Westy was still laughing as he climbed the hill. He was thinking that these two companions of his were pretty good scouts after all. In his mood of dissatisfaction with himself and modern scouting, it had not occurred to him that being a good scout consists not in getting along with nothing, but in getting along with what you happen to have. A little way up the hill he looked back and could see Ed sitting on a rock, one foot cocked up in the air with several strands of worsted about it. He seemed to be bent on the task of braiding these and there was something whimsical about the whole appearance of the thing which amused Westy and made him realize his liking for this comrade who was of another troop than his own.
Reaching the summit of the hill he saw that the tree he had seen from below was not as isolated as it had looked to be. It was a great elm and rose out of a kind of jungle of brush and rock and smaller trees. These near surroundings had not been discernible from the distant road. A given point in Nature is so different seen from varying distances and from different points of view.
But the hill was not disappointing in affording an extensive view southward. There was no object in that direction which gave any hint of Yellowstone Park, but probably much of the wild scenery he beheld was within the park boundaries. It was significant of the vastness of the Park and of the smallness of Westy’s mental vision that he had expected to behold it as one may behold some local amusement park. He had thought that upon approach he might be able to point to it and say with a thrill, “There it is!” He had not been able to fix it in his mind as a vast, wild region that just happened to have a tame, civilized name—Park.
There was something very peculiar about this great tree and Westy wondered if some terrific cyclone of years gone by might have caused it. Evidently it had once been uprooted, but not blown down. At all events a great rock was lodged under its exposed root, causing the tree to stand at an angle. It seemed likely that the same wind-storm which had all but lain the tree prone had caused the rock to roll down from a slight eminence into the cavity and lodge there. Great tentacles of root had embraced the rock which seemed bound by these as by fetters. And under a network of root was a dark little cave created by the position of the rock.
Westy poked his head between the network of roots and peered into this dank little cell. It smelled very damp and earthy. Some tiny creature of the mountains ............