“Well, we will always be thinking of you,” said Mrs. Montrose, solemnly.
“And I want you to come back,” added little Gladys. “I may have a new doll by then.”
“We will come back,” said Jerry, and his voice had a new tone in it.
Early the next morning, having said good-bye to their good friends, the motor boys and Professor Snodgrass set off in the airship for the Grand Canyon.
As they waved their hands in farewell many thoughts came to them. Would they find Snake Island? Would they be able to discover the radium fortune? And, more than this, would they be able to find and rescue Mr. Hartley Bentwell, the daring scientist who had been missing for nearly a year? Was he, by any chance, on Snake Island?
“If he is, we’ll get him,” said Jerry grimly, as he pointed the nose of the Comet toward the clouds.
[CHAPTER XXII]
OVER THE GREAT CHASM
There was no particularly difficult task in reaching the Grand Canyon from Denver. In fact the boys could have walked all the distance in time, or they could have gone by train, or in an auto. But their troubles, as they well knew, would not begin at the start. It was after they had reached the canyon itself—that awful gash in the earth’s surface—that they would have a problem to solve. And that problem was how successfully to descend into the gorge, and land on the island.