"Oh, it's nearly always hot around these mountains," replied the artful Lanky. "Folks say it's because some of them used to be volcanoes ages and ages ago, and the fires must still be burning deep down."
But Paul scoffed at the fantastic idea, knowing full well Lanky was only "drawing the long bow" for his especial benefit.
"If you look," remarked Frank quietly, "you'll notice that it's clouded up; and with all this high temperature I wouldn't be surprised if we had some rain before morning."
"Let's hope, then," added Lanky, and really meaning what he said, "that it isn't to be one of those terrific cloudbursts Zander was telling us about at supper. I like swimming, all right! But excuse me from being swept on a boiling torrent down an old canyon half a mile long, to be kicked out on the prairie like a knocked-about bag of meal."
"Well, Jerry knew what he was about when he picked out this particular point for our camp," Frank went on to say confidently.
"We'll pin our faith on Jerry, then," said Paul, trying to appear quite unconcerned, though his heart did beat faster than its wont as he surveyed the myriad of sharp-pointed rocks and enormous boulders marking the course of the crooked defile.
Another thing the watchful Frank noticed later on told him Jerry Brime did not mean to be caught entirely unprepared, should any sort of impending disaster break over their heads.
He himself took the trouble to do up their pack of stores after supper was over, a most unusual thing, and arrange so that at a moment's notice it could be secured on the back of the pony.
The animals, too, were kept saddled and bridled, as though in readiness for sudden flight. Frank wondered what sort of time they could make going down that dreadful gap in the face of the mountains in the dead of night, and with a million obstacles lying in wait to bring about trouble.
They needed no blaze that night to keep the chill away; it seemed strangely suffocating, a fact that might account for the unusual wakefulness on the part of the three boys.