"Oh, about everything. The responsibility for this car and the setting up of your balloon, and the trip itself."
"Are you?" exclaimed Ned.
"My, no, I'm not. But then I'm not the captain. But I thought you might be."
"Aren't we getting along all right?"
"Perhaps too well," Alan answered.
"Never talk that way," interrupted Ned decisively. "Everything is happening as it does because we planned it just that way. Things can't go too well. That is a foolish idea. The good fortune of careful preparation should only confirm your judgment."
This was the sort of advice Alan had to take now and then from his friend; but it always did him good.
"Then you don't believe in good luck?" rather sheepishly suggested Alan.
"I believe in it, yes," replied Ned, "if it comes—and I never put it aside. But I never count on it."
Sleep seemed to have fled from Ned's eyes. Although Alan suggested that it might be well to turn in early and be up early, Ned insisted on seeing Major Honeywell's chart of the country they were to explore, saying that he had another night on the journey in which he could sleep.