CHAPTER XIII
A DIREFUL THREAT
Perhaps Washington White's Shanghai rooster did not care to make the trip to the moon, or perhaps the fowl had not yet seen enough of this earth. At any rate, when he flew from the projectile, uttering loud crows, and landed some distance away, he began to run back toward the coop in the rear of the yard.
"Cotch him, cotch him!" yelled the colored man. "Dat's a valuable bird!"
"We'll get him when he goes in the coop," said Jack, who found it difficult to run and laugh at the same time.
"Shall I fire my rifle off and scare him?" asked Andy Sudds.
"No, you might kill him or scare him t' death," objected Washington.
"Come on, Mark, and help," cried Jack, looking toward the projectile, where a figure was peering from the glass-covered port of the main cabin.
But the figure, whose hand was done up in voluminous bandages, did not come out, and Jack wondered the more at what he thought was a growing strangeness on the part of his chum.
Jack, followed by Andy and Washington, raced off after the rooster, while the two professors, somewhat amused, rather chaffed at the delay. But afterward they were glad of it.
"Just my luck!" muttered the bandaged one. "This delay comes at the wrong time. Why don't they go on without that confounded rooster? If we stay here too long, that fellow Mark may get loose and spoil the whole thing, or Jenkins may go and release him before the time set. It would be just like Jenkins! I've a good notion to start the projectile myself. I know how to operate the Cardite motor. Only I suppose those two professors are on guard in the engine room. I'll have to wait until they catch that rooster, I guess, but I'd like to wring his neck!"
The chase after the fowl was kept up.
"I've got him now!" cried Jack a little later, as the fowl, evidently now much exhausted, ran into another fence corner, where Jack caught him, and shut him up in the coop in the projectile.
"Yo' suttinly am de mos' contrary-minded specimen ob de chicken fambly dat I eber seed," observed Washington, breathing heavily, for his run had winded him.
"Well, are we all ready to start now?" asked Professor Henderson. "No more live stock loose, is there, Jack?"
"I think not."
"Where's Mark? Wasn't he helping you catch the rooster?"
"No, he's inside. Shall I seal the door?"
"Yes, and I'll tell Professor Roumann that we're about to start. All ready for the moon trip!"
Jack was pulling the steel portal toward him. An eager face, peering from a port, waited anxiously for the tremor which would indicate that the projectile had left the earth. In another moment they would be off.
But what was that sound coming from down the highway. A steady chug-chug—a sort of roar, as of a battery of rapid-fire guns going off in double relays! And, mingled with the explosions, there was a voice shouting:
"Wait! Hold on! Don't go without me! I'm Mark Sampson! Don't start the projectile!"
"Somebody must be in a mighty hurry on a motorcycle," thought Jack, as he paused a moment before fastening the door. Then the shouts came to his ears.
"Mark Sampson!" he cried.
Again came the cry: "Wait! Wait! Don't go without me! You've got that mysterious man on board!"
"Mark Sampson!" murmured Jack again. "That's his voice sure enough! I wonder—can it be possible—that man—with his head all bandaged up—his queer actions—I—I——"
Words failed the youth. Throwing wide open the door, he sprang out of the projectile. A moment later there dashed into the yard, where the great projectile rested, a strange figure astride of a puffing motorcycle. The figure was torn and, ragged, and the nondescript garments were covered with dust, for Mark had had a fall. But there was no mistaking the face that peered eagerly forward.
"Jack!" cried the youth on the machine.
"Mark!" ejaculated the lad who had sprung from the projectile. "What has happened? Who is the fellow who has been masquerading as you?"
"A scoundrel and a villain! Let me get at him!" and, slamming on the brakes, as he shut off the power, Mark leaped from the motorcycle, stood it up against the projectile, and clasped his chum by the hand.
"What's the matter?" asked Professor Henderson, as he, too, ran out of the Annihilator. "What does that tramp want, Jack? Give him some money, and get back in here; we ought to have started long ago." He looked at the ragged figure.
"This isn't a tramp," cried Jack. "It's Mark!"
"Mark! I thought——"
"There have been strange doings," gasped the lad in tramp's garments. "I have just escaped from being kept a prisoner. Where is the mysterious man? Oh, I'm glad I arrived in time! Were you about to start?"
"That's what we were," replied Jack. "Oh, Mark, but I'm glad to see you again! I didn't know what to think. You acted so strange—or, rather, the fellow we thought was you had me guessing!"
"Good land a' massy!" exclaimed Washington White, as he stood in the doorway, with Andy Sudds behind him. "Am dere two Marks? What's up, anyhow?"
"Don't let that fellow get away—the fellow who passed himself off as me!" shouted Mark. "Lock him up! There's some mystery about him that must be explained. He's a dangerous man to be at large."
