Mark sped on, turning the handle levers to get the last notch of speed out of the cycle. Would he be in time?
CHAPTER XIII
A DIREFUL THREAT
Perhaps Washington White's Shanghai rooster did not care to make the trip to the moon, or perhaps the fowl had not yet seen enough of this earth. At any rate, when he flew from the projectile, uttering loud crows, and landed some distance away, he began to run back toward the coop in the rear of the yard.
"Cotch him, cotch him!" yelled the colored man. "Dat's a valuable bird!"
"We'll get him when he goes in the coop," said Jack, who found it difficult to run and laugh at the same time.
"Shall I fire my rifle off and scare him?" asked Andy Sudds.
"No, you might kill him or scare him t' death," objected Washington.
"Come on, Mark, and help," cried Jack, looking toward the projectile, where a figure was peering from the glass-covered port of the main cabin.
But the figure, whose hand was done up in voluminous bandages, did not come out, and Jack wondered the more at what he thought was a growing strangeness on the part of his chum.