“Tremendous!” echoed Dick. “Who on earth ever saw the like?”
“I’ll bet on old P. D. every time,” chuckled Doctor Dan, relaxing his gravity for once and indulging in a hearty laugh. “It don’t seem to strike you as comical as it does me, boys. It’s one of the funniest things I ever saw.”
Dick failed to see where the laugh came in, but he said nothing and for some time they stood watching for the reappearance of the monsters, but the moments passed and they did not come to the surface again.
“There must be more than one Plesiosaurus,” remarked Dick, as they sat at supper; “by the way, Doctor, you were going to tell us of your discovery and how we could capture old P. D.”
“Why, there is a cove around on the western shore that has a very narrow entrance,” replied Doctor Dan. “There are great stones scattered all around there and there is one that I am sure would choke up the entrance if it was dropped between the ledges. Now if we could rig up some sort of a snare in the cove with the ropes we have brought and then pry the boulder over into the break and choke it up we would have our friend P. D. hard and fast.”
“Always providing he is obliging enough to go into the cove and run into our snare,” said Dick. “Well, we will take a look at it in the morning and see what we can make out of it. I’m dead tired now and I’m going to turn in.”
The tents had been moved further up the bank and as Doctor Dan had agreed to watch until morning Dick and Charley now wrapped themselves up in their blankets and put in a good night undisturbed.
Doctor Dan had no news to report in the morning and after breakfast he went up on the ledges, wrapped himself in his blankets and went to sleep there, telling the boys that they need not trouble their heads about him, but just do whatever they pleased.
“Let’s try the underground passage, Dick,” said Charley. “I’m wild to know if my theory is correct.”
“If I knew where we could dive and strike it I’d say yes in a minute,” replied Dick, “but I could never locate the place and I don’t care about running the horses around to the other trail without Doctor Dan.”