“I was just thinking I had better get out the gun, and fire off both barrels so’s to let you know where the tent lay,” he chuckled, as though such an idea amused him considerably. “But I suppose you’ve found some things worth snapping off; how about it, Jack?”
“Yes, I used up a six-exposure film, and believe I’ve picked up some things well worth the trouble. Next time I’ll go in another direction, and farther away from camp. This is a wonderful country, 31 Steve. I don’t believe you could find grander bits of scenery than right here among the Pontico Hills. Anything unusual happen since I went away?”
“Oh! I’ve had a lot of visitors,” laughed the other boy, “slick little chaps in their fur coats one and all. They are watching us both right now, I reckon, behind the shelter of the leaves on the ground, and up in some of these big trees. There were both red squirrels, and fat gray ones that barked at me, and seemed to ask what business a chap walking on two feet had in their domain. Then chipmunks galore live around here, and the little striped fellows have already begun to get acquainted, for one ran in and picked up a bit of bread I threw, and then whisked out of sight like fun over there where he lives in the holes under the roots of that tree. Why, I’ve been so employed watching them, and talking to them, that the time has just skipped along. When I looked up at the sun just now and guessed you’d been gone nearly two hours, I had to rub my eyes and figure it all out again. You see I’m so used to telling time by clocks that it seems queer to use the sun for it.”
“No signs of Toby so far, I suppose, Steve?” asked Jack a little later, as he emerged from the tent after putting his camera safely away.
“Not a thing,” announced the other. “I hope you’re not worrying about him, Jack, and sorry already you let him go off alone. Mebbe I ought to have kept him company, sore heel or not.”
32“Don’t fret about it, Steve. Toby has common horse-sense, and could hardly get lost if he tried his hardest. You see, the formation of the valley is calculated to always set a fellow straight, even if he gets a little mixed in his bearings. It runs directly southeast to northwest around here. Besides Toby has the compass, and the sun is shining up there full tilt. He may not be in for another hour or so; but I wouldn’t be alarmed even if the sun set with him still away. The light of our campfire would serve as a guide to him, once darkness fell.”
“Yes, that’s a fact, Jack. We could build a roaring blaze that might be seen a mile and more away. I did hear one thing that surprised me.”
“What was that?” demanded the other, looking expectant, as though he could give a pretty good guess himself, which was as much as saying that he had heard the same sound.
“Why, there must be some sort of mining going on not many miles away from here,” argued Steve, “because that was surely a blast I heard half an hour ago. First I had an idea it meant a coming storm, but there wasn’t a sign of a cloud in sight. It seemed to be a deep, heavy reverberation, just like I’ve heard dynamite make at the red-sandstone quarry near Chester when the workmen at noon set off their blasts. Of course you noticed it, too, Jack?”
“Well, I should say so,” the other admitted, “and during the night both Toby and myself were 33 awakened by just the same sort of far-off dull roaring sound.”