Читать книгу On a Torn-Away World; Or, the Captives of the Great Earthquake - Roy Rockwood - Страница 8

Professor Henderson and his adopted sons—Jack Darrow and Mark Sampson—had been in many perilous situations together. Neither one nor the other was likely to display panic at the present juncture, although the flying Snowbird was playing a gigantic game of "leap-frog" through the air.

The professor had himself constructed many wonderful machines for transportation through the air, under the ground, and both on and beneath the sea; and in them he and his young comrades had voyaged afar.

Narrated in the first volume of this series, entitled, "Through the Air to the North Pole," was the bringing together of the two boys and the professor—how the scientist and Washington White rescued Jack and Mark after a train wreck, took them to the professor's workshop, and made the lads his special care. In that workshop was built the Electric Monarch, in which flying ship the party actually passed over that point far beyond the Arctic Circle where the needle of the compass indicates the North Pole.

Later, in the submarine boat, the Porpoise, the professor, with his young assistants and others, voyaged under the sea to the South Pole, the details of which voyage are related in the second volume of the series, entitled "Under the Ocean to the South Pole."

In the third volume, "Five Thousand Miles Underground," is related the building of that strange craft, the Flying Mermaid, and how the voyagers journeyed to the center of the earth. The perils connected with this experience satisfied all of them, as far as adventure went, for some time. Jack and Mark prepared for, and entered, the Universal Electrical and Chemical College.

Before the first year of their college course was completed, however, Professor Henderson, in partnership with a brother scientist, Professor Santell Roumann, projected and carried through a marvelous campaign with the aid of Jack and Mark, which is narrated in our fourth volume, entitled, "Through Space to Mars." In this book is told how the projectile, Annihilator, was built and, the projectile being driven by the Etherium motor, the party was transported to the planet Mars.

Later, because of some knowledge obtained from a Martian newspaper by Jack, they all made a trip to the moon in search of a field of diamonds, and their adventures as related in "Lost on the Moon" were of the most thrilling kind. The projectile brought them safely home again and they had now, for some months, been quietly pursuing their usual avocations.

The knowledge Jack Darrow and Mark Sampson had gained from textbooks, and much from observation and the teachings of Professor Henderson, had aided the lads in the building of the Snowbird. It was the first mechanism of importance that Jack and Mark had ever completed, and they had been quite confident, before the flying machine was shot from Mr. Henderson's catapult, that it was as near perfect as an untried aeroplane could be.

"Hang on, Mark!" yelled Jack, as the great machine soared and pitched over the forest.

Her leaps were huge, and the shock each time she descended and rose again threatened to shake the 'plane to bits. Mark swayed in his seat, clutching first one lever and then another, while Professor Henderson and Jack could only cling with both hands to the guys and stay-wires.

The sensation of being so high above the earth, and in imminent danger of being dashed headlong to it, gripped Mark Sampson like a giant hand. He felt difficulty in breathing, although it was not the height that gave him that choking sensation. There was a mist before his eyes, still the sun was shining brightly. The startling gyrations of the flying machine for some time shook the lad to the core.

But Jack's cheerful cry of "Hang on!" spurred Mark to a new activity—an activity of hand as well as brain. He knew that something had fouled and that this accident was the cause of the machine making such sickening bounds in the air. She was overbalanced in some way.

With Jack's encouraging shout ringing in his ears, Mark came to himself. He would hang on! His friends depended upon him to control the machine and to save them from destruction, and he would not be found wanting.

One lever after another he gripped and tried. It was one controlling the rising power that was fouled. He learned this in a moment. He sought to move it to and fro in its socket and could not do so. He had overlooked this lever before.

Again the Snowbird dashed herself from a height of five hundred feet toward the earth.

They still flew over the forest. The tops of the trees intervened, and Mark managed to counteract the plunge before the prow of the machine burst through the treetops. She rose again, and using both hands, Mark jerked the wheel stick into place.

At once the flying machine responded to the change. She rode straight on, slightly rising as he had pointed her, and Mark dared touch the motor switch again. Instantly the machine speeded ahead.

"Hurrah for Mark!" shrieked Jack. "He's pulled us through."

"He has indeed," agreed the professor, and they settled into their seats and gave attention to the working of the apparatus. Mark now had the Snowbird well under control.

Jack changed places with his chum and managed the Snowbird equally well. At his touch she darted upward at a long slant until the altimeter registered two thousand feet above the sea. And the sea was actually below them, for Jack had guided the flying machine away out from the land.

"Boys," said Professor Henderson, quietly, "you have done well—remarkably well. I am certainly proud of you. Some day the people of the United States will be proud of you. I am sure that the inventor's instinct and the scientist's indefatigable energy are characteristics you both possess."

