Chapter I: Foreword: (For Parents and Similar People)

It seems to be generally assumed that a story for boys must be crowded full of adventures, and the assumption is doubtless based on experience. This would be all right if the adventures were also based on experience. Unfortunately, however, such is not always the case, and then the result is something that may possibly satisfy an immediate craving of the boy for excitement, but in the long run can only confuse his sense of reality. It is probably more important, in a boy’s development, to clarify his sense of reality than it is to feed his imagination. His imagination, normally, needs very little prodding to carry him away from reality. That is why tales of actual adventure, such as the records of explorers, hunters, and the like, are so worth while for boys. They feed the imagination while, at the same time, keeping touch with the real. They have the lure of fiction, and the solidity of fact.

It has been my steady purpose, in the Boy Scout series of stories which I have written, to bear this in mind. I have not described places with which I was unfamiliar, nor created adventures it was impossible for boys to experience. In the volume preceding the present one, “Boy Scouts in Glacier Park,” I endeavored to give some adequate idea of that beautiful National Park, and hence of a section of the Rocky Mountain wilderness, and the actual adventures one may now encounter therein. Our friend, Bill Hart, of movie fame, may be relied on to supply the other sort of Wild West adventure, without any need of help from me. The response of my young readers was so pleasantly encouraging that I am asking them, in this book, to go still farther West, into another National Park, Crater Lake, and into the Cascade wilderness of Oregon. Whitman’s ride for Oregon was long ago, and today they are building a macadam highway where his horse left a solitary track.

The Cascade Mountains afford numerous opportunities for snow climbing—and anyone who has practiced this noble sport does not need to be told that it supplies plenty of adventure. Snow mountains have a way of withdrawing themselves many miles from human habitation, and a pack train is scarcely to be afforded save by those who have reached years of comparative discretion, so I have no fear of sending youngsters out alone to start up the Roosevelt Glacier. If, however, I can inspire some few of them to persuade their fathers to take them into the high places, I know that both they and their fathers will ultimately thank me.

But chiefly, in the end, I want young America to know and to love and to preserve what is left of the American wilderness.

W. P. E.

_Twin Fires,_
_Sheffield,_
_Massachusetts._

CONTENTS

I. Bennie Visits the Public Library and Gives Spider a Surprise 13
II. Bennie Takes the Rope Up His First Cliff 19
III. How Bennie Earned a Trip to Oregon 31
IV. Bennie and Spider Cross the Continent 39
V. All Aboard for Crater Lake!—and Dumpling in the Other Car 50
VI. Bennie and Spider Have to Make After-dinner Speeches, and
Bennie’s Knees Knock 57
VII. Held Up by the Snow, with the Thermometer at 86° 68
VIII. Up the Rim of Crater Lake at Last, Through the Snow-drifts 75
IX. The Mountain That Fell Into Itself 83
X. Down the Rim to the Lake—The Boys Ski on a Crater Snow-drift
in July 88
XI. Dumplin’ Tests the Strength of a Snow Cornice on Garfield
Peak 106
XII. Bennie Climbs the Mast of the Phantom Ship and Knows He Has
Done Something 113
XIII. The Scouts Are Driven Ashore by a Storm and Have to Climb
Llao Rock—and They Learn a Lesson 122
XIV. Bennie Takes a Day Off to Do a Good Turn—He Washes All the
Dirty Clothes 137
XV. The Long Hike—The Scouts Find Packing Grub and Blanket Rolls
Up and Down Cliffs is Hard Work 144
XVI. The Climb Up Scott Peak—Bennie Begins Work for a Merit
Badge for Hiking 154
XVII. Good-bye to Crater Lake, and a Motor Trip to Bend 167
XVIII. The Boys Encounter “Pep,” Who Promises Them a Bear Hunt 174
XIX. The Bear Hunt—In Which the Boys Discover that the Bear
Doesn’t Do All the Hard Work 178
XX. Bennie Achieves a Dog, and the Party Puts Out a Forest Fire 206
XXI. The Pack Train Has to Toboggan Into Hunt’s Cove, and Bennie
Puts “Action” Into It 221
XXII. The First Attempt at Jefferson—Dumplin’ Almost Falls to
Death—The Hardest Work the Boys Ever Did 234
XXIII. The Summit is Conquered! 262
XXIV. Back Over the Divide—A Horse Turns Three Somersaults Down
the Snow Slope 273
XXV. Bennie Loses Jeff, but Brings Home Something Else to Last
Him Many Years 280

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE
Pack Train Descending to Hunt’s Cove. Mount Jefferson in the
Distance. (_Frontispiece_) 222
Crater Lake—Wizard Island, and Over it Llao Rock 80
Campers at the Rim of Crater Lake. Mid-July Snow in Foreground 88
The Boys Sliding Down Wizard Island Crater (Enlarged from a
Movie) 98
The Boys Walking on the Snow Cornice of Garfield Peak (Enlarged
from a Movie) 108
Looking Across Hunt’s Cove to Jefferson. Dotted Line Shows Route
of Climb; Arrow Points to Place Where Dumplin’ Slipped 252
Crossing the Divide Near Mount Jefferson, on July 25th. Three
Fingered Jack in Distance 274
Saint Peter’s Dome and Columbia River. Mount Adams in Far
Distance 286

Boy Scouts at Crater Lake