"By ginger!" burst out Dan. "Boys, the trail is getting warm."
"Do you know the road around the crater?" I asked of Lincoln Susu.
"Oh, yes; me volcano guide—know all the trails and roads."
I at once consulted with my chums. "Perhaps it would be a good idea to hire this man to show us the way," I suggested. "He may be able to follow them better than we can. Certainly he ought to."
"I think Mark is right," said Dan. "We don't want to get lost, or anything like that. I've had enough of being lost," and he shook his head decidedly.
"But we don't want this native to suspect what we are after," said Oliver.
"We needn't do so. We can hire him by the hour, or by the day, and dismiss him at our pleasure," I returned.
It was decided to hire Susu, and Oliver lost no time in acquainting the Kanaka of that fact. His price was fifty cents an hour, or two dollars per day, and we took him by the day.
The journey that followed was one I am not likely to forget as long as I live. We started on foot, over the rocks and rough lava beds, picking our way among the cacti and prickly bushes, jumping innumerable hollows, and sometimes let-
