Or, the Captives of the Great Earthquake / Rockwood, Roy

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Title: On a Torn-Away World

Author: Roy Rockwood

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ON A TORN-AWAY WORLD

Or

The Captives of the Great Earthquake

BY ROY ROCKWOOD






Other titles by ROY ROCKWOOD

THE GREAT MARVEL SERIES

THROUGH THE AIR TO THE NORTH POLE

UNDER THE OCEAN TO THE SOUTH POLE

FIVE THOUSAND MILES UNDERGROUND

THROUGH SPACE TO MARS

LOST ON THE MOON

ON A TORN-AWAY WORLD

DAVE DASHAWAY, THE YOUNG AVIATOR

DAVE DASHAWAY AND HIS HYDROPLANE

DAVE DASHAWAY AND HIS GIANT AIRSHIP

DAVE DASHAWAY AROUND THE WORLD

THE SPEEDWELL BOYS ON MOTOR CYCLES

THE SPEEDWELL BOYS AND THEIR RACING AUTO

THE SPEEDWELL BOYS AND THEIR POWER LAUNCH

THE SPEEDWELL BOYS IN A SUBMARINE







CONTENTS



I.      SHOT INTO THE AIR!

II.     MARK HANGS ON

III.    THIS FLIGHT OF THE "SNOWBIRD"
IV.     "WHO GOES THERE?"

V.      BETWEEN TWO PERILS

VI.     ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND

VII.    DROPPED FROM THE SKY

VIII.   PHINEAS ROEBACH, OIL HUNTER

IX.     THE EARTHQUAKE

X.      THE BLACK DAY

XI.     THE WONDERFUL LEAP

XII.    THE GEYSER

XIII.   NATURE GONE MAD

XIV.    ON THE WING AGAIN

XV.     A PLUNGE TO THE ICE

XVI.    PROFESSOR HENDERSON REVEALS THE TRUTH

XVII.   ON AN ISLAND IN THE AIR

XVIII.  IMPRISONED IN THE ICE

XIX.    A NIGHT ATTACK

XX.     THE HEROISM OF THE SHANGHAI ROOSTER

XXI.    MARK ON GUARD

XXII.   THE WOLF TRAIL

XXIII.  THE FIGHT AT ALEUKAN

XXIV.   THE FLIGHT TOWARD THE COAST

XXV.    THE HERD of KADIAKS

XXVI.   THE ABANDONED CITY

XXVII.  THE WHALE HUNT ASHORE

XXVIII. ON THE WHALING BARK

XXIX.   WHEN THE SEA ROLLED BACK

XXX.    AN ENDURING MONUMENT--CONCLUSION





CHAPTER I


SHOT INTO THE AIR

"Hurrah!" shouted Jack Darrow, flicking the final drops of lacquer
from the paintbrush he had been using. "That's the last stroke. She's
finished!"

"I guess we've done all we can to her before her trial trip," admitted
his chum, Mark Sampson, but in a less confident tone.

"You don't see anything wrong with her, old croaker; do you?" demanded
Jack, laughing as usual.

"'The proof of the pudding is in the eating thereof; not in chewing
the pudding bag string'," quoted Mark, still with a serious countenance.

But like Jack he stood off from the great body of the wonderful airship,
and looked the completed task over with some satisfaction. Having
emergency wings, she was also a plane. She was white all over and her
name was the _Snowbird_. Jack and Mark had spent most of their time
during this vacation from their college in building this flying machine,
which was veritably an up-to-the-minute aerial vehicle, built for both
speed and carrying capacity.

The hangar in which the machine had been built was connected with
Professor Amos Henderson's laboratory and workshop, hidden away on a
lonely point on the seacoast, about ten miles from the town of Easton,
Maine. At this spot had been built many wonderful things--mainly the
inventions of the boys' friend and protector, Professor Henderson; but
the _Snowbird_, upon which Jack and Mark now gazed so proudly, was
altogether the boys' own work.

The sliding door of the hangar opened just behind the two boys and a
black face appeared.

"Is eeder ob you boys seen ma Shanghai rooster?" queried the black
man, plaintively. "I suah can't fin' him nowhars."

"What did you let him out of his coop for?" demanded Mark. "You're
always bothering us about that rooster, Washington. He is as elusive
as the Fourth Dimension."

"I dunno wot dat fourth condension is, Massa Mark; but dat rooster is
suah some conclusive. When I lets him out fo' an airin' he hikes right
straight fo' some farmer's hen-yard, an' den I haster hunt fo' him."

"When you see him starting on his rambles, Wash, why don't you call
him back?" demanded Jack Darrow, chuckling. "If I did, Massa Jack,
I'spect he wouldn't know I was a-hollerin' fo' him."

"How's that? Doesn't he know his name?"

"I don't fo' suah know wedder he does or not," returned the darkey,
scratching his head "Ye see, it's a suah 'nuff longitudinous name, an'
I dunno wedder he remembers it all, or not."

"He's got a bad memory; has he?" said Mark, turning to smile at
Washington White, too, for Professor Henderson's old servant usually
afforded the boys much amusement.

"Dunno 'bout his memory," grunted Wash; "he's gotter good forgettery,
suah 'nuff. Leastways, when he starts off on one o' dese
perambulationaries ob his, he fergits ter come back."

"Let's see," said Jack, nudging his chum, "what _is_ that
longitudinous' name which has been hitched onto that wonderful bird,
Wash? I know it begins with the discovery of America and wanders down
through the ages to the present day; but a part of it has slipped my
memory--or, perhaps I should say, 'forgettery'."

With a perfectly serious face the darkey declaimed:

  "Christopher Columbus Amerigo Vespucci
  George Washington Abraham Lincoln Ulysses
  Grant Garibaldi Thomas Edison Guglielmo Marconi
  Butts."

"For goodness sake! Will you listen to that!" gasped Mark, while Jack
went off into a roar of laughter.

"Don't--don't it make your jaw ache to say it, Wash?" cried the older
lad when he could speak.

"Not a-tall! not a-tall!" rejoined the darkey, shaking his woolly head.
"I has practised all ma life speakin' de berry longest words in de
English language--"

"And mispronouncing them," giggled Jack.

"Mebbe, Massa Jack, mebbe!" agreed Washington, briskly. "But de copy
book say dat it is better to have tried an' failed dan nebber to have
tried at all."

"And did you ever try calling the rooster back, when he starts to play
truant, with all that mouthful of words?" queried the amused Mark.

"Yes, indeedy," said Washington, seriously.

"Don't he mind, then?"

"I should think he'd be struck motionless in his tracks," chuckled
Jack.

"No, sah," said Washington. "Dat's de only fault I kin fin' with dat
name--it don't 'pear to stop him. An' befo' I kin git it all out he's
ginerally out ob sight!"

That sent both boys off into another paroxysm of laughter. Meanwhile
the darkey had come into the great shed and was slowly walking around
the flying machine. "What do you think of her, Wash, now that she's
finished?" asked Mark.

"Is she done done?" queried the darkey, wonderingly.

"She certainly is," agreed Jack.

"De chile is bawn and done named Nebbercudsneezer, heh? Well! well!"

"No; it's named the _Snowbird_," Mark retorted. "And to-morrow
morning, bright and early, we shall sail on its trial trip. The
professor is going with us, Washington. Of course, you will come, too?"

"Lawsy me! don't see how I kin!" stammered Washington White, who always
wished to be considered very brave, but who was really as timid as a
hare. "Yo' see, Massa Mark, I'spect I shall be right busy."

"What will you be busy at?" demanded Jack.

"Well--well, sah," said Wash, "if dat Shanghai don't come back befo',
I shall hab ter go snoopin' aroun' de kentry a-huntin' fo' him. He'll
be crowin' 'bout sun-up, an' he suah can't disguise his crow."

"If Andy was here, he would surely want to go with us," declared Jack
to Mark. "Andy Sudds isn't afraid of anything."

"My! my!" cried Washington. "Yo' don't fo' one moment suppose, Massa
Jack, dat I's afeared; does yo'?" "No, you're not afraid, Wash,"
returned Jack, chuckling. "You're only scared to death. But you go
ahead and hunt your rooster. See that you keep him from flying too
high, however, or we'll run him down in the _Snowbird_."

"Pshaw!" said Mark. "That rooster is so fat he couldn't fly
high, anyway."

"And perhaps the _Snowbird_ won't fly very high; eh?" retorted Jack,
letting a little anxiety creep into his voice.

"But dat rooster suah _kin_ fly high," said Washington White, eagerly.
"Yo' gemmens knows dat he's flowed as high as de moon--he, he!"

"And 'flowed' is a mighty good word, Wash," chuckled Jack. "Ah! here
is the professor, Mark."

Professor Henderson was an aged man with snow white hair and beard.
Although he was not physically as strong as he once was, his brain and
energy were not in the least impaired by advancing years. He had taken
the two lads, Jack Darrow and Mark Sampson, both orphans, under his
care some years before, and under his tuition and by his aid they were
much farther advanced in knowledge of the practical sciences than other
boys of their age.

The professor welcomed them cordially and at their request gave a
thorough scrutiny to the various mechanical contrivances that went to
the make-up of the flying machine. He pronounced it, as far as could
be known before a practical test, a perfect mechanism.

"And we will try it to-morrow morning, boys," he said, with almost as
much enthusiasm as Jack and Mark themselves displayed. "You have
completed the machine in excellent time, and I "un likewise ready to
make the experiment."

"What experiment, Professor?" asked the boys in chorus.

"Haven't you noticed what I was tinkering on at the other end of the
shop?" queried Professor Henderson, in surprise.

"Why, I see that you have a long steel plank there, with some kind of
a compressed air contrivance at one end," said Jack.

"Is that what you mean, Professor?" queried Mark.

"That, boys," said the scientist, with some pride, "is a modern
catapult--an up-to-the-minute catapult which, had it been known to the
ancients, would have enabled the hosts of Joshua, for instance, to
batter down the walls of Jericho without the trouble of marching so
many times around the city."

"And what has a compressed air catapult got to do with the
_Snowbird_?" queried Jack. "You propose launching your flying machine in
the usual way," said the professor. "I see you have wheel trucks all
ready to slip under her. We will not use those wheels, boys. I have a
better plan. We will launch the _Snowbird_ into the air from my
catapult."

"Great goodness, Professor!" cried Mark. "Is that practicable?"

"We'll know after we have tried it," retorted Professor Henderson,
drily.

"How did you happen to start working on this catapult idea?" asked
Jack.

"Well, I can't tell you everything," replied the inventor, "for it is
partly a secret."

"Huh," laughed Mark. "You're mysterious. You haven't joined forces
with some department of our government, or with another country?"

The professor smiled, thinking how keen this young man always proved
himself to be.

"You've guessed it," he replied. "And I'm sorry I can't explain more
to you."

"We understand," said Jack. "And no doubt this machine is a
super-catapult."

"True," was the answer. "Of untold use to the scientific world. For
the present I shall confine testing its efficiency right in this place.
Now is my chance."

"But of what advantage will it be to our flying machine to start it
in this way?" "Stop and think, my boy," said the professor. "Just as
an aeroplane can literally be shot into the air within a very short
space, so can your airship. Of course, this is not necessary, but we
will be able to start the ship much faster that way than we could
withjust the motors."

"You'll make history, Professor," added Jack. "Exciting headlines for
the papers."

"Sure enough," said Mark enthusiastically.

"The publicity doesn't interest me," replied the scientist. "Moreover,
my super-catapult must remain a secret, as I told you a while ago."

"So you really propose to launch the _Snowbird_ in this way?" asked
Jack.

"We will be shot into the air. If you are sure of your machine, I am
sure of my catapult, and we will try the two contrivances together."

In the morning all rose bright and early and prepared the _Snowbird_ for
her trial flight. Washington White had indeed disappeared--possibly in
search of his Shanghai rooster--and Andy Sudds was off on a hunt.
Therefore the professor and his two young comrades essayed the trip
alone.

Jack and Mark tossed a coin to see who should first guide the great
air machine, and Mark won the preference. He, as well as his chum and
the professor, had already donned their aeronautic uniforms, and he
now strapped himself into the pilot's seat. The steering apparatus,
the levers that controlled the planes, and the motor switch were all
under his hand. While in flight the _Snowbird_ need be under the
control of but one person at a time.

The professor had rigged his catapult so that he could release the
trigger from the flying machine. Mark said he was ready; the professor
reached for the cord which would release the trigger.

"Start your motor, Mark, a fraction of a second before I release the
compressed air," commanded Mr. Henderson. "Now!"

The motor of the flying machine buzzed faintly. Jack's eyes were on
the speed indicator. He suddenly felt the great, quivering flying
machine, which had been run out of the hangar on to the steel plank
of the catapult, lurch forward. The feeling affected him just as the
sudden dropping of an elevator from a great height affects its
passengers.

The finger of the speed indicator whirled and marked forty miles an
hour ere the flying machine left the steel plank, and shot into the
air with the fearful force of the compressed air behind it.

Both Mark and Jack were well used to guiding aeroplanes and other air
machines. But this start from the ground was much different from the
easy, swooping flight of an airship as usually begun. Like an arrow
the _Snowbird_ was shot upward on a long slant. It was a moment
ere Mark got the controls to working. The propellers were, of course,
started with the first stroke of the motor.

But Mark Sampson was nervous; there was no denying that. At the instant
when the nose of the airship should have been raised, so as to clear
the tops of the forest trees and every building on the Henderson place,
Mark instead guided the rapidly flying _Snowbird_ far to the left.

It skimmed the corner of the stable by a fraction of a foot, and Jack
yelled:

"Look out!"

His cry made Mark even more nervous. The tall water-tank and windmill
were right in line. Before the young aviator could swerve the flying
machine to escape the vane upon the roof of the tower, and the long
arms of the mill, they were right upon these things!

