own to camp again--and we arrived, a very different
party from that which had gone out twelve hours before. It was a sorry
home-coming. But we must not lament or complain over what was our own
fault. We must do our best to turn it to account. We must be Scouts.

We made Jed comfortable on a blanket bed. His leg we let alone, as the
bandage seemed to be all right. And his shoulder we of course let alone.
Then we took stock. Major Henry decided very quickly.

"Jed can't travel. He will have to stay here till his wounds heal more,
and Kit Carson will have to stay with him. I'd stay, instead, because
I'm to blame for wasting some men and some time; but the general passed
the command on to me and I ought to go as far as I possibly can. We'll
fix Kit and Jed the best we're able, and to-morrow we'll hustle on and
make night marches, if we need to."

This was sense. Anyway, although we had wasted men and time, we were now
stocked up with provisions; all that bear meat! While Fitzpatrick and
Red Fox Scout Ward were cooking supper and poor Jed looked on, two of us
went at the meat to cut it into strips for jerking, and two of us
stretched the pelt to grain it before it dried.

We cut the meat into the strips and piled them until we could string
them to smoke and dry them. We then washed for supper, because we were
pretty bloody with the work of cutting. After supper, by moonlight, we
strung the strips with a sailor's needle and cord which the Red Fox
Scouts had in their kit, and erected a scaffolding of four fork-sticks
with two other sticks laid across at the ends. We stretched the strings
of meat in lines, back and forth. Next thing was to make a smudge under
and to lay a tarp over to hold the smudge while the meat should smoke.
(Note 60.)

Pine smoke is no good, because it is so strong. Alder makes a fine sweet
smoke, but we didn't have any alder, up here. We used aspen, as the next
best thing at hand. And by the time we had the pelt grained and the meat
strung and had toted enough aspen, we were tired.

But somebody must stay awake, to tend to Jed and give him a drink and
keep him company, and to watch the smudge, that it didn't flame up too
fierce and that it didn't go out. By smoking and drying the meat all
night and by drying it in the sun afterward, Major Henry thought that it
would be ready so that we could take our share along with us.

If we had that, then we would not need to stop to hunt, and we could
make sho