"That's praise indeed!" exclaimed Jack, smiling at his chum. "When the professor says we've won out, I don't care what anybody else says."

"Do you think the Snowbird is fit for long-distance travel?" asked Mark of Professor Henderson, now displaying more eagerness than before.

"I do indeed. I think you have a most excellent flying machine. I would not hesitate to start for San Francisco in her."

"Or farther?" asked Jack.

"Certainly."

"Across the ocean?" queried Mark, quickly.

"I do not see why any one could not take a trip to the other side of the Atlantic in your 'plane," replied the professor. "With proper precautions, of course."

They reached the land and came safely to rest before the hangar without further accident. The professor was delighted with the working of his catapult and at once made ready to call the attention of the Navy Department to his improvement in the means of launching an airship from the deck of a vessel. Ere he had written to the Department, however, he and his young friends were suddenly made interested in a scheme that was broached by letter to Professor Henderson from a fellow-savant, Dr. Artemus Todd, of the West Baden University.

Professor Henderson and Dr. Todd had often exchanged courtesies; but the university doctor was mainly interested in medical subjects, while Mr. Henderson delved more in the mysteries of astronomy and practical mechanics.

The doctor's letter to Professor Henderson read as follows:

"Dear Professor:

"I am urged to write to you again because of something that has recently come to my knowledge regarding a subject we once discussed. As you know, for some years past I have been investigating not the cause of aphasia and kindred mental troubles (for we know the condition is brought about by a clot of blood upon the brain), but the means of quickly and surely overcoming the condition and bringing the unfortunate victim of this disorder back to his normal state. In our age, when mental and nervous diseases are so rapidly increasing, aphasia victims are becoming more common. Scarcely a hospital in the land that does not have its quota of such patients under treatment—patients who, in many cases, have completely forgotten who and what they are and have assumed a totally different identity from that they began life with."

"We know that, in some cases, hypnotism has benefited the aphasia and amnesia victim. His condition is not like that of the mentally feeble; he has merely lost his memory of what and who he previously was. Believing that all disease, of whatsoever nature, can be safely treated only through the blood, this ill to which human flesh is heir particularly must be treated in that way, for we know that a stagnant state of the blood in one spot, at least, is the cause of the patient's malady. Therefore I have been experimenting botanically to discover a remedium for the state in question—something that will act swiftly upon the blood, and directly dissipate such a clot as is spoken of above."

"My dear Professor! I can announce with joy that this remedium is discovered. I obtained a specimen of a very rare plant brought back from Alaska by a miner who wandered into the fastnesses of the Endicott Range, far beyond the usual route of gold miners and in a district which, I understand, is scarcely ever crossed by whites and which is, indeed, almost impassable, even in the summer months. With the aid of this herb—Chrysothele-Byzantium (it was known to the ancients, but very rare)—I have brewed a remedium which, in one case at lest, instantly cleared the blood vessels of the patient and brought him back to a knowledge of his real self."

"But my supply of the herb is gone. It reached me in its dry state, or I should have first tried to propagate it. It seeds but once in seven years and therefore is rare and hard to grow. But I must have a supply of the Chrysothele-Byzantium seeds, plants, and all. I look to you, my dear Professor Henderson, for help. To you space and the flight of time are merely words. You can overcome both if you try. I need somebody to go to the northern part of Alaska—that is, beyond the Endicott Range—to obtain this rare plant for me. You have already flown over the North Pole and a trip which carries one only three or four degrees beyond the Arctic Circle is a mere bagatelle to you."

"Yes! it is in you I place my hope, Professor. The hopes of many, many afflicted people may be placed in you, too. I ask you to fly to this distant place and obtain for me the herb that will do humanity such great good. Under another enclosure I send you drawings of the plant in its several states and a full and complete description of how it was found. You can make no mistake in the Chrysothele-Byzantium. You know that I am a cripple, or I would offer to join with you in this search. But at least I am prepared to pay for any expense you may be under. Draw upon me for ten thousand dollars to-morrow if you so desire, and more if you need before the start. The Massachusetts Bay Trust Company, of Boston, will honor the draft. Make up the expedition as you see fit. Take as many men with you as you think necessary. Make all preparations which seem to you fit and needful. I limit you in nothing—only bring back the herb."

"Remember I shall impatiently await your return and look for your success—I expect nothing but unqualified success from your attempt. You who have achieved so much in the past surely cannot fail me in this event. I await your agreement to attempt this voyage with confidence. I must have the herb and you are the only person who can obtain it for me."

