THE HOMECOMING.
The next day Masterson and his companions, very much subdued, boarded
the Wondership as passengers. All of them were still suffering
painfully from the effects of the burns, their only reward from their
ill-advised raid on the black barren.
"Boys," asked Masterson, "can't you take our camping equipment along?
It's a shame to have it rot here."
"All right," said Jack. "I think we may be able to sell it for you.
Come on, we'll get to work now!"
"You're not such a bad chap," said Eph when he heard Jack agree to
Masterson's suggestion.
"He's the finest chap on earth!" exclaimed Tom.
"That he is," added Dick Donovan.
"He is a model young man," declared Professor Jenks, overhearing
Tom's last remark.
Jack flushed with pleasure and embarrassment. It was very gratifying
to know that his friends thought highly of him, but at the same time
he wished they would not give him that uneasy feeling with their
sincere compliments. So he hurried away, asking the others to follow
him toward getting together Masterson's outfit.
While the dumpy little geologist went once more to search for strange
specimens, the boys readily set to work and in a very short time the
camping equipment was placed on board the Wondership.
When the boys arrived at Yuma, Masterson found no difficulty in
selling the camping outfit to old man McGee, who decided to make one
more try to find the Three Buttes.
"Don't you think you're too old, and that the gold, after all, may not
be there?" Tom asked the eccentric miner.
"Nonsense!" exclaimed McGee indignantly. "As I tole you afore, it
stands ter reason thar's gold out thar, and 'at it war'ent up to
Peg-leg Smith nor'n to Guv'nor Downey, nor'n to McGuire, nor'n to Dr.
De Courcy, nor'n to any of 'em to find the Buttes, but as I says
afore, I says ag'in--'at ther good Lord never made nuthin' thet wasn't
of some use. Very well, then, the desert is good fer nuthin' else but
mineral wealth, and Providence made it so plagued hard ter git at so
'at all of us couldn't git rich at once. I've been arter the Buttes
all me life, and _this_ wack I'm goin' to land it rich!"
The fanatical old prospector, chuckling gleefully and sucking his
pipe, ambled away while Tom looked after him, shaking his head
sympathetically.
"Look out! Look out!" someone shouted in Tom's ear. "There's a beauty,
a wonder!"
Tom, startled, whirled about to see the professor, gazing intently at
a small rock upon which one of Tom's heels was resting. The professor
violently pushed him aside, out came his little hammer, and in a
moment the new specimen was in his bag. Then, the man of science,
without looking up to see whom he had spoken to, pounced on another
stone.
Tom could not help laughing outright at the professor's queer ways and
deep concentration on his pet hobby.
"What a funny world this is!" remarked Tom, still amused. "Here is a
man forever after rocks, rocks, and there goes a miner set upon
becoming rich and discovering some imaginary mine."
He saw Jack waving to him from the veranda of the hotel.
"Listen, Tom," said his chum when they stood side by side, "I was
thinking that it would be a splendid idea to send the Wondership to
New York, and that from there we travel to Nestorville, _via_ the air
route."
"Great!" cried Tom, delighted. "But say, are we to take Masterson
along?"
"Of course not," replied Jack. "He can go back to Boston on the
train."
"Good for you!" declared Tom, slapping his chum on the back.
"But I haven't told you my main idea yet," said Jack, smiling,
"What is that?" asked the other wonderingly.
"Can't you guess?"
"No," Tom began to say, and then the roguish twinkle in Jack's eyes
gave him a sudden inspiration. "You don't mean to use the Z.2.X. to
send messages with while we fly nearer and nearer to our old home
town?"
"That is exactly what I wish to do," said Jack quietly.
"Whoop! It's great!" cried Tom, throwing his hat in the air; and as he
saw Dick coming toward them, he fairly pounced on the astonished
reporter with the news.
"Flamjam flapcakes of Florida!" gasped Dick.
And so it was arranged. A few days later our party boarded a train for
the East. Jack, Tom, Dick and Professor Jenks arrived at New York.
(They had left Zeb behind to attend to the work in the barren
fields.)
The Wondership, as on the previous occasion, was quietly but quickly
assembled, and made ready to take its homeward flight. They had chosen
a spot on Manhattan island still very meagerly developed, and so were
not at all troubled by curious onlookers. Jack, to whom his father had
explained in detail the use of Z.2.X.--or Coloradite, as they had
decided to call it--busied himself almost exclusively with the radio
telephone apparatus. When all was ready, he sent his father the
following telegram:
"Expect message, using Coloradite from New York."
The next morning they ascended. Round and round the Wondership
circled, a golden speck against the blue sky. In a quarter of an hour
the great metropolis seemed nothing but a giant beehive, with millions
of busy workers ever hurrying in hundreds of different directions. The
cars and automobiles were only like giant bees, moving somewhat
swifter than those on what looked like fine threads of cotton or wool.
