“Lucky thing you had that bottle along, professor,” remarked Captain Sprowl, soberly. He added nothing more. He did not need to. They could all supply the alternative for themselves.
A hasty return was made to the Wondership where they found everything as they had left it. A hurried meal was then eaten, and within half an hour they were once more on the wing.
All the afternoon they maintained steady flight toward the westward, and that evening beheld a magnificent sunset. Great masses of gold, purple and scarlet cloud were piled up like dream palaces in the west. Beneath this Fata Morgana of surpassing brilliancy, lay a line of deeper purple, like the crest of an advancing billow.
“See that?” asked Mr. Chadwick, pointing out this darker line.
They all nodded.
“Well, take good notice of it, for that is our first sight of the Andes,” responded Jack’s father.
The words held a thrill. Somewhere in the foothills of that vast and historic range, if the professor’s theories were not all at fault, roamed a beast that had somehow survived the march of the ages. Over toward that sunset, too, had they but known it, strange, wild adventures awaited them. But no idea of what the future held was in the minds of Jack and Tom as they tramped off in search of wood for the evening fire, after the machine had been brought to earth in a stretch of rocky ground, bordered by a river on one side. On the other fell the sombre shades of the melancholy forests.
The boys made for the edge of the river where patches of small trees grew. Here they were more likely to find the firewood for which they were searching than amongst the towering forest giants.
The stream was a melancholy, slow-flowing, muddy water course. On the opposite bank grew mighty trees with a tangle of jungle about their roots, and with long pendant creepers trailing down into the chocolate-colored river. In the evening air a dank, unwholesome smell pervaded the atmosphere. Some gray herons flapped heavily up from the muddy banks as they approached, and an alligator slipped off a log and glided into the water.
What was their surprise, then, in this desolate spot, which they had good reason to suppose they were the first to invade since the beginning of time, when on the bank they perceived a large canoe. It was a clumsily-built dug-out of unusual size, and as the boys got closer to it they soon saw that it was long since it had been used. One side was rotted away and green slimy ooze, gendered by the rank mud, had overgrown it from stem to stern.