“The one I passed as I was comin’ in? Yes, I saw him.”
“Well, he wants to get a lot of queer bugs—insects—snakes and the like,” went on Jerry. “He’s a professor in a big college—a bug collector. We’re with him.”
“Oh, shucks!” exclaimed the man, as if much disappointed. “I calculated you were prospectors, or something like that.”
“Why, is there gold out here?” asked Jerry, as innocently as he could.
“Wa’al, there is for them as knows where it is,” spoke the man with a sharp look at the boys and the two Westerners. But our friends did not betray themselves—at least they hoped they did not.
The work went on apace, and soon the inquisitive man was peering about at another part of the airship.
“What’s this wheel for?” he asked. As he spoke he gave it a turn, and at once a series of thunderous explosions followed—like a battery of machine guns going off.
“Great Peter!” cried the man, and with one jump he leaped through an open window of the shed, and, running across the field, he yelled:
“She’s going to blow up! Skedaddle, everybody!”
The crowd, which was always assembled about the shed, turned to flee, but the explosions suddenly ceased.