PAJAMAS FLOAT ON HIGH

“What is it?” cried Tom.

“Bears are after him! Turn out!” The Overlanders rushed out. Stacy was bare-headed, having lost his hat, and even the girls in their fright could not but laugh at the ludicrous sight of the fat boy pursued by bears.

“Yell, all of you!” shouted Tom Gray. “It may frighten them off.”

“Run if the beasts get close!” cried Hippy, snatching up a blanket and starting towards Stacy.

Tom Gray, instantly divining his companion’s purpose, also grabbed a blanket and sprinted after Hippy. Despite the noise that the Overlanders were making, the bears came right on.

Hippy, still in the lead, made ready his blanket, as the foremost bear now headed directly for him. In the meantime Stacy passed the two men on his way to camp, yelling with all his might, and fairly dove into his tent.

As the foremost bear charged Lieutenant Wingate he deftly threw his blanket over the animal’s head and side-stepped. About this time Tom Gray performed a similar service for the second bear.

“Run for it!” yelled Hippy, and the two Overland men ran for camp.

The bears, however, did not follow but were trying to extricate themselves from the tangle into which they had gotten themselves in the blankets. When they had finally freed themselves there was little left of the Overland blankets. The trick, however, had served its purpose. The animals were now thoroughly frightened, and, having vented their rage on the blankets, reared and looked sharply about them. Not a human being was in sight at that moment, the Overlanders, at Tom’s suggestion, having ducked in among the trees. Seeing no one, the bears, uttering angry growls, and apparently satisfied that they had put their enemies out of business, ambled away and were seen no more.

It was Lieutenant Wingate who, shortly afterwards, hauled Chunky from his tent feet first.

“Di—id you kill ’em?” stammered the fat boy.

“No, of course we didn’t. We gave them two blankets to chew on. I think we shall have to charge those blankets up to you,” threatened Hippy.

“Take it out of the bears’ hides,” advised Stacy. “I’m not settling their bills.”

“Look here, Stacy, what did you do to stir those animals up?” demanded Tom Gray.

“Noth—”

“Stacy!” warned Emma. “Don’t quibble. They were very angry about something.”

“I didn’t do much of anything, but—” began Stacy and paused.

“Yes, yes,” urged Hippy.

“Well, it was this way. I saw a couple of bear cubs playing leap frog on the green, and—and I—I thought I’d catch one of them and bring it to camp for a mascot.”

The Overlanders groaned.

“I—I nearly got my hands on one little beggar, when all at once out of the nowhere, that old she bear and her mate came at me with all sails set. Then I legged it for home.”

“You poor fish! Didn’t you know any better than to fool with a bear cub?” demanded Lieutenant Wingate. “You might have known that the mother bear was not far away.”

“I—I didn’t think there were any old bears about the place. I lost my clothes, too. Mebby the bears ate them. If they did who is going to pay me for my ‘pants’ and the rest of the stuff? Will you answer me that question, Uncle Hip?”

“Your clothes are distributed along the way where you dropped them. You may go get them now with perfect safety,” Tom told him. “The bears have taken to the timber with their cubs long before this.”

“Too bad we can’t shoot them,” muttered Stacy.

“You can, but it’ll cost you money if you’re caught at it,” said the guide.

“One experience in that direction is enough,” answered Stacy.

“I thought you were going to do your family washing,” reminded Emma.

“Well, I reckon I will if I can find my shirts and the rest of the outfit, but I won’t go out alone. You folks have got to come with me. Emma, you stand around and chase the bears away. All you have to do is just to look at ’em and they’ll run.”

“Humph! After once setting eyes on you, the rest of the world would be altogether lovely,” retorted Emma, elevating her chin disdainfully.

“We will go with you,” volunteered Lieutenant Wingate. “It doesn’t appear to be safe to let you out of our sight.”

“No. Stacy might fall into some hole and get parboiled. Not that it would not do him good, but the difficulty is that he might not be wise enough to know when he was done and come out,” volunteered Emma Dean.

“Do you mean to insinuate that I’m underdone?” demanded Chunky belligerently.

“Certainly not, Stacy. You are quite capable of speaking for yourself.”

“Say, you good people, it seems to me that our soap is disappearing rather fast,” called Tom Gray from his tent.