The fast-shooting _Snowbird_ was jarred through all her members; but she
tore loose. And then, in erratic leaps and bounds, she kept on across
the fields and woods towards Easton, never rising very high, but
occasionally sinking so that she trailed across the treetops,
threatening the whole party with death and the flying machine itself
with destruction, at every jump.




CHAPTER II

MARK HANGS ON


Professor Henderson and his adopted sons--Jack Darrow and Mark
Sampson--had been in many perilous situations together. Neither one
nor the other was likely to display panic at the present juncture,
although the flying _Snowbird_ was playing a gigantic game of
"leap-frog" through the air.

The professor had himself constructed many wonderful machines for
transportation through the air, under the ground, and both on and
beneath the sea; and in them he and his young comrades had voyaged
afar.

Narrated in the first volume of this series, entitled, "Through the
Air to the North Pole," was the bringing together of the two boys and
the professor,--how the scientist and Washington White rescued Jack
and Mark after a train wreck, took them to the professor's workshop,
and made the lads his special care. In that workshop was built the
_Electric Monarch_, in which flying ship the party actually passed
over that point far beyond the Arctic Circle where the needle of the
compass indicates the North Pole.

Later, in the submarine boat, the _Porpoise,_ the professor, with
his young assistants and others, voyaged under the sea to the South
Pole, the details of which voyage are related in the second volume of
the series, entitled "Under the Ocean to the South Pole."

In the third volume, "Five Thousand Miles Underground," is related the
building of that strange craft, the _Flying Mermaid_, and how the
voyagers journeyed to the center of the earth. The perils connected
with this experience satisfied all of them, as far as adventure went,
for some time. Jack and Mark prepared for, and entered, the Universal
Electrical and Chemical College.

Before the first year of their college course was completed, however,
Professor Henderson, in partnership with a brother scientist, Professor
Santell Roumann, projected and carried through a marvelous campaign
with the aid of Jack and Mark, which is narrated in our fourth volume,
entitled, "Through Space to Mars." In this book is told how the
projectile, _Annihilator_, was built and, the projectile being driven by
the Etherium motor, the party was transported to the planet Mars.

Later, because of some knowledge obtained from a Martian newspaper by
Jack, they all made a trip to the moon in search of a field of diamonds,
and their adventures as related in "Lost on the Moon" were of the most
thrilling kind. The projectile brought them safely home again and they
had now, for some months, been quietly pursuing their usual avocations.

The knowledge Jack Darrow and Mark Sampson had gained from textbooks,
and much from observation and the teachings of Professor Henderson,
had aided the lads in the building of the _Snowbird_. It was the first
mechanism of importance that Jack and Mark had ever completed, and they
had been quite confident, before the flying machine was shot from Mr.
Henderson's catapult, that it was as near perfect as an untried
aeroplane could be.

"Hang on, Mark!" yelled Jack, as the great machine soared and pitched
over the forest.

Her leaps were huge, and the shock each time she descended and rose
again threatened to shake the 'plane to bits. Mark swayed in his seat,
clutching first one lever and then another, while Professor Henderson
and Jack could only cling with both hands to the guys and stay-wires.

The sensation of being so high above the earth, and in imminent danger
of being dashed headlong to it, gripped Mark Sampson like a giant
hand. He felt difficulty in breathing, although it was not the height
that gave him that choking sensation. There was a mist before his eyes,
still the sun was shining brightly. The startling gyrations of the
flying machine for some time shook the lad to the core.

But Jack's cheerful cry of "Hang on!" spurred Mark to a new activity--an
activity of hand as well as brain. He knew that something had fouled
and that this accident was the cause of the machine making such
sickening bounds in the air. She was overbalanced in some way.

With Jack's encouraging shout ringing in his ears, Mark came to himself.
He _would_ hang on! His friends depended upon him to control the machine
and to save them from destruction, and he would not be found wanting.

One lever after another he gripped and tried. It was one controlling
the rising power that was fouled. He learned this in a moment. He
sought to move it to and fro in its socket and could not do so. He had
overlooked this lever before.

Again the _Snowbird_ dashed herself from a height of five hundred feet
toward the earth.

They still flew over the forest. The tops of the trees intervened, and
Mark managed to counteract the plunge before the prow of the machine
burst through the treetops. She rose again, and using both hands, Mark
jerked the wheel stick into place.

At once the flying machine responded to the change. She rode straight
on, slightly rising as he had pointed her, and Mark dared touch the
motor switch again. Instantly the machine speeded ahead.

"Hurrah for Mark!" shrieked Jack. "He's pulled us through."

"He has indeed," agreed the professor, and they settled into their
seats and gave attention to the working of the apparatus. Mark now had
the _Snowbird_ well under control.

Jack changed places with his chum and managed the _Snowbird_ equally
well. At his touch she darted upward at a long slant until the altimeter
registered two thousand feet above the sea. And the sea was actually
below them, for Jack had guided the flying machine away out from the
land.

"Boys," said Professor Henderson, quietly, "you have done
well--remarkably well. I am certainly proud of you. Some day the people
of the United States will be proud of you. I am sure that the inventor's
instinct and the scientist's indefatigable energy are characteristics
you both possess."

"That's praise indeed!" exclaimed Jack, smiling at his chum. "When the
professor says we've won out, I don't care what anybody else says."

"Do you think the _Snowbird_ is fit for long-distance travel?" asked
Mark of Professor Henderson, now displaying more eagerness than before.

"I do indeed. I think you have a most excellent flying machine. I would
not hesitate to start for San Francisco in her."

"Or farther?" asked Jack.

"Certainly."

"Across the ocean?" queried Mark, quickly.

"I do not see why any one could not take a trip to the other side of
the Atlantic in your 'plane," replied the professor. "With proper
precautions, of course."

They reached the land and came safely to rest before the hangar without
further accident. The professor was delighted with the working of his
catapult and at once made ready to call the attention of the Navy
Department to his improvement in the means of launching an airship
from the deck of a vessel. Ere he had written to the Department,
however, he and his young friends were suddenly made interested in a
scheme that was broached by letter to Professor Henderson from a
fellow-savant, Dr. Artemus Todd, of the West Baden University.

Professor Henderson and Dr. Todd had often exchanged courtesies; but
the university doctor was mainly interested in medical subjects, while
Mr. Henderson delved more in the mysteries of astronomy and practical
mechanics.

The doctor's letter to Professor Henderson read as follows:

"Dear Professor:

"I am urged to write to you again because of something that has recently
come to my knowledge regarding a subject we once discussed. As you
know, for some years past I have been investigating not the _cause_
of aphasia and kindred mental troubles (for we know the condition is
brought about by a clot of blood upon the brain), but the means of
quickly and surely overcoming the condition and bringing the unfortunate
victim of this disorder back to his normal state. In our age, when
mental and nervous diseases are so rapidly increasing, aphasia victims
are becoming more common. Scarcely a hospital in the land that does
not have its quota of such patients under treatment--patients who, in
many cases, have completely forgotten who and what they are and have
assumed a totally different identity from that they began life with."

"We know that, in some cases, hypnotism has benefited the aphasia and
amnesia victim. His condition is not like that of the mentally feeble;
he has merely lost his memory of what and who he previously was.
Believing that all disease, of whatsoever nature, can be safely treated
only through the blood, _this_ ill to which human flesh is heir
particularly must be treated in that way, for we know that a stagnant
state of the blood in one spot, at least, is the cause of the patient's
malady. Therefore I have been experimenting botanically to discover
a remedium for the state in question--something that will act swiftly
upon the blood, and directly dissipate such a clot as is spoken of
above."

"My dear Professor! I can announce with joy that this remedium is
discovered. I obtained a specimen of a very rare plant brought back
from Alaska by a miner who wandered into the fastnesses of the Endicott
Range, far beyond the usual route of gold miners and in a district
which, I understand, is scarcely ever crossed by whites and which is,
indeed, almost impassable, even in the summer months. With the aid of
this herb--_Chrysothele-Byzantium_ (it was known to the ancients,
but very rare)--I have brewed a remedium which, in one case at lest,
instantly cleared the blood vessels of the patient and brought him
back to a knowledge of his real self."

"But my supply of the herb is gone. It reached me in its dry state,
or I should have first tried to propagate it. It seeds but once in
seven years and therefore is rare and hard to grow. But I must have
a supply of the _Chrysothele-Byzantium_ seeds, plants, and all.
I look to you, my dear Professor Henderson, for help. To you space and
the flight of time are merely words. You can overcome both if you try.
I need somebody to go to the northern part of Alaska--that is, beyond
the Endicott Range--to obtain this rare plant for me. You have already
flown over the North Pole and a trip which carries one only three or
four degrees beyond the Arctic Circle is a mere bagatelle to you."

"Yes! it is in you I place my hope, Professor. The hopes of many, many
afflicted people may be placed in you, too. I ask you to fly to this
distant place and obtain for me the herb that will do humanity such
great good. Under another enclosure I send you drawings of the plant
in its several states and a full and complete description of how it
was found. You can make no mistake in the _Chrysothele-Byzantium_.
You know that I am a cripple, or I would offer to join with you in
this search. But at least I am prepared to pay for any expense you may
be under. Draw upon me for ten thousand dollars to-morrow if you so
desire, and more if you need before the start. The Massachusetts Bay
Trust Company, of Boston, will honor the draft. Make up the expedition
as you see fit. Take as many men with you as you think necessary. Make
all preparations which seem to you fit and needful. I limit you in
nothing--only bring back the herb."

"Remember I shall impatiently await your return and look for your
success--I expect nothing but unqualified success from your attempt.
You who have achieved so much in the past surely cannot fail me in
this event. I await your agreement to attempt this voyage with
confidence. I must have the herb and you are the only person who can
obtain it for me."

"Your friend and co-worker for the betterment of humanity,
             ARTEMUS TODD, M.D., Ph.D."

Professor Henderson read this strange letter aloud in the evening as
he and his friends were sitting before the small, clear fire of hickory
logs in the big living room of the bungalow in the woods, built beside
the great workshops and laboratory. With the scientist and the two
boys was Andy Sudds, the old hunter, who sat cleaning his rifle, and
Washington White was busy in and out of the room as he cleared away
the supper and set the place in order.

"Well! what do you know about that!" exclaimed Jack Darrow, always
ready with a comment upon any subject. "Dr. Todd is certainly some in
earnest; isn't he?" "But what a cheek he has to ask you to go on such
a journey!" cried Mark. "He talks as though he expected you to start
immediately for the Arctic Circle."

"There would be good hunting up there in the mountains," said Andy
Sudds, succinctly. "I wouldn't mind that."

"An'disher chrysomela-bypunktater plant he wants," grunted Washington.
"Hi, yi! ain't dat de beatenest thing? Who ebber heard of sech a plant
befo'?"

"Nobody but you, I guess, Washington," said the professor, quietly.
"_That_ seems to be a plant of your own invention."

"But, sir!" cried Mark, "you have no idea of taking this trip he
suggests; have you?"

"Dr. Todd has done me many a favor in the past," said Professor
Henderson, thoughtfully.

"Well, if you're going, count me in," said Jack, quickly. "I don't
mind a summer trip to the Arctic. Say! it can't be much cooler up there
than it is here right now. This fire doesn't feel bad at all."

"Humph!" muttered Mark, who never was as sanguine as his chum. "This
cool spell will only last a day or two here; but I understand the tops
of the Endicott Range are always white."

"B-r-r!" shivered Washington, at this statement. "Dis chile don't t'ink
much ob such a surreptitious pedestrianation as dat, den. Don't like
no cold wedder, nohow! And Buttsy don' like it, needer."

"Who's Buttsy?" demanded Jack, grinning.

"Why, fo' suah," said the darkey, gravely, "you knows Christopher
Columbus Amerigo Vespucci George Washington Abraham Lin----"

"But you wouldn't expect to take Christopher Columbus And-so-forth to
Alaska with us; would you?" asked Andy Suggs.

"Why not?" demanded the darkey. "He flowed to de moon in de
perjectilator; didn't he? Huh! In co'se if de perfessor goes after
disher chrysomela-bypunktater, I gotter go, too; and in co'se if I go,
Buttsy done gotter go. Dat's as plain as de nose on yo' face, Andy."

The hunter rubbed his rather prominent nasal organ and was silenced.
Jack and Mark had turned more eagerly to the professor as the latter
began to speak:

"Yes, Dr. Todd is my good friend. He turns to me for help quite
properly; who else should he turn to?"

"But, Professor!" ejaculated Mark, warmly. "Are you to be driven off
to Alaska at your age to hunt for this herb--which is perhaps only the
hallucination of a madman?" "Mark's hit the nail on the head,
Professor!" declared Jack. "I believe this Todd must certainly be
'touched' in his upper story."

"Am _I_ touched, as you call it, Jack?" demanded Professor Henderson, in
some indignation.

"But you don't believe Todd is on the trail of any great discovery?"
cried Mark.

"Why not? Mind may yield to herbal treatment. Todd is an advanced
botanical adherent. He believes almost anything can be accomplished
by herbs. And he says he has successfully treated one case."

"One swallow doesn't make a summer," remarked Mark, doubtfully.

"But it is enough that he wants us to find the herb," said the
professor, more vigorously.

"'Us'!" repeated Jack.

"And he will pay us any reasonable price for our work," added their
mentor.

"He really means to go!" cried Mark.

"I certainly do. I think you and Jack will accompany me," said the
professor, quietly. "I know that Washington will, and of course Andy
will not be left behind."

"Not if there'll be a chance at big game," declared the hunter. "I'm
with you, Professor Henderson."

