While the other two were sitting cross-legged by the fire, and talking in low tones, Roger suddenly sat up. He stared hard at them, and dug his knuckles into his eyes, as though he could not believe what he saw.
Dick knew from the indications that he must have been far away in his sleep, and that the disappointment struck him cruelly.
“So, it was all a dream after all, and mother was not calling me to get up or the griddle cakes would be cold?” Roger remarked, dolefully. “Oh, how fine they used to taste, with that wild honey smeared over them! Do you remember the time when we brought in four heaping buckets of honey from that bee-tree up on Juniper Creek, and how my left eye was closed by a sting? But never was there such sweet stuff. And to think that we have to go without a bite of breakfast this cold morning!”
“Just as soon as it gets a little lighter,” said Dick, “we will be on the move.”
“Searching for something to eat, you mean, don’t you?”
“Yes, whether it is that stray buffalo, or an elk, we will not be very particular which,” the other declared.
“Why, I think I could eat a—a wolf, almost, I’m that caved in,” declared Roger, and no doubt he meant it, too.
The dawn was at hand. Eagerly they watched the pink flush spreading across the eastern sky. With a change in the wind they could hear a distinct muttering sound, and it was easy to picture some gushing geyser in action, perhaps miles away.