“Or pearls perhaps,” said Ned, with a sneer.
“Yes, or pearls,” said Griggs, and the boys both burst out laughing heartily.
Ned’s tide of ill-humour had turned.
“Got me?” said Griggs gravely. “I say, you are clever ones!”
“Well, I like to hear you make a blunder sometimes, Griggs. You often have the laugh at us; now we’ve got one at you.”
“Yes, you are clever ones,” said the American grimly, “but you’re wrong this time. You’re both grinning and looking at one another as much as to say, Hark at old Griggs! He’s forgotten that pearls come out of oysters and oysters live in the sea.”
“Of course,” cried the boys together.
“Yes, of course, and I don’t know that there mayn’t be fossil oyster shells somewhere about here with pearls still in them. I’ve seen shells sometimes looking quite pearly inside though they’ve been buried in rock no end of time. You didn’t hear your father say only day before yesterday that all this salt desert land must at one time have been the bottom of the sea. What do you say to that?”
“Oh!” said Chris thoughtfully, and Ned pushed his broad-leaved hat a little on one side so as to scratch his ear.
“You’re right, though, after all, about lions and tigers, and so was I. Only they’re American lions and tigers—pumas and jaguars, and pumas without any manes, and jaguars with spots instead of stripes. Wait a bit, and we shall come upon some of them. Not here, though; it’s not likely sort of country for them, but there’s mountain land yonder piled-up higher than we shall be able to take our mustangs and mules. We shall find watercourses soon, and that means trees and grass and quite a different climate. The sort of place where we’re quite likely to find Uncle Ephraim at home.”