"Bless me, where did that bit of rock go? Ah, there it is! Right at your feet, sir," and he darted forward with a smile of satisfaction and, picking up the chunk of rock that had struck the indignant landlord, placed it in his satchel.
"Thank you very much for stopping it, sir," he said, with a bow, and then, before the thunderstruck landlord could say anything, the scientist strolled off under his umbrella in search of more specimens. The boys fairly choked with laughter.
But the landlord was too dumfounded even to speak for a minute. His face grew as purple as a plum. He appeared to be about to burst.
"He's locoed," he burst forth at last, "locoed as a horn toad, by the 'tarnal hills."
Then, holding a hand to his eye, he reëntered the hotel and could be heard shouting for hot water to bathe his injury.
Zeb, who had been out looking for a trustworthy man to take their effects out to a spot along the river where they could put the Wondership together without exciting undue curiosity, returned shortly before supper with news that he had been successful in his search, an old, wrinkled prospector named Pete McGee, who had learned the secret of silence during the long years he had spent on the desert.
After the evening meal old McGee put in an appearance and a bargain was struck. But if he was, as Zeb put it, "close-mouthed" on some subjects, he was not on others.
"So yer are a'goin' out inter the desert, hey?" he asked the boys.
"That's our intention," said Dick.
The old man shook his head.