“Oh, I’ll listen all right,” replied [Dick]. “Trouble is he won’t talk now.”
“No; you’ve got him mad. Say, Dick, you never told me much about your folks. I know your father and mother are both dead, but——”
“But you still persist in thinking that I may turn out to be a millionaire. No, Charley, I’m just nobody. My father was a mining engineer and poor as a church mouse. He used to operate out in this section, but he never made much more than a living. When I was about ten years old he was killed in a fight in Cheyenne and my mother died soon afterward. She always claimed that father owned mining lands out West, but she had no papers to prove it, so I guess there was nothing in it after all.”
“Now there you are!” cried Charley. “Who knows but what Mudd might have been acquainted with your father?”
“Might be so, of course, but, come. We have gone too far away from the hut. Let’s get back. We mustn’t do it again.”
“Let’s go ahead to the Boiling Pot; it’s only a few steps further. Hark! Don’t you hear? It has got down to business again.”
The surging of the waters over at the pot could be distinctly heard as the boys drew nearer and when they reached the point on the shore opposite to it the noise seemed louder than when they had heard it before.
Charley bent over the edge of the bank watching the movement of the water intently.
Just then the same familiar bellow was heard out on the lake and the Plesiosaurus rose to the surface at a considerable distance from shore.
“By gracious, old P. D. again!” shouted Charley.