“Emma!” rebuked Nora.
“Then, to change the subject, I presume there I can be no harm in asking, where we go from here? Do we move to-day or remain here over night?”
The guide suggested that, if the party were agreeable, they might move down into the valley and continue farther up into the basin.
“You know we haven’t seen ‘Old Faithful’ nor any of the other big geysers yet,” he said in reminder.
“Yes, let us get away from this horrid mountain,” urged Emma. “I have had my fill of it. I suppose, however, that Stacy will make a grand wind-up by falling into a geyser and coming out a regular lobster, in appearance at least.”
“You’re wrong. But I’d rather be a lobster than a broiler,” retorted Stacy.
Immediately after luncheon, badinage ceased and the camp presented a scene of activity in preparation for the start for the valley and the upper basin. Stacy, as usual, killed all the time possible in trifling, doing practically no real work at all. The Overland Riders were under way within the hour, glad indeed once more to be in the saddle, and just before nightfall halted to make camp at the edge of a thick growth of slender pines a short distance from “Old Faithful” herself. “Old Faithful” was steaming away lazily, a thin cloud of vapor drifting from its mound-shaped cone.
“Is—is there any danger in being so close to it?” questioned Nora, gazing at “Old Faithful” a little apprehensively.
“Not if the old spouter is left alone,” answered the guide.
“Eh?” Stacy was instantly on the alert. “Jim, what if she should get clogged?”