CHAPTER XII
THE GEYSER
"Somebody grabbed him!" shouted Andy Sudds.
"Oh, lawsy-massy-gollyation!" yelped the frightened darkey. "Massa Mark done been kerried up, suah 'nuff! I tole youse disher was de end ob de worl'."
But Jack, followed by the old hunter, sprang to the opening. How light they were upon their feet! The experience of moving shot this surprising thought through Jack Darrow's mind:
"I'm as light as a feather. I have lost half my weight, I declare I
How can that be possible?"
Andy Sudds was evidently disturbed by the same thought. He cried:
"Somebody holt onto me! I'm going up!"
He did actually bump his head upon the tree trunk above them. But the next moment Jack scrambled through the opening, light and all, and came out upon the open ground.
"I'm here, Jack! I'm here!" cried Mark. "But what's happened to me?" "Whatever it is, it has happened to us all," returned his chum. "I seem to have overcome a good bit of the law of gravitation. Never felt so light in my heels in all my life before."
"What can it mean?" whispered Mark in his chum's ear. "It's magic!"
"You've got me," admitted Jack. "I'm not trying to explain it. But I know that the air pressure on me isn't as great as it was. I feel like we did when we were on the moon."
"Something awful has happened," suggested Mark, his tone still worried.
"We can be sure of that," Andy Sudds said. "What shall we do?"
"Find that stuff we were carrying and get back to the professor with it," said Jack, briefly. "Here! I see the storage battery lamp—or, one of them at least."
Mark at the same time stooped to pick up two of the lost rods. Jack found the lamp to be in good order and gave it to Andy. The torch was rapidly becoming exhausted.
"Come, Washington," urged Jack, "you hunt around, too. We must find the parts of the airship we dropped. If we don't find them we'll never get away from this place."
"And is we gotter go in de Snowbird, Massa Jack?" queried the darkey. "Has we jest gotter go in dat flyin' contraption? Gollyation! dis chile hoped de walkin' would be good out oh Alaska. He an' Buttsy jest erbout made up deir minds dat dey wouldn't fly no mo'. Fac' is, I had some idea ob clippin' Buttsy's wings so dat he couldn't fly no mo'!"
"You can walk if you want to," said Mark, crossly; "but I want to get away from this part of the country just as soon as ever I can. If the flying machine was ready I'd only wait long enough to get the professor and then we'd start."
"Guess we're with you there, Mark," agreed his chum, emphatically.
Meanwhile they were all scrambling about for the parts of the machine that had escaped them when the awful blast had knocked them into the hole and deprived them of consciousness. Fortunately none of the missing parts was very small and in twenty minutes of close scrutiny every piece was assembled. They did not find the second hand lamp, however.
"Now we must hurry back to the professor," Jack urged. "I know he will be dreadfully worried."
"Do you notice that it's getting lighter, boys?" remarked Andy Sudds.
"I believe you!" cried Mark. "The ash has stopped falling, too."
"I know that the air is a whole lot clearer," rejoined his chum. "And it's colder—or is it rare? Doesn't it seem like mountain air, Mark?"
"We've been half-stifled for so long I reckon the change to purer air is what makes it seem so peculiar," returned his friend.
Yet Mark was puzzled—indeed they all were more or less disturbed by the strange feeling that possessed them. Unless Washington White was an exception. The darkey went along blithely despite his expressed distaste for their surroundings, and as they came to the lower end of the grove of big trees, he began to run.
It had grown lighter all the time as they advanced. The cloud that had hidden the sun seemed to be rolled away like a scroll. The party could see all about them. The ashes lay from two to eight inches deep on the ground. Plants and shrubs were covered with the volcanic dust, and it was shaken from the trees as they passed.
Washington White bounded along like a rubber ball. He came to the plateau that overlooked the sheltered camp of the oil hunter. As the darkness retreated across the valley, the derrick and the shanties belonging to Phineas Roebach's outfit appeared.
Suddenly several gunshots rang out in succession, and the sounds startled the boys and Andy. Wild cries likewise arose from the valley. The commotion was at the camp.
"The professor is in danger!" cried Andy Sudds, and began to run.
