Unexplored!. Chaffee Allen

extra supplies?”

      “There is always fish,” Norris reminded him.

      “One gets tired of fish. I say let’s take plenty of grub, if we’re going away off where for weeks we may not see a living soul to buy a pound of bacon of. Eating’s half the fun of camping. And if we get up there on the John Muir Trail, we can’t even catch fish, can we – always?”

      “That’s the stuff!” seconded Ace. “If we aren’t tied too tightly to the problem of rustling grub, we will be freer to roam where we please. But gosh! Won’t it take a whole train-load of burros to pack enough stuff? Five men, three times a day, that’s fifteen meals. And thirty days would make it 450 meals. Besides we’ll eat just about double the normal number of calories, – the way I feel already. And twice 450 meals is 900.”

      “Whoa, there!” begged Norris. “How much can a burro carry, anyway? We can’t take all our food, or we’ll have such a pack-train we won’t have time for anything but donkey driving, and if we carry feed to keep them going on the trail, we’ll have to take more burros to pack the feed, and they will have to have feed too, and – there’s no end to it.”

      “Well, of course we’ll fish, when we can,” amended Pedro. “And we can take compact rations, dried stuff, instead of watery canned goods. They’re just as good, aren’t they? Only the water’s been taken out of them, and we can put it back in each night before we eat it. What’s the use of packing tin cans that are mostly full of water?”

      “I wouldn’t call canned peaches mostly water,” retorted Ace, who though less dependent than the plumper Pedro on his three square meals per day, was even more particular what those three meals tasted like.

      “It isn’t only the juice,” said Pedro. “The peaches themselves are half water. Dried peaches are the same thing except for that, and two pounds of dried peaches will go a whole heap farther than a two-pound can, let me tell you!”

      “All right,” said Ace. “Dried peaches! What else? Mr. Norris, you’ve had a lot of experience on these back-country trips.”

      “H’m!” said the young Survey man, his eyes lighting reminiscently. “Did you ever eat black bean soup with salt pork and garlic to flavor it?”

      “I have,” said Pedro. “It’s a meal in itself, with black rye bread and dill pickle. And what about fried frogs’ legs and watercress? Broiled mushrooms, stewed mushrooms and onions, and crayfish soup?”

      “Sounds good to me,” Ace admitted. “But have we a mushroom expert in our midst? I’m not ready to commit suicide just yet.”

      “Nor I,” laughed Norris.

      “Nobody asked you to,” Pedro looked aggrieved. “Goodness knows I’m no expert, but I do know a few kinds, and I know those few kinds for sure.”

      “Hot dog!” commented the Senator’s son. “Go to it, ol’ boy!”

      “Then,” Norris continued, “there’ve been times in my life when I didn’t turn up my nose at corned beef hash browned.”

      “And spuds!” Ace completed the recipe. “And onions.”

      “Dehydrated,” Norris admitted. “Can’t carry potatoes for more than the first few days, and dried onion is just as flavorful as fresh.”

      “An onion a day – ” began Ace.

      “Keeps everybody away,” finished the young Survey man laughingly. “And that reminds me of apples, – dried apple pie, apple pudding, apple dumplings, (baked or boiled), apple fritter, (made with pancake flour), and apple pan-dowdy with cinnamon.”

      “Pan-dowdy!” queried both boys.

      “Yes, when the cook has to roll it out with a bottle, or an oar handle, or a smooth stone instead of a rolling pin, and perhaps bake it in the frying pan, and he hesitates to label the result, he terms it pan-dowdy, and then nobody has any kick coming if it isn’t exactly flesh, fish or fowl, if you get me.”

      “We get you!” grinned Ted, who had thus far been a silent partner to the plans. But as usually happened at such times, he had been doing a lot of thinking. He now added his contribution: “How about rainbow trout broiled with pork scraps, and served with horseradish? Let’s take a bottle of horseradish.”

      “Dried horseradish and a grater,” amended Pedro.

      “All right. Then there’s trout baked with tomato and onion sauce, trout baked in clay, trout boiled for a change, with lemon, (we could start the trip with a few), trout skewered, griddled, baked in ashes, baked on a stone, fried – of course, and roasted and stuffed with sage. Let’s take sage. Then how about cold boiled trout salad with mustard dressing, and fish chowder a la canned milk, with dry-dated – what do you call it? De-hydrated potatoes and evaporated onions? Eh? And garlic isn’t such a bad idea. It’s the handiest little bit of flavoring I know of, – if we all go in for it alike.”

      “We’ll all go in for it good and strong,” winked Ace.

      “Strong is the word,” chuckled Norris.

      “Anyway,” Ted defended his suggestion. “I’ve camped through the back-country a heap in my time, and I’ve generally found it isn’t the sameness of the fish-three-times-a-day that lays you out, but the lack of flavorings. Now I even take caraway seed to give a different flavor to a batch of biscuit, and raisins, or some anise seed, or a little strong cheese, that you can grate into it or on it and then toast it till it melts. Then there’s cinnamon and cheese toast for dessert, and plain cinnamon and sugar melted on white bread makes it just bully! And why do we have to eat white bread all the time anyway?”

      “Of course we’ll have cornmeal and buckwheat in our pancake mixture,” said Norris.

      “Bully! But why not take part rye flour too, and part oatmeal to mix in? It bakes fine and flaky. And there’s oatmeal cookies mixed with peanut butter and sweetened!”

      “Good!” Norris pronounced.

      “Y’r all right, kid!” Ace thumped affectionately on his thin shoulder blade, “y’r all right,” but at the threatened repetition of the bearlike caress, Ted dodged.

      “Another idea,” Pedro broke in. “Why eat bread all the time anyway? Why not macaroni and cheese, and spaghetti and tomato paste?”

      “And garlic?” teased Ace.

      “Surest thing you know! And vermicelli, and noodles, and all those things. They’re all made of flour, and they’re different.”

      “A little bulky,” protested Norris.

      “Oh, well, for the start of the trip, then. They’re not so heavy, parked up on top of a burro’s regular pack.”

      “Good!” agreed the leader of the expedition. “We may come to cattle ranches where we can get beef and mutton occasionally, though not after we get into the higher altitudes. And we can start off with a few fresh eggs, for compactness and safety broken a dozen at a time into glass jars. After that – I don’t know whether you fellows would like scrambled eggs or not, made of egg powder. Personally I don’t. Nor the famous erbswurst.”

      “Aw!” drawled Ted, barely concealing his impatience. “The thing that stands by you best on a hard trip, after all, is jerky and pemmican. I think old Lester jerked some venison himself last fall, and he’s probably got it yet. And he’ll grind us some pemmican, if we get him word before he starts.”

      “Gee Whiz! Those are emergency rations!” vetoed Ace.

      “We’ll have to have a long distance conversation with him to-night,” said Norris. “Meantime we mustn’t forget pilot biscuit and peanut butter for a pocket lunch and shelled peanuts, of course, and rice, and tea and coffee, and sugar, and baking powder.”

      “There are two things that can compactly,” conceded the Castilian boy at this point. “The best grade of canned beets and spinach are pretty solid weight. I’ll make no kick if we load on some of that until we get to the steeper grades.”

      “Hey!”