It took the boys a very short time to explain that they had just come in on the Fearless and only wanted accommodations for a very few days. In less time than it takes to tell the machine was taken around to the garage and the boys had been shown up to two very comfortably furnished rooms.
“Doctor Hamilton expects to stay here, too,” Ralph volunteered when they had finished exploring their small domain, “but he won’t be able to get here until late this evening. I promised to take the car around for him at the dock about nine o’clock. I suppose all you fellows will go with me, won’t you?”
“Surest thing you know,” Bert agreed. “I’m glad that he’s going to be with us for he knows a lot about the country and he’ll go with us on all our expeditions. The Doctor’s a jolly good sort.”
“He sure is that,” said Tom, and so, in the course of time the Doctor arrived and was given the room next to the boys. Just before they went to sleep that night Bert called into Ralph, “Say, Ralph, what do you love best in the world?” and the answer came in three words, “The Gray Ghost.”
Next morning bright and early the boys, the Doctor and the “Gray Ghost” started for a visit to Halemaumau, the fire-pit of the crater, Kilauea. The day was ideal for such a trip and the party started off in high spirits. They rode for miles through the most beautiful country they had ever seen until, at last, they came to the foot of the great crater. Only a very few minutes more and they stood within a few yards of the edge of that wonder of wonders, the fire-pit of Kilauea. It is impossible to describe the grandeur of that roaring, surging sea of fire, the tongues of flame lapping one upon another like raging demons in terrific conflict. It is the greatest wonder of Nature ever given to man to witness.
For a few seconds the boys could only stand in amazement that such a thing could be. “If anybody had told me,” said Bert, almost whispering in his excitement, “a few months ago that I would be standing here at the edge of the largest living crater in the world, I would have thought that either I was crazy or that they were. I never could forget that sight if I lived forever.”
“It sure is about the slickest little bit of Nature that I ever came across,” Tom agreed. “If all the scenery is like this we ought to spend four years here instead of a measly four days. I’m beginning to be as much interested in this place as the Doctor is.”
“The more you see of it the more you will love it,” the Doctor prophesied. “If you would like to we can take a ride across the island to-morrow. It will be about a day’s journey, but I can show you a great many points of interest as we go along. What do you say?”
The boys fell in with the plan very readily, and so it was decided that the next morning they would start early. With great reluctance and many backward glances they finally tore themselves away from Halemaumau and turned the “Gray Ghost” toward home. During the ride they could talk of nothing else than the wonder and the magnificent beauty of “The House of Everlasting Fire.”
Mile upon mile they rode with the sun filtering through the trees in little golden patches on the road before them, with the caress of the soft breeze upon their faces and the song of the birds in their ears.