Jack reached over to clasp his chum’s hand strongly, and Mr. Hampton regarded the two with a little smile of sympathy.
“I feel the same way, boys,” he said. “This is something I’ve always wanted to do. Yes, it is good to be alive and starting out on an adventure of which no man can guess the end.”
“Just a boy, you are, my friend,” said Don Ernesto, jestingly. “But I, too. I, too. Come, let us get forward.”
CHAPTER VIII—JACK HAS A MISHAP
Of that trip during the ensuing days there is little of moment to record. Sometimes they advanced less than five miles a day. Sometimes, where the going was easy, through a valley leading in their general direction, perchance, where there was little underbrush and the benchland along the stream gave firm footing, the distance travelled was considerably more.
But, whether the going was easy or hard, whether few miles were covered or many, there was not a foot of it all that was not intensely interesting to the boys, and not only to the three New York lads, but to Ferdinand as well.
Steadily they mounted higher into the mountains, skirting precipices of which sometimes the bottom could not be seen. On one occasion, as they made camp at night upon a lofty meadow against the shoulder of a mountain on one side, and with a precipitous drop on the other, they looked over the edge into the abyss and drew back frightened.
“Why, you can’t even see the bottom,” exclaimed Jack. “It’s hidden by the clouds.”