CHAPTER XVI.
ZEB CUMMINGS.
"Z.2.X., the most radio-active stuff in the world!" exclaimed Jack.
"I suppose that approximately describes it," said the professor, "but what do you know about it?"
Jack explained how ardently his father had wished for the missing element to make his system of radio telephony the most efficient in use.
"Well, if what Sanchez said was true, and the map is right, there is plenty of it right on that island," said the miner.
"Yes, that may all be," objected the professor, "but how are you going to get at it?"
"Wa'al that's a poser. You can't reach it in a boat and you can't reach it over the desert," said Zeb. "The country all round there is dry as an oven and, anyhow, if you got to ther banks of ther Colorado right by ther island ther's no way of gitting down to ther island. Sanchez says that the Injuns told Foxy's friend that a long time ago, when first they found the stuff on the island, there was a way of getting down to it. But an earthquake sunk the river bed and nobody had been thar since the Injuns that found it. He said that they first come to take notice of it by reason of the way it shined at night. But only a few of the tribe would go near on account of their thinking the place was haunted."
"Have you got that map?" asked the professor.
"Yes, if you'll reach my coat I'll show it you," said the miner.
Jack gave him the ragged garment off a hook at the back of the door. Zeb fumbled in the pockets for a minute and then brought out a knife.
"A rip more or less won't make no difference," he said, and cut a slash down the lining. There, carefully stowed inside, where it could not be suspected, was a folded, time-yellowed paper.
The miner opened it slowly and spread it out on the counterpane. The boys, not without a sense of shock, noted a dark, rusty-looking stain upon it. It struck them that the marks might be the life blood of the treacherous Foxy's friend who had met a tragic end in Yuma.
Zeb, with a broad and blackened forefinger, traced the course of the Colorado. At length his finger paused at an island marked in red. There was some fantastic Indian lettering, or sign-drawing, about it, and underneath, in a white man's handwriting, were the words: "Rattlesnake Island."
"I reckon Foxy Joe's friend must hev written that in," commented Zeb.
"It looks that way," said the professor, who had poured the sample of mineral-bearing sand back into the vial and restored it to Zeb Cummings.
"Rattlesnake Island," repeated Jack. "Are there any rattlers down that way?"
"Yes, and gila monsters and tarantulas and centipedes," replied Zeb cheerfully. "But you soon get used to 'em."
Some other islands were marked on the map, but Rattlesnake Island was the only one designated by name.
"That must be the place whar all that stuff is, then," decided Zeb. "I wish thar was some way of gittin' thar."
"If there is even only a small fraction of the mineral-bearing sand there," said the professor, "there's a fortune in it."
"Wa'al if you can't git it out what good is it?" said Zeb philosophically. "Anyhow, I'm glad that Sanchez spoke the truth with his dying words. Maybe thar is some way, except by water, in spite of what he said."
"Maybe there is," said Jack. "It seems a shame to think of all that rich stuff lying there neglected and unobtainable."
"It does indeed," agreed the professor. "In that sample I find traces of metals from which filaments for electric lights could be made and substances invaluable in medicine for X-ray purposes as well as the Z.2.X. which your father is convinced would make the radio telephone as practical as the wireless telegraph."
They would like to have stayed there all the morning poring over the map and asking further questions of the rugged miner, but at that moment the nurse came in and declared that the injured man must have quiet.
And so there, for the present, the matter rested. The professor departed for his home greatly excited over the events of the morning, but his excitement was a little allayed by the fear that he would be late for his mid-day meal with dire results from Miss Melissa.
As for the boys, they could talk of nothing else. The idea of that lonely island, lying at the bottom of an unscalable canyon in the midst of a burning, desolate desert, appealed powerfully to their imaginations. Their minds were in a whirl over the strange coincidence that had brought them in contact with a man who knew where possibly inexhaustible supplies of the mysterious Z.2.X. lay ready for the taking, provided it could be reached.
"I'd give a whole lot to be able to fix up an expedition to go out there and get that stuff," said Jack with a sigh.
"So would I," agreed Tom. "But I guess, as Zeb Cummings said, it will be a long time before anyone sets foot on Rattlesnake Island."