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But the Wondership, bearing the two boys who could not help laughing heartily, although they feared serious consequences might come of the accident, was winging its way onward out of earshot of the not unnaturally indignant Ezra Perkins. They passed Rayburn before Jack noticed a peculiar smell in the atmosphere. It was leaking gas.
He was certain he had seen rightly; but he decided, for the present, to say nothing to his companions about the events of the night. Having failed to find any tracks round the Wondership, he started off through the trees on his hunt. He was traversing a small glade when, in a clump of flowering bushes, he heard a sudden scuffling noise. Startled, he stopped.
Everything about the Wondership was in readiness for the enterprise, and there only remained the tin breakfast utensils and the tents to be packed when they had concluded the morning meal. Naturally excitement ran high. The hunt for the island, too, might be a long one. But they felt that ultimately they would find it, that it would not be like the three buttes of Peg-leg Smith.
I had some fine specimens." "Goodness, no wonder you sank down!" exclaimed Jack. "Why didn't you let go of them?" The scientist was mildly surprised. "Why, how could I," he asked, "until it became a question of life or death? It's too bad I had to lose them," and he shook his head mournfully at the thought. The journey was soon resumed, the Wondership rising buoyantly out of the dismal canyon.
Waiting back there for he doesn't know what, and with nothing to do but wait. I wonder if we are going to succeed? We will, we must! But, supposing that the map was wrong and that " His musing broke off suddenly and he crouched forward watching intently. His eyes were staring wide-open and startled at the Wondership. Its bulk lay blackly against the faint, phosphorescent glow of the black barren.
"I thought for a minute the world had come to an end." "My fingers are tingling yet," said Jack, "and I can see stars, but I think if it hadn't been for the cage we would have likely been blown to smithereens." By this time they were almost over the doctor's house and extensive grounds. Jack manipulated the Wondership against the storm, flying in a circle, and snapped on the powerful searchlight.
Zeb, who had been out looking for a trustworthy man to take their effects out to a spot along the river where they could put the Wondership together without exciting undue curiosity, returned shortly before supper with news that he had been successful in his search, an old, wrinkled prospector named Pete McGee, who had learned the secret of silence during the long years he had spent on the desert.
Suddenly it flashed into Jack's mind that in former times, before the bridge had been built, there had been a ford at the point. The banks, steep elsewhere, almost wall-like in fact, were still graded at the place where the old crossing spot had been. He jerked over the steering wheel with a suddenness that threatened to overturn the Wondership.
"Same here. Jes' 'bout tuckered out," chimed in Zeb. "It's the effect of the stuff we are working in," said the professor. "Anyhow, we've done enough for to-day. We'll load the lead carboys on the Wondership and then knock off. I don't want you boys to get sick." They took the loaded carboys to the grounded craft and the professor sealed and soldered a cover on each of them.
The big aircraft shot up like an arrow. For a second the farmer stood paralyzed at the suddenness of it all. His farm hands lounged about, gaping and looking upward like country folks at a fireworks display. Then, without any warning: "Bang!" The farmer let loose with both barrels at once. But the Wondership still rose. All at once, from below, came a yell of surprise and terror.
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