Charley dismounted from his horse and from his saddle-bags produced a small medicine glass, which he filled with the liquid and held up to the light. The fluid sparkled clear as crystal and of a beautiful crimson hue.
"It beats me," he announced, "I thought it might be the bottom gave it that color, but whatever it is, it is in the water itself."
Walter wheeled his horse and studied the encircling trees carefully. "I've got it," he announced, "do you notice all these trees are of one kind?"
"You're right," Charley exclaimed, "they are all red bays. It's their roots that color the water."
The boys turned to chaff Chris, but he had slipped away at the first words of the explanation. Soon he reappeared with an armful of dry wood. His face was still ashen, but his teeth had stopped chattering.
"Golly," he exclaimed, pompously, "reckon dis nigger had you-alls scart dis time. Dis nigger shore had de joke on you dis time."
The boys glanced at each other and grinned. "I wouldn't try it again, Chris," Charley chuckled; "you might throw a fit next time, you act so real."
While Chris was making a fire and preparing a bed of coals, Charley cleaned the gopher.
This animal is very much like a turtle, but the tissue which unites the upper and lower shells is so hardened as to be impervious to a knife. Charley solved the problem by wedging it in the fork of a fallen tree, and after two or three attempts he succeeded in separating the shells with an axe.
"Let me finish hit, Massa Charley," pleaded Chris; "dis nigger knows just how to fix him now you got him open."