"Well, then," observed Mark, when the food calculation was over, "it appears that we can remain lost for about three days, at the most."
"Oh, but we'll be back home—I mean in the projectile—long before that," declared Jack.
"I wish I was sure of that," murmured Andy with a dubious shake of his head.
"Well, let's move on again," suggested Jack. "We feel better now, and maybe we'll have better luck."
They started off, tramping over the rugged surface of the moon, while the sun shone with tepid heat down on them. They had to go this way and that to avoid the immense fissures in the ground or the yawning craters, which loomed deep, and in awful silence, in their path. Sometimes they climbed small mountains or crawled in and out of small craters, slipping and stumbling.
They were not cold, for their fur garments kept them comfortably warm, and there was no wind to make the freezing temperature search through the crevices of their clothing. But it was the desolate silence, the utter absence of any form of life save the pale green vegetation that got on their nerves. It was like being in a dead world—on a planet that seemed about to dissolve into space.
They began their further search for the projectile with hope in their hearts, but this gradually gave way to despair as they wandered on over the desolate surface, and saw nothing but the same rugged peaks, the same yawning caverns and the innumerable craters, large and small.
On they wandered, looking on all sides for the missing projectile, but they had no glimpse of it. Even climbing to one of the high peaks, whence they had a view of the surrounding country, afforded them no trace of the Annihilator, They were utterly lost.
Old Andy, who, by reason of his experience as a trapper and hunter, had taken the lead, came to a halt. He looked around helplessly. He did not know what to do.
"Well, boys," he remarked at length, "I don't like to say it, but I can't seem to get anywhere. I give up."