When Dick gave the word, Mayhew only too gladly once more led off.
"That buffalo must have known of this hot fountain, because he came straight up to where it is," Roger remarked, after they had left the spouting geyser behind them.
"Yes, but it seems that it rises only at long intervals," Dick explained. "It may be that days pass without an outburst. That accounts for the snow around, which disappeared so fast once the flow of hot water began."
Roger seemed content to accept this version of the strange happening. In fact it was now a past matter with him; his most urgent necessity did not concern wonderful fountains at all, but provender. He had a constant reminder with him that "nature abhors a vacuum," and that an empty stomach gives its owner no peace.
"If we had stood where we were," said Dick, "the chances are some of us might have been well cooked. My heart seemed to jump up in my throat when you stumbled, Roger; but you managed to recover your balance and come on."
"I confess that I was a bit worried myself about that time, Dick; but as a rule I'm not so clumsy. Just now my legs seem weak and wobbly. It must be that hunger is getting a good grip on me."
"All's well that ends well, they say," ventured Mayhew, stealing a backward look over his shoulder at the still spouting geyser that filled him with such uneasiness.
"When the buffalo found this place all covered with snow," continued Roger, "so he could get not a mouthful of grass or fodder, he started off again in the same general direction. Where do you reckon he is striking out for now, Dick?"
"Oh, I suppose he knows of other places where he can feed, and is headed for one of them," was the answer Dick gave.
"There, the noise is dying down back of us," Mayhew announced. "It seems as though the show is over for this time. Yes, the column of hot water and steam is only half as high, and getting less right along."
"It may lie quiet for another spell, perhaps days, before it breaks out again," suggested Dick, which remark proved that he was arriving at some conclusion respecting these remarkable geysers, in that he believed they all had regular cycles for displaying their activities, some frequent, others at much longer intervals, but all working with clock-like fidelity.