CHAPTER XVIII

THE GIANT PAINT POT

IT was indeed a sight well calculated to make the boys stare, and rub their eyes in wonder, as though they half believed they must be dreaming. If these wonders of Yellowstone Park elicit cries of delight from tens of thousands of tourists in these modern times, imagine how remarkable they must have seemed to these pioneer lads more than a hundred years ago.

"When you called it a paint pot, Roger, I think you hit the bull's-eye, for it does look like that, with all those colors boiling up in such a crazy fashion!" Dick presently remarked, breaking the spell that seemed to bind them.

"But what is it made of, I'd like to know?" demanded the puzzled Roger.

"Colored clay, in the shape of mud, that is boiling all the time. Be careful how you put your hand to it. See how the steam keeps on rising. It must be pretty hot stuff!"

"But what makes it boil that way? There must be a fire of some kind deep down in the earth?"

"Nothing else would make all these fountains of hot water, and even the rocks in some places feel warm," admitted the other lad, who was hardly less amazed than Roger himself.

"It must be some sort of volcano," Roger continued, thoughtfully. "It has no visible cone, like most of them do, and so the heat escapes in this way through hundreds of little vents."

That is about the nearest explanation any scientist has ever been able to give why this one region in all the world contains innumerable geysers, hot springs, boiling colored mud pots, and various other wonders of Nature. (Note 5.)

"All I can say is that I don't blame any poor Injun for believing the place is Evil Ground," muttered Mayhew, as he stared at the strange spectacle of that blue and yellow and green mud boiling ceaselessly, and throwing off steam that had a peculiar odor, unlike anything they had ever smelled before.

He looked around him, and shrugged his shoulders. So many remarkable things were to be seen, such as a frontiersman might well view with alarm, that it was no wonder Mayhew felt uneasy. Left to his own devices he would have turned his back on this enchanted region, and considered himself a lucky man if only he might get away with his life.

"It strikes me," Dick observed, "that we need not hope to find Williams anywhere about here, if, as we fear, he has been taken prisoner by those Blackfoot Indians."

"No, because they would never come to a place like this, unless their old medicine man was along to make a palaver with the Evil Spirit," Roger suggested. "That is what I heard a Mandan brave say, and I guess it must be about so. We will have to go further, and look for Jasper elsewhere."

Mayhew seized upon this hint to make a start, and, noticing how anxious the scout seemed to be to shut out the strange spectacle of that ever boiling pool of gayly tinted mud, the boys followed at his heels.

"I can hear other spouting fountains not far away!" declared Roger. "Sometimes it is like a giant snake hissing, and then again I seem to catch a distant but terrible roaring sound, reminding me of that fierce bear in the cave."

"Even if the winter is coming on here, there are plenty of birds still to be met with," Dick remarked, as a flock of cawing crows started up from a tree-top near by, and flew away.

"Yes, there are hawks also, and I am sure I saw a pair of great bald-headed eagles soaring away up in the sky, wheeling in circles as they rose. Besides, we have stirred up many of those brush fowl that are so much like our chickens at home, and make such fine eating."

"It would be a great place for a hunter or a trapper to spend the winter," Mayhew commented, "if only he could get used to the awful things there are going on in this beautiful section of country. You see, the snow must soon melt where there is so much heat; and that keeps the grass green for the deer and the buffalo."

"Hark!" exclaimed Roger, stopping suddenly.

His face lighted up with eagerness, and Dick was filled with curiosity.

"What did you think you heard?" he asked, presently.

"The signal we want to catch more than anything else," came the confident reply.

"Not the whistle Jasper Williams taught us to practice, Roger, and which he uses when he wants to communicate with friends?"

"That, and nothing else, Dick. I am sure I caught it, coming from somewhere over to the right."

"Then why not answer it?" Dick told him.

"Do you think it would be wise?" asked the other.

"We want to know if Jasper Williams is near by, and that is the best way to find it out. You can give the whistle, Roger, for I have heard you practice it many times."

For answer Roger puckered up his lips, and emitted a peculiar little trill. Should any one not familiar with it hear this sound, he would naturally imagine some bird was calling to its mate.

All of them stood there, eagerly waiting to discover if Roger's note called forth any response. Before ten seconds had passed there came a faint whistle, very like that which the boy had given.

"There, did you hear it, Dick?" gasped Roger, turning a flushed face toward his cousin, while his eyes sparkled joyously.

"I heard a sound that might be just such a whistle as Jasper taught us," replied cautious Dick; "but don't build too many castles in the air, Roger, or you may be disappointed. Try again!"

