No one was anxious to examine the contents just then; they were all in a hurry to get back to camp and quench their thirst, and away from the scene of their late adventure. No apparent change had taken place in the surroundings of their camp, and they made a fire and sat down to rest and eat.
"Poor old Columbus!" said Morton. "I cannot help feeling sorry for the old ruffian. He was a real plucky fellow. Do you remember how coolly he walked in to us the morning we got here?"
"Yes, and after all we had no business—according to their ideas—to interfere with their little rites and ceremonies. They treated us in a friendly fashion."
"After all, however, things turned up trumps for us. We would not have had the ghost of a show in a fight amongst these boulders. No, we must thank that earth-tremor for being alive now."
After their meal was over and the four somewhat rested, Morton proposed a stroll to the crater to see how it had fared, for not a single report had been heard since the one accompanying the eruption of mud.
A wondrous change had taken place, they found. The crater, or what they had taken for one, had subsided, and over its site now flowed an unbroken sheet of water. The mud on the boulders and the turbid condition of the water were the only signs of the late convulsion of nature.
"And so," said Brown, "the burning mountain, such as it was, is gone for good, and we are the only white men living who have seen it, who will now ever see it."
"That's so," commenced Morton, when he was interrupted by a footstep from behind. They all turned hastily.
Scarred, bleeding, and burnt, a most miserable object, there stood Columbus, the only survivor of his tribe. He looked abjectly and imploringly at the whites—apparently it was to their power he attributed the disaster that had happened,—and came forward with a crushed and broken air, gazing woefully at the space where the crater had been.
Brown beckoned, and the blackfellow came up to them.