"Yes; a nice sort of bed! Nothing but rough sage-brush, crumbling up as soon as it's moved, and looking like so much gritty imitation tea."

"Same sort of bed as we had, squire, and we don't grumble. Why, you're not half a fellow. Like to go back perhaps?"

"That I shouldn't!" snapped out Ned, so suddenly that his mustang started and had to be checked and soothed. "Can't a fellow speak? I don't want to grumble, but it is so monotonous."

"You said that before," cried Chris banteringly.

"I know, Clevershakes!" retorted Ned. "And now I say it again. I've as good a right to speak as you have. If you don't like the word monotonous, I'll say dull and stupid. It's ride and walk, ride and walk."

"And walk and ride, walk and ride," said Chris, imitating his old companion's words and tones. "No adventures--nothing to see."

"Not even a rattlesnake," said Griggs softly.

"Look here, Mr Griggs," snapped out Ned, "I wish you wouldn't keep interrupting me when I'm speaking. It's precious rude."

"I beg your pardon, sir," said Griggs politely.

"Well, don't do it again," said Ned shortly.--"Phew! How hot it is!

I'm sure it's ever so much hotter than it has been before."

"Much," said Chris, with his eyes twinkling, but he looked straight before him. So did Griggs, and Ned went on--

"It's just as if the sand got to be red-hot and all the heat was reflected back in one's face. I wouldn't care, though, only it's so dull and monot--dreary!" the boy snapped out, looking sharply from one to the other as if to see whether another remark was about to be made respecting his repet.i.tion; but neither of his companions moved a muscle of his face, and he went on murmuring in the same irritable way--

"There seem to be no fish to catch, no birds to shoot. I wouldn't have believed that there could have been so much miserable desert if I hadn't seen it. I quite thought that by this time, after getting right away from all settlements and into the wildest of the wild country--"

"What!" said Griggs sharply. "Oh, nonsense! Wildest of the wild? Why, this is nothing to what we've got to come. We haven't seen a regular good mountain yet."

"No, nor yet a wild beast. I thought we should have had plenty of adventures with them by now."

"Oh, that's what you mean, is it?" cried Griggs, with mock seriousness, giving Chris a peculiar look at the same time, as if asking him to back up any a.s.sertions that he might make. "You expected that we would spend half our time shooting lions and stalking tigers?"

"Yes," said Ned, pa.s.sing his hand over his eyes and shaking his head, as if the heat had made him sleepy and giddy. "_No, no_!" he added hastily. "Of course I know that there are no lions and tigers here.

You're laughing at me."

"Well, it's enough to make a cat laugh to hear you go on finding fault, when here we are in a regular wonderful country, such as I should never have expected to find so soon. Of course I know that it wouldn't do for a plantation, but here we are, just at the beginning of rising ground, and a mile or two further we shall be all amongst rocks and stones, and, for all we can tell, we shall come upon the sugar up yonder among those mountains rising up as if they were growing out of what was a plain."

"Sugar? What sugar?" said Ned, staring.

"Well, the gold amongst the three sugar-loaf mountains shown on the chart."

"I only wish we could find it," said Chris.

"Well, have patience, and the more patience you use up the more you'll want. We shan't find the gold without."

"But I'm like Ned," said Chris thoughtfully; "I think as he does, that it does seem wonderful that there should be such a lot of regularly useless land in the world. Look at this: as far as we can see it's so salt and dry that nothing will grow. Stones and sand, and sand and stones, and all of no use at all."

"Who says so?" said Griggs coolly.

"Why, I do; you heard me."

"Yes, you say so, but what do you know about it? You say it's of no use because it's of no use to you; but you know nothing at all about what may be underneath all this sand and stone."

"Nothing at all; not even water," cried Chris.

"You don't know. There may be gold or silver or lead, tin or copper, or some of those minerals that chemists and such folk use. I don't like to hear you grumble, my lad, about things when you've only just looked and not tried. What about precious stones--diamonds and rubies?"

"Or pearls perhaps," said Ned, with a sneer.

"Yes, or pearls," said Griggs, and the boys both burst out laughing heartily.

Ned's tide of ill-humour had turned.

"Got me?" said Griggs gravely. "I say, you are clever ones!"

"Well, I like to hear you make a blunder sometimes, Griggs. You often have the laugh at us; now we've got one at you."

"Yes, you are clever ones," said the American grimly, "but you're wrong this time. You're both grinning and looking at one another as much as to say, Hark at old Griggs! He's forgotten that pearls come out of oysters and oysters live in the sea."

"Of course," cried the boys together.

"Yes, of course, and I don't know that there mayn't be fossil oyster sh.e.l.ls somewhere about here with pearls still in them. I've seen sh.e.l.ls sometimes looking quite pearly inside though they've been buried in rock no end of time. You didn't hear your father say only day before yesterday that all this salt desert land must at one time have been the bottom of the sea. What do you say to that?"

"Oh!" said Chris thoughtfully, and Ned pushed his broad-leaved hat a little on one side so as to scratch his ear.

"You're right, though, after all, about lions and tigers, and so was I.

Only they're American lions and tigers--pumas and jaguars, and pumas without any manes, and jaguars with spots instead of stripes. Wait a bit, and we shall come upon some of them. Not here, though; it's not likely sort of country for them, but there's mountain land yonder piled-up higher than we shall be able to take our mustangs and mules.

We shall find watercourses soon, and that means trees and gra.s.s and quite a different climate. The sort of place where we're quite likely to find Uncle Ephraim at home."

"What, grizzly bear?" cried Chris excitedly.

"That's the gentleman," replied Griggs; "and as like as not after crossing a ridge or two we may come upon buffalo."

"What, in the mountains?"

"Perhaps. More likely in the plains. There, don't you chaps grumble any more. Your fathers have got quite enough to think about without having to talk to you about being a little more plucky and patient."

"Yes, I know," cried Chris, wincing; "we're only grumbling to you."

"Oh, then I don't matter?"

"Not a bit. You're such a good-tempered, patient chap, and you seem like one of us. But I say, Griggs, do you really think we are going to find a change in the country soon?"

"Certain."

"Oh come, that's better! We have had enough of sand and sage-brush, and we do want a regular change."

"You'll get it, then, and I dare say before night. Can't you see that we're on the slope of the mountains now?"