"Yo' suah can't git erlong widout me, I s'pose?" queried the darkey,
in some uncertainty. "I'se mighty busy right yere jes' now."

"And you'll be busy if we go to Alaska, Wash!" cried Jack. "Hurrah!
I am willing to start to-morrow, Professor."

"And you, Mark?" queried the old gentleman of his other adopted son.

"How will we go, sir? We shall be until fall traveling to the Arctic
Circle by any usual means."

"True," said the professor. "And haste is imperative. I cannot spend
much time in this matter. We must take unusual means of getting to the
Endicott Range."

"What do you mean?" asked the boys in chorus.

"Your _Snowbird_ is ready for flight. It can be provisioned and
will take us all quicker than by any other means. Therefore in the
_Snowbird_ we will make the journey."




CHAPTER III

THE FLIGHT OF THE SNOWBIRD

Jack Darrow and Mark Sampson were glad enough to be of the party aiming
to reach northern Alaska and the Endicott Range, if Professor Henderson
really intended going to find the strange herb for which Dr. Todd was
willing to pay so generously.

Of discussion, pro and con, there was much. Indeed, they sat up until
after midnight after the reading of Dr. Todd's letter, talking over
the contemplated journey, and gradually the details of the trip,
including all preparations for it, were worked out.

Jack and Mark put into the affair, once they were determined to aid
the professor, their characteristic energy. Professor Henderson wired
his brother scientist that he would undertake the journey to Alaska,
and accepted the ten thousand dollars to defray expenses. Andy Sudds
made characteristic preparations for hunting the big game of the Alaskan
mountains. Washington White built a traveling coop of very light but
strong material for his pet Shanghai, and then announced himself as
ready to depart for the Arctic Circle.

The instructions and map furnished by Dr. Todd, locating the very spot
beyond the Endicott Range where the rare herb had been plucked by the
miner, showed it to be in a very wild region indeed. There was a native
settlement named Aleukan within a hundred miles of the valley where
the herb was supposed to grow in abundance. Professor Henderson
determined to lay their course for this place.

But the nearest white man's town was Coldfoot, on the other side of
the mountains. There was a trail, however, passable in summer for a
dogtrain from Coldfoot to Aleukan; and a dogtrain could likewise pass
from the native village to the valley where the miner had found the
herb.

These facts the professor and his young associates discovered as soon
as Dr. Todd's instructions arrived. They made their plans accordingly.

By telegraph the professor ordered a trainload of supplies to be started
at once from Fort Yukon. First, these supplies would go by boat down
the Yukon Flats and up the Chandler River, past Chandler and Caro,
beyond which latter town there was a good road over a small range of
hills to Coldfoot. This trail was open at all seasons and there was
a regular system of transportation into Coldfoot.

From that town dogs and men would be hired to take the supplies on to
Aleukan. These arrangements were made through an express company, and
in three days the professor received word that the supplies were already
aboard a small steam vessel which had left the Fort Yukon dock for the
trip to Caro.

The trip by boat and overland for the supply train would consume about
a week or two, providing nothing untoward happened to delay it. And
the season was favorable to a quick journey.

But the professor and his young comrades figured that the _Snowbird_,
following the shortest air-line to the far side of the Endicott Range,
could make the trip in much shorter time. The distance "as the crow
flies" was from 3,700 to 3,800 miles from their point of departure.
Under favorable conditions the great flying machine should travel ninety
miles an hour on the average. Unless there was a breakdown, or they ran
into a heavy storm, which would necessitate their descending to the
earth, they could count upon the _Snowbird_ being in the vicinity of
Aleukan within three or four days' time at the longest.

In the flying machine itself they could carry a supply of concentrated
foods, medicines, necessities of many kinds, and their arms. It was
probable that meat could be had for the killing in the valley to which
they were bound, and the Indians at Aleukan could be hired to supply
necessary food for a time. But the professor did not propose to take
his friends into the wilderness without completely warding off disaster.

Considerable space in the _Snowbird_ was occupied by Professor
Henderson's scientific instruments. He was amply supplied with powerful
field glasses, a wonderful telescope, partly of his own invention;
instruments for the measuring of mountains heights, the recording of
seismic disturbances, and many other scientific paraphernalia of which
Jack and Mark did not know even the uses.

The boys were as well supplied with firearms as Andy Sudds himself.
They knew that they would probably see and be obliged to kill dangerous
beasts; and although the several tribes of Indians inhabiting Alaska
are all supposed to be semi-civilized and at peace with the whites,
they had had experience enough in wild countries before to warn them
that the temper of aboriginal man is never to be trusted too far.

Their own readiness for departure in the _Snowbird_ had been gauged by
the telegraph dispatches from Fort Yukon. When the final message came
that the boat bearing the supplies had started, Professor Henderson
asked: "And now, boys, when can we leave by the air route?"

Jack and Mark glanced at each other and nodded. Jack said:

"All you have to do, Professor, is to put your bag aboard the ship and
step in. We are ready to start the _Snowbird_ at any moment. Andy
has his guns aboard, and plenty of ammunition. Mark and I are all
ready. At your word we will leave."

"It is already dark," said the professor, slowly. "Shall we wait until
morning?"

"The moon will be up in an hour--and it is almost at its full," Mark
said, quickly. "The quicker we are off the better, it seems to me."

"Very well," agreed Professor Henderson. "If you boys say the word, we
will start. Is Andy here?"

"He is already aboard--asleep in his bunk," said Jack, "with his best
rifle cuddled in the hollow of his arm. He does not propose to be left
behind," and the young fellow chuckled.

"And where is Washington White?"

"He's done yere," answered the darkey for himself, and he appeared
bearing the traveling coop of Christopher Columbus And-so-forth in his
arms.

"Here, Wash!" ejaculated Jack. "Surely you are not going to clutter
up the flying machine with that thing?"

"An' why fo' not?" sputtered the darkey. "Whatebber has Buttsy done
ter yo', Massa Jack, dat yo' should be obfendicated at his 'pearance
in de present state ob de obsequies?"

"Then the rooster accompanies the expedition," chuckled Jack. "Only
remember, if we have to throw out anything to lighten ship, Buttsy
goes first--even before we are obliged to dispense with _your_ services,
Wash!"

"Den we are ready to start," declared the darkey, solemnly. "Nottin'
will now disturb de continuity ob de ebenin's enj'yment. Forward,
march, is our motter!"

And he marched away to the flying machine and got aboard with the coop
and Buttsy in his arms.

The professor had found the last of his possessions he wished to take
with him. He followed the negro aboard. The _Snowbird_ was already
outside the hangar and on its wheels, ready for the start. This time
they dispensed with the professor's catapult, for it would be necessary
to have the trucks attached to the aeroplane to enable her to start
properly from any point on which they might land. The workshop and
plant in general were left in charge of a watchman and caretaker, and
only this man was present when Jack took his place in the controller's
seat and Mark started the powerful motor and clambered aboard.

The craft ran across the field, at first slowly and then more rapidly
as Jack increased the speed. The flying machine began to lift almost
immediately.

"Hurrah!" shouted the irrepressible Jack. "We're off!"

"About nor-norwest is the course, Jack," cried Mark Sampson, likewise
inspired by the flight of the _Snowbird_.

As for Washington White, he gazed down to the dusky earth below them
and his eyes rolled.

"Gollyation!" he muttered. "If Buttsy should fall down dere, he'd suah
jounce himself some; wouldn't he?"




CHAPTER IV

"WHO GOES THERE?"

With the moonlight lying like a benediction over the fields and forests
of Maine, the _Snowbird_, her motor humming like a huge bumble-bee,
and her propellers and controls working in perfect order, swept on her
course into the northwest. The lights of Easton, ten miles from their
home, melted into the earth-shadow behind the sky-voyagers within the
first hour of the sure-to-be eventful journey.

Jack Darrow did not force the pace of the flying machine. They had a
long and trying flight before them. The machine as a whole had been
tried out only two or three times during the few days that had elapsed
since she was completed and this present expedition had been planned.
These short flights had served merely to put the parts in good working
trim; but the lad knew better than to make the pace that of top-speed
from the start.

He wanted her to "warm up." He knew that the _Snowbird_ could make one
hundred twenty-five miles an hour. But such speed was likely to shake
something loose and cripple the mechanism.

A flight of seventy or eighty miles an hour would bring them well into
Canada by noon of the next day. They would have to there descend at,
or near, some town, and report themselves and the nature of their
flight to the authorities. This was to be done as a precaution in case
they had a breakdown somewhere in crossing British possessions. A
passport would then aid them if they were obliged to call upon the
authorities in the heart of Canada for aid.

But at present none of these things bothered the party much. Sudds and
the professor slept as though they were in their beds at home. The old
hunter could sleep anywhere, and awake instantly with all his faculties
about him. And the scientist slept profoundly because his body was
exhausted.

Under the brilliant moon the _Snowbird_ swung along the air-way like a
veritable bird. Jack increased the revolutions of the propellers
a trifle and the ship responded like a spirited horse to the spur. She
darted ahead at a ninety mile speed and Washington White emitted a
mournful groan.

"What's the matter with you now, Wash?" shouted Mark, for they all
wore ear-tabs and had to shout to make one another hear.

"Oh, lawsy-massy on us!" groaned Wash. "I'se got sech a misery, Massa
Mark, I dunno but ma time has camed."

"What time has come?" demanded Mark, without much sympathy. "It'll be
time for you to hustle and get us something to eat before long."

"For de goodness gracious Agnes' sake!" gasped the negro, "yo' suahly
ain't a-gwine ter dribe me ter wo'k up in disher flyin' contraption?
Dat would suah be cruelty ter animiles, boy--it. suah would!"

"We've got to eat, Wash," said Jack, chuckling, "and you are steward
and cook of this craft."

"Gollyation! did I ship fo' sech wo'k? I nebber knowed it. It does
seem to me dat de consanguinity ob de 'casion done call fo' notting
but de quietest kind o' verisimilitude. De qualmishness dat arises in
de interiorness of ma diaphragm ev'ry time I circumnavigates erbout
in disher flyin' ship makes me wanter express mahself in de mos'
scatterin' kin' ob er way--I hopes you gits ma meanin' clear?"

Jack was laughing so that he could not speak, but Mark managed to say:

"You mean that the motion of the aeroplane gives you a feeling of _mal
de mer_?"

"Dat's wot I done said," Wash replied, seriously. "I nebber in ma life
felt so mal-der-merry as I do at dis present onauspicious 'casion; an'
if dat mal don't stop merryin' purty quick, I suah shall be--ugh!--sick
ter ma stummick!"

This wail fairly convulsed Jack Darrow and Mark Sampson; but they knew
that if Wash paid more attention to his duties and thought less about
his own situation he would be better off. Mark insisted on his going
at once into the tiny, covered "galley," as the boys called it, hung
amidships, in which were the means of heating water, making coffee,
and cooking certain simple viands in their stores.

Wash went to his duties grumblingly; but he was an ingenious and
skillful cook and when he got to work he forgot his "feeling of
mal-de-merry."

It was now approaching midnight and the flying machine had been steadily
traveling northward for some hours. Both Andy Sudds and the professor
awoke and offered to relieve the boys in their work. But Mark had taken
Jack's place in the controller's seat and neither he nor his chum felt
that he wished to give over the guidance of the _Snowbird_ to anybody
else.

Now, some distance ahead, the peak of Mt. Katahdin, gloriously mantled
in moonlight, rose before them. Their direct course lay over the summit
of this eminence, and Mark decided that it would be better to rise to
a higher strata and cross the mountain than to swing around it.
Therefore Mark raised the bow of the flying machine and she darted
upward on a long slant, drawing ever nearer to the shining peak of the
great mountain. The night air was chill--it had been cool when they
left the earth--and as they rose to the rarer ether it was evident
that they would find a degree of temperature far lower than the usual
summer heat.

Mark kept the _Snowbird_ scaling swiftly upward, mile after mile; but
the long tangent at which he had started to clear the summit of Katahdin
did not prove sufficient, and by and by they found themselves within a
very few yards of the rocky side of the peak.

Out of a dark glen a spark of light suddenly shot--almost like a rocket
in swiftness. Jack saw it first and cried:

"See that! What is it? What do you make of it?"

"A shootin' star, I declare!" said Andy Sudds.

"Nothing of the kind," exclaimed Jack, quickly. "A star could not shoot
up from the earth."

"Wot's dat says somebody's a-shootin' at us?" gasped Washington White.
"If dey punctuates our tire, we'll suah go down wid a big ker-smash!"

The professor, however, watched the "shooting star" for some moments
without speaking, and then rapidly made his way to Mark's side.

"Send your 'plane up in spirals, boy I" he commanded. "Don't let that
light rise over us. Be quick, now!"

"What is it, Professor?" asked young Sampson, as he obeyed the
scientist's injunction.

"I am sure it is a light in the bow of another airship--but what manner
of ship she is, or who drives her, I cannot guess," declared Professor
Henderson, gravely.

"Another airship!" cried Jack, who overheard him. "What do you know
about that?"

Mark handled the _Snowbird_ with great skill, and the powerful craft
mounted much more swiftly than the distant spark of light. The spiral
course the 'plane now followed carried it at times much farther from the
mountain side than it had been when first the strange light was noticed.
That light followed the _Snowbird_ up and up in similar spirals, and the
boys were soon convinced that Professor Henderson's discovery was a
fact. The lamp was in the bow of another air craft.

"But why should we keep over them?" asked Jack. "There is no danger; is
there?"

"We do not know who they are," said the professor, shortly. "The craft
came right out of a fastness in the mountain-side--a place difficult
to reach, and which would not seem to attract aviators of the ordinary
class." "I know what he is thinking of," cried Mark, suddenly. "I read
in the paper that the Department of Justice officers are after some
big smugglers and that it is believed the criminals, in going back and
forth into Canada, use some kind of an aerial craft. Isn't that so,
Professor Henderson?"

