GREASING THE GEYSER

“What’s that?” demanded Tom Gray sharply, wheeling on the guide. “What reason have you for making such a statement?”

“Because two Park guards been here this mornin’ askin’ questions.”

“What questions?” interjected Miss Briggs.

“Who we was, what we was doin’ here and whether we had seen any other suspicious characters.”

“Any others? Meaning besides Mr. Brown?” put in Emma.

“Was it much of a robbery?” questioned Grace.

“The guards said it was, and that they was lookin’ into every outfit in the Park, hopin’ to find the fellers who did this job and the other one.”

“What about the men who, you say, have been watching our camp?” asked Hippy, regarding the guide keenly.

“Last night I woke up and found them nosin’ about where the ponies was. I didn’t dare shoot for fear of hittin’ one of the horses. I yelled at ’em and they run away. I seen ’em again just before daylight, then to-day I seen one of ’em watchin’ from a distance. That’s all I know about it.”

“Were they Park guards?” asked Tom.

“They might have been, but I reckon they wasn’t.”

“What we need in this outfit is our old Pony Rider Boys. They’d solve the mysteries of the Yellowstone National Park in short order. Let us forget our troubles in food,” urged Stacy, setting an example for his companions by helping himself to a plateful.

“The guards, I suppose, did not voice a suspicion of any particular persons, did they?” asked Miss Briggs.

The guide shook his head.

“We shall have to dismiss Chunky,” nodded Emma. “I fear the Overlanders may lose their reputations soon if—”

“Emma!” rebuked Nora.

“Then, to change the subject, I presume there I can be no harm in asking, where we go from here? Do we move to-day or remain here over night?”

The guide suggested that, if the party were agreeable, they might move down into the valley and continue farther up into the basin.

“You know we haven’t seen ‘Old Faithful’ nor any of the other big geysers yet,” he said in reminder.

“Yes, let us get away from this horrid mountain,” urged Emma. “I have had my fill of it. I suppose, however, that Stacy will make a grand wind-up by falling into a geyser and coming out a regular lobster, in appearance at least.”

“You’re wrong. But I’d rather be a lobster than a broiler,” retorted Stacy.

Immediately after luncheon, badinage ceased and the camp presented a scene of activity in preparation for the start for the valley and the upper basin. Stacy, as usual, killed all the time possible in trifling, doing practically no real work at all. The Overland Riders were under way within the hour, glad indeed once more to be in the saddle, and just before nightfall halted to make camp at the edge of a thick growth of slender pines a short distance from “Old Faithful” herself. “Old Faithful” was steaming away lazily, a thin cloud of vapor drifting from its mound-shaped cone.

“Is—is there any danger in being so close to it?” questioned Nora, gazing at “Old Faithful” a little apprehensively.

“Not if the old spouter is left alone,” answered the guide.

“Eh?” Stacy was instantly on the alert. “Jim, what if she should get clogged?”

“I reckon she’d bust.”

“Wow!” muttered the fat boy. “When does she erupt again?”

“I don’t know. By the looks of things I should say she’d just had one. If that’s so it’ll be about an hour before there is another spout,” the guide informed them.

“I guess we can stand it if ‘Old Faithful’ can,” observed Stacy. “Can’t she be hurried any?”

“It’s been done,” grinned the guide.

“How?” demanded the fat boy eagerly.

Grace gave the guide a warning look which was wholly lost on Jim Badger.

“By greasin’ the geyser,” he replied.

“What with?” interjected Lieutenant Wingate.

“With butter, of course,” replied Emma. “But don’t you waste our butter in experiments unless you wish to be everlastingly unpopular in this outfit.”

“I don’t intend to,” answered Stacy. “I can use butter to better advantage than greasing geysers with it. That reminds me, I haven’t had anything to eat in a century or so. When do we have supper?”

“What you need is brain food, though I fear it would break the outfit to supply you with enough to do you any good,” spoke up Emma.

“Get to work and help settle camp,” advised Tom. “We wish to finish supper before it is time for ‘Old Faithful’ to erupt.”

