“Close one!” grumbled Pant through the tube.
“Safe enough now, though,” sighed Johnny.
Their journey to a port on the largest island of the scattered group was made in safety. The wreck was reported; then the “Dust Eater” was loaded aboard a steamer bound for San Francisco. They were to have a safer if not a more eventful journey home.
It was only after the four chests had been safely stowed away in a large stateroom aboard the steamer that Johnny and Pant were let into the secret of their contents. Then, with his brother by his side, the medical missionary unlocked one of the chests and lifted the lid.
The two boys leaned forward eagerly.
What they saw first was nothing more than sawdust. The missionary put his hand into this sawdust, and drew out a half-gallon can. This can had a small screw top. This he took off, and, having poured a little of the contents into the palm of his hand, held it out for the boys’ inspection.
“Oh!” exclaimed Johnny in surprise. “Do you mean to tell us that we have gone through all this to save four chests of oil?”
“But wait,” said the Professor quickly. “This is no ordinary oil. It is Russian napthalan. It is worth at the present moment, a dollar and a half an ounce. There are sixty-four ounces in that can, seventy-five cans to the chest, and four chests. Figure for yourself its value. But money,” he went on in a very serious tone, “is not the principal reward. It never is. There are in America today tens of thousands of children suffering from a terrible skin disease. They have no relief. A salve, of which this oil is the base, will at once relieve their condition, and in time will cure them. To save these children, is this not a cause for which one might gladly risk his life many times?”
“It is,” said Johnny with conviction. “I am glad we came.” In this expression he was quickly seconded by Pant.
Later that evening, after the moon had spread a long yellow streamer across the waters, Johnny and Pant sat in steamer chairs side by side silently gazing across the sea. Each was busy with his own thoughts. Johnny was going over the events of the past few months. In these months many mysteries had leaped out of the unknown to stare him in the face and challenge his wits to find their answers. Some had been solved; others remained yet to be solved. There was the white fire of the factory which had worked such wonders with steel and, closely associated with that, were the fires that had started, apparently without cause, on the red racer in the desert and the savages’ canoe. These remained mysteries, as did the problem of the composition of the new steel. He wondered still if the vial he had put away on the upper shelf of the laboratory in the factory could possibly add some light to this problem.