I'll be ready soon 's you are."

"Most of the sports go by boat, Mr. Babbitt. It's a long walk.

"Look here, Joe: are you objecting to walking?"

"Oh, no, I guess I can do it. But I haven't tramped that far for sixteen
years. Most of the sports go by boat. But I can do it if you say so--I
guess." Joe walked away in sadness.

Babbitt had recovered from his touchy wrath before Joe returned. He
pictured him as warming up and telling the most entertaining stories.
But Joe had not yet warmed up when they took the trail. He persistently
kept behind Babbitt, and however much his shoulders ached from the pack,
however sorely he panted, Babbitt could hear his guide panting equally.
But the trail was satisfying: a path brown with pine-needles and rough
with roots, among the balsams, the ferns, the sudden groves of white
birch. He became credulous again, and rejoiced in sweating. When he
stopped to rest he chuckled, "Guess we're hitting it up pretty good for
a couple o' old birds, eh?"

"Uh-huh," admitted Joe.

"This is a mighty pretty place. Look, you can see the lake down through
the trees. I tell you, Joe, you don't appreciate how lucky you are to
live in woods like this, instead of a city with trolleys grinding and
typewriters clacking and people bothering the life out of you all the
time! I wish I knew the woods like you do. Say, what's the name of that
little red flower?"

Rubbing his back, Joe regarded the flower resentfully "Well, some folks
call it one thing and some calls it another I always just call it Pink
Flower."

Babbitt blessedly ceased thinking as tramping turned into blind
plodding. He was submerged in weariness. His plump legs seemed to go
on by themselves, without guidance, and he mechanically wiped away the
sweat which stung his eyes. He was too tired to be consciously glad as,
after a sun-scourged mile of corduroy tote-road through a swamp where
flies hovered over a hot waste of brush, they reached the cool shore of
Box Car Pond. When he lifted the pack from his back he staggered from
the change in balance, and for a moment could not stand erect. He lay
beneath an ample-bosomed maple tree near the guest-shack, and joyously
felt sleep running through his veins.

He awoke toward dusk, to find Joe efficiently cooking bacon and eggs and
flapjacks for supper, and his admiration of the woodsman returned. He
sat on a stump and felt virile.

"Joe, what would you do if you had a lot of money? Would you st