"I had the fact in mind. The flying machine is being put already to
uses that are not commendable, to say the least. The Maine and Canadian
border has for years been used by bands of smugglers, and if one of
these gangs have purchased and can use a flying craft, they may make
the revenue men a deal of trouble."

"You're right, sir. And I read likewise that the government officers
proposed using an aeroplane themselves to track the smugglers. Perhaps
the villains, if that is their ship below us, may take us for secret
service men."

As he spoke the lamp so far below them darted up at a sudden and sharp
angle, there sounded the sharp crack of some weapon, and Washington
White jumped and screamed.

"Gollyation!" he bawled. "Dem fellers is suah tryin' ter punctuate us!"

Through the blackness of the night a distant voice hailed the pilot
of the _Snowbird_.

"Ahoy! ahoy! Who goes there?" was the cry, and it was repeated twice.




CHAPTER V

BETWEEN TWO PERILS

Mark Sampson, having all the mechanism of the flying machine under his
immediate control, had it in his power to increase speed and seek to
escape the second airship. And Jack wondered why his chum did not
immediately send the _Snowbird_ flying at increased speed over the top
of Mt. Katahdin and so seek to escape the menace below.

But the young fellow at the controls of the _Snowbird_ had an advantage
over his companions that Jack had forgotten. He could hear sounds at a
much greater distance than they, and much clearer.

This was because of an invention of Professor Henderson--a small
instrument similar to part of the ordinary telephone. The sensitive
disk was a form of radio receiver which could be attached to any
aviator's helmet, and was being put into general use by pilots. The
two boys always adjusted this whenever they were strapped upon the
pilot's seat.

Thus, although the report of the gun had sounded but faintly to the
other members of the party, to Mark it seemed as though the explosion
was within a hundred yards. The voice hailing them likewise seemed to
ring in his ears very plainly; and beyond the words somewhat
distinguished by his companions the young operator of the _Snowbird_
could make out a further phrase spoken by the person who hailed from the
other air-craft.

"Halt in the name of the law!"

Those were the sharp words Mark had caught, and for that reason he
hesitated to increase the _Snowbird's_ speed.

In a strap hung near his left hand was a transmitter. Without taking
the advice of any of his companions in the flying machine, Mark seized
it, put it to his lips, and replied to the hail:

"Ahoy! what do you want?"

Instantly the voice rose from the black abyss below them:

"Heave to! Stop in the name of the law!"

That time the professor and Jack heard the words spoken by their
pursuer.

"What do you know about that?" demanded Jack. "'In the name of the law',
no less!"

Professor Henderson jumped to the same conclusion that Mark had, and
that instantly. "It may be the Secret Service men themselves," he said.
"Ah, Andrew! it is just as well to withhold your fire until we know
for sure."

For Andy Sudds had seized his rifle and stood ready to withstand an
attack, should such an act become necessary.

Up from the depths came the cry again:

"Hold your ship. I propose to come aboard and search her. In the name
of the United States Government!"

Mr. Henderson took the radio telephone out of Mark's hand and replied:

"We wish to know who and what you really are. We will not put ourselves
in your power without knowing. We are amply armed."

"Don't you dare to fire upon a United States officer in the discharge
of his duty," cried the voice from below, and now the strange airship
was much nearer to them. "Who do you claim to be?"

"This is the _Snowbird_, from Easton, Maine, She is manned by her
builders, Darrow and Sampson. She carries as passengers Washington
White, Andrew Sudds and Amos Henderson," declared the professor, in
reply. "And she is bound for Alaska."

"Well, well!" exclaimed the voice of their pursuer. "That may all be
so. But I have my suspicions. I am Ford, special agent of the Department
of Justice. Stand by. Now I am coming aboard."

At a nod from the professor, Mark had already brought the _Snowbird_ to
a halt. She lay floating, with all planes extended and without motion of
propellers, poised over the summit of Mt. Katahdin.

The descending moon threw its beams over the height and revealed to
the vaguely anxious occupants of the _Snowbird_, the other machine
darting up from below.

This was a craft of much different aspect from their own. It was a
great deal smaller and apparently without half the power possessed by
the one built by Jack and Mark.

She shot into the air above their heads at a swift pace, however, and
immediately poised over them. In this attitude Ford, as he called
himself, had the occupants of the _Snowbird_ completely at his
mercy. A bomb dropped upon the huge flying machine would have blown
her to pieces. Or, with a gun, he could have picked off one after
another of the five people below.

"Stand out of the way, there!" commanded Ford.

Instantly those upon the larger air-craft saw a figure swing down from
the framework of the airship above their heads. A light rope ladder
unrolled and fell upon the upper deck, or platform of the _Snowbird_,
and the man came down this ladder, hand under hand, and in half a minute
stood in their midst.

He was a small, gray man--gray suit, gray hair and close-cropped
mustache, and gray face, colorless and deeply lined. His age would be
hard to judge.

"The _Snowbird_; eh?" he observed, looking sharply from one to the other
of the five passengers of the huge flying machine. "_You_ are Amos
Henderson, sir?" he pursued, nodding to the professor. "I believe I have
heard your name before. Professor Henderson, whose scientific
discoveries have made us all marvel of late?"

"I am Professor Henderson," said the old gentleman, quietly. "And I
can vouch for my companions. These boys, my adopted sons, have built
this flying machine, and we are bound for Alaska."

"Indeed! Then I fear I have caused you some slight trouble, not to say
delay," said Mr. Ford. "We revenue agents are extremely anxious to
overhaul and interview all aviators along the border. You understand?"

"I believe that you have cause to suspect certain flying machines
operating between the Canadian towns and Maine settlements," admitted
Professor Henderson. "Quite right. And if our suspicions are based on
fact, innocent flying men like yourselves may well beware of the fellows
we are after. To be frank with you," pursued Mr. Ford, "a band of
desperate smugglers are operating by aid of one or more aeroplanes.
And piracy in the air may soon became as frequent--and as grave a peril
to innocent aviators--as was ever piracy on the Spanish Main."

"It seems impossible!" said the professor. "Who are these desperate
criminals?"

"A man named Bainbridge is at their head. He was originally a diamond
dealer and finally was caught smuggling gems into the port of New York.
He had to pay a huge fine and served a term at Atlanta for that crime
and since then has sworn to be revenged upon the Government that
punished him.

"We learned of late that he was operating on the Mexican
border--bringing into the States diamonds that had paid no duty--by
aid of a flying machine. But the uprising in Chihuahua and along the
border made his work exceedingly dangerous, and he was driven away
from that part of the country.

"Now we believe he has joined forces hereabout with ancient enemies
of the Federal officers. At least, there is a strange aeroplane reported
from both sides of the border, and some fine gems have appeared in the
hands of certain suspected dealers in Maine, and as far south as Boston
and Providence.

"Bainbridge is known to be a desperate man. Look out for him, Professor.
If you are hailed by another machine, better keep away from it," and
the secret service agent laughed. "Had I been in your place I would
not have halted on this occasion. You certainly can outsail any airship
I have ever seen operated."

Mr. Ford seemed quite satisfied that our friends were law-abiding and
he ascended to his waiting craft in a few moments; and the _Snowbird_
started onward again through the starlight.

But the warning of the special agent had impressed the boys as well
as the professor. Andy Sudds refused to lie down again, although Jack
and Mark continued to operate the flying machine. The old hunter sat
with a rifle in his hand for the rest of the night. But the professor
went to bed.

An hour after midnight a cloud from the west completely masked the
moon and the whole heavens became misty. This cloud brought both wind
and rain, and low upon its edge the lightning played fitfully.

"There will be a heavy tempest about dawn," Andy promised the boys.
"I have seen a thunderstorm gather like this before." "But not while
you were in a flying machine," chuckled Jack.

"No, sir. But on a mountain top a tempest looks much the same."

Mark, while at the controls, had scaled the machine down the air-ways
until they were not more than fifteen hundred feet from the earth. But
the boys decided to let the storm gather beneath them, and so shot the
_Snowbird_ up again until the indicator registered three thousand feet.

Near the earth it must have been very warm and sultry; but up here it
was down to freezing, and the party were all warmly dressed. The clouds
soon hid the whole earth from them and the great flying machine traveled
in space, with the star-lit heavens above and the rolling mass of
vapor, streaked now and then with lightning flashes, beneath.

The deafening roll of the thunder awoke Washington White from a short
nap, and the darkey was not at all sure that he was safe from the
lightning bolts.

"How d'I know dem bolts won't fly disher way?" he demanded of the boys
when they tried to reassure him.

"Why, the earth attracts the electric bolt, and that attraction is
much stronger than any the _Snowbird_ may have for the electricity
in the clouds," Mark told him. "I don't know erbout dat," grumbled
Wash. "An' if jest one o' dem crazy lightning bolts should take it
into its haid ter segastuate eround disher flying merchine--biff! bang!
dat would be erbout all. Dere would be a big bunch o' crape hung on
Wash White's do', suah as you is bawn, boy!"

But although the roar of the thunder and whining of the wind nearly
drowned other sounds in and about the flying machine, save for a
freshening of the gale the _Snowbird_ was at first but little
disturbed by the tempest which raged with such fury a thousand feet
below.

Suddenly Mark caught sight of something moving across the red streak
in the eastern sky--the light that warned them of the approach of the
sun.

"What is that--a huge bird?" he demanded of Andy Sudds, pointing this
moving figure out to the hunter.

Andy's eyes were very keen, for he was used to sighting along a rifle
and gazing over long distances in search of game. But he, too, thought
the object must be a bird.

"I declare, I didn't know birds flew so high," said Mark. "It must be
an eagle. No other fowl could fly so high."

"'Nless it were Buttsy," remarked Washington, _sotto voce_. The
professor was still asleep and the boys paid little attention to the
flying object for some time. It was coming up behind the _Snowbird_, and
they had no occasion to look behind.

The sun arose, angry and red, while the thunder continued to roll below
them, and the crackling of the electric flashes was like minute guns.
The _Snowbird_ was winging its way along at about seventy-five
miles per hour. Wash had gone into the covered galley to prepare
breakfast. Jack was still in the operator's seat.

Suddenly Andy Sudds uttered a loud shout. A huge shadow was thrown
athwart the flying _Snowbird_. Some object was hovering over them
and they cast their eyes upward, at Andy's cry, to see another aeroplane
swooping down directly upon them.

It was not the machine manned by Secret Service Agent Ford and his
companion, but a much heavier and more rapid vehicle. And until its
shadow fell across the _Snowbird_, the boys had had no warning of its
approach.

At first glance it was apparent that the strange aircraft intended
mischief. It was shooting down from a higher level, its sharp bow aimed
directly for the _Snowbird_. Jack pushed over the switch and raised the
bow of their own ship. She leaped forward and began to slant upward,
too.

But instantly the course of the stranger was deflected to meet this
change in the movement of the _Snowbird_. She had the advantage of the
boys' craft, too. She evidently proposed to retain her overhead
position, and as she shot in closer, Jack was constrained to descend
again to escape collision with her.

"Keep away!" he shouted through the transmitter, and at his cry, and
the bustle about him, the professor was awakened.

But no reply came from the strange aeroplane, although they could see
several figures moving upon her. It swooped down upon them, and Jack
had to deflect his planes again and slant downward toward the
storm-cloud.

And then he saw the other peril. He was between two great dangers. If
the reckless aviator tried to ram him from above, his only escape was
by plunging through the tempest which raged just below them.

Down came the stranger upon the _Snowbird_ again. She surely meant
them ill--she was bent on their destruction. And meanwhile the thunder
roared below and the crackling of the lightning was almost incessant.

Jack Darrow had to decide quickly--and he must determine which of the
two risks to take.




CHAPTER VI

ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND

Speedy as the _Snowbird_ was, she could not get out from under the
shadow of the strange aeroplane. That was driven at a sharp angle down
upon the boys' flying machine, and it seemed to all those in the lower
'plane that a collision was imminent.

The thunder fairly deafened them all. Around them rolled the mists and
the wind shrieked through the stays of the aeroplane and shook the
structure like a dog worrying a bone.

Down they fell, and in an instant the rushing rain, emptied in a torrent
from the clouds, swept about them, saturating their garments and beating
the flying machine itself toward the distant earth.

During the next few moments Jack Darrow, Mark Sampson, and their
companions were in as grave peril as had ever threatened them in their
eventful lives.

The torrents of water all but beat the flying machine to the earth--and
to be dashed down from such a height spelled death to all and
destruction to the aeroplane.

Jack, however, had been taught to keep cool in moments of danger, and
he realized that their lives depended entirely upon his handling of
the great machine. They had descended below the level of the storm-cloud
at a most inopportune moment. They were caught in the midst of a
veritable cloudburst.

Shaken desperately by the wind, and beaten upon by tons upon tons of
water, it was a wonder that the great planes, or wings, of the flying
machine were not torn away. All Jack could do was to guide her the
best he could, and all his companions could do was to cling to a slender
hope and endure the lashing of the gale.

But Jack Darrow did not propose to be cast to the ground--and the
flying machine and his friends with him--without some further attempt
to avert such a catastrophe.

After the first breath-taking rush of the storm he diverted the course
of the machine again upward. He could scarcely see, the driving rain
was so blinding; nor could he observe the indicators before him with
any clearness. But he was quite sure that the enemy that had driven
him down into the storm-cloud could see the _Snowbird_ no better than he
could see that strange aeroplane that had threatened to collide with
them.

So he shot the _Snowbird_ upward again at a long slant, and put on all
the power of the engine to drive her onward. The flying machine shook
and throbbed in every part. The power of the engines would have driven
her, under other and more favorable conditions, at more than one hundred
miles an hour--possibly a hundred and twenty-five.

