"This is terrible, Nick!" exclaimed Peg. "Can't you think of some way
we might get out of this? Oh! I'd give a thousand dollars right now
if only I was safe down on the plains again! What a fool I was to come
here!"
"Well," drawled Nick, possibly with a touch of real envy in his voice,
"I'd like right smart to 'arn that thousand, sure I would, Peg. But
hang me if I kin see how it's agoin' to be done. We can't slide down;
walkin's a risky business, and likely to take hours; an' right now I
don't feel any wings asproutin' out of my shoulders, even if you do."
"Oh stop joking, Nick, and talk sense," complained Peg. "We've just
got to do something. Why, the old mountain might take a notion to
slide, and carry us along with it."
"I sure hopes not, at least right now," replied Nick, uneasily. "But I
do reckons as how we're agoin' to git that storm afore mornin'."
"But see here, Nick," Peg went on, anxiously; "didn't you notice
anything when you were leading me up here like a lamb to the slaughter?
I mean, you ought to have seen whether this side of the old mountain
was more likely to drop off than any other."
"Ye never kin tell nawthin' about such things," returned the cowboy.
"Reckons all we kin do is to root around, an' see if we might find some
sorter cave, where we'd be safe from the rain, if so be she comes arter
a while."
"A cave!" echoed the other, as though startled. "What under the sun do
we want to get inside the mountain for? Don't you understand that all
that noise is coming _out_ of this old thing? I tell you, I believe it
is a volcano, just as they told me, and perhaps she's going to break
loose this very night!"
"Hey! what ye a sayin' that for?" demanded Nick.
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