Stacy winked solemnly at the guide, a wink that was not lost on either Grace or Emma. Tom, at this juncture, came out with a shirt, a pair of pink pajamas and some underwear and a cake of soap in his hand.

“All ready,” announced Tom. “Stacy, you come with me. Jim, you say that the pool just beyond ‘Old Faithful’ is a good place in which to wash our clothes?”

The guide nodded, but did not offer to accompany the party to the “Little Fountain.” Hippy, after gathering up some of his own soiled garments, started on after the pair, followed by the entire Overland party. Emma was chuckling to herself.

“You seem to be amused about something,” said Grace, eyeing her companion suspiciously.

“I am.”

“Has the missing soap anything to do with your merriment?” questioned Grace.

“It may have,” admitted Miss Dean. “Then again it may not.”

“I will take the first part of your answer as the correct one,” laughed Grace.

“You pay your money and take your choice. It is my belief that we folks are about to witness a most entertaining spectacle,” said Emma, nodding towards Stacy, who was gathering up his belongings on his way to the “Fountain,” a small pool of bubbling, boiling water.

Reaching the pool Emma and Grace saw him slip several bars of double X soap into the boiling pot, while Tom Gray, after critically eyeing the pool and its surroundings, sat down beside it. After sousing his garments in the water he drew them out steaming and proceeded to soap them liberally, the Overland girls offering expert advice on laundering clothes. Stacy, who was standing just back of Tom, kicked the latter’s soap into the “Fountain” the instant that Tom Gray laid it down beside him. When Tom reached for the soap he failed to find it.

“Confound the thing! I must have let my soap slip into the basin. Stacy, have you soap to spare?” asked Tom irritably.

“Yes. You may have my cake.”

The soap, that Stacy handed to his companion a moment later, went the way of the other cakes almost instantly, and the pool was soon covered with hot suds. At sight of this, Grace and Emma drew back somewhat hastily, and Hippy, who was about to wet and soap his own clothes, thought better of it and also stepped back a little. Hippy felt that something was going to happen, but having had no experience with geysers, he could not imagine what that something might be. Tom Gray, however, was too busy sousing and scrubbing his clothes to give much thought to what was going on about him.

Stacy Brown’s garments were floating about in the pool while he steered them here and there with a pole, thrusting them down as far as they would go and watching them leap to the surface. “Greasing the geyser” was great sport for him, but the fat boy was disappointed that nothing exciting followed.

Nature’s washing machine surely was doing its work slowly, but well. That was plainly to be seen. Tom Gray’s pink pajamas were floating about in the suds, the legs far apart, greatly to the amusement of the spectators.

“Thomas, those pink legs are trying their best to get away from each other,” chuckled Stacy.

“If the colors aren’t fast they surely will get away too,” observed Emma, amid groans.

“That was a good one,” averred Stacy. “Almost as good as I could do myself.”

“What is that boy up to?” whispered Elfreda, addressing Grace. “I know it is mischief, but just what it is I have been unable to discover.”

“Sh-h-h-h! He is greasing the geyser,” whispered Grace.

“With what?”

“Soap! In a few moments, if all goes wrong, you will see something, as I understand geyser-greasing.”

Even as Grace Harlowe uttered the words, Elfreda saw a column of steam and water shoot into the air with a hiss and a roar. Above the noise of the erupting “Little Fountain,” which at first had appeared to be so harmless, might have been heard the yells of Stacy Brown. The explosion had taken him wholly unawares. Tom Gray was no better off, though he did not howl. When the geyser erupted so suddenly, Tom had fallen over backwards, but he was up and out of the way in an instant, ere the boiling water could reach him. Stacy was less fortunate. He was not fully aroused to the peril of his position until he felt a shower of hot water spraying over him.

Stacy uttered a yell and bolted from the immediate vicinity of the pool, while his companions were shouting with laughter, Tom Gray adding his voice to the merriment.

“Did you lose anything, Tom?” teased Grace.

“Only a shirt and pajamas,” answered Tom, grinning sheepishly.

“You forget your reputation as a dignified gentleman,” interjected Emma.

“Where are your things, Chunky?” questioned Hippy, laughing immoderately.