Jack himself was almost blinded and deafened. He was strapped to his
seat, so could give both hands to the work of manipulating the levers.
He brought the _Snowbird_ through the cloud and--with startling
suddenness--they shot out of the mass of rolling moisture and into the
sunlight of the dawn. But they were far off their course.

The change from the chaos of the storm-cloud to the almost perfect
calm of the upper ether was so great that it was almost stunning. For
a minute none of the five spoke a word.

Then it was Mark who shouted:

"There's that 'plane again, Jack I Look out for her!"

The enemy had missed them. She was some miles away, and although still
on a level above, at the pace the _Snowbird_ was now traveling it would
take a fast flying machine indeed to overtake her.

The pursuit of the enemy (which they all believed to be the smuggler,
manned by Bainbridge and his friends) was not kept up for long. By
eight o'clock the _Snowbird_ had dropped the other machine below
the horizon, and the swift pace at which they had driven the _Snowbird_
was rapidly bringing them once more toward Canada.

The storm had broken, but the clouds still hovered below them. They
descended about noon, passing harmlessly through the vapor which had
so long hidden the earth from them, and so came to within a thousand
feet of the ground, where they swung along at fair speed for some
hours.

They crossed the line, but did not descend until near St. Thomas. They
went out of their way a good bit to land near this town on the shore
of the St. Lawrence, for the flying machine had been so shaken in its
struggle with the thunderstorm that some repairs were needed.

They descended in a field on the edge of the town, gave the farmer who
owned the place a five-dollar bill to allow the machine to stand on
his land, and then engaged him to drive Professor Henderson and the
boys into town.

While the professor saw the authorities and obtained a legal document
recommending the exploring party to the good offices of all
British-Canadian officers whom they might meet, the boys went to a
machine shop to have a rod repaired. The party took supper with the
farmer, and an hour later the flying machine being pronounced by both
Mark and Jack in perfect order, they got off amid the cheers of the
onlookers, whose numbers were by that time swelled to almost five
hundred persons.

It was long after dark and the moon had not risen. It was a cloudless
night, however, and as the flying machine soared heavenward the voyagers
could look deep into the seeming black-velvet of the skies, picked out
by the innumerable sparkling stars, and thought they had never seen
so wonderful or beautiful a sight.

As they cast their gaze downward, too, they beheld the torches at the
Canadian farm rapidly receding, and then, in a few minutes, they were
flying over St. Thomas, where the lights twinkled, too. Then they shot
over the broad, island-dotted bosom of the St. Lawrence River, and so
on across country and town toward the vast Canadian wilderness.

The professor and Andy had the watch and Jack and Mark went to bed.
The excitement of the previous twenty-four hours had kept the boys up;
but once they closed their eyes, they slept like logs all night. Andy
Sudds relieved the professor now and then in the operator's seat, and
they did not call the boys until Washington White made breakfast at
daybreak. By that time the _Snowbird_ had passed Lake St. John, far to
the north and east, and was heading for Hudson Bay. The earth below them
was a checker-board of forest and field, with here and there a ribbon of
river, and occasionally a group of farmsteads, or a small town. Suddenly
they were forced down, and had to remain many hours for repair work
before ascending again.

The ranges of hills--some of them dignified enough to be termed
"mountains"--which they crossed necessitated their flying high. They
were generally at an altitude of two thousand feet and the rarefied
atmosphere so far above the earth was cool, anyway. Since leaving St.
Thomas, on the bank of the St. Lawrence, they had averaged eighty miles
an hour, and before moonrise they were cognizant of the fact that they
were approaching a great sheet of water.

"St. James Bay, the lower part of Hudson Bay," Professor Henderson
explained.

Soon the moonlight shimmered upon the waves beneath them. Jack, who
was guiding the craft, deflected the wings and they slid down the
airways toward the water. They traveled all night over this great
inland sea, at times so close to the surface that the leaping waves
sprinkled them with their spray--for there was a stiff breeze.

A gale broke in earnest over the Hudson Bay territory that day, and
despite the efforts of the voyagers they could not rise in the
_Snowbird_ above the tempest. Had there been solid ground beneath
them they could easily have descended and remained upon terra firma
until the storm was past.

This gale was favorable to their course, but it gripped them in its
giant grasp and hurled them on into the northwest at a speed that
imperiled the safety of the flying machine each moment. There was no
sleep for any of the party now, and Washington White came pretty near
(as Jack said) "making good his name in his face"--for if ever a darkey
of Wash's ebony complexion turned pale, the professor's servant did
so at this juncture.

On and on they were driven hour after hour. Scarcely a word was spoken
the entire time. There was no cessation of the gale. The great body
of water was passed and they knew that there was land beneath them
again. But each time they tried to descend they found the storm near
the earth-crust far heavier than at the upper levels.

To descend through the belt of the storm might partially wreck their
flying machine and the professor knew, by the study of his recording
instruments, that they were passing over an utter wilderness in which
no help could be obtained and from which, should they be wrecked, they
could not escape before the rigorous Arctic winter set in.

Hour after hour they drove on. The speed of the _Snowbird_ at times,
when driven by the full force of the gale, had mounted to one hundred
thirty miles an hour.

Great Slave Lake was far south of their route; yet the professor told
them that, had it been clear, at the altitude they traveled, they could
have seen and marked this great body of water.

They actually crossed the Great Bear Lake and the Mackenzie River,
however, and saw the ragged peaks of the Rocky Mountains, which here
almost touch the shores of the Arctic Sea. Blown on and on, with little
diminution of speed, it was not many hours before the _Snowbird_ was
flying over Alaskan wilds. The flying machine had kept closely to the
course the professor had laid out for her when they left Maine. They
were still headed for the slopes of the Endicott Range and the native
town of Aleukan.

The question paramount in all their minds, however, was this: Would
they reach their destination in safety?




CHAPTER VII

DROPPED FROM THE SKY


A thick mantle of fog masked the heavens; but beneath this the
wind--traveling at great velocity--drove the ragged clouds like
frightened sheep across the pastures of the firmament.

The moon and stars gave so little light that the earth seemed but a
vague and shadowy mass--nothing more. The wind shrieked in many voices,
as though a troop of goblins raced through the air, or rode the
strangely formed and hurrying clouds.

Driven on with the tumbling banks of vapor, as vaguely outlined in the
gloom as the clouds themselves, was the great flying machine, which
the wind buffeted and harried about as though against it Old Boreas
had some special spite.

Jack was in the operator's seat; but there was little to do but hang
on to the steering wheel. The wind blew them as it listed.

"I don't well see how anybody can sleep in this horrid storm,"
complained Mark Sampson. "And the machine rocks so--ugh! I'm as sick
as though we were at sea." "And we are pretty completely 'at sea,'"
chuckled the more volatile Jack. "I hope the professor knows where we
are. _I_ don't!"

"And I don't see how he can tell," grumbled his chum.

"Pluck up your spirits, old man!" returned the older lad, but Mark
interrupted him, still crossly:

"I hope I am as courageous as the next. We've done some funny stunts
together, Jack Darrow--you and I and the old professor. But this caps
them all, I declare. It's a mystery to me how Mr. Henderson and Andy
Sudds can remain asleep."

"Well, they are both tired out, I reckon. They had a long watch--and
_we_ slept, you know."

"That was a long time ago," grunted Mark,

"It's pretty tough, I admit," said Jack, when Washington White broke
in with:

"Hi, yi! Whuffo' you boys be sech cowards? Is _I_ skeert? Huh!"

"You bet you're scared," returned Jack, emphatically. "When we got
caught in that flaw yesterday afternoon he wanted to jump out; didn't
he, Mark?"

"Wash certainly tried to climb out," rejoined Mark.
"Well, den! dat showed I warn't no coward," crowed the black man,
though in a very shaky voice. "If I'd been scart', would I really have
wanted ter jump? It was a might long way to de groun' right den, I
guess."

Suddenly the Shanghai crowed loudly.
"Tell yo' what!" cried the black man, scratching his head. "Dat rooster
done crow fo' company."

"Company!" gasped Mark. "What does he think he hears up here--angels'
wings? We're about as near being in the company of the celestial hosts
as we'll ever be and remain alive, I reckon."

"No, sah!" retorted Washington. "Dat Shanghai done know dat we is near
some oder fow-el----"

"Up here in the air, Wash?" cried Jack.

"Dunno whar dey is," said the darkey, doggedly. "Dar he crows ergin!
Dar is suttenly critters ob his kind nearby--yes--sah!"

It may have been the Shanghai's raucous tone that aroused Andy. The
old hunter suddenly appeared on the platform behind the operator's
seat, where the boys and Wash were clinging, and Andy brought his rifle
with him.

"Hullo!" he said. "Is the watch called?"

"I'm sorry if we awoke you, Andy," Jack said. "There is nothing for you
to do."

"Nothing to shoot at; eh?" said the old hunter. "I reckon I ain't of
much use in a flying machine, anyway. Sort of 'up in the air'; ain't
I?"

"That's where we all are," complained Mark. "And I, for one, wish we
were down again."

"Guess we're all with you in that wish, old man," agreed Jack.

As he spoke, the wind-blown figure of the professor hove into view
from the small, sheltered cabin. He glanced at the various indicators
and the compass in front of Jack.

"We are all in safety yet; are we, boys?" he queried.

"If you can call being driven helplessly before such a gale and about
a mile above the earth _safe_," retorted Mark.

"Surely not as high as that," exclaimed Professor Henderson. He examined
the instruments again, and said, quickly: "We are descending! How is
that, Jack?"

"Not with my knowledge, sir," returned the boy aviator. "I think we
have remained on the thousand-foot level since crossing the Rocky
Mountains."

"I believe you have been faithful, my boy," returned the professor,
quickly. "But the earth is certainly less than three hundred feet below
us--ah! see that? The indicator registers 250 feet. Now 240!" "We are
falling!" cried Mark.

"No!" said the professor. "The earth is rising. We are being blown
against the mountainside. We must be within a few hundred miles, at
least, of our destination. Those are the Endicott Mountains yonder,"
and he waved a hand at the darkness to the south of them.

"Hark!" cried Andy Sudds, suddenly.

There was a momentary lull in the wind. From below came the broken
crowing of a cock in answer to the Shanghai's challenge. Then a dog
barked.

"There's a farmhouse down there," said the hunter.

"What did I tell yo'?" cried Washington White. "Dat Buttsy knows his
business, all right!"

"We must descend," commanded the professor. "Deflect the planes, Jack.
Watch the indicator. Reduce the speed. Let us float down as easily as
possible."

But, wrestling as the flying machine was with the wind, she could not
descend easily. She scaled earthward with fearful velocity. The
irrepressible Jack yelled:

"Go-ing down! We're going to bump hard in a minute!"

The aged professor and Andy Sudds showed no perturbation. Jack and
Mark had been through so many wonderful experiences with the professor,
Andy, and the negro, that they were not likely to be panic-stricken. Yet
all realized that death was imminent.

The finger on the dial showed a hundred feet from earth, and still
they descended. Fifty feet!

"Hold hard!" commanded the professor. "We'll be down in a minute."

There seemed to be a break in the hurrying clouds. There was light in
the sky--the twilight of the Long Day, for they were far beyond the
Arctic Circle.

Looking down they could dimly see objects on the earth--trees, a house
of some kind--several houses, in fact.

And then suddenly there was added to their perils an unlooked-for
danger. Out of the murk which covered the earth below the flying machine
sprang a point of light and the explosion of a gun echoed in the
aviators' ears.

A rifle bullet tore right through to the inside and passed between the
professor and Andy Sudds. There were men with firearms below, and they
were firing point blank at the flying machine.




CHAPTER VIII

PHINEAS ROEBACH, OIL HUNTER


As has been said, the boys and their older companions had been in many
perilous situations; but no adventure promised to end more tragically
than this flight of the huge airship. The descent of the _Snowbird_,
punctuated by the rifle shot below, seemed likely to be fatal to them
all.

"What kind of people can they be?" gasped Mark. "They are trying to
shoot us."

"Give me my rifle! I'll show 'em!" exclaimed the old hunter.

"You'll do nothing of the kind, Andy," commanded Professor Henderson.
"Do not make a bad matter worse by yielding to your passions."

A second shot was fired by those upon the ground; but the bullet went
wide of the mark. Jack shouted:

"We are drawing away from them. Look out! we all but hit that tree!"

"Steady, Jack," admonished the professor. "We'll be down in a minute,
my lads. Cling to anything handy. She will bounce some, but I believe
we shall not be injured." The calmness of the aged scientist would
have shamed the others into some semblance of order, were it needed;
but both the boys were courageous, Andy Sudds did not know fear, and
if Washington White was in a panic of terror, he did not get in the
way of the others to hamper their movements.

The _Snowbird_ was fluttering over the ground like a wounded bird,
while so black were their surroundings that none of the party could
distinguish anything of nearby objects. The clouds had broken but
little, and only for a moment.

"She's down!" suddenly shouted Mark Sampson, and the flying machine
jounced on its rubber-tired wheels, and then struck the ground again
almost immediately.

Mark leaped down on one side and Andy Sudds on the other. Instantly,
relieved of their weight, the flying machine was carried on again and
Mark and Andy were thrown to the ground.

Perhaps that was well, for several rifles were again fired behind them
and they heard the bullets whistle above their heads.

"Low bridge, Mark!" cried the old hunter, meaning for the boy to keep
close to the earth. "I've got my gun."

"Don't fire on them, Andy," responded young Sampson, remembering the
professor's warning. "We don't know who they are or what they mean by
their actions."

"We don't want to be shot down without making any fight; do we?" cried
Andy.

