“I am sure of it, and, in order to test the matter—Why, George, it is twelve o’clock!” exclaimed Bob, as he drew his watch from his pocket. “What time was it when we started for the lake? It couldn’t have been much later than five o’clock—could it? Then, we must have been in that dreadful canyon almost seven hours. It didn’t seem so long to me.”
“Well, it did to me!” answered George, with a shudder. “I thought we were never going to see daylight again.”
“So did I,” answered Bob, who was fast recovering his usual spirits. “But here we are safe and sound, and none the worse for our terrible fright. More than that, we have solved the mystery which, like the source of the Nile, was ‘so long a hidden thing to earth.’”
“And our discovery will die with us,” said George, looking up at the tall cliffs which surrounded the valley on all sides. “We shall be prisoners here as long as we live.”
“Not by a great sight,” replied Bob, cheerfully. “We may not get out this week, or this month, but we shall get out—you may depend upon that. Now, then, let’s unload the boat, pitch the tent, and get some dinner.”
“I don’t want anything to eat,” said George.
“Neither do I; but I thought that perhaps a cup of coffee and a sandwich would put a little life and strength into us. Besides, if we keep busy at something we shall have no time to think, you know.”
George was fully sensible of that fact, and so, when he saw Bob jump to his feet and start toward the boat, he got up and went with him, although it required the exercise of all the will-power he possessed to enable him to do it.
His courage and fortitude had never before been so severely tested, and if he had been alone he would probably have thrown himself down upon the ground and abandoned himself to despair. But he could not do that while his companion was so sanguine and full of hope.
He lent his aid in pitching the tent on a little natural lawn, a short distance from the river, and it was not long before he became so interested in his work, and in listening to Bob, who kept up an almost incessant talking, that he forgot all about his wild ride through the canyon, and his narrow escape from death.