A DISAPPOINTED PROFESSOR
Wild and desolate indeed, was the scene upon which those in the
motorship gazed as their craft sank into the valley on the Canadian
Border. Located in the midst of a vast mountain range, the great gash
in the earth looked as if a giant had, with some titanic shovel,
scooped out earth and rocks to make a vast bed for himself. The valley,
located well up in the midst of the mountains, extended north and south
for many miles. In fact it lay directly across the Border, so that
about half of it was in Canada and the other half in the United States.
The boys and their companions had noticed some of the boundary marks
just before they began their descent, and they could easily determine
their position.
“Think you can make a landing, Jerry?” asked Jim Nestor, as he stood
beside the tall lad in the pilot house. “It’s pretty rough down there.”
“Oh, I can land all right,” asserted Jerry. “I can manipulate the
_Comet_ to make her go almost anywhere, and we don’t need a very large
smooth place to anchor her. But it sure is all mixed up.”
“I should say so!” exclaimed Ned.
“Looks as if some one stood up on the tops of the mountains and threw
big rocks down here,” commented Bob, who had come from the kitchen,
where supper was in course of preparation.
And indeed Bob’s description was as accurate as any. The floor of the
long, but narrow, valley was covered with great rocks and boulders,
some of them of vari-colored sandstone, and others of hard, and almost
black, granite. Some were of odd shapes, and they differed in size from
those almost as large as a house, to mere rocks that a lad could have
tossed.
“That happened when the landslide came down,” explained Mr. Brill. “If
you’d been here then you would have thought the earth was coming to
an end. I never heard such a racket, and the way the rocks and earth
tumbled down here was a caution. I just got out in time. If I hadn’t I
might be here yet--but not alive.”
From what little view the gold-seekers had of the valley in the
gathering darkness it did seem almost impossible of ascent or descent
by ordinary means. It was not that the sides were so steep--though they
were anything but of gentle slope--but the rugged walls, with here and
there sheer precipices, made them out of the question to scale.
“Nothing but a balloon could get down here,” said Mr. Brill. “A balloon
or an airship. It was a good thing you thought of these boys, Jim, or
we’d never have had a chance for the gold. I don’t believe anyone else
could get into this valley; or, if they could, they couldn’t get out
again.”
This was not exactly so, as they learned later. For when they had been
in the valley some time, and were prepared to leave, they discovered,
away up on the Canadian side, a comparatively easy descent. But it was
so hidden, and in such an out-of-the-way place that only by the merest
accident was it located.
“We can’t do much gold seeking to-night,” said Jerry, as he guided the
aircraft to a comparatively level spot where he intended to anchor her.
“It’s getting darker every minute, and it doesn’t look very inviting to
go traveling around among those rocks, not knowing what moment they may
come rolling down on you.”
“That’s right,” agreed the man who had hidden the gold. “We’ll wait
until morning. Anyhow, I don’t believe I’d be able to pick out the
landmarks by which I’ll have to be guided to the _cache_. I’ll need
daylight for that. You see, after I found out that I was being spied
upon, I made several bluffs at hiding the gold. That is, I pretended to
put it in two or three different places. But it’s all hidden in one
spot, and I’ll locate that to-morrow.”
“Then we’ll dig up the gold, and spend a few days hunting before we go
back East,” said Ned.
“Maybe it won’t be as easy finding it as you think,” put in Bob.
“Oh, I think I can walk right to it, when we get near enough,” asserted
the miner; “but it’s several miles from here--more in the center of the
valley.”
“Well, there’s one comfort,” said Jim Nestor. “We won’t be troubled by
the Blackfeet to-night.”
“No, but we may be troubled by _cold_ feet!” exclaimed Ned, with a
chuckle. “It’s getting chilly. I guess we’ll have to start the furnace
to-night, Jerry.”
It was quite cold up among the mountains, even though they were almost
at the bottom of a deep valley, and the tall young pilot closed the
windows of the airship.
“We can start the electric heaters,” he said, for the _Comet_ was
equipped with all the latest improvements in the way of comforts. “Bob,
turn ’em on when you go back to finish supper.”
“That’s so! I forgot about that cake!” cried the stout lad, as he made
a dash for the galley. “I left it in the oven, and it smells as if it
was burning!”
“Cake! He’s the limit!” cried Ned. “He’d make some kind of pastry, or
dessert, if he had to use crackers and water, and we were eating our
last meal. I never saw such a chap for grub!”
“Let him alone,” suggested Jerry, good-naturedly. “He means all right.”
“That looks like a good place to land,” suggested Jim Nestor, a little
later, as the airship approached a spot comparatively free from
boulders.
“I’ll try it,” agreed Jerry, and a few minutes afterward the motorship
was safely anchored, while night settled down over the mysterious
valley.
Bob’s fear for the cake proved unfounded, and the dainty came to the
supper table, shortly afterward, in perfect condition. With the airship
closed up, and the electric heaters going, the gold-seekers were very
comfortable.
They sat about after the meal, talking over what lay before them. It
seemed that they were almost at the end of their quest, though they
realized that danger and uncertainty might beset them. Professor
Snodgrass had about finished making notes of the specimens thus
far captured. Placing away his books and boxes, he put on his hat,
stretched himself, and started for the door of the cabin.
“Where are you going?” asked Jerry.
“To look for those luminous snakes,” was the answer. “It is good and
dark now, and I can see them well. Now that we are in the valley where
they exist I must lose no time in securing some specimens.”
“I wish you’d wait until morning,” requested the tall lad. “We don’t
know anything of this valley, and, if you go prospecting around it in
the dark, something may happen. Besides, there may be wild beasts here.”
“All the better!” exclaimed the professor. “I can get more specimens!”
Jerry was unable to persuade Uriah Snodgrass to stay in, but, as a
compromise, the scientist consented to take Harvey Brill and Ned with
him, while the others made everything snug for the night.
But Mr. Snodgrass was doomed to disappointment, for though he and the
others searched all around, within a radius of half a mile of the
aircraft, no luminous snakes were discovered.
“Do you think they can all have vanished?” asked Mr. Snodgrass of the
miner.
“Oh, no, for there were lots of them that I saw. But I can’t just say
it was here that I noticed them. It may have been farther up or down
the valley. Besides, I wasn’t paying much attention to such critters.
I wanted to fool the grub-stakers who were on my trail, and hide my
gold.”
“Oh, what was gold compared to the luminous snakes?” demanded the
scientist. “If I had had your chance I would never have let it slip.
Think of being able to present a luminous snake to a museum!”
“I’d rather get my sixty nuggets,” murmured the miner as, with the
disappointed professor, he returned to the aircraft.