"Let us escape without a fight if possible," urged the cautious youth,
feeling sure that Professor Henderson would approve of this advice.

But the pounding of many feet approaching over the rising
ground--evidently, as Mr. Henderson had said, the foothills of the
mountain range--warned Mark and the hunter to keep still. In the partial
light they saw a group of tall men, all armed, running past them in
the direction the wounded _Snowbird_ had been blown.

"Hush!" whispered Andy. "Indians!"

Mark had seen their long hair and beardless faces, and believed the
hunter was right. The enemy were dressed in clothing of skins and were
without hats. Yet Mark knew that the Indians of Alaska were much
different from the savages of the western territories of the United
States. He did not believe these Alaskan aborigines would attack white
men.

It was growing lighter about them every moment. The lad and the tall
hunter arose and stood listening for a further alarm--or for some cry
from their comrades in the flying machine.

As the light increased they saw that they were in a grove of huge
trees. Somehow the _Snowbird_ had fluttered away through these forest
monarchs and was now out of sight.

"I wonder what's happened to them?" gasped Mark.

"Them Indians haven't attacked yet," growled Andy Sudds. "If they begin
to shoot we'll know which way to go, and we'll foller them."

But the first sound they heard came from behind them. There was the
crash of heavy footsteps and a big man suddenly came panting up the
slope. Cold as it was, his shirt was open at the neck, he was
bare-headed, and he had not stopped to pull on his boots when he arose
from his bed. In his right hand he carried a battered "fish-horn," and
without seeing Mark and Andy he stopped and put this instrument to his
lips, blowing a blast that made his eyes bulge and his cheeks turn
purple.

"Hold on, Mister!" ejaculated the hunter. "What you got to sell? Or
be you callin' the cows?"

"Mercy on me!" cried the fat man, and in a high, squeaky voice that
seemed to be a misfit for his huge body. "I am sure I'm glad to meet
you. You must have just arrived," and he squinted at the strangely
clad hunter and his boy companion, for Mark wore a helmet with ear-tabs.

"We just landed, that's sure," admitted Andy. "From an airship, I
fancy," exclaimed the other. "That is what is the matter with my Aleuts,
then. They never have seen such a thing as an airship, I'll be bound.
Have they hurt any of your party?"

"I don't know," Mark said, hastily. "If you are in command of those
Indians, call them off, please. There are three of our party somewhere
with the flying machine, and the Indians have been shooting at them."

"I'll try it," declared the man, instantly. "I can usually call them
together with this horn," and he raised it to his lips again and blew
another mighty blast.

"I have had this bunch of Aleuts six months," he explained, when he
got his breath again. "They are good workers, but as superstitious as
you can imagine. They are particularly shaky just now, for a number
of queer things have happened lately in these parts. There is a volcano
somewhere in action--we had a storm of ashes a week ago. And night
before last there was a positive earth-shock."

"You seem like a pretty intelligent man," grunted Andy Sudds, in his
blunt way. "What are you doing up here in this heaven-forsaken country?"

"Why, I am an oil hunter," said the fat man, simply. "A _what_?"
repeated Andy and Mark together.

"Oil hunter. My name is Phineas Roebach, and I am in the employ of the
Universal Oil Company. I am here--as I have been in many lands--boring
for petroleum. You understand that my mission is semi-secret. If we
find oil here we shall obtain a grant from the Government, or something
like that."

Just at that moment Mark Sampson was not particularly interested in
the odd-looking Mr. Roebach or his business.

"Blow your horn again, sir," he begged. "Call off your Indians. They
may shoot our friends."

"If your party is all dressed as peculiarly as yourself, young sir,"
said Phineas Roebach, "my Aleuts could scarcely be blamed for taking
a pot shot at them."

Then he blew the horn mightily for the third time.




CHAPTER IX

THE EARTHQUAKE


The long twilight which preceded full day had now grown so strong as
to reveal matters more plainly about the spot where Mark and Andy Sudds
had disembarked from the flying machine. They soon saw several objects
running through the grove toward them, and these objects proved to be
the returning Indians.

There were half a dozen of them, and they were all armed with rifles.
The moment they beheld the old hunter and the youth, with Phineas
Roebach, they gave every indication of shooting, for they stopped and
raised their rifles, pointing them at Mark and Andy.

Mr. Roebach sprang between his Aleuts and his visitors and began to
harangue them angrily in their own harsh dialect. However, his huge
body so entirely sheltered Mark and Andy that neither was much terrified
by the Indians. Besides, the Maine hunter advanced his own rifle and
calculated he could do considerable execution with it while the red
men were hesitating.

"They believed you all spirits of the air," said the oil man, turning
finally to speak to his new friends. "They were much frightened."

"Ask them for news of Professor Henderson and the others," begged the
anxious Mark.

"They chased the crippled flying machine for some distance, but did
not find it. My horn bade them return," replied Mr. Roebach.

Even as they started to walk with the oil man and his sullen Indians
toward various shacks which they saw through the trees, and lower on
the mountain side, they heard a hail and looked up to see Professor
Henderson, Jack Darrow, and the negro, Washington White, descending
the mountain in their rear.

"This is your party; is it?" demanded Mr. Roebach.

"Yes, sir," said Mark.

"Bring them directly to my cabin. The Aleuts will not hurt you, now
that they know we are friends."

He hurried away, but Andy handled his rifle very suggestively and kept
both eyes on the red men. The latter, however, kept to themselves and
only stared at the crew of the _Snowbird_ with great curiosity.

"Hurrah!" quoth Jack, when in earshot. "Here they are, safe and sound,
Professor!"

"We have been just as afraid that something bad was happening to you,"
Mark said, quickly. "Where's the machine?" "Your beautiful 'plane is
badly wrecked, Mark, my boy," said Professor Henderson. "But I believe
we shall be able to repair it in time. We are not, however, I feel
sure, far from Aleukan. Do those men speak English?"

"Not much of it, I reckon, Professor," said Andy Sudds. "But they have
got mighty nasty dispositions. If it wasn't for the fat man I reckon
they would jump on us."

"He told us to follow along to his cabin," Mark proposed. "I do not
think these Indians will touch us."

"They'd better think twice about it," said the belligerent Andy, pushing
in between the professor and the Aleuts, as the whole party descended
the mountain side toward the place where the oil man had pitched his
camp.

As they proceeded the light grew and the newcomers to Alaska identified
objects about them more clearly. Near at hand was the framework of a
boring machine, or derrick. The professor began to notice a deposit
of ash that lay thickly on the ground in sheltered places.

"How remarkable--how very remarkable!" he ejaculated. "One would think
there was a volcano in action very near here."

Mark repeated what Phineas Roebach had said about the 'quake and the
storm of ashes. The professor began to rub his hands together and his
eyes twinkled. "I declare! I declare!" he repeated. "A seismic
disturbance in this locality? Ah! our visit to Alaska for Dr. Todd may
repay us nobly indeed."

Washington White's eyes opened very wide and he demanded:

"What's disher t'ing yo' calls 'sezmik', Professor Henderson? I suah
don't understand no sech langwidge."

"He means an earthquake, Wash," said Jack, as the professor paid no
attention to the darkey's question.

"Gollyation! is we goin' ter collek a _nearthquake_ along wid dat
chrisomela-bypunktater plant? And what good's a nearthquake w'en you
got him?"

This unanswerable question of the darkey's fell flat, for the party
just then reached the huge, two-roomed log cabin in which Phineas
Roebach made his headquarters. The "oil hunter," as he called himself,
appeared in a costume more fitted to the rigor of the weather.

"Come right in, gentlemen," was his cordial cry. "I have an Indian
woman here who can cook almost as well as white folks. At any rate,
she can make coffee and fry bacon. This is Professor Henderson? Glad
to meet you, sir," and so went on, being introduced to the whole party.

The professor immediately began to question the oil hunter regarding
the exact situation of his camp and learned that they were but a hundred
and fifty miles from Aleukan. Phineas Roebach had a plentiful supply
of dogs and sleds, too, with a goodly store of provisions. If worse
came to worst and the flying machine could not be at once prepared,
Mr. Roebach could supply the party with transportation to the Indian
settlement where Professor Henderson would meet his own supplies from
Coldfoot and there could obtain other dogs and sleds to go on to the
valley where the _Chrysothele-Byzantium_ was supposed to flourish.

"And the road from here to Aleukan is a good one at this season of the
year. More than half the way you travel over a glacier, and as the
icefield has not been in motion for ages, it makes a fine highroad,"
the oil hunter declared.

They were discussing these matters during breakfast, and everybody was
feeling particularly thankful over the safe descent of the aeroplane,
when they were startled by a sudden, jarring shock. The cabin rocked
and the boys, at least, felt a qualmishness in the pit of the stomach
that forbade further eating.

"What's that?" demanded Andy Sudds.

Washington White dropped the plate he was carrying to the table and
ran to the door. Before he could open it, the door was broken in by
the Indians, who came pouring in, loudly jabbering in their native
tongue.

"A 'quake, sure enough!" ejaculated Phineas Roebach, getting quickly on
his feet.

As he spoke, there was a repetition of the shock, only greatly
increased. The oil hunter was thrown to the floor, as was everybody
else in the house who was not seated. The roof of the cabin creaked
and threatened to descend upon their heads.

The Indians, uttering cries of alarm, scrambled out of the cabin faster
than they came in. But they had nothing on Washington White _there_. He
was the first person to get through the door.

The white people followed the others in quick time. Jack and Mark felt
that if the cabin was going to fall, the open air was the safer place.
Here, however, it seemed that they could not keep their feet. They
reeled about like drunken men, and the forest trees bent and writhed
as though an invisible wind tore at them, whereas the fact was that
the wind had fallen and it was a dead calm.

The air about them seemed to rock with the shock, there was a dull
roaring sound which hummed continually in their ears, and the vibrations
of the earth continued. They were indeed experiencing a most serious
earthquake.




CHAPTER X

THE BLACK DAY


The 'quake was over in a very few moments; the Indians and Washington
White, however, cowered upon the ground for some time, crying out their
fear of what they considered supernatural phenomena. Jack Darrow and
Mark Sampson were not frightened in the same way as the darkey and the
Aleuts; nevertheless they were much shaken.

Professor Henderson, however, displayed naught but the keenest interest
in the scientific side of the happening. He clambered to his feet the
moment he could stand, and observed:

"A most pronounced seismic disturbance--I should say earthquake."

"I should say it was pronounced!" grunted Phineas Roebach. Being a fat
man, he had fallen heavily. He was now rubbing himself tenderly where
he had been bruised upon the hard ground. "This shock beats the one
we had the other day."

"Not a shock, my dear sir," said Professor Henderson, quickly. "An
earthquake is not, strictly speaking, a shock at all. Within the past
twenty years science has learned to measure and to study earthquakes.
If we have learned nothing else, we have learned that an earthquake
is _not_ a shock."

"It tumbled us about a whole lot, then, Professor," said Jack Darrow.
"What would you call it, if not a shock?"

The phenomena being over for the time--as all could see--they returned
to the cabin to complete their meal. Roebach had said something soothing
to his Indians, but they, like Washington White, preferred remaining
in the open. Wash sat down beside the cage of his pet rooster, and
declared to the boys when they urged him to come in again:

"No, sah! I ain't hongry, nohow. An' w'edder de professor am right dat
dese yer earthquakes ain't shockin', I kin tell yo' right now dat it
shocked _me_! Nor I ain't gwine ter gib it no secon' chance ter tumble
dat ruff down on ma haid--no, sah!"

Once more at the breakfast table, with the affrighted Indian squaw
waiting upon them, the professor took up the topic of earthquakes
again, in answer to Jack's observation.

"From the time of the ancients to the middle of the last century the
phenomena of earthquakes were observed and described upon countless
occasions," he said. "Yet even Humboldt's 'Cosmos', published as late
as 1844, which summarized the then existing knowledge on the subject,
did not suggest that earthquakes should be studied like other mechanical
motions.

"The effects of the great Neapolitan earthquake of 1857 were so studied
by Mr. Robert Mallet," continued the professor. "He disabused his mind
of all superstition, threw away all the past mysteries, and attacked
the problem from its mechanical side only. He believed that an
earthquake was a series of shocks, or blows; but what he learned led
other and later students to the discovery that an earthquake is not
made up of blows at all."

"That's all very well to say," grumbled Mr. Roebach. "I'm pretty solid
on my feet; but what was it but a shock that threw me down? Tell me
that, sir!"

"Very easily explained," said the scientist, smiling. "Which will the
quicker take you off your feet--a blow from, say, Jack's fist, or your
stepping inadvertently upon a piece of glare ice? The ice, because it
affords you so insecure a footing, is likely to throw you easier than
a pretty solid blow; eh?"

"True enough," admitted the oil hunter, smiling at Jack. "Although
Darrow looks to be a pretty husky youngster." "My point is this,"
pursued the professor. "An earthquake is a continuous series of
intricate twistings and oscillations in all possible directions, up
and down, east and west, north and south, of the greatest irregularity
both in intensity and direction. This writhing of the earth--of the
very foundations of the ground we walk on--caused our recent overthrow,"
concluded Mr. Henderson.

But the two boys were much more interested in the possibility of there
being an active volcano in the neighborhood. The volcanic ash which
covered the leaves and grass like road-dust assured them all that some
huge "blow-hole" of the earth was near.

"I wasn't looking for no such things as volcanoes," said Andy Sudds,
seriously, "when I shipped for this voyage. I reckoned volcanoes blowed
mostly in the tropics."

"Alaska is a mighty field of active volcanoes," declared Professor
Henderson. "But they have been mostly active on the Pacific coast, and
among the islands which form a barrier between that ocean and Bering
Sea. Islands have been thrown up, while others have sunk there because
of volcanic disturbances, within the last few years."