This appealed to Stacy who set to work with more than his usual industry. Supper was soon served and eaten, and it was decided to leave the dishes as they were until after the eruption. Everyone hurried to the basin, finding “Old Faithful” still steaming lazily.

“She’s getting ready for business,” announced the guide after a keen glance into the simmering pool.

The Overlanders did not understand how he knew this, but he seemed to be quite confident. The party had sat about gazing at the pool for more than half an hour, but still nothing happened. Stacy yawned.

“I guess she must be waiting for someone to feed her a pound or two of oleomargarine,” he observed.

Tom walked over and gazed into the pool. He saw that there was more water there than when he first looked, and as he peered in, a gentle bubbling began and the water became troubled.

“I reckon it is time we were getting out of here,” he warned, walking briskly away.

“Oh, pooh! Who’s afraid?” jeered Stacy.

“Persons of limited mental equipment seldom are,” observed Emma.

A cloud of steam burst suddenly from the cone of the geyser with a thrilling hiss and a roar. The Overland Riders stood not upon the order of their going, Stacy Brown leading the rush to get out of the danger zone.

“Run!” shouted the guide.

There was little need for his warning. The Overland Riders were already running at top speed.

The menacing hiss of the geyser grew louder, and the cloud of misty spray mounted higher and higher. Then a vast column of water rose into the air, with clouds of white steam.

“Oh, look! Look!” cried Nora, clapping her hands excitedly.

“Wonderful! A sublime spectacle,” breathed Elfreda Briggs.

Higher and still higher mounted the column until it had reached a height estimated at one hundred and fifty feet. There it hung, a glistening tower, showering a thin mist of hot spray over a wide area. For seven minutes “Old Faithful” continued to play into the air, then the column gradually shortened.

“She didn’t make it,” cried Stacy.

“Make what?” demanded Tom.

“The sky.”

“Fiddlesticks,” grumbled Tom Gray in disgust.

“Even at that she came nearer to doing so than you ever will,” retorted Emma.

At last the column sank back into the basin, where, after being violently agitated for fully ten minutes, the waters settled down to their accustomed quiet. The spectacle had surpassed anything that the Overlanders had ever seen.

Twilight was over the valley as they returned to camp, awed beyond the powers of words to express.

“Has an estimate ever been made as to the quantity of water thrown out in a single eruption, Jim?” questioned Miss Briggs.

“I’ve heard it said by scientific fellers that a million and a half to two million gallons of water is squirted into the air at a time, but I never figgered it out for myself,” said Badger, grinning. “I reckon one guess is as good as another.”

“That’s enough to do the family washing for all Chillicothe for a whole year,” announced Stacy.

“Where’s that?” questioned the guide.

“In Missouri. I wish I had that geyser in our back yard at home. I wouldn’t have to lug water to fill the wash boiler any more, would I?” chuckled the fat boy. “I could take my baths in it, too.”

“You might wash your own laundry in it, I suppose,” suggested Emma.

Grace gave Miss Dean a quick, keen glance and shook her head.

“Yep,” grinned the guide. “All you would have to do would be to dump a few cakes of soap in the basin, soap your clothes well and throw them in. A regular lazy man’s job, and it wouldn’t cost you a cent except for the soap.”

“Say, that wouldn’t be so bad, would it?” cried Chunky.

“Why don’t you try it?” urged Badger.

“I believe I will. I haven’t had any washing done since we reached the Park.”

“You look it,” agreed Hippy.

“Perhaps I do, but I don’t look any more run down than you and the rest of the outfit do, even though I did fall off a mountain and roll a mile or two. May I wash my clothes in one of these basins, Mr. Badger?”

The guide nodded.

“In ‘Old Faithful’?”

“No, no!” objected the guide. “You mustn’t fool with her. The old lady objects to bein’ fooled with and she might take it out on you. I’ll show you a basin where you can do your washin’ to-morrow mornin’, but you mustn’t let anyone see you because the Park guards might not like it.”

“That will be fine,” smiled the fat boy. “Who else wishes to do washing?”

