CHAPTER XIV.
IN THE HOSPITAL.
"We are on our way to see him now," said Jack. "He is in the Nestorville hospital."
"May I go with you?" asked the professor, with astonishing eagerness for him.
"Why, of course. But that black sand," said Jack. "What is it—gold-bearing material of some kind?"
"Gold!" exclaimed the professor with fine scorn, "gold would be dross beside it. Of course I haven't analyzed it yet, but if it is what I think it is, it is the most valuable stuff in the world."
The boys exchanged bewildered glances. Clearly their discovery of the injured man, Zeb Cummings, had an aspect they had not hitherto suspected. But the professor refused to tell them what the sand was, or what he thought it was, till he had seen Zeb Cummings himself.
Leaving the potato-digger under the firm impression that they were all crazy, they hurried back to the road, the professor's bicycle was placed in the tonneau, and Jack drove just within the speed law to the hospital.
They found the injured man sitting up in bed, his great yellow beard gleaming like gold. His head was bandaged but even the pallor induced by the accident had not materially altered the ruddy glow of his thick coat of tan.
"So these are the boys who saved me," he said, extending a big, gnarled hand. "Shake, pardners. The doc here tells me if I'd laid much longer out there in the sun, there might hev been a first-class funeral fer Zeb Cummings."
"Oh, that's all right," said Jack easily. "I'm only glad that we came along when we did."
"Well, you sure acted different from them other varmints," said Zeb with deep conviction. "The doc tole me all about it."
His face suddenly grew grave as he changed the subject.
"Did you find anything on the ground thereabouts after I got knocked out?" he asked.
"What sort of a thing?" asked Jack.
"Oh, nothing that looked very valuable. Jes' a little lead roll with a bottle full of what looked like black sand in it."
"Got it right here," said Jack, producing the bottle which the professor had given back to him.
"Glory be!" exclaimed Zeb Cummings, as he took the lead-wrapped vial as though it was something precious. "I was afeard that if anyone found it they might hev thrown it away, bein' as it don't look as if it amounted ter anything much."
"Is it valuable?" asked Jack, who could not restrain his curiosity.
"That's jes' what I don't rightly know," rejoined Zeb. "I reckon I'd better tell yer how I come ter git it an' then you kin judge fer yourselves."
"We'd like to hear," said Jack, who had felt all along that there was some mystery about the yellow-bearded giant.
"All right! Sit down and I'll tell yer ther yarn. But say, who is yer friend? No offense meant, ye understand."
"This is Professor Jerushah Jenks," said Jack.
"What, the guy that knows all about rocks and such like?" burst out the miner.
"I believe I have achieved some small fame in that line," said the professor.
"Wa'al if this don't beat pay dirt I'm a Piute," exclaimed the miner. "Give us your hand, Professor. I was on my way ter see you when that thar buzz wagon busted me higher nor a turkey buzzard."
"On your way to see me?" echoed the professor in amazed tones.
"Yes, siree bob, that very identical thing," was the bronzed miner's reply.
"But I don't quite understand. You see I——"
"That's all right, Professor. We'll git down ter pay dirt direc'ly," said the miner. "You know of the Scientific Society in Bosting, of course?"
"I am a member of that body, sir," was the dignified reply of the little man.
"Well, they giv' me your name. Said you was the biggest bug on rocks, minerals and sich in the country and so I sets out to pay a call on you."
"But you were many miles from where I live," said the professor. "The railroad, or the trolley——"
"Don't carry folks for nothing," interrupted Zeb, "and nothing's my capital right now."
"You mean that you were walking from Boston?" asked the professor.
"That's right," was the reply. "Landed there on ship from round the Horn last week. Got paid off but some sneak thief in the boarding house I was stopping at got my roll. So I had to hoof it."
"But what did you want with me?" asked the professor.
"I wanted you ter tell me ef that thar stuff in the glass tube is worth anything or nothing," was the reply.
"Why, do you know where there is more of it?" asked the professor, and the boys could see that he was oddly excited, although preserving an appearance of outward calm.
"Yes, siree," was the emphatic reply. "I know whar thar's enough of it to load a freight train."
"Shades of Huxley!" gasped the professor, actually turning pale. "Do you mean that?"
"I sure do, Professor. It's all down on a map what Blue Nose Sanchez give me afore he passed in his checks."