"And I presume the earthquake and the volcanic eruption are closely
connected?" suggested Mark.

"We may safely believe that," agreed the professor. "I am sorry my
instruments are not at hand. I sincerely hope none was damaged when
the _Snowbird_ made such a bad landing."

"And I'd like to give the machine an overhauling at once to see just
how badly she's damaged," Jack Darrow said, hastily. "What do you say,
Mark?"

"I'm with you," returned his chum. "Can't we take Andy and Wash, Mr.
Henderson, and go right up to that hollow and see what needs to be
done to the flying machine? Perhaps we can get off for Aleukan by
to-morrow if we hustle."

"If you boys think you can repair the damage done the machine in so
short a time," agreed the professor, doubtfully. "But you know we must
at least arrive at Aleukan in time to meet the train from Coldfoot.
If the _Snowbird_ cannot be launched again, we will have to see
if our good friend here, Mr. Roebach, can fit us out with dogs and
men."

"That I'll do to the best of my ability," said the oil man, rising.
"But I'd better get out now and set my men to work. I am boring in a
new place this week, and it looks promising. We are down a hundred and
twenty feet already." They put on their outer garments and left the
cabin. Although this was summer weather, there was a sting of frost
in the air even as it neared mid-forenoon. But the sun was strangely
overcast, and that might account for the drop in temperature.

"Disher day fo'git ter grow," complained Washington, rolling his eyes
until, as Jack suggested, they could see only the whites of them in
the dark, and the gleam of his teeth. "'Nstead o' bein' as sunshiny
as it doughter be arter dat storm, it's suah growin' night fast! 'Taint
a full-grown day, nohow!"

"Sort of stunted; is it, Wash?" chuckled Jack.

Andy Sudds here spoke decisively:

"I been tryin' to make out what it was, like feathers, a-touchin' my
face. But it ain't snow. _It's ashes_!"

"Volcanic dust!" cried Mark.

"That volcano must be active again. That's what brought about the
earthquake," said Jack. "And the darkness. What we thought was a fog
over the sun must be a cloud of ashes."

"This ain't no place for us," declared Andy. "I wish we were back at
that man's house."

"Or could find the _Snowbird_ pretty soon," added Mark.

"We're going right for it--I'm sure of that," said Jack, cheerfully.
And scarcely had he spoken when the four suddenly clung to each other,
rocking on their feet! Washington White shrieked aloud, fell upon his
knees, and it took but little to drag the boys and Andy Sudds with him.

"The whole world is done rockin' ergain!" wailed the darkey. "Dis is
de end ob de finish!"

The vibrations of the ground grew in strength. The air about them
seemed to shake. The darkness was so intense that Jack, holding a
shaking hand before his face, could not distinguish its outline. And
all the time the volcanic ash drifted down through the writhing
tree-tops, while the boys and their companions were unable to stand
erect.




CHAPTER XI

THE WONDERFUL LEAP


Unlike the former trembling of the earth, this experience gave no
immediate promise of cessation. The world rocked on in awful throes--as
though it really was, as the black man feared, the end of all material
things. Jack and Mark rolled upon the ground in the grove of huge
trees, clinging to each other's hands, but unable to rise, or to find
their two comrades.

A rising thunder of sound accompanied this manifestation, too. And,
after some stricken minutes, the boys realized that it was thunder.

With the earthquake and the storm of volcanic ashes, came an electric
disturbance of the atmosphere, the like of which neither of the boys
had ever dreamed. They had felt the "itch" of the electric current
just before the 'quake. Now the hair on their heads rose stiffly like
that on the back of an angry cat, and when Jack and Mark chanced to
separate for a moment, and each put out their hands to seize the other,
the darkness under the trees was vividly shot through for an instant
with the sparks which flew from their fingers.

Washington White began to bawl terrifically at this display of
"fireworks," as he called it.

His lamentations were well nigh drowned by the rolling thunder. This
latter did not sound in ordinary explosions, or "claps," but traveled
in rapidly repeated echoes across the skies. The thick cloud of ashes
which obscured the sun and the whole sky was cut through occasionally
by a sword of lightning; but mostly the electricity showed itself in
a recurrent, throbbing glow upon the northern horizon, not unlike some
manifestations of the Aurora Borealis.

But even this uncertain--almost terrifying--light was of aid to the
boys; Jack, at least, remembered very clearly the way to the wrecked
flying machine, and of course the old hunter was not likely to lose
his way in as black a night as ever was made.

They struggled on between the intervals of pitch darkness, for the
trembling of the earth had again ceased. The visitation had been much
heavier than they had previously suffered.

"The best thing we can do," muttered Mark in Jack's ear, "is to fix
up the _Snowbird_ and beat it away from here just as fast as we
can. This is altogether too strenuous a place for us, believe me!" "If
we only _can_!" responded Jack, secretly as worried as his chum.
"This is a pretty fierce proposition, Mark. Just think of our bonny
_Snowbird_ wrecked on her first voyage! It's mighty hard; eh, chum?"

But the duty before the two boys just then was to find the wrecked
'plane and see what could be done with it. The thunder continued to
mutter and the intermittent flashes of electricity helped them somewhat
in finding the way to the spot where the _Snowbird_ had made her
final landing. But the fall of volcanic ash continued and the darkness,
between the lightning flashes, remained as smothering as before.

They reached the spot, however--seemingly a small plateau on which the
huge trees did not encroach, giving them plenty of space for a flight
if they were fortunate enough to get the _Snowbird_ in condition
for such an attempt.

There were both electric lamps and lanterns in the machine and Mark
sent Washington White to light every one while he and Jack went over
the wrenched mechanism. Andy Sudds stood guard with his rifle, or ready
to lend a hand should the boys need him.

The storm in the clutch of which the flying machine had traveled so
many hundred miles had wrenched her not a little. And the two landings
she had made on the mountainside had done her no particular good. There
was a broken plane, any number of wires to splice, and bent rods
innumerable.

These were the more apparent injuries. But the more delicate machinery
of the _Snowbird_ required a thorough overhauling. It was absolutely
necessary for them to have the use of a forge, and Jack had already
learned that such an article was among the oil hunter's possessions at
his camp.

They were a solid three hours putting to rights the machine and
correcting the damage done to her smaller parts. Then, with several
rods to be straightened and the light framework of the broken plane,
that must be put in the fire for a bit, the party started down the
mountain to Phineas Roebach's camp.

The four had left the plateau where the _Snowbird_ lay and were just
descending into the forest, carrying two storage battery lamps with
which the easier to find their way.

There was no preliminary trembling of the earth or the air. There was
an unheralded clap of sound--a sharp detonation that almost burst their
ear-drums.

They did not fall to the ground; the earth, instead, seemed actually
to rise and smite them!

A cataract of sound followed, that completely overwhelmed them. They
realized that the huge trees were swaying and writhing as though a
sudden storm-breath had blown upon them. Had a tornado swept through
this wood no greater danger could have menaced them. Trees about them
were uprooted; many bent to the earth; some snapped off short at the
ground--great boles two and three feet through!

Jack and Mark, with Andy Sudds and the terrified Wash, would have been
destroyed within the first few seconds of this awful upheaval had it
not been for a single fortunate circumstance. When the cataclysm was
inaugurated the first shock drove the four into a sort of hollow walled
about with solid rock. Upon this hollow fell the first huge tree trunk
of the flying forest--and it sheltered them instead of crushing them
to death.

The four had but small appreciation of this--of either their temporary
safety, or the perils that menaced them. Suddenly the thick air seemed
to stifle them. They could neither breathe nor see. The lamps had been
lost when they were flung--like dice in a box--into the rock-sheltered
hollow.

As the huge tree fell across their harbor of refuge, they all lost
consciousness.

What happened during the next few minutes--perhaps it was a quarter
of an hour--none of the little party of adventurers ever knew. It was
Jack who first aroused.

The whole world seemed still shrouded in pitch darkness. But he could
breathe without difficulty and he sprang to his feet with a peculiar
feeling of lightness as he did so.

But then he stumbled over Mark, and his chum came up, too, ejaculating:

"What is it, Jack? What is the matter now?"

"You can search me!" responded the other boy. "If this sort of business
keeps on I shall wish, with Wash, that we'd never come to Alaska."

"You can wish it with me!" grumbled Mark. "Washington doesn't want to
get back to Maine any more than I do right now, Jack."

"We must complete the repairing of the _Snowbird_," gasped Jack.

"And where are the rods--and the plane frame? And where are the lights?"

They held on to each other in the darkness of this over-shadowed hollow
and neither boy was willing to speak for a moment. Then Andy Sudds
staggered to them.

"I've lost my gun!" he ejaculated, with a quaver in his voice that was
quite surprising.

"And we've lost our lamps; but we'll find 'em, Andy," said Jack Darrow,
curiously enough becoming leader of the expedition right then, instead
of the man. It wasn't that the old hunter was frightened; merely, he
did not know what to do in this emergency.

"Do you notice--?" began Jack, seriously, and then stopped.

"Do I notice what, son?" responded Andy.

"I don't see how you can notice anything without a light," interrupted
Mark querulously.

This statement seemed to arouse Jack's faculties completely. He did
not continue his remark, but said:

"That's our first job; isn't it?"

"What's our first job?" asked the hunter.

"To get a light. We can't find the flying machine, nor get back to
Roebach's camp, without light. Why, it can't be more than mid-afternoon,
yet it's as dark as a stack of black cats in a coal-chute."

"And that's where I feel as though I'd been," declared Mark.

"Where?"

"Fighting the cats in the coal-hole. Ouch! I'm lame and sore all over."

"We're sure up against it," repeated Andy. "But there must be some way
out, boys."

"Light is the first requisite," agreed Jack, more cheerfully. "Got any
matches, Andy?"

"Plenty of 'em in a corked flask. I don't ever travel without matches,
son," returned the old hunter.

"But matches won't show us the way to Roebach's camp," complained Mark.

"Don't croak, old boy," advised Jack. "Let's have that bottle of
cosmolene I saw you tuck in your pocket there at the _Snowbird_."

"I was taking that to the professor. He said he would want it," said
Mark. "What's it good for?"

"You'll come pretty near seeing in a minute, Mark," returned the
quick-thinking Jack. "Here, Andy! let me have that woolen scarf you
wear. You'll have to say good-bye to it--bid it a fond farewell."

"I'm sort of friendly to that scarf, youngster," said the hunter.
"What's to be done to it?"

"It's going to become a lamp wick right here and now," declared young
Darrow, promptly. "So! I've got the cosmolene smeared on it already.
There! that's the last of it. Now a match, Andy."

"Joshua!" grumbled the hunter. "It _is_ good-bye, I guess!" The match
flared up. Jack touched it to the greasy woolen cloth. It began to burn
brightly and steadily at once.

"Now, you all hunt around for the things we dropped. If we can find
them we'll push out right away for the camp and the professor. You
know he'll be worried about us, just as we are worried about him!"

With the light of the improvised torch flaring about them they saw
what manner of place they were in. The huge trunk of the fallen tree
had not entirely shut them in the hole. Mark got in position to climb
out beside the tree-trunk.

There was a small, tough root sticking out of the bank above his head.
He leaped to catch it with one hand, intending to scramble out by its
aid.

And then the very queerest thing happened to him that could be imagined.
The spring he took shot him up through the hole like an arrow taking
flight.

He never touched the root, but over-shot the mark and disappeared with
a loud scream of amazement and alarm into the outer world.




CHAPTER XII

THE GEYSER


"Somebody grabbed him!" shouted Andy Sudds.

"Oh, lawsy-massy-gollyation!" yelped the frightened darkey. "Massa
Mark done been kerried up, suah 'nuff! I tole youse disher was de end
ob de worl'."

But Jack, followed by the old hunter, sprang to the opening. How light
they were upon their feet! The experience of moving shot this surprising
thought through Jack Darrow's mind:

"I'm as light as a feather. I have lost half my weight, I declare I
How can that be possible?"

Andy Sudds was evidently disturbed by the same thought. He cried:

"Somebody holt onto me! I'm going up!"

He did actually bump his head upon the tree trunk above them. But the
next moment Jack scrambled through the opening, light and all, and
came out upon the open ground.

"I'm here, Jack! I'm here!" cried Mark. "But what's happened to me?"
"Whatever it is, it has happened to us all," returned his chum. "I
seem to have overcome a good bit of the law of gravitation. Never felt
so light in my heels in all my life before."

"What can it mean?" whispered Mark in his chum's ear. "It's magic!"

"You've got me," admitted Jack. "I'm not trying to explain it. But I
know that the air pressure on me isn't as great as it was. I feel like
we did when we were on the moon."

"Something awful has happened," suggested Mark, his tone still worried.

"We can be sure of that," Andy Sudds said. "What shall we do?"

"Find that stuff we were carrying and get back to the professor with
it," said Jack, briefly. "Here! I see the storage battery lamp--or,
one of them at least."

Mark at the same time stooped to pick up two of the lost rods. Jack
found the lamp to be in good order and gave it to Andy. The torch was
rapidly becoming exhausted.

"Come, Washington," urged Jack, "you hunt around, too. We must find
the parts of the airship we dropped. If we don't find them we'll
_never_ get away from this place."

"And is we gotter go in de _Snowbird_, Massa Jack?" queried the darkey.
"Has we jest _gotter_ go in dat flyin' contraption? Gollyation! dis
chile hoped de walkin' would be good out oh Alaska. He an' Buttsy jest
erbout made up deir minds dat dey wouldn't fly no mo'. Fac' is, I had
some idea ob clippin' Buttsy's wings so dat he couldn't fly no mo'!"

"You can walk if you want to," said Mark, crossly; "but I want to get
away from this part of the country just as soon as ever I can. If the
flying machine was ready I'd only wait long enough to get the professor
and then we'd start."

