“I say, Don Haurea, did you know that Pigeon Jute was up there in those rocks? I’ve been wondering all night.”
“Suppose we go to the laboratory and see. It is nearing the hour when I have a few minutes with my son—”
“That’s so, I’d like to say hello to Yncicea, haven’t done it for a week. Does he celebrate Christmas, I mean the way we do?”
“With the rest of the world he enjoys a holiday,” the man nodded.
“I’m glad, because a year without a Christmas would be sort of—well lonesome.”
The two went leisurely into the long, cheery living room, to the panel in the wall which was now a familiar object to Jim, but he recalled that first day the Don had opened the way to the little elevator, which had been installed during the days of the present owner’s grandfather. Without waiting, the boy pressed the tiny knot, and as he did so, his mind leaped back to the summer day when the Gordons and Burnam had led a crazy mob to the ranch, and an airplane machine gunner viciously fired his deadly rounds into the house in an attempt to destroy its occupants. The whole scheme had failed because Jim had managed, despite wounds, to press his bleeding hands against a small button on one of the pillars on the veranda, releasing an invisible wall of electricity which caught the invaders. Today the door slid smoothly, the pair stepped inside and immediately began to descend to the beautifully built under-ground work and experimental laboratories. Presently they were in the long tiled hall, the boy went at once to his own closet where he changed to the close-fitting white suit and soft sandals.
“This sure is a comfortable outfit,” he grinned. The Don was ready too, so they hurried along to the turn, and finally they were admitted to the outer room, which was exactly as it was on the boy’s first visit, only now the attendant smiled his recognition, and they passed inside. Here was a large class of scientific men; as before, some of them glanced up from what they were doing, while others were too absorbed to note the late arrivals. Austin nodded or spoke a soft greeting as he passed on into the Don’s own department, and soon they seated themselves on a long bench before a sort of desk with a high frame at the back. Eagerly the young fellow looked up at the man, who nodded, and then Jim’s fingers moved expertly across the dial until at last he sat back and waited.
Over the screen in front of him passed a slight movement which might have been water, but Austin knew that it was a film composition rolling past and in a moment he made out blurred objects which gradually shaped themselves into a back-ground of blue sky, with a rushing stream in the foreground. Shrubs and trees stood out in stately order, then a winding path which led over moss-grown rocks to a wide terrace above. Then something moved and Jim could not contain himself a moment longer as the boy he had first seen in Vermont, stepped out from the garden.
“Yncicea,” he called.
“Jim, Old Scout,” came the laughing response. “In Texas you are to have a white Christmas.”