ht stay here and find some."

"Or silver," said Ned.

"Yes, or lead, or antimony."

"Or coal," cried Ned.

"Ah, that would be useful for making our cooking fire," said Chris.
"But there's plenty of wood everywhere, and I won't complain. I want to
go on and see more. Every place we come to seems more wonderful than
the last, and there's no knowing what we may find next."

"We shall see," said Ned, yawning, for the darkness was sweeping up the
sides of the hills, leaving the hollows black, and they had had a long
and tiring day. "I suppose we shall start, then, to-morrow."

"For a certainty. I wonder what our next camping-place may be like."

"That ruined city described by the old prospector, perhaps," said Ned,
laughing. "But what are we going to do then--load the mules with gold,
and go back again?"

"I hope not," cried Chris. "I don't want to go back. Why, we haven't
shot a buffalo yet."

"So much the better for the buffalo," said Ned, yawning again.

"I say, don't do that," cried Chris querulously.

"I wasn't doing anything."

"Yes, you were; opening your mouth as wide as you could, just like old
Skeeter when he's getting ready to bray."

"Whinny," said Ned correctively. "He isn't a donkey."

"I know that. He can't bray. He whinnies and squeals; but he tries to
bray, and opens his mouth just like you do."

"Perhaps so," said Ned, changing the conversation at once. "I say,
doesn't that peak look beautiful? It's just as if it is red-hot."

"You'd find it pretty cold if you were up there," said Chris, giving up
making rude allusions to his companion's yawning.

"Yes; that always seems to me so strange," said Ned.

"What does?"

"That the nearer you get up to the sun the colder it is. It ought to be
hotter."

"Don't find fault with nature," said Chris dogmatically. "I wasn't
finding fault. I only say it seems queer. I want to thoroughly
understand why it is."

"Ask your father, he knows."

"I did," said Ned, "and he said it was because the atmosphere was
thinner, the higher you get."

"Then the lower you get I suppose the thicker it is," said Chris
thoughtfully, "and that's why it's so thick and hot down there on the
salt desert. Oh, my word, how it used to scorch! It was just as if the
haze was one great burning-glass."

"Oh, I say," cried Ned dolefully, "I wish you wouldn't."

"Wouldn't what?"

"Talk about the heat on the salt plains. We're going to start off
afresh