His first leap carried him twenty feet; his second took him over a fallen tree-trunk six feet through.
"By Joshua!" ejaculated the startled hunter. "I've got springs in my shoes; ain't I?"
"What can it mean, Jack?" panted Mark, as the boys hurried on, side by side.
Jack Darrow had no answer to make. He was as amazed as his companions, and perhaps a little frightened as well.
They hurried after Andy and Wash; but the latter was far ahead. There was a second volley of gunshots and at that moment Wash came to the verge of the steep descent to the camp.
He beheld some half dozen Indians—all swart, lank, fierce-looking bucks—just at the point of rushing the oil borer's hut.
It was no time for explanations, nor for hesitancy. Wash, like the others behind him, believed that the Indians were making an attack upon their master, and the first thought of all was that Professor Henderson was with the oil man, and in peril.
"Gollyation! Git erway from dat dar door!" bawled Washington. The black man was as timid as a fawn as a usual thing; but he was devoted to the old professor and he had that feeling of gratitude for Mr. Henderson that overcame his natural cowardice. When the Indians, without giving him a glance, rushed at the door, and a single shot from the half-opened window missed them by ten feet, Wash uttered another yell and sprang to reach the descending path.
But this strange lightness of body that had overtaken them all during the past hour, played Wash a strange trick. Instead of landing a few feet down the steep way, he cast himself fairly into the air, twenty feet out from the hillside, and sailed down upon the startled Indians like some huge black buzzard.
The red men glanced up over their shoulders and beheld the flying man. The sight seemed to terrify them. With loud cries they started to run; but two of them could not escape the flying black man.
Wash landed sprawling upon their shoulders bearing both Aleuts to the ground. The door of the cabin was dashed open and Phineas Roebach ran out and seized the two red men before they could scramble up. The others were streaking it for the woods as fast as they could travel.
"Gollyation!" quoth Washington White. "Has dem rapscallawags done harmed de ole perfesser?"
"I am perfectly safe, Washington," said Professor Henderson, appearing at the door of the cabin. "And here are the boys and Andy. I am relieved to see you all alive again—I really am."
"Ain't this been a gee-whizzer of a storm?" queried the oil man, holding the two Aleuts at arm's length.
Already the boys and Andy were tearing down the steep path. They traveled like goats—as surefooted and as light upon their feet. Professor Henderson watched their career in evident interest. Then, gingerly, trying the feat curiously, the old gentleman sprang for a small boulder beside the cabin. He leaped entirely over it.
"Light! Light as air!" he murmured. "This is a most puzzling circumstance."
"Now, you fellows," growled Phineas, urging the two Indians along to the boring machine. "You'll get to work. I don't care if your friends have run off and left you to do it all alone. I tell you we've near struck oil. I know the signs." Then he gabbled at them a bit in their own language and the Aleuts took hold of the heavy bar by which the earth-auger was turned. "They left the job—the whole of them—when that last clap came," he explained to the boys.
But Jack and Mark were not much interested in the oil hunter's affairs. Only Jack remarked that he thought the fat man had been foolish to arm the Aleuts, or allow them to be armed. The Indians had evidently quite gone off their heads.
"They believe that we are spirits of the air," Professor Henderson told his friends. "That we are evil spirits. And I guess that Washington flying down upon them as he did will clinch that belief in their minds."
"Did you ever hear of anything like it before in all your days, Professor?" cried Jack. "Why, we can all jump like deer. I never saw anything like it."
Before the professor could reply there came a shout from the direction of the oil man's derrick. The two Aleuts, with their driver, had been working only a few moments at the auger. But perhaps the tool, so far down in the earth, had been ready to bite into the gas-chamber. There was a rumble from beneath that suggested to all that another 'quake was at hand. Then the Indians and the fat man started away from the derrick on the run.
The auger and piping shot out of the hole like stones driven by a catapult. Following the broken tools was a column of gas, gravel, water and mud that rose two hundred feet in the air. The earth trembled, and squawking like frightened geese, the Aleuts took to the tall timber, following the trail of their more fortunate comrades who had gotten away before. And they were not alone in their fright. The white men were likewise amazed and troubled by the marvelous geyser. It was as though the oil man had bored down to the regions infernal.