“Answer in our next issue!” grinned Alex, wrinkling his nose at Teddy, who was trying to crawl up the table leg.
“I’m going back to bed,” Case announced, sleepily. “There’s nothing likely to happen, and the conversation carried on by you fellows is irrelevant and immaterial. It will be three hours before daylight shows out on the plains, and four or five before this wrinkle in the world’s surface gets any of it.”
So he crawled off to his bunk and Captain Joe took possession of the sleeping place usually occupied by Alex while Teddy climbed into Clay’s bunk and curled up with his sensitive little nose on his paws.
“I’ll sit up with you to-night,” Alex said to Clay, “for I want to talk with you. First, when are we going to get out of this?”
“I’m tired of mystery,” Clay replied. “Right now we’re headed for the ocean!”
CHAPTER XV.—THE RAMBLER TAKES TO WHEELS.
“Straight through?” asked Alex who did not like the idea of overlooking the hunting and fishing along the river. “I’d like to get a shot at a bear and a deer before we strike tidewater.”
“You have already had a shot at a bear!” laughed Clay.
“Oh, yes, but that didn’t count. I was too high up in the air to take good aim, and I lost my gun, too. No, that doesn’t count.”
There was a long silence, during which Clay watched the moon coming up over the Rocky mountains, plating the rippling river and the brown crags with silvery light. The air was still, only the murmur of the water and an occasional protest from a bird breaking the silence.