"There he is! Something's happened to him," shouted Walter.
All hands started on a run. They could not imagine what had gone wrong with the fat boy.
As they drew nearer to him they discovered that he had taken off all his clothes. His body was as red as if it had been painted.
The Professor's long legs were covering the alkali at a pace that left the others behind, until Tad spurted and headed him.
"Chunky, Chunky! What's the matter?" he shouted.
"What is it? What is it?" shouted the others in chorus.
"I'm burned alive? I'm cremated! Oh, w-o-w!"
"Should think you would he. What on earth have you got your clothes off for?"
They discovered that something was the matter then, for an expression of real pain had taken the place of the complacent look they were wont to see on the face of Stacy Brown.
"He's been boiling himself!" exclaimed the guide, with quick intuition.
Grasping the fat boy, Parry threw him flat on the ground and began rolling him in the sand. Stacy yelled more lustily than before.
"Run to my saddlebags. Fetch the black bottle you will find there!" commanded the guide. "It's oil, yes. Hurry, before his skin all peels off."
Tad was back with the black bottle in no time. Tom Parry spread the oil over the blistered flesh of the fat boy, whose yells grew less and less explosive as he felt the soothing effects of the grease on his body.
"In where?" questioned the Professor sharply.
"Put your clothes on. You'll be all right in a little while. Where did you leave them?"
Stacy pointed back on the desert some distance, whereat Parry laughingly said he would go in search of the clothing.
"Now if you will be good enough to tell me what all this uproar is about, I shall be obliged to you," requested the Professor.
"Why, the boy found a boiling spring----"
"He did," agreed the guide, without the suspicion of a smile.
"I--I was walking along with my hands in my pockets----"
"What'd you suppose I was doing! Ain't I always thinking when I'm not asleep?"
"Go on, go on," urged Ned unsympathetically.
"All at once something slipped. I went right through the ground. At first I thought I was a pond of ice water, it felt so cold. Next thing I knew I was burning up."
"But your clothes? What did you have them off for?" urged the Professor.