OFF FOR THE WEST
Professor Snodgrass fairly leaped aboard the airship. Bob and Ned,
abandoning their work of casting off the ropes, which they again
fastened, held out their hands to him, and he grasped them firmly.
“Safe on board!” gasped the scientist. “I feared I would be left!”
“You’re all right!” shouted an enthusiastic admirer in the throng.
“That’s right,” added Andy Rush. “Come at last minute--almost
left--rush on board--never mind the crowd--jump in the air--fall
down--get up--see the bugs! Whoop!”
“Bugs? Bugs? What bugs? Are there any bugs I can capture here?” asked
the professor turning around to face the crowd from the deck of the
airship. Evidently he was unaware that his specimen box had come open
in his flight, and that his path was strewn with creeping and crawling
things.
“Bugs! I should say there were bugs!” exclaimed a woman. “One of the
terrible creatures is on me now! It has seven wings and about fifty
legs! Ugh! Take him off me, somebody; do!”
“Seven wings!” cried the professor, excitedly. “Why, my dear
madam, that is one of the most wonderful and rare creatures in
existence! There is only one known, and I have it. It is a sort of
dragon-fly-centipede. Don’t move, I beg of you, and I will capture it
in a moment. I wonder where it came from?”
“From your box, Professor,” said Jerry, coming from the pilot house.
“Your box is open and----”
“Oh, my good gracious! So it is!” exclaimed the scientist with a groan.
“All my valuable insects have escaped! That seven-winged centipede is
one of them. Help me to capture them, boys, I beg of you!”
“Everybody get busy!” sang out Andy Rush. “Capture the professor’s
specimens!”
“I’ll kill this seven-winged beast if some one doesn’t take it off me!”
screamed the woman.
“Don’t! Don’t! I beg of you! Handle it gently,” pleaded Uriah Snodgrass,
as he prepared to get off the airship. “I will take it from you in a
minute,” and he got his small net ready.
“There’s some sort of a toad crawling up my leg!” yelled a man. “Do you
want that, Professor?”
“Do I want it? I should say I did, my dear sir. That is related to the
celebrated horned toad that I captured after a long chase, on a journey
to California. Please hold it for me. I will be there in a moment; as
soon as I have captured the seven-winged centipede.”
“Will it bite?” asked the man, as he gingerly extended his hand toward
the reptile.
“It’s as harmless as an elephant,” responded Mr. Snodgrass
enthusiastically, for to him one animal was very like another; he
feared none, and they all seemed to like him.
By this time Bob, Ned and Jerry were laughing so heartily that they
could not be of much service to their friend. He seemed all unconscious
of the excitement he had created in the crowd, and his only desire was
to recapture his specimens. There was an uneasy movement in the throng,
as women or girls found themselves confronted by a snake or a lizard.
“Don’t hurt any of them, I beg of you,” pleaded the professor. “I will
soon have all my beauties safe,” and with a quick motion he captured
the curious insect that had lighted on the woman who first gave the
alarm.
“Beauties!” exclaimed another woman, with a sniff. “Look what he calls
‘beauties!’” and she pointed at a squatty toad that was trying to hide
under a stone.
“Don’t step on it,” cried the scientist. “I’ll have it safe in a
moment,” and, with a quick motion, he cast the net over it, and
transferred the toad to the green box.
“There’s some sort of a big bee trying to sting me!” came a boy’s
voice, from the outer edge of the crowd. “I’m going to swat it good and
hard if it does.”
“No, don’t! Pray don’t!” pleaded Uriah Snodgrass. “That is the only
specimen of a buzzless bumble bee that I have ever seen. It is very
valuable. If it stings you just stand still, and it can’t get away.
Then I’ll catch it. Don’t disturb it if it stings you!”
“Hu! Guess I’d like to see myself!” retorted the boy. Then he gave a
yell. “It’s stinging me now!” he screamed. “I’m going to swat it good
and hard!”
“Wait! Wait!” begged the professor, as he tried to get through the
crowd to where the lad was, hopping about in pain. Just then the youth
yelled again.
“It’s flown off me,” he said, “and it’s on John Stubb now! Look out,
John, or it will bite you!”
“You put it on me on purpose,” complained John. “I’ll kill it!”
But by this time Professor Snodgrass was on hand and had made a
prisoner of the buzzless bumble bee.
Then a woman reported that a snake was coiled up in front of her, and
about to strike, and the scientist hastened over and captured that,
stating that the snake was a harmless one. By this time the three motor
boys, and some of their friends, had managed to capture most of the
other specimens, and restore them to the green box. The crowd quieted
down, and Uriah Snodgrass made a hasty examination to see if he had all
his treasures.
“Any missing?” asked Jerry, trying not to laugh at his eccentric friend.
“There seems to be a pink flea gone,” was the answer. Then, addressing
the throng, the scientist asked: “Has anyone a pink flea?”
“My dog has lots of fleas, but I don’t know whether they’re pink or
red,” replied an irreverent youth, and there was a laugh, which ended
when a little girl cried out:
“There’s something like a pink mosquito biting me, mister.”
“Ha! That may be it. Let it bite you, little girl. It won’t hurt much,”
the professor said, hurrying to the child. Then he gave a delighted
cry. “It’s my pink flea! A very valuable specimen! Now I have all of
them back again. You may start the airship, boys. I’ll have to put a
new lock on my specimen box, I guess.”
“Do you really want to go with us?” asked Jerry, for there had been no
time to question the professor since his excited arrival.
“Of course I do, boys,” he answered.
“But we are going away out West, out in Arizona, to our gold mine, and
perhaps farther--across the Rockies.”
“I’ll go wherever you go,” was the answer of the little bald-headed
scientist. “I am searching for a flying lizard for the museum with
which I am connected, and I may as well look for it in the Rockies as
anywhere else. Go ahead, boys, I’ll accompany you.”
“All right,” agreed Jerry, deciding that they could question the
professor later as to how he had come to know of their intended trip.
“Cast off, Bob--Ned.”
“Cast off she is,” responded the two, sailor fashion, as they again
loosened the guy ropes.
“There they go!” shouted the crowd, waving hands, hats and handkerchiefs,
as the motor ship trembled slightly.
“Good-bye!” shouted the parents of the boys.
“Good-bye,” chorused the throng.
“Up they go--to the clouds--out of sight--fall down--get up again--fly
like the wind--hit the moon--bounce off--come back--kill a grizzly
bear--upside down--right again--there they go!” yelled a shrill voice,
and it needed no one to tell the boys that it was Andy Rush.
The last rope was cast off, and the _Comet_, with a rush, went straight
up. Jerry, in the pilot house, pulled over the lever controlling the
motor and the big propellers began to revolve. The airship darted
ahead, sailing over the heads of the crowd. The motor boys were off for
the west.