“There’s only one bunch of best men on this trip,” he said, “and they’re all with this party.”
It did not take long to leave the dreary volcanic valley behind them, and they soon emerged on a rolling plain covered with plumed grasses of a rich bluish-green hue, on the further margin of which there hung like dim blue clouds, a range of mountains.
“There is our goal,” cried the professor, with what was for him a dramatic gesture. He waved his arm in the direction of the distant hills.
“Yip-yip-y-e-e-e!” exploded the boys, in a regular cowboy yell.
“A race to that hummock yonder!” shouted Jack.
The others needed no urging. After their rough journey among the mountains the ponies, too, seemed to enter into the pleasure of traversing this broad open savannah.
Off they dashed, hoofs a-rattling and dust a-flying. But it was Firewater’s race from the start. The lithe little pony easily distanced the others, and Jack, laughing and panting, drew rein at the goal a good ten seconds before the others tore up with quirts and spurs going furiously. Jack decided it was a dead heat between Walt and Ralph, and both declared themselves satisfied.
As the sun dropped lower, and hung like a red ball above the distant mountains, the question of finding a suitable camping place became an urgent one. Finally, however, on reaching the dried-up bed of a river, Coyote Pete decided that they had reached the proper spot.
“What about water?” inquired Walt rather anxiously.