Roger was only too willing to do so, and there was an immediate reply this time, that all of them heard plainly.

"He's coming this way, I do believe, for that was closer than before. Shall I give him another call?"

"Yes, it can do no harm, and we must know the truth, at any rate."

When the next answer came back it was beyond all doubt nearer than any that had preceded it.

"Oh! we shall soon see him!" cried Roger, fixing his eyes on the spot, as near as he could calculate, whence that last reply had come. "Now, keep watching, both of you, while I signal to him again that the coast is clear."

He added one more tremulous trill to his notes; to his astonishment the answer was so plain and clear that it seemed to come straight out of a pine tree not more than twenty-five yards away.

"Why, he must be back of that tree, I think!" stammered Roger, uneasily, for he realized that Jasper Williams could never have gained such a Position without some of their eyes detecting his advance.

Just then a bird flew out of the pine and alighted in another at some distance away in another quarter. Dick himself instantly gave the signal whistle, and there came an immediate answer; but it was now from the quarter whither the bird had flown.

Roger gave a cry of disgust, while Dick laughed softly.

"Good-by to Jasper this time, I'm afraid, Roger!" he said.

"How mean that was for a silly little bird to have the same whistle Jasper had made up as his signal," said Roger, looking downcast. "Come, there's no use in our staying here any longer. If that bird keeps on whistling I might feel like using my gun to bring it down, for I'd think it was mocking me."

"The poor thing thought a mate was calling," Dick assured him; "or else some other male bird that wanted to fight it. I warrant you, it is just as upset as you can be over the mistake."

They pushed on once more, and inside of two hours had come upon at least seven more geysers, some of which were spouting, while others were quiet at the time the three pilgrims happened to find the craters.

Now and then the boys would converse in low tones, for Dick knew that this was the best way to keep his companion's spirits from drooping.

When other things failed, Dick could always interest him by referring to the wonderful luck that had befallen them, in giving them a chance to stay all winter at the Mandan village with the exploring expedition, so as to go on into the Golden West when spring came around.

The uncertainty that lay ahead seemed to appeal to the spirit of adventure that lay deep down in the hearts of the young pioneers.

"When we break camp in the spring and leave here," Dick went on, as though he had mapped it out in his mind, "we will have to head into the Northwest, Captain Lewis told me."

"Why go that way instead of straight into the West, or turn toward the Southwest?" Roger asked him, just as Dick knew he would be likely to do.

"It seems that the two captains have been picking up all the information they can from every source," Dick explained; "and this, when boiled down, causes them to believe there is a better opening over the great Rocky Mountain chain up there than in any other quarter. Besides, I believe they have an idea there is a great river that flows to the sea, the headwaters of which start in the land of the Blackfeet."

"He must have gotten some of that information from the Blackfoot prisoner the Mandans have in their strong lodge?" suggested Roger, quickly.

"I believe he did," Dick told him. "I happen to know that both the captains and an interpreter spent many hours with the Blackfoot. And I also heard that they had promised to take the man back to his people with them in the spring; for they were giving the Mandans some presents to coax them to turn him over to them."

"Oh! just to think, Dick, what it will mean to us, if we are with them when they first set eyes on the big water! Our parents came from the far East, where they knew the Atlantic Ocean; and, if we could only see the other, what a feather it would be in our caps when we got back home."

Dick had accomplished his purpose, for his cousin showed his old-time enthusiasm again. So they continued to converse as they followed Mayhew, who strode along in advance, constantly on the alert for some new and startling sight, and not at all pleased with his surroundings.

It was after noon had come and gone that he uttered a cry that the boys understood as a command to halt. Each clutched his gun in the manner of those who know the value of being ready.

"Look away off yonder, up on the low ridge!" said the guide, eagerly.

"Moving figures, and of men at that!" ejaculated Roger.

"Indians, I take it," said Dick; "for I can see the feathers in their hair, and the sun seems to glisten from their painted bodies. They must be on the warpath, to have put the paint on, and the feathers, too."

"But look, Dick, there is one of them who wears clothes like a white trapper or borderman!" declared the excited Roger. "Do you see what I mean, Dick?"

"Yes, it certainly looks that way," answered the other boy, shading his eyes with his hand in order to see better. "It _is_ a white man, too, for he is wearing some kind of fur cap, and his hunting shirt is fringed like our own. There, he turned his face this way then, and he is no Indian, I am as certain as that my name is Dick Armstrong!"