"Your friend and co-worker for the betterment of humanity,

ARTEMUS TODD, M.D., PhD."

Professor Henderson read this strange letter aloud in the evening as he and his friends were sitting before the small, clear fire of hickory logs in the big living room of the bungalow in the woods, built beside the great workshops and laboratory. With the scientist and the two boys was Andy Sudds, the old hunter, who sat cleaning his rifle, and Washington White was busy in and out of the room as he cleared away the supper and set the place in order.

"Well! what do you know about that!" exclaimed Jack Darrow, always ready with a comment upon any subject. "Dr. Todd is certainly some in earnest; isn't he?" "But what a cheek he has to ask you to go on such a journey!" cried Mark. "He talks as though he expected you to start immediately for the Arctic Circle."

"There would be good hunting up there in the mountains," said Andy

Sudds, succinctly. "I wouldn't mind that."

"An'disher chrysomela-bypunktater plant he wants," grunted Washington. "Hi, yi! ain't dat de beatenest thing? Who ebber heard of sech a plant befo'?"

"Nobody but you, I guess, Washington," said the professor, quietly. "That seems to be a plant of your own invention."

"But, sir!" cried Mark, "you have no idea of taking this trip he suggests; have you?"

"Dr. Todd has done me many a favor in the past," said Professor

Henderson, thoughtfully.

"Well, if you're going, count me in," said Jack, quickly. "I don't mind a summer trip to the Arctic. Say! it can't be much cooler up there than it is here right now. This fire doesn't feel bad at all."

"Humph!" muttered Mark, who never was as sanguine as his chum. "This cool spell will only last a day or two here; but I understand the tops of the Endicott Range are always white."

"B-r-r!" shivered Washington, at this statement. "Dis chile don't t'ink much ob such a surreptitious pedestrianation as dat, den. Don't like no cold wedder, nohow! And Buttsy don' like it, needer."

"Who's Buttsy?" demanded Jack, grinning.

"Why, fo' suah," said the darkey, gravely, "you knows Christopher

Columbus Amerigo Vespucci George Washington Abraham Lin——"

"But you wouldn't expect to take Christopher Columbus And-so-forth to

Alaska with us; would you?" asked Andy Suggs.

"Why not?" demanded the darkey. "He flowed to de moon in de perjectilator; didn't he? Huh! In co'se if de perfessor goes after disher chrysomela-bypunktater, I gotter go, too; and in co'se if I go, Buttsy done gotter go. Dat's as plain as de nose on yo' face, Andy."

The hunter rubbed his rather prominent nasal organ and was silenced. Jack and Mark had turned more eagerly to the professor as the latter began to speak:

"Yes, Dr. Todd is my good friend. He turns to me for help quite properly; who else should he turn to?"

"But, Professor!" ejaculated Mark, warmly. "Are you to be driven off to Alaska at your age to hunt for this herb—which is perhaps only the hallucination of a madman?" "Mark's hit the nail on the head, Professor!" declared Jack. "I believe this Todd must certainly be 'touched' in his upper story."

"Am I touched, as you call it, Jack?" demanded Professor Henderson, in some indignation.

"But you don't believe Todd is on the trail of any great discovery?" cried Mark.

"Why not? Mind may yield to herbal treatment. Todd is an advanced botanical adherent. He believes almost anything can be accomplished by herbs. And he says he has successfully treated one case."

"One swallow doesn't make a summer," remarked Mark, doubtfully.

"But it is enough that he wants us to find the herb," said the professor, more vigorously.

"'Us'!" repeated Jack.

"And he will pay us any reasonable price for our work," added their mentor.

"He really means to go!" cried Mark.

"I certainly do. I think you and Jack will accompany me," said the professor, quietly. "I know that Washington will, and of course Andy will not be left behind."

"Not if there'll be a chance at big game," declared the hunter. "I'm with you, Professor Henderson."

"Yo' suah can't git erlong widout me, I s'pose?" queried the darkey, in some uncertainty. "I'se mighty busy right yere jes' now."

"And you'll be busy if we go to Alaska, Wash!" cried Jack. "Hurrah!

I am willing to start to-morrow, Professor."

"And you, Mark?" queried the old gentleman of his other adopted son.

"How will we go, sir? We shall be until fall traveling to the Arctic

Circle by any usual means."

"True," said the professor. "And haste is imperative. I cannot spend much time in this matter. We must take unusual means of getting to the Endicott Range."

"What do you mean?" asked the boys in chorus.

"Your Snowbird is ready for flight. It can be provisioned and will take us all quicker than by any other means. Therefore in the Snowbird we will make the journey."