Early the next morning Shaggy and his friends found a steaming hot breakfast waiting for them in their rooms. No sooner had they finished than the King of the Fairy Beavers appeared to lead them to the Nome King's tunnel. They followed the King through several miles of weaving and twisting beaver burrows, until at last they stood at the entrance of the tunnel. Shaggy had noted that the King bore on his back, like a tiny knapsack, a small bundle. Now he saw that the twenty young beavers, who were waiting at the tunnel's entrance to undertake the journey with them, bore similar though smaller bundles on their backs. In addition, each of the young beavers carried a pine torch to light the way through the dark tunnel.
At a signal from the beaver King, the torch-bearing beavers advanced into the tunnel and the journey was on.
"How far are we from the Deadly Desert?" inquired the Shaggy Man.
"Not more than a mile," answered the beaver King. "We will know when we reach the Desert, because of the heat radiated downward by the sands. The tunnel is not far from the surface—no more than twenty feet, I would judge."
The tunnel was hewn from solid rock, but the floor of it was smooth, so the travelers were able to proceed at a good rate of speed. They all noticed that the heat increased perceptibly the closer they came to the shifting sands above them.
"Whee-ew!" exclaimed the Shaggy Man. "This is no place for a pleasure trip. I can see why the Nome King was thirsty when he got out of here."
They were now directly under the Deadly Desert and the heat radiated by the shifting sands above them was intense. But Twink and Tom were lightly dressed, so they didn't mind the heat so much. Twiffle naturally paid not the slightest attention to the temperature. The beavers who were used to underground heat moved swiftly forward.