CHAPTER IV.
"WHERE IS HE?"
"Professor!" hailed Dick, at the top of his lungs.
"Professor!" bawled the farm hands.
The red-faced farmer himself regarded the boys quizzically.
"What sort of a chap is this professor of yours?" he asked with an odd intonation.
"He's a geologist," replied Dick. "Why?"
"Oh, I thought he might be a conjurer," was the rejoinder. "He seems to be pretty good at hiding himself."
"Hark!" exclaimed Jack suddenly, standing at pause and listening intently.
"What's up?" demanded Dick, instantly on the alert, too.
"I heard something. It sounded like——"
"There it is again," cried Tom.
A faint, far-off cry, impossible to locate, was borne to their ears.
"It's a call for help," declared Dick.
"That's what it is," agreed the red-faced farmer. "Must be that perfusser of yours, but where in the name of Sam Hill is he?"
It was a puzzling question. The faint cries appeared to be muffled in some way. They looked about them, endeavoring to locate their source. Suddenly one of the farm hands spoke.
"I used to work fer old Crabtree," he said. "There's an old well hereabouts somewheres and maybe he's fell down that."
"Where is it?" demanded Jack.
"Back in the meadow yonder," said the man, pointing in the direction of the pasture lot.
"Let's go over there and see at once," said Dick. "Frantic frogs of France, if the professor's tumbled into a well he may be in serious trouble."
They set off on the run to where a pile of stones showed a well-curb had once been. The hoards at the top, which had covered it over, had rotted, and there was a jagged hole in them. Jack cautiously bent over and placed his mouth at the edge of the hole.
"Professor, are you down there?" he hailed.
"Y-y-y-y-yes," came up in feeble, stuttering tones. "I'm almost frozen. I'm hanging above the water but I can't hold on much longer. The bag of specimens is too heavy."
"Throw it away," urged Jack.
"N-n-n-not for worlds," was the reply. "I was looking for another rare bit of quartz when I fell in here."
"I'll run to the car," said Jack, who had made out that the well was not very deep. "Fortunately, we've got a rope and tackle in there. Hold on, professor, we'll soon have you out."
He hurriedly explained the situation to the others and ran at top speed to the car, in which the boys—like most careful motorists, who never know when such a piece of apparatus may come in useful for hauling a car out of mud or sand, for instance, or for towing an unlucky autoist home—had a block and tackle stowed.
He was soon back, and the rope was lowered to the professor, who made it fast under his arms. Then, aided by the husky muscles of the farm hands, they soon drew him to the surface. But his weight was materially added to by the stones, and it was no light task to rescue him, dripping and shivering, from the dark, cold shaft.
He explained that soon after they had gone some men came up and drove the bull away. But they had seen the gap in the stone wall first.
"They were positively violent," declared the professor, "and said that they'd have the man who did it arrested if they could find him. Under the circumstances, I deemed it prudent to stay up in the tree, where they could not see me. They drove the bull off into another pasture. As soon as the coast was clear I climbed down, but I happened to see a rare bit of quartz sparkling in the sun on the edge of the well-curb. Imprudently I stood on the planking and fell in."
"Gracious, it's a lucky thing you weren't drowned, with all that weight round your neck," declared Jack.
"It was fortunate," said the scientist mildly, as if such a thing as drowning was an everyday occurrence. "As a matter of fact, if I hadn't succeeded in grasping a projecting stone and held on, I might have gone down. It was an—er—a most discomforting experience."
"Well, of all things," exclaimed the red-faced man, "to go trapesing round the country collecting rocks!"
"Not rocks, sir—geological specimens," rejoined the professor with immense dignity, "and—great Huxley! Under your foot, sir! Under your foot!"
"What is it, a snake?" yelled the farmer, jumping backward as the scientist dashed at him with a wild expression.
"No, sir, but a remarkably fine specimen of what appears to be a granolithic substance," exclaimed the professor, and he began energetically chipping at a rock upon which the farmer had been standing.
"Crazy as a loon," declared the farmer, winking at his men. "Gets nearly drowned in a well and then begins chopping at a rock as soon as he gets out."
"Oh, this has been a lucky day for me," said the professor with huge satisfaction, as he placed his latest acquisition in the satchel. "As fine a specimen, boys, as ever I encountered," he declared, turning to the boys.
"Gracious," exclaimed Tom and Dick in low tones, "does he call getting chased by a bull and then tumbling down a well a satisfactory day?"
"I should call it a rocky time," grinned Dick.
But at this moment further conversation was cut short by the sudden arrival of a gray-haired, short little old man with a tuft of gray whiskers on his chin.
"Josh Crabtree!" exclaimed the red-faced farmer.
"Wow! now the music starts," declared Dick.
Josh Crabtree, his face ablaze, and his small, malignant eyes sparkling angrily, emitted a roar like that of his Holstein that had caused the professor so much tribulation.
