At that Steve began to chuckle.
“What strikes you as being so funny, Steve?” demanded Toby, who was amusing himself by starting breakfast on the little stove, as though not meaning to let Steve do all the cooking while on their camping trip.
“Oh! I was only thinking of that old saying about carrying coals to Newcastle, you know–which place is the head coal centre over in England. It would seem pretty much that way for fellows to lug a big can of kerosene away up here, when the ground is actually reeking with the stuff in an unrefined state. Perhaps it’d be possible to find a little pond of the same, and dip up all you’d want to use.”
“One thing I’m hoping won’t happen, at any rate while we’re up here,” Toby now went on to say, reflectively; “and that is to have the woods get afire. Whee! if that ever did happen, goodbye to Miss Priscilla’s gold mine, in the way of an oil gusher bonanza; for the whole country might get ablaze.”
“Not much danger of that, I guess,” Jack assured him. “The traces of oil we’ve seen must be only seepage. The main supply is hidden far 136 down in the earth, and until wells are sunk will stay there safe.”
After all, it was very cozy there in the tent as long as the stove burned. Fortunately the rain came from another direction, so they could have the flat open, and so get a fair amount of light and air. The table could be dispensed with during the time they were thus imprisoned, for being agile boys they did not consider it much of a hardship to curl their legs under them, tailor fashion, while they discussed their breakfast.
Steve later on got out a book of travel and adventure which he had fetched along for a rainy day, but which, previously, he had not thought to look at. As the morning began to pass he lay there on his blanket and devoured the graphic account of hardships endured by some dauntless party of explorers who had sought the region of the frozen Antarctic, and come very near losing their lives while there. Now and again Steve would shiver and ask Toby if he wouldn’t please drop the flap of the tent a little.
“Not much I will,” protested that worthy, vigorously. “It’s hot enough in here now nearly to cook a fellow, and none too light, either. Suppose you tuck away that book of the ice regions, which is what makes you shake all over when you’re reading about the terrible cold they endured. Keep it for a sizzling hot day, Steve, when it’ll do you good to shiver a little.”
“Huh! guess I might as well,” grunted the 137 other, as though convinced. “Besides, it’s getting on toward eleven, I reckon, and I really ought to be thinking of starting my baking.”
“You’re away off this time, Steve,” laughed Jack, who had a little nickle watch along with him, though he seldom carried it on his person, “because right now it is only a quarter to ten.”