“Oh, we might as well all come in, if your experiment is a success,” promised Tom.

“Miss Dean, do you wish to let Nature wash your clothes for you to-morrow?” questioned Stacy.

“I thank you, no. I am quite able to do my own laundry work. Happily I am not so indolent as some persons I know of.”

“Oh, well. I don’t know that I care. It is my patent anyway. Say, Jim, how long will it take to do the washing in the geyser?”

“Well, I reckon that depends on the clothes,” said the guide, grinning broadly.

Stacy said he believed his were pretty well soiled after his experience on Electric Peak.

“You said it, Chunky,” agreed Lieutenant Wingate. “Tom, what do you say to our joining Stacy in his ‘blue Monday’ operations to-morrow?”

“It might be a good idea. Girls, want to do your washing in a geyser basin?” asked Tom laughingly.

“No!” shouted the Overland girls in chorus.

“We do our laundry from day to day as we go along,” Grace informed him. “Besides, I don’t like the geyser idea. Is there no park regulation about such a thing, Mr. Badger?”

The guide shook his head.

“Not that I know of, but it’s just as well not to have any guards about at the time.”

“Jim, how much soap will it take to make a nice washerwoman’s suds in this laundry geyser?” asked Stacy.

“I reckon half a dozen cakes or so,” replied Badger in a voice just loud enough for the fat boy to hear.

“I’ll grab some to-night, but don’t say anything about it, as the others would accuse me of extravagance.”

Jim nodded his understanding.

“Easy, wasn’t it?” murmured Emma as she strolled leisurely past the fat boy.

“What is easy?” demanded Chunky sharply.

“Oh, never mind if you don’t know.”

“Is this a joke you are trying to play on me?” bristled Stacy.

“It may be,” answered Emma, passing on with chin elevated, Stacy regarding her frowningly.

Three times that night, ere the Overlanders turned in, did “Old Faithful” rear its huge column of steam and water into the air. In the darkness the column was a huge pale spectre of the night. The sight of this ghostly monster, and the hiss and the roar, sent shivers up and down the backs of the Overland girls.

“This is no place for a superstitious person, which, thank goodness, I am not,” declared Elfreda Briggs.

Quite early in the evening a Park guard stopped at the camp to see who the campers were. He recognized the party, having seen them at the Mammoth Springs Hotel some days before. The guard told them of the second robbery at the hotel, hie story coinciding with what Jim Badger had already told them.

Grace Harlowe was thoughtful, and took no part in the discussion that followed. Strange thoughts were passing through her mind, with Stacy Brown regarding her narrowly out of the corners of his eyes.

“Wonder what’s in the back of her head?” mused the fat boy after the guard had left and the Overlanders were preparing for bed.

“I trust that you may not dream of your future home to-night,” teased Stacy as Emma said good-night.

“Don’t worry. You won’t be there,” retorted Emma airily. “And please sleep out doors so as not to influence our dreams,” she added.

The Overlanders were awakened several times that night by the eruptions of “Old Faithful,” but finally they ceased to hear it and slept soundly.

After breakfast next morning Stacy was directed by Jim Badger to go to the pool beyond the big geyser. This pool he called the “Little Fountain,” and appeared to be eager to have Stacy get there and finish his work as early as possible. The Overlanders thought this was because of the guide’s anxiety lest Chunky be interrupted by the Park guards on their early morning rounds.

Stacy gathered up a pair of trousers, two shirts, some handkerchiefs and socks, and with these partly dragging on the ground, his pockets full of bars of washing soap, he started for the “Little Fountain,” skirting the edge of the pine forest on his way. Tom and Hippy said they would be along in a few moments.

Not more than five minutes had elapsed since Stacy’s departure when he was heard to utter a yell. Hippy sprang out where he could see along the outer edge of the slim-treed forest.

“He’s at it again!” cried Lieutenant Wingate.

What he saw was the fat boy making for camp at top speed. Then Hippy discovered the cause of his companion’s haste. Two bears were on the trail of Stacy Brown and under full headway.