"Guess we're with you there, Mark," agreed his chum, emphatically.

Meanwhile they were all scrambling about for the parts of the machine
that had escaped them when the awful blast had knocked them into the
hole and deprived them of consciousness. Fortunately none of the missing
parts was very small and in twenty minutes of close scrutiny every
piece was assembled. They did not find the second hand lamp, however.

"Now we must hurry back to the professor," Jack urged. "I know he will
be dreadfully worried."

"Do you notice that it's getting lighter, boys?" remarked Andy Sudds.

"I believe you!" cried Mark. "The ash has stopped falling, too."

"I know that the air is a whole lot clearer," rejoined his chum. "And
it's colder--or is it rare? Doesn't it seem like mountain air, Mark?"

"We've been half-stifled for so long I reckon the change to purer air
is what makes it seem so peculiar," returned his friend.

Yet Mark was puzzled--indeed they all were more or less disturbed by
the strange feeling that possessed them. Unless Washington White was
an exception. The darkey went along blithely despite his expressed
distaste for their surroundings, and as they came to the lower end of
the grove of big trees, he began to run.

It had grown lighter all the time as they advanced. The cloud that had
hidden the sun seemed to be rolled away like a scroll. The party could
see all about them. The ashes lay from two to eight inches deep on the
ground. Plants and shrubs were covered with the volcanic dust, and it
was shaken from the trees as they passed.

Washington White bounded along like a rubber ball. He came to the
plateau that overlooked the sheltered camp of the oil hunter. As the
darkness retreated across the valley, the derrick and the shanties
belonging to Phineas Roebach's outfit appeared.

Suddenly several gunshots rang out in succession, and the sounds
startled the boys and Andy. Wild cries likewise arose from the valley.
The commotion was at the camp.

"The professor is in danger!" cried Andy Sudds, and began to run.

His first leap carried him twenty feet; his second took him over a
fallen tree-trunk six feet through.

"By Joshua!" ejaculated the startled hunter. "I've got springs in my
shoes; ain't I?"

"What can it mean, Jack?" panted Mark, as the boys hurried on, side
by side.

Jack Darrow had no answer to make. He was as amazed as his companions,
and perhaps a little frightened as well.

They hurried after Andy and Wash; but the latter was far ahead. There
was a second volley of gunshots and at that moment Wash came to the
verge of the steep descent to the camp.

He beheld some half dozen Indians--all swart, lank, fierce-looking
bucks--just at the point of rushing the oil borer's hut.

It was no time for explanations, nor for hesitancy. Wash, like the
others behind him, believed that the Indians were making an attack
upon their master, and the first thought of all was that Professor
Henderson was with the oil man, and in peril.

"Gollyation! Git erway from dat dar door!" bawled Washington. The black
man was as timid as a fawn as a usual thing; but he was devoted to the
old professor and he had that feeling of gratitude for Mr. Henderson
that overcame his natural cowardice. When the Indians, without giving
him a glance, rushed at the door, and a single shot from the half-opened
window missed them by ten feet, Wash uttered another yell and sprang
to reach the descending path.

But this strange lightness of body that had overtaken them all during
the past hour, played Wash a strange trick. Instead of landing a few
feet down the steep way, he cast himself fairly into the air, twenty
feet out from the hillside, and sailed down upon the startled Indians
like some huge black buzzard.

The red men glanced up over their shoulders and beheld the flying man.
The sight seemed to terrify them. With loud cries they started to run;
but two of them could not escape the flying black man.

Wash landed sprawling upon their shoulders bearing both Aleuts to the
ground. The door of the cabin was dashed open and Phineas Roebach ran
out and seized the two red men before they could scramble up. The
others were streaking it for the woods as fast as they could travel.

"Gollyation!" quoth Washington White. "Has dem rapscallawags done
harmed de ole perfesser?"

"I am perfectly safe, Washington," said Professor Henderson, appearing
at the door of the cabin. "And here are the boys and Andy. I am relieved
to see you all alive again--I really am."

"Ain't this been a gee-whizzer of a storm?" queried the oil man, holding
the two Aleuts at arm's length.

Already the boys and Andy were tearing down the steep path. They
traveled like goats--as surefooted and as light upon their feet.
Professor Henderson watched their career in evident interest. Then,
gingerly, trying the feat curiously, the old gentleman sprang for a
small boulder beside the cabin. He leaped entirely over it.

"Light! Light as air!" he murmured. "This is a most puzzling
circumstance."

"Now, you fellows," growled Phineas, urging the two Indians along to
the boring machine. "You'll get to work. I don't care if your friends
have run off and left you to do it all alone. I tell you we've near
struck oil. I know the signs." Then he gabbled at them a bit in their
own language and the Aleuts took hold of the heavy bar by which the
earth-auger was turned. "They left the job--the whole of them--when
that last clap came," he explained to the boys.

But Jack and Mark were not much interested in the oil hunter's affairs.
Only Jack remarked that he thought the fat man had been foolish to arm
the Aleuts, or allow them to be armed. The Indians had evidently quite
gone off their heads.

"They believe that we are spirits of the air," Professor Henderson
told his friends. "That we are evil spirits. And I guess that Washington
flying down upon them as he did will clinch that belief in their minds."

"Did you ever hear of anything like it before in all your days,
Professor?" cried Jack. "Why, we can all jump like deer. I never saw
anything like it."

Before the professor could reply there came a shout from the direction
of the oil man's derrick. The two Aleuts, with their driver, had been
working only a few moments at the auger. But perhaps the tool, so far
down in the earth, had been ready to bite into the gas-chamber. There
was a rumble from beneath that suggested to all that another 'quake
was at hand. Then the Indians and the fat man started away from the
derrick on the run.

The auger and piping shot out of the hole like stones driven by a
catapult. Following the broken tools was a column of gas, gravel, water
and mud that rose two hundred feet in the air. The earth trembled, and
squawking like frightened geese, the Aleuts took to the tall timber,
following the trail of their more fortunate comrades who had gotten
away before. And they were not alone in their fright. The white men
were likewise amazed and troubled by the marvelous geyser. It was as
though the oil man had bored down to the regions infernal.




CHAPTER XIII

NATURE GONE MAD


The fat man came panting to the group surrounding Professor Henderson,
just as fast as he could move his feet. And never before had the boys,
or the professor, or Andy, or the black man beheld such an apparently
heavy man get over the ground at such speed.

"A very mysterious thing," the professor was saying again--and he did
not mean the roaring, spouting geyser that was shooting gas and debris
a couple of hundred feet into the air.

Nor did he have time then to explain what seemed so mysterious to him.
The descending debris threatened them all, and although they retired
in a more dignified way than had the Indians from the vicinity of the
spouting monster, they were all more or less disturbed by this new
phenomenon.

Stones weighing from ten to twenty pounds were projected into the air,
some of them crashing through the roof of the cabin when they descended.
The mud and water grew into a pool, then a lake, completely surrounding
the spot where the derrick had stood and where the geyser continued
to spout.

"We surely must move out," the oil man said, in much perturbation. "My
shop yonder seems to be a target for those rocks. There goes another!"

"And we have got to use a forge to weld and straighten these damaged
rods!" Mark cried, worriedly.

"Sorry, boy. I don't believe any of us will be able to get at my forge
till this shower of missiles stops," said Phineas Roebach.

"What needs to be done to the flying machine?" asked the professor,
briskly. "Are you sure it can be repaired, Mark?"

"Very sure, sir," replied the boy.

"And you, Jack?" repeated Professor Henderson.

"We could fix it up all right before midnight," declared the other.
"But we must have a forge."

"This geyser will stop playing after a bit, we will hope," said the
professor, encouragingly. "If the flying machine is not past repair
we need not worry. Nor need you, Mr. Roebach. We can all get away from
this region if it becomes necessary."

"Ma goodness!" gasped Washington White, who had listened to this speech
with his mouth ajar. "Don't you consider, Perfesser, dat dere has
erbout 'nuff happened yere fo' ter make it seem quite necessarious dat
we evacuate de premises sorter promscuous an' soon like? Why, I done
was sure de end ob He finish was at hand when dat las' big eart'quake
hit us--I suah did!"

"I must say I don't care to linger around here myself," muttered Andy.

"We must not lose our courage," said the professor. "Never before have
I been in a position to study seismic disturbances so closely. I only
regret I have not with me here the instruments I brought in the
_Snowbird_. And we must somehow learn the location of that volcano
which is in eruption."

"It's all right to learn the location of it," whispered Mark to Jack.
"But if we learn that we'll be pretty sure to fly in the opposite
direction--what do you think?"

"Believe me," said Jack, "I've got enough. The old professor is all
right, but he doesn't think about danger when his interest in any
natural phenomena is aroused."

The roaring of the geyser was a most unpleasant sound and the upheaval
of the stones was more than unpleasant--it threatened danger to them.
The vicinity of the oil-boring had been exceptionally free from small
stones; but in half an hour one might have picked up a two-horse
cartload weighing from ten to twenty pounds each.

Washington had run in and saved Buttsy in his cage, and they had all
retired now to the little plateau from the verge of which Washington
had made his famous leap to the backs of the two Indians. Phineas
Roebach had released the dogs from the shed where they had been
confined. There were twenty of the animals--three or four teams--fierce
and intractable brutes as a usual thing, unless under the sharp control
of their Indian drivers. But now they came whining and crouching to
the feet of the human beings grouped together on the plateau.

The evening was growing clear; but the geyser continued to roar like
the exhaust of some mighty engine and to throw off filth and
evil-smelling gas. Professor Henderson stood there, wrapped in his
furs, and penciled notes in his book with a grave enjoyment of the
scene that made his companions wonder.

But Andy Sudds read signs other than those of which the professor made
notes. Jack saw the old hunter watching the sledge dogs with a puzzled
frown wrinkling his brow.

"What's the matter with you, Andy?" queried the youth.

"Them dogs," declaimed the hunter.

"What about them?" "They're plumb scart. All this disturbance and
mystery has got in on them. They act just like they were seeing spooks."

"Spooks!" repeated Jack in surprise. "Do you mean to say dogs can see
ghosts?"

"All dogs can smell out when things is going to happen," declared Andy
Sudds. "They're better prophets than old women, you bet you! And these
dogs act to me as though we hadn't come by the worst of our trouble
yet."

Oddly enough it was Professor Henderson himself who took up the
suggestion that more trouble was in the offing.

"It is my opinion, Mr. Roebach," he said, to the oil man, "that you
had better remove such possessions as you can from this valley at once.
And put your dogs somewhere so that they cannot run away like your
Indians. If we are balked in attempting to repair the flying machine,
these dogs and sleds are what we must depend upon."

"To escape from this country, you mean, sir?" asked Mark.

"To reach Aleukan and the valley where the _Chrysothele-Byzantium_ is to
be found," replied the professor, promptly.

But it was to run the chance of a rain of death to go down into the
basin where the shop and cabin were situated. Further up the hillside
the dogs' quarters had been built, and the sleds were there, too. The
oil man and Andy Sudds looked at one another.

"All the stores are in the far end of the cabin," grunted Roebach.
"And you can see what that geyser is doing to the shed where the tools
are. There goes another stone through the roof!"

"If we could only get hold of that portable forge," said Mark.

"And that is what we _must_ get," exclaimed Jack. "Is the door of that
shanty locked, Mr. Roebach?"

"It's nothing but a skin door," replied the oil man. "But it's at the
far side--fronting that old mud-slinger. Did you ever see the beat of
that? _That_ stone must have weighed fifty pounds."

But Jack Darrow noticed a certain fact. That was that the debris from
the spouter was not shot so high as at first. Therefore, it was not
being spread abroad so far.

Only small stones, now, were dropping around the tool shed. And the
rear wall of the shanty was made of the most flimsy material.

Suddenly he slipped down to one side and got upon the level of the
valley. Nobody but Mark noticed his movements for a minute, and to him
Jack had given a warning glance.

The boy had crossed to the back of the tool-shed before the men of the
party noticed his absence from the knoll.

"Look at that reckless fellow!" ejaculated the professor. "Come back
here, Jack!"

But Master Jack was already at the shed. He tore away a part of the
rear wall in a moment. The mud rained down upon him, but fortunately
no rock came his way.

There was light enough yet for him to see inside the hut. Andy Sudds
had already started after Jack, and when the latter dragged the small
forge out of the shelter, the old hunter picked it up, flung it upon
his shoulder, and trotted back to the highland.

"Come away! Come away, Jack!" cried the professor again.

But the youth stopped long enough to obtain a sledge hammer and other
tools that he knew they should need. As he ran from the hut two stones
shot out by the geyser crashed through the roof; but he escaped all
injury.

He was plastered with mud from head to foot, however, when he regained
the high land.

"It was worth it," Jack declared, laughing, when he was safe. "I want
to get away from this neighborhood just as quick as we can. And if
we can fix the _Snowbird_ let us do it this very night and take our
flight for other climes. We don't know when another earthquake or
volcanic eruption will occur."

"Very true, my boy," admitted the professor, with a sigh. "At least,
we will endeavor to repair the damage done to your flying machine at
once. But there is much going on here that interests me."

Andy and Jack set up the forge and in a few minutes they had a glowing
fire in it. Then the boys set to work welding the broken rods and
straightening those that had become bent.

Meanwhile Mr. Roebach hauled out his sled and whipped the dogs into
line so that he could gear them up. The canines acted badly because
they were more used to their Indian masters. When the boys had done
their work, however, the oil man was ready to transport them all up
the mountainside to the plateau where the _Snowbird_ lay.

His cabin was by this time riddled by the flying stones and everything
in and about it was plastered with mud. It would have been foolhardy
indeed to attempt to get at