“Well, if he honestly believes that the ghosts of all those fellows he saw buried are going to haunt him, no wonder he has something on his mind,” chuckled Jack. “I’m going to try to get something out of him, anyhow.”
Suddenly he hailed the Chinaman.
“Hey Fu, what make trail so crooked?”
“Injun makee him longee time ago,” responded the Mongolian. “Him come lock he no movee, him go lound. Allee same Chinee,” he added, “too muchee tlouble getee him out of way. Heap more easty walk lound him.”
“There’s something in that, too, when you come to think of it,” mused Tom. “Anyway, it goes to show the difference between Indians and Chinese and white men.”
“I guess that’s the reason neither the Chinese nor the Indians have ever ‘arrived,’” commented Jack. “It takes a lot longer to go round than to keep bang on a straight course.”
“That’s right,” assented the other lad. “I really believe you are becoming a philosopher, Jack.”
“Like Professor Dingle,” was the laughing answer.
Once more the conversation languished and they plodded steadily on. But it was warmer now—almost unbearably so, down in the windless floor of the forest. From the pine needles a thick pollen-like dust rose that filled mouth and nostrils with an irritating dust. The boys’ mouths grew parched and dry. They would have given a good deal for a drink of clear, sparkling water.
“Say, Fu,” hailed Jack presently, “we find some water pretty soon?”