Stacy eyed the column of water before replying. “I’ve got two shirts, a pair of ‘pants’ and a wad of handkerchiefs, some socks and a sombrero hat up there somewhere in the air. They ought to get well aired, eh?”

“There go Tom’s pajamas!” cried Elfreda. For a few seconds the pajamas were suspended in the air above the column of water. They were then joined by Tom’s shirt, and both garments suddenly disappeared. Next, Stacy Brown’s hat made its appearance. It, too, was as suddenly whisked out of sight. He hoped that his clothes might drop to safe ground where he could rescue them, but they did not. All the garments remained with the angry geyser, appearing only occasionally before the delighted gaze of those of the party not intimately interested in them.

“So, this is one of your little pleasantries, is it?” chided Grace, pulling Stacy’s ear.

“Ouch! I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do, Stacy Brown. As a precautionary measure, however, I believe that, were I in your place, I should keep the fact to myself. You know that husband of mine may not see the humor of the situation.”

“Do you think he suspects?” asked Stacy apprehensively.

“No, but he may. I know that Emma does.”

“All right. I don’t care. Say, folks,” called Chunky. “Can’t you help me get my ‘pants’? Thomas wants his pajamas, too.”

“If I may be permitted to offer a suggestion, I should advise you to wait until the water spout dies down, then dive into the pool and rescue the clothes,” volunteered Emma.

“No, thank you. I was in hot water the other day and I still feel like a boiled potato with the skin peeling off. You know how I feel.”

“Never having been a boiled potato or a cabbage head, I don’t,” responded Emma.

“There goes the water down. Now all hands fall to and rescue Thomas’s pajamas and his shirt,” urged Hippy.

The Overlanders caught but a fleeting glance of the garments, which were quickly sucked down into the depths of the pool.

“When does this Fountain of Perpetual Youth spout again?” demanded Tom Gray.

“The guide says that it is irregular,” answered Grace. “Perhaps within the hour, or perhaps not until to-morrow.”

Tom growled long and deeply.

“Will—will my shirts come up?” stammered Stacy.

“It would serve you right if they did not,” smiled Grace.

“Well, they’d better. There is one consolation, Tom. Our duds will be well laundered when they do come out, won’t they?”

“Yes, when they do,” sighed Tom, and the Overlanders burst into a peal of merry laughter. “Hereafter I wash my clothes in a creek—in one that has no kick to it. Who suggested this fool thing, anyway?”

“The guide,” dodged Stacy.

The “Little Fountain” did not erupt again that day, so the guide was left to watch it while the Overland party went off for a few hours’ exploration among the other geysers of the Great Basin.

Nothing more was seen of the missing garments that day, but when day was just breaking next morning the party was aroused by a shout from the guide.

“She’s going to spout again!” he cried.

Pajama-clad, Stacy and Hippy raced for the “Fountain.” Each had snatched up a pole with which he hoped to spear the missing clothing. The others of the Overland party followed as soon as they had made themselves presentable, all laughing and rubbing the sleep out of their eyes.

The “Little Fountain” was steaming and hissing angrily, and sent up an unusually vicious spurt just as Stacy reached it, whereupon the fat boy beat a hurried retreat.

“There they are!” shouted Tom espying his much-wanted garments as he glanced into the pool. “I’ve got mine!”

But had he? True, the pink pajamas and a shirt were seen floating about on the bubbling waters, while, with the pole that Hippy had passed to him, Tom was trying to tow them in.

“Hiss! Boom!” With a roar the steam jet shot up once more, carrying the articles of clothing fully a hundred feet into the air. It was as though these pieces of clothing had been shot out of a cannon. Stacy had ventured close to the pool, but now he and Tom Gray ran for safer ground.

As for the spectators, they could not keep back their laughter. Higher, yet higher, soared the pink pajamas, a blotch on the water’s rainbow of colors.

“The tendency of men’s wear is upward,” averred Emma Dean demurely.

That was the last the Overland Riders saw of the lost garments that day. During the next three days, however, Tom’s and Stacy’s things were quite frequently on exhibition in the air, supported by a column of hot water, but it seemed impossible to recover them, so the campers finally decided to abandon their quest and move on in search of other adventures in the Yellowstone Park.