nt.
After they were finally located in a definite camp it was intended to
have one or more stations, and both send and receive messages from time
to time.

Thus, in these and many more genuinely interesting as well as
instructive ways, they expected to make their tour a most profitable
one.

Some of the boys became quite sober as they saw the grand view of the
plateau and valley blotted out after leaving the noon camp. They
brightened up after a while, however, since there were dozens of things
to draw their attention, and arouse their boyish interest.

Dobbin had all he could do to pull the wagon over the rough road, so
full of stones, and so overgrown had it become. Still, Paul noticed as
he went along, that those marks of the wheels, and the prints of a
horse's hoofs showed, telling that the vehicle occupied by the stranger,
whom Joe Clausin seemed to have recognized, must have kept on this way.

They were now surrounded by the very wildest kind of scenery. It looked
as though a tremendous convulsion of Nature must have occurred at some
remote age; for giant rocks were piled up in great heaps on every hand,
many of them covered with creeping vines. Trees grew in crevices, and
wherever they could lodge.

"Whew! ain't this the toughest place ever, though?" remarked William, as
he gaped around him at the frowning heights, and the little precipices
that the road skirted.

"It's just what they told us, though, even if we wouldn't believe what
we heard," declared Wallace, who was deeply interested in the big ferns
that cropped up, and dozens of other things most boys would never have
noticed.

Several were kept busy snapping off photographs.

"Better go slow with that, fellows," warned Paul; "because we expect to
be here ten days or so, and you'll find lots of chances to get action in
your pictures, with this grand scenery for a background. And the one
whose films run out will wish he'd been more careful. I'd advise that
you don't take too many duplicates; because, you see, good pictures can
be passed around to all, and the greater variety we have the better."

After that the camera brigade, taking warning, got together, and formed
a set of rules that would prevent waste. It was a point worth noting.

When they had been moving in and out along this rough and winding road
for some time, anxious glances began to be taken ahead.

"Where's that fine old lake, I wonder?" grumbled one.

"Perhaps there ain't anythi