"Say, be you the pesky varmints that tore down my fence and scared my bull out'n two years' growth?" he bellowed.
"I removed some stones from your fence, sir," said the professor, "but it was in the interests of science. You may not have been aware of it, but embedded in your enclosing structure was a fine specimen of green granite."
"Great hopping water-melyuns!" roared Old Crabtree, "and you tore down my fence to git at a pesky bit of rock?"
"Rock to you, sir," responded the scientist calmly, "like the man in the poem a 'primrose by the river's brim, a yellow primrose is to you, and it is nothing more.'"
"Dad rot yer yaller primroses," yelled Old Crabtree, dancing about in his rage. "You make good for tearing down my fence, d'ye hear me?"
"I shall take great pleasure in forwarding you a check for any damage I may have done," said the professor.
"I want ther money now," said the farmer truculently.
"I regret that I have left my wallet at home," said the professor. Then he brightened suddenly. "I can leave my bag of specimens with you as security," he said, "if you will promise to be careful with them."
He unslung his bag and tendered it to the angry farmer who received it with a look of amazement that the next moment turned to wrath when he saw its contents.
"By hickory, what kind of a game is this?" he demanded. "Nothing but a lot of old rocks. By heck, thar's enough here to build a new fence!"
He flung the bag down indignantly just as the professor darted forward with one of his odd, swift movements. He shoved Old Crabtree back without ceremony and bending swiftly to the spot where the angry farmer had been standing he picked up and pocketed a small rock.
"Wa'al land o' Goshen," gasped out the farmer, bewildered. "What in ther name of time is this?"
"A splendid specimen of gneiss," explained the professor triumphantly, "and now, Mr.—er—you were saying?"
"That I wants ter be paid fer ther damage ter my fence."
"How much do you want?" asked Jack, coming to the rescue.
"Reckon a dollar'll be about right."
"If you will let me lend it to you till we reach your home, I'll be very glad to pay him," said Jack aside to the professor.
"But, my dear young friend, there is no necessity. He has ample security till I can send him a check. Why, that bag of specimens is worth fifty dollars at least."
"Them old rocks," sniffed the farmer, who had overheard this last remark, "I wouldn't give yer ten cents fer a cartload uv 'em. They're too small fer fences an' too big to throw at cows."
"You'd better let me pay him," said Jack, and the professor finally consented to this arrangement.
This done, they started back on the run to the professor's home, which was about three miles off. On the way they dropped the red-faced farmer and his hands, who clearly regarded the professor as some sort of an amiable lunatic. But that worthy man, supremely happy despite his wet clothes, was quite contented, and from time to time dipped into his satchel, like a bookworm into a favorite volume, and drew out a particularly valued specimen and admired it.
They soon reached his home, a pretty cottage on the outskirts of Creston, a small town with elm-shaded streets. The professor invited the boys to accompany him into the house. They were met in the passage by a shrill-voiced woman who looked like the professor in petticoats.
"My sister, Miss Melissa," said the professor. "My dear, these are——"
But he got no further in his introduction. Miss Melissa's hands went up in the air and her voice rose in a shrill shriek as she saw her brother's condition.
"Lan's sakes, Jerushah, where have you been?" she exclaimed.
"My dear, I must apologize for my condition," said the professor mildly. "You see I——"
"You're dripping a puddle on my carpets. You're wringing wet through!" shrilled Miss Melissa.
"Yes, you see, my dear, I've been down a well," explained the man of science calmly.
"Do tell! Down a well, Jerushah? At your time of life!"
"You see I was after specimens, my dear," went on the professor.
"Specimens!" exclaimed Miss Melissa. "The whole house is full of old rocks now, Jerushah, an' you have ter go down a well to get more."
"These are very valuable, my dear," said the professor, floundering helplessly.
"Oh, don't tell me. A passel of old rocks. I'm going to get you a hot mustard footbath and some herb tea right away," and without another word, except something about "death of cold, passel of boys," the good lady flounced off.
"She's like that sometimes, but she means well, Melissa does," explained the professor, with a rather sheepish look as he stood in the midst of a puddle that was rapidly converting him into an isolated island in the midst of Miss Melissa's immaculate hall carpet. Suddenly, with one of his impulsive movements, he darted off into a room opening off the hall and came back with a dollar bill he had unearthed from a desk. He handed it to Jack, and then, raising his finger to his lips, he said:
"Don't let Melissa see it. She's the best of women, is Melissa, but peculiar about some things—er—very peculiar."
"Je-ru-shah!" came Miss Melissa's voice.
"Yes, my dear, coming," said the professor, and shouldering his bag of specimens he shook hands with the boys and hastened off to answer his sister's dictatorial call.
"I guess we'd better be going," said Jack, with a smile that he could not repress.
The others agreed, and they were soon speeding back to High Towers, as the estate of Jack's father, also a noted inventor, was called, with plenty to talk about as a result of the events of the day.