CHAPTER XIV
ON THE WING AGAIN
There was no member of the party who was not amazed and disturbed by the strange happenings of the last few hours. The earthquake and volcanic disturbances, followed by the outburst of the geyser, and now capped by the appearance of a new and wondrous planet on the northern horizon, were happenings calculated to make more than Washington White shake with terror.
What Professor Amos Henderson really thought about this new celestial body it would be hard to tell. While the others chattered in their amazement—after his first statement—he remained strangely quiet.
But the moment the party reached the spot where the flying machine rested he went at once to the locker where he had stowed the very powerful telescope that he had insisted upon bringing with them from home. With Washington's help he was an hour in setting up the telescope and properly adjusting it, while the boys and Andy worked steadily upon the repairing of the flying machine. Roebach had loosed his dogs again and threw them the last bits of fish he had for them, and they were fighting over the putrid flesh at one side. The oil man watched the repairs with interest. He had agreed to travel as far as Aleukan with the party and there hire fresh Indians and sleds, hoping to find these dogs on his return. He had to have assistants and provisions before he could go on with his work for the Universal Oil Company.
"Merely that yonder oil-shoot turned into a mud-bath doesn't feaze him," chuckled Jack to Mark. "Earthquakes and volcanoes don't seem to bother that chap any more than they do the professor."
"Just watch him now," suggested Mark, suddenly.
"Watch who—Roebach?"
"The professor," explained Mark.
The old gentleman was certainly deeply interested at that moment in his study of the great pale globe that was rising toward the zenith so much more quickly than any moon that the boys had previously seen. The professor was crouched at the mirror of the telescope gazing into it through the powerful lens. Suddenly he threw up his hands and staggered back from the instrument, turning a pallid face upon his companions. "What done happened yo', Perfesser?" cried Washington White. "What done skeer yo' now? Dis suah am de startlin'est place dat we ebber got into. Gollyation! Ain't dat moon risin', dough?"
"It is no moon!" declared the professor.
"A most mysterious thing," Mark said. "Is it some great planet out of its orbit, sir?"
"It is a planet—of course it is a planet," admitted the professor, going back to his telescope with eagerness.
"And how light it is getting—almost like day," said Jack. "No moonlight was ever like this."
"Why, we're not as far away from that planet as the moon is from the earth," said Mark. "Suppose it bumps us?"
"All the more reason for our getting the Snowbird into flying shape," responded Jack. "Maybe we'll be able to escape the bump!"
"You can laugh," grumbled Mark. "But I don't like the look of that thing."
"Evidently the professor does not like it, either," agreed Jack. "See him now."
Professor Henderson was gazing first into the telescope and then drawing upon a paper before him. For several minutes he was thus engaged. Finally he beckoned the boys to him.
"What do your eyes tell you that looks like?" he demanded of Jack and
Mark, pointing to the outline he had drawn upon the paper.
The boys gazed on his drawing in surprise. It was Jack who exclaimed:
"Why, Professor, that looks a whole lot like an outline map of the Hudson Bay Territory, Canada, and Newfoundland. There's the mouth of the St. Lawrence, sure! What are you doing?"
"I have been drawing," said the gentleman, solemnly, "an outline of what I see upon that luminous body floating there in space," and he pointed a trembling finger at the strange planet.
"Impossible!" cried Mark.
"I do not think I am losing my mind," said the professor, testily. "It remains, however, that the outline of certain bodies of water and of land upon that luminous globe seem to be the exact counterpart of land-bodies and water-bodies on the Earth."
"But what does it mean?" questioned Jack.
"If I knew that," grumbled the professor, returning to his instrument,
"I should feel better satisfied."
That some strange—some really wonderful—change had taken place in their physical surroundings, too, there could be no doubt. But what it was the boys could not imagine. Of one thing they were sure, however: The law of gravitation had been partly overcome. And a second fact was discernible: There was a surprising rarity to the air they breathed, and had been since the fall of volcanic ashes had ceased.
In lifting the heavier tools they handled it was noticeable that they seemed lighter. And Andy Sudds surprised them all, when it became necessary to roll a log out of the way of the flying machine, by seizing the heavy timber and lifting it with the ease with which one might lift a small sapling.
"We've all become strong men—professional strong men," gasped Jack.
"Wash is the champion jumper and Andy beats old Samson, I declare!
What do you make of it, Mark?"
"If the professor cannot explain it, don't expect me to do so," returned his chum.
"It am de seriousest question dat has ebber come befo' us," declared Washington, looking wondrous wise. "Disher jumpin' has always been in ma fambly, howebber. We had some great jumpers down Souf befo' de War."
The boys hurried to finish the repairs. It was some time after midnight when they pronounced the Snowbird again ready for flight.
The professor had to be urged more than once to leave his telescope, however; and then he insisted upon setting it up on the deck of the flying machine. He would not discuss the situation at all; but his serious visage and his anxious manner betrayed to them all that he was disturbed indeed by the strange, pale planet he had so closely examined.
Mr. Roebach turned loose his dogs again and climbed gingerly aboard the flying machine.
"I've never been up in the air," he said, "and I must admit that I am somewhat more afraid of a flying machine than I am of an earthquake."
"No more earthquakes in mine, thank you!" cried Jack. "I'd rather sail on a kite than go through what we did yesterday."
They had studied the chart and laid the course for Aleukan without any difficulty. Now Jack strapped himself into the operator's seat and the others took their places, Washington White stowing his rooster carefully amidships as he had before.
Jack started the motor and the Snowbird began to quiver throughout her frame. He touched the lever by which the propellers were started. With a whir and a bound the flying machine left the earth.
Never had it sprung into the air so quickly before. It shot up at a sharp incline and was over the tree-tops in a breath. The indicator registered eighty miles an hour before the plateau was behind them. Then the pointer whirled to ninety—to a hundred—to a hundred fifteen miles an hour, and both Jack, in the pilot's seat, and the others gasped for breath.
Faster than when shot out of Professor Henderson's catapult the Snowbird winged her way into the northwest. Jack managed to keep her on an even keel. But he had the same feeling that he would have had, had he been hanging to the bit of a runaway horse.
Indeed, the Snowbird was practically out of his control.