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.