CHAPTER XXX.
NIGHT ON THE COLORADO.
"What's the matter? What has happened?" cried Jack.
"Is it Indians?" cried Dick, who had a lively imagination.
"Something grabbed my foot," declared Tom.
"Grabbed your foot?" repeated Jack.
"Well, maybe, nibbled at it, would be better," replied Tom. "It isn't hurt, but I was awakened by it. I guess the thing, whatever it was, must have been scared away."
"What could it have been?" came from Dick.
"Perhaps it was a bear," suggested Tom.
"A bear, nonsense. I guess it was all imagination," scoffed Jack. "You ate too much at supper, Tom."
"It was not imagination, I tell you," retorted Tom indignantly. "I felt it just as plainly as anything."
"Well, I don't see what——" began Jack and then he broke off.
From outside the tent had come an appalling crash of tin dishes, followed by unearthly grunts and squeals. The uproar was terrific. It sounded as if every piece of tinware in the camp was being hurled and battered around.
"What under the sun——?" gasped Jack.
"It's Indians; they've attacked the camp," cried Dick.
A weird screech split the night. Jack seized up a rifle.
"Come on, boys," he cried, but it might have been noticed that Dick was not particularly alert in following.
Zeb and the professor rushed out of their tents and their shouts added to the confusion. There was a bright moon and by its light Jack saw a small, peculiarly-shaped animal charging about blindly here and there. The next minute he saw, too, that the creature's head was caught fast in an enameled cooking pot.
It rushed about and uttered the muffled squeals that had attracted their attention. Jack raised his rifle and fired. The creature fell dead at the first shot. Zeb and Jack rushed up to it.
"A badger!" exclaimed Zeb, "and he's got his greedy head stuck fast in that mush cooker."
"And in charging about trying to get it off he'd made a wreck of our pantry!" exclaimed Jack, looking at the tin utensils scattered in every direction about the wooden box in which they were kept.
"It must have been that badger that came sniffing at my toes," said Tom.
"Or maybe it was Indians," laughed Jack, looking slyly at Dick, who was glad that they couldn't see how red he turned.
"Indians?" exclaimed the professor guilelessly. "Were there any Indians about?"
"Dick thought he saw some," explained Jack with a chuckle.
The dead badger was pulled out of the pot into which it stuck its head to lick out the remains of some oatmeal that had adhered to its side, and the boys went back to bed. But they did not sleep much after the uproar into which the camp had been thrown, and were glad when it began to grow light.
Zeb cooked a fine breakfast to which he urged everybody to do justice, as they had a long and possibly a trying day ahead of them. The badger was given decent burial by Dick.
"Let its fate be a lesson to you," said Jack, at which they all laughed, for Dick was always on the spot at meal times.
When the morning meal was finished and the things all packed away, the Wondership was inflated and soared into the clear air. Nights and early mornings on the desert are cool, and it was crisp and invigorating in the hours before the sun had risen high. But by noon the heat grew blistering, and they were still soaring above the river without a trace of Rattlesnake Island being visible.
However, that afternoon they sighted a group of islands of which the largest at once attracted their attention. A prominent feature of Rattlesnake Island, as outlined on the map, was a big dead pine, situated like a beacon, at the summit of the peak into which the island rose.
The river at this point broadened out. Great cliffs overhung it. They were made up of strata of brilliant colors. It looked from above as if they had been painted by some titanic sign painter—nature, the artist.
Jack was the first to call attention to the island which had caught his eye while he scanned the river below them with the binoculars. He at once noticed its formation, long and narrow, with a high, rocky peak rising out from amongst trees and bushes which clothed it almost to the summit.
Then his eye caught a great white pine trunk, standing like a flagpole almost at the apex of the peak.
"Hurrah, boys!" he cried. "I guess that's the place. Welcome to Rattlesnake Island!"
Tom was steering, "spelling" Jack at the wheel.
"You can see the island?" he demanded.
"Yes, or if it isn't it, it's like enough to be its twin brother."
Everybody began to get excited. Zeb took the glasses and after a careful scrutiny and a reference to the map, declared that the island below them tallied in every way with its description.
"Then down we go," said Jack.
"All right," nodded Tom, who was almost as good an air pilot as his cousin.
The Wondership dropped rapidly. Soon they were immediately above the island, which was now seen to be rocky and precipitous, except at one end where there was a great open place, bare and desolate looking.
On the edges of this cleared spot, which looked swampy and unwholesome, were serried rows of trees, every one of which was dead as if from a blight, and offering with their gaunt, leafless branches a sharp contrast to the green leafiness of the rest of the island.
Jack scanned the place sharply as they dropped down and Tom prepared to land on the edge of the swamp. As they got closer to the ground, he suddenly became aware of something that caused him a sharp shock of surprise.
"Why there's somebody on the island!" he exclaimed.
"Somebody on the island?" echoed Zeb incredulously.
"Yes, or at least there's a dwelling place."
The boy pointed to a rude sort of shack built of logs and roofed with boughs, which stood on the edge of the cleared space.
"Great Methuselah!" ejaculated Zeb. "Can someone have stolen a march on us?"
"I don't know, but it looks queer, and see, there's a shovel. Somebody has been digging here."
"But who could it be?" demanded Tom, mystified.
"Gosh! Looks as if we've bin euchered after all," grumbled Zeb.
The Wondership came to earth at the edge of the lifeless-looking, bare space. They clambered out of the machine and stood on what was, undoubtedly, Rattlesnake Island, for every landmark on the map had been verified as they dropped.
They looked about them for a minute and then Zeb drew his revolver out of the holster and began idly twiddling the cylinder.
"I want ter make sure she's in workin' order," he said with a grim comprehension of the lips, "before we do any investigating."