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"We'll be wise as pigeons, and cautious as any old snake you ever caught up a
tree; eh, Bruno, old man?"
"We promise all you ask, uncle, but does that mean we must stay right here,
without even stealing a weenty peep at the Lost City?"
Professor Featherwit felt sorely tempted to say yes, but then, knowing boyish
nature (although Bruno had just passed his majority, while Waldo was "turned
seventeen") so well, he feared to draw the reins too tightly lest they give
way entirely.
"No; I do not expect quite that much, my lads; but I do count on your taking
no unnecessary risks, and in case of discovery that you rather trust to
flight, and my finding you later on, than to actually fighting."
So it was decided, and at a fairly early hour the trio lay down to sleep.
Although so unusually excited by the marvellous discoveries of the day just
spent, their open-air life tended to calm their brains, and, far sooner than
might have been expected, sleep crept over them, one and all, lasting until
nearly dawn.
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Perhaps it was just as well that the wakening was not more early, for the
professor was beginning to regret his weakness of the past evening, and had
there been more time for drawing lugubrious pictures of probable mishaps, he
might even yet have insisted on taking the youngsters with him.
Knowing that it was rather more than probable some of the Indians would be
stationed upon the hills to watch for the queerly shaped air-demon, the
professor felt obliged to lose no further time, and so the separation was
effected, just as the eastern sky was beginning to show streaks and veins of a
new day.
"Touch and go!" cried Waldo, with a vast inhalation as he watched the
aeromotor sail away with the swiftness of a bird on wing. "And for a weenty
bit I reckoned 'twas you and me as part of the go, too!"
In company the lads enjoyed a more leisurely meal than their relative had
dared wait for, knowing that, at the very least, they would have the whole of
that day to themselves, so far as uncle Phaeton was concerned. As a matter of
course, he would not attempt to return except under cover of night, or in the
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The Lost City early dawn of another day.
All that had been thoroughly discussed and provided for the evening before,
and was barely touched
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upon by the brothers now. Their first and most natural thought was of yonder
Lost City, with its inhabitants, red, white, and yellow, as Waldo put it; but
being still under the foreboding fears of the professor, they finally agreed
to remain where he left them until after the sun crossed its meridian.
It was a rather early meal which the brothers prepared, if the whole truth
must be told; and the last fragments were bolted rather than chewed, feet
keeping time with jaws, as they hastened towards the observatory.
There was pretty much the same sort of view as on the day before, the main
difference being that many of the Indians were labouring in the fields,
instead of watching for the air-demon.
Using the glass by turns, the lads kept eager watch for the white women whom
Waldo stubbornly persisted were within the town; but hour after hour passed
without the desired reward, and Bruno began to doubt whether there was any
such vision to be won.
"The sun was in your eyes, and you let mad fancy run away with your better
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judgment, boy," he decided, at length. "If not, why -- what now?"
For Waldo gave a low, eager exclamation, gripping the field-glass as though he
would crush in the reinforced
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leather case. A few moments thus, then he laughed in almost fierce glee,
thrusting the glass towards his brother, speaking excitedly:
"A crazy fool lunatic, am I? Well, now, you just take a squint at the old
house for yourself and see if --
biting you, now, is it?"
For Bruno showed even more intense interest as he caught the right line, there
taking note of -- yes, they surely were white women! Faces, hair, all went to
proclaim that fact. And more than that, even.
"Fair -- lovely as a painter's dream!" almost painfully breathed the elder
Gillespie. "I never saw such a
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The Lost City lovely -- "
"Injun squaw, of course. Couple of 'em. Nobody but a fool would ever think
different. The idea of finding white women -- "
"They are ladies, Waldo! I never saw such -- and I feel that they must be the
ones lost by poor
Edgecombe when that storm -- "
"That's all right enough, old fellow," interrupted Waldo, claiming the glass
once more. "No need of your playing the porker on legs, though, as I see. Give
another fellow a chance to squint. But aren't they regular jo-dandies, though,
for a fact?"
The two women in question, clad in flowing robes
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of white, lit up here and there by a dash of colour, were slowly pacing to and
fro upon the temple where first discovered by the keen-eyed youngster. Thanks
to the excellent glass, it was possible to view them clearly in spite of the
distance, and there could be no dispute upon that one point: both mother and
daughter (granting that such was their relationship) were more than ordinarily
fair and comely of both face and person.
For the better part of an hour that slow promenade lasted, and until the women
finally passed beyond their range of vision, the brothers took eager and
copious notes. Then, in spite of the fact that scores of other figures still
came within their field of vision, curiosity lagged.
"It's like watching a street medicine show, after hearing Patti or seeing
Irving," muttered Bruno, drawing back and stretching his wearied limbs beyond
possible discovery.
"Or the A B C class playing two-old-cat, after a league game of extra innings;
right you are, my hearty!" coincided Waldo, feeling pretty much the same way,
"only with a difference."
Shortly after this, Bruno suggested a retreat to the rendezvous, and for a
wonder his brother agreed without amendment.
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The brothers passed down to the gulch, which formed the easiest route to their
refuge, saying very
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