“Wasn’t there a lot of gas coming up with the steam?” asked Ace.
“Yes, but it didn’t taint our food any. It was an ideal steam cooker. Farther down the valley were some vents hot enough to fry bacon.”
“I should think it would have steamed it,” said Ted.
“No, we found one vent where the steam came so hot that it didn’t condense for several feet above ground; the only trouble was that the frying pan had a tendency to go flying up in the air and the cook had to have a strong arm to hold it down.”
At the picture his memory evoked, Norris burst into hearty chuckles. “As the bacon got crisp, of course it didn’t weigh so heavy, and there always came a point where it began to fly out of the pan. Then we’d all stand around, and it was the liveliest man that caught the most breakfast.
“There was another camp convenience, too, there in Hades, as the valley has been named.”
“Thar, didn’t I tell you so?” triumphed Long Lester.
“And they named the river Lethe. A river that ran down from the melting glaciers,—though it almost all goes up in smoke, as it were,—in steam, before it gets out of the hot part. This river whirls along, and in places the steam actually boils up through the ice water, or along the banks. I used to think it was an awful pity there were no fish in that stream, because we could have cooked them without taking them off the hook.”
“Huh!” The old prospector shook his head. “I’ve thought all along this here was a fish story.”
“But it’s gospel truth,” Norris assured him. “I mean about the valley. I said there were no fish. Everything we ate, by the way, had to be packed in on our backs. It was no place for horses, where in places the ground fairly shook beneath our feet, and if it were to give way, we’d find ourselves sure enough in hot water.”