"We'd be in a position to guess what it was, better than before," Bob went on.
"That's a fact," laughed Frank. "And if, as lots of people think, this old mountain is a played-out volcano, perhaps we might even smell the sulphur cooking, by sticking our noses down into some of these crevices in the rocks."
"Now you're joshing me, Frank!" declared the Kentucky lad, reprovingly.
"I am not," replied the other, immediately. "Suppose there was any truth in that fairy story about the fires away down in the earth here; don't you think a fellow might get a whiff of the brimstone if he was Johnny on the spot? Why, honest now, Bob, it was on my mind to find some sort of cave up here, and go in just as far as we could. Don't you see the point?"
"Oh! I reckon I do, Frank. You take little stock in that yarn; but, all the same, you think we ought to look into it, now we're on the ground?"
"That's it, Bob. Why, even my dad kind of favors that idea, and I want to either prove it a fake, or learn that there's something to it."
So they lay there, lazily enough, instead of climbing farther up the side of the mountain. It was very pleasant to keep in the cool shade of the trees, with that trickling little stream so near, for, as the afternoon advanced, it seemed as though the air became very oppressive.
Frank was looking up at the sky many times, and finally his companion asked him what was on his mind.
"I don't pretend to be a weather sharp," Frank replied; "but, all the same, there are signs up there that've got me guessing."
"Well, it is clouding up some," replied Bob, as he swept a look around at what they could see of the arch overhead. "Perhaps the long drought is going to be broken at last, Frank. Your father will be tickled, if it turns out that way. He's been complaining of late about the stock having to hunt twice as far away from the ranch for forage. A rain would make things green again."