“Guess you must be dreaming,” chaffed Dick “I didn’t hear anything.”
“Come out of your trance,” jibed Steve.
“Guess it must have been the echo of that dynamite explosion,” suggested Tom jocosely. “Who is there on this island to fire off a gun?”
“Of course it doesn’t seem likely,” returned Phil. “I thought I heard it, but I might have been mistaken.”
They bantered him good-naturedly, and Phil finally concluded that his ears might have played him false, and in the pressure of other matters the incident was forgotten.
CHAPTER XV
TORN APART
The rough weather which had delayed their fascinating work of exploration continued for a day or two longer and the boys, impatient at the setback, were beginning to make plans to brave the heavy sea, when, as suddenly as it had risen, the wind died down, followed by a heavy, breathless calm.
“At last,” muttered Dick as the boys stood shoulder to shoulder, gazing out over the placid water, “the elements are with us again. I had begun to think that wind would never die down.”
“I imagine we’d better work fast too, if that overgrown hill is volcanic,” said Tom, with a glance over his shoulder at the lowering mountain. “We don’t want all our fun spoiled by an eruption.”
“Our fun wouldn’t be the only thing spoiled, I imagine,” grinned Steve as they started back for their apparatus. “If that old Jumbo over there should take it into its head to get busy there wouldn’t be enough of us left to send back to the folks.”