"What a small place New York is after all," observed the professor.
"It is larger than Boston," said Tom slyly,
"Perhaps," admitted the man of science haughtily, "but not as learned
or stately--no city can take its culture away from Boston."
Jack smiled, and in order to change the conversation, asked Tom, "How
high now?"
"About fifteen hundred feet," guessed Tom.
"Wrong," said Jack, glancing at the barograph on the dashboard in
front of him. "We have reached two thousand eight hundred feet."
"I must be asleep," said Tom, frowning. "Shall I connect the
alternator?"
Jack nodded and prepared to send greetings to his father, hundreds of
miles away. They were out in the country now. As the Wondership glided
through the air, the professor, in viewing the villages, farms, green
pastures, and stretches of woodland, regretfully shook his head as the
thought occurred to him that he was missing many a precious stone. He
looked over to Jack with the idea of suggesting a descent, but he saw
the boy inventor patiently adjusting the tuning knob, and waited,
realizing how anxious Jack was to test the Coloradite.
The little professor, extremely interested, saw Jack place his lips to
the receiver, and for the second time in his life, send out the
distinct call:
"Hullo, High Towers!"
Many minutes passed without an answer. Jack's face became grave. Was
part of the machinery not properly adjusted? He went over the
instrument very carefully. In so far as he could see, everything was
just as it should be. Then a thought came that made him dizzy--was it
possible that the Coloradite was not suited for the work, that Mr.
Chadwick had been misinformed?
"What's up?" inquired Tom, glancing up from his engines.
"By the ghost of Guzzlewits!" gasped Dick. "Don't say it won't work,
Jack!"
The professor, ordinarily cool and very calculating, was strangely
stirred. He watched the young inventor's face. Did it mean failure?
"I don't know," said Jack at last with forced calmness. "I will try
again."
Once more Jack, oppressed by a vague fear, sent out the words:
"Hullo, High Towers!"
The reply came with startling swiftness, relieving the party from the
mental strain. In one voice--the professor included--they yelled,
"Hurrah!"
"Congratulations!" came Mr. Chadwick's voice in return.
"Why the delay?" asked Jack, smiling with
"A small lever snapped. It required a few minutes to repair it. How
far from New York are you now?"
"About forty miles."
"Good! Try to land here before sunset."
"Why?" asked Jack.
"Nestorville has a little surprise for you!" replied Mr. Chadwick, and
Jack heard him chuckle.
"Good for Mr. Chadwick!" cried Dick in glee, for Jack had so arranged
the instrument that all of them in the Wondership could hear Mr.
Chadwick's voice.
Then followed a long conversation between father and son. Mr. Chadwick
had almost completely recovered his health, and was again working over
new experiments. Dick insisted that he be permitted to tell the story
of their adventures on the island of the Coloradite Treasure.
"You won't tell it right," he declared to Jack, and insisted so
strenuously that the boy inventor had to let him speak to Mr.
Chadwick.
Dick set his choicest language agoing, and his vivid description of
Jack's part in every incident was embellished by the most flowery
adjectives in his vocabulary. Jack had to listen, and grin.
By the time his long story was done, Nestorville was sighted. As soon
as the people saw the Wondership, pandemonium broke loose. Not only
Nestorville, but officials and crowds from the neighboring towns had
poured in, and the reception the boys and the professor received
lingered with them for many, many years.
Later, as time went on, Mr. Chadwick's fortune was completely
rehabilitated. Professor Jenks no longer was so eager to search for
rocks, and while doing so get into all sorts of difficulties. He lived
more at home, becoming at last, as his spinster sister declared, "a
man with the proper spirit to make an ideal husband." Of course, the
professor had received a very substantial sum of money from the boys.
Jack and Tom soon found themselves wealthy, and often in fancy trace
the days back to that afternoon when they found the sturdy miner lying
on the roadside, having been knocked unconscious by Masterson's
careless driving of his automobile.
Zeb, continued to take charge of the work on Rattlesnake Island, to
which the boys never returned. For a long time the supply from the
black barren appeared to be inexhaustible. Suddenly, however, it
ceased, and no more was dug. But what had been mined had been more
than sufficient to make all prosperous.
Dick, with his share of the proceeds, which the boys insisted that he
accept, bought the _Nestorville Bugle_. From the very start, he made
it a live, progressive paper. Sometimes, when the now busy editor had
a spare hour, he invariably visited his two friends, and the
three--sometimes, too, the little professor joined them
unexpectedly--recounted old-time stories.
But the boys were not made lazy by wealth and fame. To this very day,
Jack and Tom, with Mr. Chadwick's aid, are devising many inventions
calculated to benefit mankind. Possibly, at some future time, we shall
hear something more about these, but for the present let us take our
leave and say good-by.
THE END