"Z.2.X."
"Z.2.X.? Well, such things are rather out of my line, but I have heard
of it--yes," replied the doctor, looking more puzzled than ever. "But
what do you know about it?"
"Till two days ago--nothing," replied Jack, "but now I believe that I
know where there is a trainload of it."
"Good heavens, boy, you don't know what you're talking about. Why, the
stuff is as valuable--as valuable as radium. Possibly it is worth
more."
"Then even a small quantity would restore my father's fortune and his
health?" asked Jack, persisting in his line of inquiry.
"Undoubtedly it would restore his fortune, and in my belief his
health, which he is unlikely to gain otherwise."
"Then I'll do it," said Jack, speaking for himself and Tom, for the
two lads had discussed the idea the night before. "Those dividends
from our share of the hydroaëroplane plant will fit out an expedition,
and if we fail--well, we can still sell out our interest and help dad
get on his feet again."
The telephone bell jangled. Jack answered it. The voice that came over
the wire was that of Professor Jenks. His tones trembled with
excitement as he spoke to the boy.
"I have analyzed that sample from the Colorado River," he said.
"Well, what is your verdict?" asked Jack, with a painfully beating
heart.
"That when all the expenses of reduction and refining and
transportation and digging are deducted that it will be worth at least
$100 an ounce," was the reply. "It would bring an even higher price,
for the placing of a large amount on the market will probably have the
effect of lowering it."
"Great Scott!" breathed Jack, "and there's a whole island of it there
for the taking."
"Yes; but how are yow going to get it? The cliffs are unscalable, the
river unnavigable. It might as well be in Mars for all the good it
does anyone," objected the professor.
Jack's next words were direct, to say the least.
"I've figured out all that," he said. "We can get it, if it's there to
be got. I've a reason now for going out there if it's possible to come
to some arrangement with Zeb Cummings. Can you meet me at the hospital
this afternoon to talk over the matter?"
"Are you serious?" gasped the professor.
"Perfectly," Jack assured him. "If we can't get at it by earth or
water we can reach it from the air, can't we?"
"Heaven bless my soul, I never thought of that," choked out the
professor. "I--Melissa's calling me. I'll meet you at the hospital
this afternoon."
"Tom and I will be there," said Jack, but the professor, at the
imperious bidding of Melissa, had hung up the receiver.
The result of the conference held that afternoon at the bedside of Zeb
Cummings was the formation of the Z.2.X. Exploration Company, the
members being Jack, Tom, Zeb Cummings and the professor. The capital
was to be furnished in equal amounts by the professor and the boys,
and Zeb Cummings was to be an equal partner in the enterprise, he
having furnished the information on which Jack hoped to rehabilitate
his father's fortunes.
As for the professor, he did not so much regard the pecuniary side of
the expedition as the opportunity he would have to write an
epoch-making book and confound his scientific rivals. In their
enthusiasm, the adventurers did not take into consideration the fact
that the map might be wrong, or that the strange metals be just
visionary deposits. The boys' enthusiasm drowned all doubts in their
minds; Zeb and the professor never were as optimistic.
Dr. Mays, when he had been placed in full possession of the facts and
considered them, decided that under the circumstances the boys could
go and undertook to quiet any apprehensions Mr. Chadwick might have
concerning the trip. It was found that enough had been saved from the
wreck of the inventor's fortunes to enable him to live comfortably
while the boys were away, besides which he had royalties from several
inventions coming in. Still, the bulk of his fortunes had vanished and
the radio telephone was not yet a practicable instrument to put upon
the market.
But with Z.2.X. the boys hoped to make it a perfect transmitter of
speech over great distances.
Of course, Jack's plan was to utilize the Wondership on the enterprise
of finding Rattlesnake Island and its treasures. After long
consultations with Zeb, who was now convalescent, it was decided to
ship the craft, in sections, to Yuma on the Colorado River and make
the start secretly from some point below there.
It was in the midst of these plans, and while the boys' workshed was
littered with lists of provisions and equipment that Dick Donovan
injected himself into the situation. The red-headed young reporter
descended upon them one day when they were busily packing the
Wondership away in big crates, which were labeled in various ways so
as to give no inkling of the contents.
Of course Dick, being in a way a member of the firm, had to be told
what was going on, and the result was that after a lot of hard
pleading the boys consented to allow him to come along.
