CONCLUSION, 
343 
Mrs. Button sat up straight and dried her tears with 
marvellous alacrity. 
" Why, don't you see, mother," broke in Hugh, taking 
up the story where Rob had left it, " there might be 
something else there almost as good as a mercury moun- 
tain ? Just as we reached the foot of the peak, we heard 
the old volcano once more, and the rumbling and all. 
The queer look came into Uncle Dick's face again. 
" ' Well, what is it ? ' says father. ' Out with it, Dick. 
Don't stand there staring like an owl with a bad con- 
science.' 
" ' Well, the fact is,' says uncle, ^ I've made a discovery. 
I wasn't quite sure of it until to-day, but I've figured it 
out pretty carefully, and I'm confident I'm right now.' 
(You can't hurry uncle a mite, you know, when he chooses 
to take his time.) ' Where is north ? ' says he, in a general 
kind of a way. 
" ' Over there,' says Solomon, who carried the compass. 
" ' H'm ! Then, the sun rose in the southwest, and is 
going to set due east ! ' 
" Sure enough, there was the sun, all twisted round on 
the wrong side of the sky. 
' Well, now for your figures,' father sings out. 
As for Solomon, there, he just scowled at the sun, and 
kept saying, ' I swan ! ' over and over." And Hugh burst 
into an irrepressible laugh at the memory. 
Uncle pulled Peeschee's map out of his pocket," said 
Robert, hastening to take the floor while Hugh was in- 
