“It depends on how many there are.”
“There can’t be more than ten,” answered Mr. Bell. “Mr. Loftus said there were fifteen left when he escaped. Some were so old and feeble then that there was scarcely any hope for them. Not more than ten left, I should say.”
“I hope my cousin, Amos Deering, is among them,” remarked the scientist.
“He was alive and in good health when Mr. Loftus made his escape,” said the former hermit. “He was looked up to as a sort of chief by the Indians, who treated him better than they did the others, of whom they made slaves, and compelled them to assist in some peculiar form of worship they have. I understood from Mr. Loftus that the Indians venerated a form of lizard.”
“A lizard!” exclaimed Professor Snodgrass. “You don’t by any possible chance mean a flying lizard, do you?”
“That’s exactly what Mr. Loftus said it was,” came the unexpected reply from the aged man. “They worship a big flying lizard, of which there are numbers in the valley. It is as sacred to them as the beetle was to the Egyptians. There are many of them, and——”
“Then I shall get my specimens, after all!” cried the little bald-headed man. “Let us start for the valley at once!” and he jumped to his feet in his excitement.
“We can’t see to do anything until morning,” objected Tod. “Then we’ll start in.”
“Then I wish morning would come quickly,” went on the professor, as eager as a child over a new toy. “I want a flying lizard very much.”
“Can the airship carry ten additional persons?” asked Jim Nestor of Jerry.