"How'll we cross the Deadly Desert?" murmured Randy, drowsily clutching the few belongings he had tied up in an old silver table-cloth. In it he had his oldest suit, some clean underwear, his tooth brush and his trusty sword.
"Never cross a desert till you come to it," advised Kabumpo. "And we've crossed it before, you know."
"Yes, I know." Smiling to himself, Randy dropped his head on his bundle, and lulled by the agreeable motion of his gigantic bearer, soon fell asleep, to dream pleasantly of Alibabble and of Ginger, slave of the Red Jinn's dinner bell.
CHAPTER 3
Gaper's Gulch
Kabumpo, as happy to escape from Court life as Randy, moved rhythmically as a ship through the soft spring night. Humming to himself and busy with his own thoughts, he scarcely noticed that the highway was growing steeper and narrower until he was brought up sharp by an impassable barrier of rock.
"Now, Bosh and Botherskites! I was sure this road ran straight to the Deadly Desert," he muttered, reaching back with his trunk to see that Randy was still safely aboard and asleep. "Beets and butternuts! Do I have to turn back, or plough through all this rubble?" The Elegant Elephant's small eyes twinkled with irritation, and easing himself to the right off the highway, he peered crossly up at the offending mass of stone. Finding no way round here, he swung over to the left and examined it closely from that side, and was just about to start resignedly through the brush when he discovered that what he had taken for an especially dark shadow was really a cleft in the rock. It was barely wide enough for him to squeeze through without scraping the jewels from his robe. "Now then, shall I risk it or wait till morning?" mused Kabumpo, swaying undecidedly to and fro. "It might take us straight through to the other side of the highway. On the other trunk, it might lead into a robber's cave or plunge us suddenly over a precipice!"
Edging closer, the Elegant Elephant thrust his trunk into the crevice. It seemed smooth and solid, and, resolved to try it even though little of the moonlight penetrated into the narrow opening, Kabumpo stepped inside and proceeded to pick his way cautiously along the rocky corridor. For about the length of a city street it ran straight ahead, then curved sharply to the right. Here Kabumpo was heartened to see a lantern hanging from an iron spike, while carved on the smooth rock below was a blunt message.