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orning. But Ned's answers were not encouraging. There was no romance in them; they were too near the truth to suit Chris, and he liked them the less because at heart he felt that they must be correct and his own hopes too sanguine. But all the same he clung to his own ideas--they were so tempting. They were that with daylight they should have reached the end of the wild desert, and that from high up on some sunlit slope they would be gazing down into a broad green valley--some natural paradise through which flowed a rippling stream. He described his notions to Ned, who seemed to be listening attentively in the darkness, and now and then said "Oh," or "Ah, yes;" but all the time he was clinging involuntarily to his saddle, his head nodding forward again and again, only to be brought back to the perpendicular with a jerk, while Chris was too drowsy himself to notice it, as he went muttering on. "It won't be the place where the gold city and temple are, Ned," he said; "but it will be just the spot where we can rest for a few days." "Ah!" said Ned. "There'll be fish in that river, you know," said Chris--"salmon that have come up out of the Pacific; and we can spear them after we've drunk all we want, and bathed till we've soaked all this horrible dryness out of our skins. All along by the river too there'll be park-like meadows--meadows--green meadows. Do you hear?" Ned grunted. "And in those park-like prairie places there are sure to be droves of buffalo. Beef--do you hear?--beef!" Chris's head bowed down as if he were going to lay his forehead upon his mustang's neck; but the thought of roast beef woke him up again, and he clung a little more tightly with his knees and kept on with his muttering. "I say, don't go to sleep, Ned," he said, as he saw his companion follow his own example and bow low. "I feel as sure as sure that's the sort of place we shall come to. There'll be great spreading fir-trees too, such as Griggs talked about seeing up north in the Rockies--trees with boughs that will keep off the sun and rain, eh?" "Ah!" grunted Ned. "It will be just the place that we want, to give the horses and mules a good long rest for a few days, to feed up well on good pasture while we shoot, and amuse ourselves, and kill buffalo, and eat hot roast beef-- hot roast beef. And drink beautiful, clear, cold water--and you can lie down upon your chest with your face over the running stream, and drin
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