Professor Henderson turned back to enter the projectile. Jack advised Andy to get his gun ready, with which to threaten the scoundrel in case of necessity.
At that instant there sounded a crash of glass, and the whole front of the big observation window in the side of the Annihilator was smashed to atoms. A figure leaped—a figure which no longer had its head bandaged, and whose arm was no longer in a sling—the figure of a man—the mysterious man who had held Mark a prisoner!
"There he goes!" shouted Jack. "Catch him, somebody! Andy, where's your gun?"
"I'll have it in a jiffy!" cried the hunter, as he dashed back to get it.
But the man did not linger. Scrambling to his feet after his fall, caused by his leap from the broken window, which he had smashed with a sledge hammer as soon as he understood that his game was up, he raced out of the yard. He turned long enough to shake his fist at the group assembled around the projectile, and then leaped away, calling out some words which they could not hear.
"Let's take after him," proposed Mark.
"Come on," seconded Jack.
"No, let him go; he's a desperate man, and you came just in time to unmask him," said Professor Henderson. "He might harm you if you took after him. Let him go. He has not done much damage. We can easily replace the broken window. But I can't understand what his object was in disguising himself as Mark. He certainly looked like you, Mark, especially when he kept his face concealed. Why did he do it?"
"He wanted to go to the moon in my place," answered the former prisoner of the deserted house.
"But why?" insisted Jack.
"Because, I think, he's crazy, and he didn't really know what he did want. But he certainly had me well concealed," spoke Mark. "I'm free now, however, and as soon as I get some decent clothes on I'll go with you to the moon. I wouldn't want the moon people to see me dressed this way."
"How did it happen?" asked Jack. "Tell us all about it. My! but I certainly have been puzzled since you—or rather since the person we thought was you—came back last night all bunged up. Give us the story."
"I will; give me a chance. I guess that villain is gone for good." Andy Sudds came out with his gun, and insisted on taking a look down the road and around the premises. The man was nowhere in sight.
"Now we're in for another delay," remarked Jack ruefully, as he gazed at the smashed window. "It seems as if we'd never get started for the moon."
"Oh, yes, we will," declared Professor Henderson. "We have some extra heavy plate glass in the shop, and we can soon put in another observation window."
"Let's get right to work then," proposed Jack. "That man may come back.
Did you learn who he was, Mark?"
"No, he wouldn't tell his name, and he said he was doing this to get revenge on us for some fancied wrong. I can't imagine who he is. But let's work and talk at the same time. I'll tell you all that happened to me," which he did briefly.
Mark soon got rid of the tramp clothes, and donned an extra suit which had been packed in his trunk in the projectile. Then he helped replace the broken window, which, in spite of their haste, took nearly all the rest of the day to put in place.
"Shall we wait and start to-morrow?" asked Jack, when four o'clock came. "It will soon be dark."
"Darkness will make no difference to us," announced Professor Roumann. "Our Cardite motor will soon take us out of the shadow of the earth, and we will be in perpetual sunshine until we reach the moon. As we are all ready, we might as well start now."
They all agreed with this, and, after a final inspection of the projectile, the travellers entered it, and Jack was once more about to seal the big door.
Before he could do so there came riding into the yard, on his motorcycle, which he had claimed that afternoon, Dick Johnson.
"Wait a minute," he cried. "I've got a letter for you. It's from that man!"
"What—another thing to delay us?" cried Jack, but he called to Professor Roumann not to start the motor, and ran to take from Dick the letter which the lad held out.
"That same man who gave me the one for Mark gave me this, and he paid me a half a dollar to bring it here," said the boy.
"All right," answered Jack impatiently.
He looked at the note. It was addressed to the "Moon Travellers," and, considering that he was one, the youth tore open the envelope. In the dim light of the fading day he read the bold handwriting.
"I have fixed you," the letter began. "You will never get to the moon. I shall have my revenge. You took my brother Fred Axtell to Mars and left him there. I determined to get him back, and to that end I disguised myself as one of the boys, and got aboard. When we were safely away from the earth, I would have compelled you to go to Mars and rescue my brother. But my plan has failed. I will have my revenge, though. You will never reach the moon, even if you do get started. Beware! George, the brother of Fred Axtell, will avenge his fate!"
"The brother of the crazy machinist!" gasped Jack. "Now I understand his strange actions. He's crazy, too—he wanted to go to Mars—he says we will never reach the moon! Say, look here!" cried Jack, raising his voice. "Here's bad news! That scoundrel has put some game up on us! Maybe he's tampered with the machinery! It won't be safe to start for the moon until we've looked over everything carefully! He says he's fixed us, and perhaps he has!"
From the projectile came hurrying the would-be moon travellers, a vague fear in their hearts.