," he said. "We can all of us pick some strawberries, enough for the feed, an' get our mothers to make cake, an' Bill Andrus's father'll give us the cream from his dairy, an' the girls'll help us serve, an' everybody'll come when they know it's for old Joey, an' there'll be two hundred people there, an' we'll soak 'em fifty cents, and that'll clear 'most a hundred bones, an'----"

"And you'd better take in some breath," laughed Tom, "while I tell you that's a fine idea. It's as good as settled now."

Tom was so sure of the success of the strawberry festival, in fact, that he began at once to consider what they were going to do when they got out West. Here he had to have Mr. Rogers' help. The scout master wrote some letters, and a week later called Tom into the studio.

"I think I've got it," he said, "that is, if you are willing to work, and don't care what you do."

"That's me, when it's for old Joey," Spider declared.

"Well, here's the proposition. Ever hear of Glacier National Park?"

"I've seen some pictures of it in a magazine," said Tom. "Looked good to me, too!"

"I guess it's a pretty fine place, though I was never there. It is up in the northwestern part of Montana, on the Great Northern Railroad, and there are two big hotels in the Park, right under the mountains, and some smaller hotels they call chalets, because they are built like Swiss chalets. A friend of mine who is connected with the railroad tells me these hotels, which open late in June, always need bell-boys. They are so far from any cities, or even any towns of any sort, that it's hard to get labor out there. Now, I guess you could get a job as bellhop all right, though I don't know whether Joe's strong enough to work yet. We'd have to ask the doctor first. If he isn't, my plan would be for you to take your tent along, and two folding cot beds, and get permission to pitch it out in the woods near the hotel. You wouldn't have any other use for your money out there, so you could probably support Joe all right, and he could do the cooking. He's a good cook, isn't he?"

"Sure--the best in the patrol. He's got a merit badge for cooking, you know."

"Of course, they might object to having a tuberculous person in the hotel, but if he kept out in the woods, there wouldn't be any trouble, my friend says. Besides, Joe isn't a bad case. He's plainly getting better all the time. I think we can fix it, if you are willing to take the job, and look after him. Being a bellhop isn't just the job I'd pick out for you, or any boy, if I had the choosing. You have to be a bit of a bootlick, and people will give you tips, which is against all scout rules."

"But the tips won't be for me, they'll be for old Joey," said Tom.

"Exactly. And they will be given to you for work you do. They will really be your pay, for you won't get much other pay. It all depends on how you take them. If you serve people who don't give you tips as well and as cheerfully as you serve the others, it will be all right. We've got to get Joe well, and we can't pick and choose. So I'll put it up to you. I guess I can trust you not to become a tip hog. And if you find any better way to earn Joe's keep out there, where you won't have to take tips to get your living, you take it, won't you?"

"You bet I will!" cried Tom. "Maybe I can become a--a cowboy, or something."

Mr. Rogers smiled. "You'll have to learn to ride a horse first."

"Oh, I can ride a horse."

"You may think you can, but after you've seen a real cowboy ride, you'll know you're only in the kindergarten class," the scout master laughed.

Now that it seemed reasonably sure that he could get Joe to the Rockies, and find a way to live after they got there, Tom went at the task of arranging the strawberry festival. Of course, he made Bob Sawtelle chairman of the "festival committee," because it was Bob's idea to start with. All the scouts whose fathers or mothers had strawberry beds were "rounded up," and a list made of how many baskets could be expected. Little Tim Sawyer, who was clever with a pencil or brush, made several posters to hang in the post-office and the stores. Spider himself wrote some notices for the weekly paper. Mr. Martin, who owned Martin's block, where the festival was to be held, promised them the hall rent free, and as the cream was promised to them, also, and the cakes were made by the mothers, about all they had to buy was the sugar.

"Oh, we're forgetting the drinks!" Bob suddenly cried, "and the music! We can't have a dance without music."

Some of the high school girls, Joe's classmates, promised to furnish the fruit punch, and serve it, too, so that was easily settled. The music--a pianist and two violins--the boys hired from a near-by town, at a cost of fifteen dollars. With the sugar and a few other little expenses, their total outlay was about twenty dollars. The affair was so well advertised, however, and all the scouts went around selling tickets for so many days in advance, that when the evening came (it was a fine night, too, in June), there were two hundred and fifty people in the hall, and the scouts who took tickets at the door were kept busy till their fingers ached. The strawberries were all used up, and Bob and Tom had to rush out to the drug store to buy ice-cream for some of the late comers. That cut into part of their profits, but of course they could not refuse to give something to eat to the people who had paid for it. When the hard work of serving all these people was over, and the dancing had begun, Bob and Tom took all the money into a back room, and counted it up. With the musicians and the sugar paid for, and the ice-cream from the druggist's, there was left a little over ninety dollars clear profit.

"Hooray!" cried Tom, "that'll get old Joey to Glacier Park easy! Now, if I could only hear from my application for a job, we'd start next Monday. School is over. Gosh, there's no sense hanging 'round here."

"Bet you hear to-morrow," said Bob. "I wish I was going, too, Spider."

"Come along," cried Tom. "It's going to be great. I'm going to get a job as a guide, or something, when I get out there and learn the ropes, and climb all over the mountains and maybe see a goat or a grizzly bear!"

"Well, you bring me a bearskin for a rug, and we'll call it quits," Bob answered. "I guess next year I'll get up a strawberry festival for myself. Maybe I can get sick, or something, this winter."

"A lot you can, you old fatty," Tom laughed. "You look about as sick as--as a pig before killing."

Bob nearly upset the pile of money, trying to reach for Tom's head, to punch it.

Sure enough, the very next day Tom did hear from his application. He rushed over to Mr. Rogers' studio.