"He's got red hair," said Zeb, "and that ought to make him good on the
trail, same as a buckskin cayuse."
The boys didn't quite see the logic of this, but they knew from former
experiences that the young reporter was a good campmate, and they
were, on the whole, glad that they had included him. But when young
Donovan came to High Towers, he was not aware that he was followed by
Bill Masterson, who, as we know, was the son of the proprietor of the
_Boston Moon_, on which paper young Masterson also worked as a
reporter.
Ever since Dick Donovan had written for his paper, the _Boston Evening
Eagle_, the wonderful story of the boys' adventures on the trail of
the giant sloth of Brazil, other Boston reporters had regarded him as
worth watching. In some way, young Masterson learned of Dick's
frequent visits to High Towers while the preparations for the Colorado
trip were going forward.
"It's my idea," he told his father, "that those Boy Inventors are
planning another big stunt and that Dick Donovan is to go along and
write the story. Do we want to get beaten again?"
"We do not," said his father, a heavily-set, dictatorial man,
perpetually at war with the _Evening Eagle_. "That last beat of
Donovan's on the Brazil story jumped the _Eagle's_ circulation sky
high."
"Well, why not let me trail along after them and find out what I can?"
said young Masterson. "No use letting the _Moon_ get soaked again, and
besides, I want to get even on those young fellows, anyhow, for the
mean trick they played in having me arrested, even if it didn't come
to anything, and the case was dropped.
"Jove!" he cried suddenly, as a new train of thought was suggested to
him. "I'll bet I've got it. This trip, or whatever it is, they are
planning has something to do with that miner, Zeb Cummings, the chap I
ran down."
"Well, it's worth keeping a weather eye on, anyway," decided his
father. "I guess you'll get the assignment."
"And I'll run it down, too," declared young Masterson boastfully. "I
owe that red-headed, chesty Donovan a grudge anyhow."
That evening young Masterson met by appointment the two youths who had
been with him in the automobile the day that Zeb was run down. They
were both sons of wealthy men, and had more money than was good for
them. Masterson found that both Sam Higgins and Eph Compton were
willing to do all they could to harm the boys who had been responsible
for their arrests, and so it came about that Jupe, on his way to the
village to post some letters, was enticed into talk one night, and
while he was chatting and accepting the good cigars three amiable
young men pressed upon him, the mail was abstracted from his pocket.
There were two letters, one from Dick to his city editor telling him
of the progress made and informing him of the day for the start, and
the other from Jack to his father, who was a guest of Dr. Mays. Jack
gave full details of their plans and other information concerning the
trip, so that the three plotters, a few days before the expedition set
out, knew as much about it as the boys themselves.
Armed with this information, Masterson, Higgins and Compton had no
difficulty in getting money from their parents, all of whom would have
described themselves as "keen business men." As for Jupe, he was too
badly scared to say anything about the loss of the letters, and as
Masterson, after steaming them open and abstracting what he wanted of
their contents, posted them to their proper destinations, the boys
started out on their long journey west without the slightest idea that
anyone but themselves and one or two others knew of their plans.
The professor's going was not unaccompanied by difficulties. Miss
Melissa had insisted that if he was to accompany the expedition, she
was going along, too. This being manifestly impossible, the man of
science was driven to the subterfuge of placing a bag of fossils in
his bed to represent him. On the night of the start, Miss Melissa
looked into his room every few minutes to make sure he had not
escaped.
It was not till morning that she discovered that the man of science
had effected his escape through his bedroom window, climbing down a
latticework to the ground. At first she was half inclined to pursue
him, but thought the better of it when she read the note the professor
had left behind.
"Well," said Miss Melissa to her little maid, "there's one good
thing--he won't be cluttering up the house with old stones and rocks
for some time to come."
"What shall I do with them fossils what he put in his bed to make
believe it was him, miss?" asked the maid.
"You may throw them into the creek at the back of the house, Mary,"
said Miss Melissa, and went placidly about her dusting and sweeping
and "setting to rights."
But of all this, the professor, on the train speeding westward, was
blissfully unconscious. Perhaps even if he had known it, he would not
have cared much, for even his scientific mind was warmed and thrilled
by the prospect of the aërial search for the mineral treasures of
Rattlesnake Island.