Page:Jackson Gregory--joyous trouble maker.djvu/133

Rh sojourn in French Meadows he began to look forward with keen appetite to becoming acquainted with certain delicacies which he knew Rice and Turk would have considered necessities, tins of tomatoes and fruit, prunes and perchance a few cans of tamales and a bottle of beer. Such are the dreamings which draw men back from the trail and to the door of civilization. He even found himself longing for an impossible cup of fresh milk. When he awoke one morning with a craving for something to read, be it only an old newspaper, he recognized the summons and, having breakfasted, made into an exceedingly small package what provisions remained to him, rolled his bedding, took up his rifle and turned back toward the Goblet.

"It's been paradise for a week," was his way of regarding the matter, "No man can stand heaven for any longer than that. Now, maybe, we'll get a chance at the old thing."

Because in the woods it is the pleasant thing to go by one trail and return by another, Steele having come to a certain remembered forking of the ways turned off to the left, meaning to come back to the Goblet from the west and above, whereas he had left it going downstream and toward the east. The way he chose now was a mile or two longer, a little harder, but he had all day to devote to the handful of miles and still craved new wide spreading panoramas from new ridges. So, pure chance and a man's whim shaping the event, it came about that he did a very fortunate thing.

It was slow going at best and therefore the afternoon was well advanced when Steele came up over the