“We’d better get away from this place as soon as we can,” remarked Jerry, when he was himself again. “We must move the ship at once.”
“There is no need of that,” the professor assured him. “With the fumes from the chemicals filling the airship, it will be perfectly safe to stay here. It does not smell very nice, but it is better than being killed by sleep. We can now shut our eyes and take an ordinary nap, without fear. The chemicals will boil all night. In the morning there will be no danger, for the plants only exhale an odor at night. Then, when it is light, we can see to move the ship to a place where there are none of the bushes of death.”
This plan was followed, but it was not without a little feeling of fear that the adventurers stretched out once more for a needed rest. The night passed safely, however, though they all awoke with a heavy feeling, due to the fumes they had been obliged to breathe in order to preserve their lives. They hurried out to the fresh air as soon as it was daylight, and inhaled deeply of the oxygen.
“There are the dangerous bushes,” announced the professor, pointing to a tangle of them near the bow of the airship. “I think we can find a place where there are none. And I think we can move the ship there without danger of the Indians seeing us. If I know anything about savages, they will avoid this end of the valley. It may be that they depend on the bushes of death to keep their white captives from escaping this way, by impressing on them the danger of never-waking sleep should they venture here.”
The boys gathered about the scientist, and looked toward the clump of peculiar-looking bushes. The leaves resembled long green serpents, and waved and wiggled uncannily in the breeze, not unlike so many reptiles.
After breakfast, following some cautious scouting on the part of the boys, the airship was slightly inflated, and, moving along but a short distance above the ground, was taken to another location, well away from the bushes of death.
“Now,” remarked Jerry, when they had all gathered in the cabin, “we must consider how we are to save these poor people. What is to be our first move?”
“We had first better get some information as to how the land lies,” remarked Jim Nestor. “We want to find where the houses of the whites are located, what is the best time to attempt the rescue, when the Indians are least likely to be about, and information of that sort. Yes, we must do some scouting.”
“That’s what,” agreed Tod, “and I was about to propose that Jim and I undertake it. We know something of Indians, even if these redmen are of a strange tribe. We’ll get the information you need.”
“Such information would certainly be desirable,” put in Mr. Bell. “My late friend, Mr. Loftus, did not go much into details on those points. We must depend on a surprise to overcome the Indians. If we only could get word to the whites that we are here, they could, perhaps, tell us how to proceed.”