"I say, fellows, wake up, quick. The slate rock bank is afire!"
It was true enough. As the boys shook off the cobwebs of their dreams, they discovered what it was that had been overheating them in their sleep. The whole bank under which they had built their fire was ablaze and throwing out an intense heat.
The Doctor was the first to grasp the situation.
"Drag the fire away from the bank as quickly as you can, boys!" he cried. "Fortunately the wood is nearly burned out."
That done, the cliff continued to blaze and sputter and the Doctor, who had seized authority and taken control of affairs, called for water.
"Bring it in your hats, boys, or anything else that will hold water, but bring it quick!"
The boys obeyed with alacrity, and when the water came, the Doctor made them cast it only upon the lower parts of the burning cliff.
"We get a double advantage that way," he explained. "We put out the source of the fire, which originates at the bottom, and the steam that rises from water thrown there helps to dampen the fire above."
But the burning had made such progress that it required quite two hours to put it out. When that was done, daylight having completely come, the boys addressed themselves to the work of getting breakfast, by a new fire kindled at some distance from the lately burning bank. The Doctor, meanwhile, was pottering around the bank, breaking off bits of the formation with his little geological hammer, and seriously burning his fingers in efforts to examine them critically.
Finally he seized his axe and with an entirely reckless disregard of its edge, he began chopping into the bank. Even when breakfast was announced, he would not quit his exploration for a time.