'I dreamed,' he said, 'that I was a coward, that you called me one, Frank, and then they put me on a roasting-jack for a punishment, and hung me on to the bottom of the world, and I went round and round and round——'
'Here, dry up that soft talk,' interposed Dick roughly, 'we don't want no talk of dreams here: you get a knife into that tin, Towzer, and let's have breakfast,' and, so saying, the old man handed the boy a tin of meat and a knife, 'just to prevent him thinking,' as he explained later on.
'I think he is all right now,' said Frank after breakfast, 'let's tell him a little; we can't go on like this.'
'Very well, but take care how you do it,' assented Dick.
Then they told him, not all, but most of that last day's doings, concluding with: 'And when we got you on the rope you must have bumped your head against the rock, or spun round until you went nearly silly and fainted; and so now you must keep quiet and promise not to look over the edge again until we give you leave. Is that a bargain?'
'Yes,' sighed Towzer, 'I suppose it is; but I must be a terrible nuisance to you fellows. What a little brute you must think me!'
All that day and the next the boys lay in their narrow bed watching the sun rise and set, and the clouds go hurrying by. Sometimes a few rugged brown clouds would drift up, and then a little flurry of wind and rain would almost wash them out of their exposed position, while the balloon creaked and strained at her moorings in an alarming fashion.
'Snap,' said Dick on the second day, 'them Injuns can't see the balloon from below, and they're getting more daring, now they think the great bird has gone.'
'How is that, Dick?' asked Snap.
'Well, you see we have drawn the balloon out of sight by mooring it close alongside among these crags. Leastways I reckon that's so, for the Crows have come out of cover. Look for yourself.'