He shook his head. Since that time when he told me about the Ice Stone, he'd never mentioned it again. But I had noticed him squinting at all the mountains we passed, and sometimes I'd see a queer expression on his face, like a man who catches himself doing something that hasn't got good sense back of it.
In fact, by the end of the week, I had about decided that he didn't have any better idea as to why we'd come out here than I did.
I think it was on the seventh day that we came upon a queer-looking country—isolated masses of rock, like big blocks, sticking up out of the ground. Beyond these was a range of low mountains, or big hills, whichever way you look at it.
"We'll camp here for a day," said Doc. "How's the water?"
"About gone," I told him.
"Good," he nodded. "We'll run the truck up to the foot of those big hills and find some."
I headed that old bus for a sort of fold in the hills ahead, and when the ground began to get pretty rough we stopped and went on afoot, each carrying a couple of empty water buckets. It wasn't long before we found a shallow stream.
"There may be a spring farther up," said Doc.
He started splashing along the creek bed, for it was bordered by dense thickets of "jangal"—birch and box—through which you could scarcely squeeze.
I followed him. Pretty soon I smelled smoke.