"What about them?" "They're plumb scart. All this disturbance and mystery has got in on them. They act just like they were seeing spooks."
"Spooks!" repeated Jack in surprise. "Do you mean to say dogs can see ghosts?"
"All dogs can smell out when things is going to happen," declared Andy Sudds. "They're better prophets than old women, you bet you! And these dogs act to me as though we hadn't come by the worst of our trouble yet."
Oddly enough it was Professor Henderson himself who took up the suggestion that more trouble was in the offing.
"It is my opinion, Mr. Roebach," he said, to the oil man, "that you had better remove such possessions as you can from this valley at once. And put your dogs somewhere so that they cannot run away like your Indians. If we are balked in attempting to repair the flying machine, these dogs and sleds are what we must depend upon."
"To escape from this country, you mean, sir?" asked Mark.
"To reach Aleukan and the valley where the Chrysothele-Byzantium is to be found," replied the professor, promptly.
But it was to run the chance of a rain of death to go down into the basin where the shop and cabin were situated. Further up the hillside the dogs' quarters had been built, and the sleds were there, too. The oil man and Andy Sudds looked at one another.
"All the stores are in the far end of the cabin," grunted Roebach. "And you can see what that geyser is doing to the shed where the tools are. There goes another stone through the roof!"
"If we could only get hold of that portable forge," said Mark.