“Grizzlies? Oh, hundreds of them! But they’re away back up in the mountains; you won’t see them.” “They’re about the fiercest animals there, aren’t they?” one of the boys asked.
“Well,” drawled the traveling man, working his cigar over to the corner of his mouth and contemplating the boys in the shrewd way he had. “I don’t know about that. The wallerpagoes are pretty ructious. But they don’t bother you unless you bother them. Now you take a skehinkum, one of the big kind——”
“You mean the kind with the whitish black fur?” Warde Hollister laughed.
The traveling man worked his cigar over to the opposite corner of his mouth and looked at Warde with an expression of humorous skepticism. “Don’t you learn about them in the boy scouts?” he asked.
“Oh, positively,” said Warde. “They’re all right is long as you don’t feed them on gum-drops.”
The traveling man was having the time of his life with the three boys. They called him the traveling man because they thought he looked and talked like one. They had ventured to ask him his business and he had told them that it was starting revolutions in South America. He had even hinted that he was in a plot to blow up the Panama Canal, and had asked them not to mention this to their parents. He had said that if they kept his secret he might later let them in on a scheme to restore North America to its rightful owners, the Indians. “Wrap it up and we’ll take it and deliver it to them,” Warde Hollister had said.
Throughout the long journey they had wondered and speculated as to what and who this amusing stranger really was. And they had decided in conference that he was a traveling salesman. He seemed to have a hearty contempt for the boasted prowess of boy scouts, but the three boys did not dislike him for that. In the pleasant art of jollying they had been able to hold their own. And he seemed to like them for that. But he would not take them seriously.
They had told him about tracking and signaling and outdoor resourcefulness and woods lore and he had been pleased to poke fun at them about their skill and knowledge. He had appeared to derive much entertainment from this pastime. Pee-wee Harris (Raven and mascot) would have been able to “handle” him, but unfortunately Pee-wee was not on this trip. So the responsibility for defending the dignity of scouting fell to Warde Hollister, Edwin Carlisle and Westy Martin.
“And bandits?” Westy asked.
“Bandits? Oceans of them! They spurt right up out of the geysers,” said the stranger.
“What could be sweeter?” said Eddie Carlisle.
“Can’t you answer a civil question?” Westy asked, the least bit testily.
“Things have to be civil to suit you, hey?” the traveling man said. “Anything uncivilized: and——”
“We’re asking you if it’s true that there are train robbers and men like that in the park?” Westy said.
“Sure there are,” said the stranger. “Where do you suppose they buy their post cards to send home?”
The three boys seemed on the point of giving him up as a hopeless case.
“Why? Do you want to go hunting them?” the stranger asked.
“We wouldn’t be the first boy scouts to help the authorities,” Warde said.
This seemed to amuse the traveling man greatly. He contemplated the three of them with a kind of good-humored, sneering skepticism. Then he was moved to be serious.
“Well, I’ll tell you how it is,” he said. “The Yellowstone Park is really two places; see? There’s the wild Yellowstone and the tame Yellowstone. The ............