“All lite!” said the Chinese dutifully, and then he ceased his lamenting and dancing and hurried into the cabin.
Making sure that the scattered fire would burn itself out harmlessly, Tinny chuckled again and remarked:
“I guess we’ll eat soon, boys, and you, especially, Chunky. I seem to remember you had a great liking for chow.”
“I haven’t gotten over it yet!” laughed the fat lad.
“But what happened?” asked Ned.
“Oh, the same thing that’s happened before,” replied the mine owner. “Hang Gow once discovered that a few drops of gasoline on damp wood makes a fine blaze. I’ve cautioned and threatened him, but it hasn’t seemed to do much good. This is what probably happened. He is very fond of an Oriental dish called birds’-nest soup. He gets the ingredients direct from China—they come by mail. It is a sort of gelatin compound. He’s given me some, but I can’t say I like it any more than I’d like shark fins. However, he thought he would be giving you boys a delicacy, so he started to make some birds’-nest soup without asking me. I’ve forbidden him to mess up my kitchen with his stuff, so he has to make it in a kettle over an open fire outside.
“He must have been doing that, and, as the fire didn’t burn quickly enough to suit him, he put on some gasoline. He must have found a little in the bottom of one of the cans—I have a small gasoline engine attached to a pump. Hang Gow probably put the nearly empty can, gasoline and all, on the fire and the explosion followed. Luckily, there couldn’t have been more than a few drops of gasoline in the tin or he’d have blown the shack down. I’ll have to lock up the gasoline after this.”
Later the boys found that Tinny’s explanation was the correct one. Hang Gow had had a narrow escape, and it made him a trifle nervous as he served the meal a little later. But the accident had not spoiled the meal, and Chunky was in his element. The other boys, as well as Professor Snodgrass and Bill Cromley, seemed to have appetites almost equal to that of the fat lad, and for a time little was heard but the clatter of plates, knives, forks and spoons.
“Too blad no got blid-nest soup,” murmured Hang Gow, as he brought in the dessert and coffee.