"Look," he cried. "I get a job all right, but I don't know just what it means. It says I'm to be in charge of the Many Glacier tepee camp, if I turn out to be big enough, and suit the boss. Otherwise, I'll be a bellhop in the Many Glacier Hotel. I'll get forty dollars a month and board at the camp. What's a tepee camp?"

"You know as much about it as I do," the scout master said. "I suppose it's a camp composed of Indian tepees, which the hotel rents to people who'd rather camp out than stay inside. Anyhow, I hope you get that job, for I don't like to think of one of my scouts taking tips all the time, the way a bellhop gets to do. It's un-American. Probably Joe could help you 'round the tepee camp, anyway with the cooking. And speaking of Joe, the first thing we must do is to take him 'round to Dr. Meyer's again, and find out just what he can and can't do, and what you've got to feed him, and so forth. Suppose we go right now."

The doctor gave Joe another thorough examination, from head to foot, and then put him on the scales. He smiled as the weight had to be pushed twelve pounds beyond where it hung in May.

"You see what rest, food and minding the doctor does," said he. "Well, my boy, you're on the mend. As a matter of fact, there isn't very much the matter with you now except a weakened condition and, of course, a tendency to relapse without proper care. A year in the Rocky Mountains ought to make a well man of you."

"A year!" Joe exclaimed. "We're only going for the summer."

"Well, the summer will help," said the doctor. "Keep on eating your milk and eggs, if you can get 'em, but probably after you've been in the woods a while you won't worry much about your food--you'll gobble what you can get, and so long as you feel right, go ahead. I'll give your friend a clinical thermometer to take your temperature, and you must get weighed once in so often. It wouldn't be a bad idea to have a doctor look you over now and then, too, if one comes into the Park. The things you must look out for are over-exertion and exposure. I wouldn't do anything but light work for a month yet, at least, and no climbing or long walks. If you must go somewhere, go on horseback, at a slow pace. And keep warm and dry."

"Well, Joe, that's a fine, encouraging report!" the scout master declared as they left. "You keep on minding the doc, and you'll be a well man."

"He'll keep on minding him, all right, all right," said Tom, putting his arm around Joe's shoulder, and then tightening it around his neck till Joe's head was forced over where he could give it a friendly punch.

Joe started to duck and punch back, but Spider cried, "Here--cut that out! No over-exertion!"--and then the three laughed and hurried on, to make arrangements for the departure of the boys.

Clothing, of course, was the most important thing, and the boys got out their trunks and selected what they would need, with the aid of a folder describing conditions in the Park. They took their scout suits, of course, with leggins, and their heaviest high boots. Tom also added a box of steel spikes and a key to screw them in with. They also took their sweaters, and mackinaws, though it seemed foolish to be taking mackinaws for a summer trip. Then they packed two suits of winter underwear, several pairs of heavy wool socks for tramping, two flannel outing shirts, and rubber ponchos, which both boys had bought the year before when the scouts took a five day hike. Then, of course, they took their knapsacks, and both boys sent for dunnage bags of stout canvas. They took their scout axes and cooking kits, knives, Tom's camera, compasses, and notebooks to keep diaries in. Tom had a folding camp lantern for which they got a box of candles. For bedding, each packed two pairs of heavy double blankets, and Joe's mother insisted on making a separate bundle of a winter bed puff, which, as it turned out later, he was glad enough to have. They also put in their winter pajamas, their scout hats, and some old leather gloves. Finally, they got some packages of dehydrated vegetables, soup sticks, powdered egg, army rations, and tabloid tea, to use on walking trips if Joe got strong enough to tramp. Such condensed and light weight rations, Mr. Rogers thought, probably could not be purchased in the Park.

It was a lovely day, almost at the end of June, when the two boys finally started. There had been a scout meeting the night before, at which Bob Sawtelle, who was to act as patrol leader in Spider's absence, had made a speech for the rest and presented Joe with a pocket camera, the gift of the entire troop. It was a short speech, but to the point.

"Old Joey's pipes have gone on the blink," he said, "and he's got to beat it out West to pump 'em full of ozone. We other fellers thought we'd like to see what he's seen, when he gets back, so we all chipped in and got a camera. Here it is, Joe, and don't try to snap Spider with it, or you'll bust the lens."

Joe tried to make a speech in reply, but he couldn't do it. He just took the camera, and said, "Gee, fellows, you're--you're all to the good."

"And don't you worry about your mother's coal, either," Bob added. "We're going to keep right on fillin' the hods, and if anybody forgets when it's his turn, I'm goin' to beat him on the bean."

"That's a good one," cried little Sam Cowan. "You forgot yourself yesterday!"

"Well, I ain't goin' to forget any more, or let you, either," Bob answered.

Bob and several more scouts, as well as Mr. Rogers, Joe's mother and little brother and sister, and Tom's family, were all down at the depot to see the boys off in the morning. There were kisses and some tears from the women, and a scout cheer from the boys, and cries of "Have you got your axe, Spider?" and "Joe, dear, are you sure you put in your comb and brush?" and "Tom, dear, now don't forget to send mother a postcard just as soon as you get there," and "Say, Joey, bring home a Rocky Mountain sheep's head for the clubroom," and "Hi, Spider, don't forget a grizzly bear rug for me, so my little tootsies won't be cold when I hop out of bed."

The train came, the boys got aboard, it pulled out, and looking back they saw their friends and parents on the platform, waving good-bye, and the church spires and housetops of their village vanishing into the June green of the tree tops.

"Well," said Tom, "we're off for the Rocky Mountains!"

Joe rubbed his eyes. "Sure we are!" he answered. "I kind of hate to leave ma, though, and the kids."

Tom slapped him on the shoulder.

"Sure you do," he said. "But it's so you can come back a husky, well man, to look out for 'em better than ever. Don't you forget that, old scout!"