“Here, stop that!” shouted the professor as he espied what the boy was doing. “Don’t you know those things are dangerous unless handled carefully? They’ll go off like a bomb under a sudden shock.”
“That one must have got a sudden shock when it saw Ding-dong,” scoffed Joe. “Most people do.”
It was too much for Ding-dong. He set down the cylinder and made a jump toward his tormentor. In doing so, his foot struck the cylinder which, as it happened, was only just balanced on the steepish slope leading down to the precipitous river bank.
The gas container began rolling downward. The professor gave a shout.
“Stop it! Stop it! Don’t let it fall over the river bank or——”
Before he could complete the sentence, Ding-dong was valiantly off after the rolling cylinder. He grasped it, but its weight and the velocity it had attained, caused it to evade him, and while he fell sprawling in an effort to regain his balance, the cylinder bounded on toward the brink of the steep river bank.
“Down on your faces! Down on your faces! Everybody!” fairly roared the professor.
They all obeyed blindly, not sensing the utility of the order, but realizing its urgency in the tones of the professor’s voice.
The cylinder gave a leap as it struck a stone, and then bounded over the edge of the river bank.
Bo-oo-oo-oo-m!