On a Torn-Away World Part 20

"There may be some truth in what you say--barring your use of the big words, Wash," admitted Jack Darrow. "But we certainly can't blame the old professor for any freaks of Nature that may happen."

"No. But I hasn't gotter encourage him in disher foolishness ob runnin'

up an' down de world, huntin' fo' new t'ings. I don't like new t'ings,"

declared Wash. "Looked disher now! Whoeber said Washington White wanted ter transmogrify hissef to a new planet? n.o.body, not dat I hears on."

"I reckon we none of us had much choice in the matter," returned Jack, with a sigh.

"Glory! Dar's dat moon again!" cried Wash, suddenly.

"No; it's the earth in sight," returned his youthful companion. "The mist is being dissipated, just as the professor said. Let's go out and look about."

"We done wanter be mighty careful walkin' on dis ice," admonished the darkey. "It jest as slippery as it kin be."

Which was true enough, as Jack found the moment he stepped down upon the shelf from the flying machine frame. Where the ice had melted and then its surface had congealed again, it was as smooth as a mirror.

The reflected light from the huge globe that now began to traverse the small arc of their heaven gave them plenty of light. They could see down into the green depths of the creva.s.se, but not far along the shelf on which the _s...o...b..rd_ rested, in either the one direction or the other.

"Whar you goin', Ma.s.sa Jack?" demanded Wash, as the boy started away from the flying machine toward the nearest wall of rock that shut in the glacier. "I want to see what lies beyond that turn," replied the youth. "Perhaps we may learn something to our advantage by exploring a bit."

Washington White followed him very cautiously. Before he came to the turn himself, Jack had rounded it. The next moment the darkey was startled by a yell from Jack.

"Fo' de goodness gracious gollyation sakes!" bawled Wash. "What done gone an' disturbed de continuity ob your sagastuations? Yo' done frighten me inter a conniption fit if yo' hollers dat way."

Here he rounded the turn himself and almost b.u.mped into Jack. Even the darkey's volubility was stilled at the sight before them.

A great part of the wall of the creva.s.se--the wall which they had hoped to climb, had broken off and fallen into the gulf. A wide crack, or gully, was opened in this side of the chasm, leading in an easy slope to the surface of the glacier.

Although their attempt to reach the surface had been foiled, here was a way which the sun, melting the ice and causing a great avalanche, had made for them. It was plain that all could easily mount to the top by this sloping gulch.

Jack dashed back to announce the discovery and Wash came after him, intent upon seeing that b.u.t.tsy was carried, in his well wrapped-up coop, out of the creva.s.se. The youth awoke his friends instantly and in ten minutes all had taken a look at the way of escape and preparations were at once made for departure from the flying machine.

Everybody save the professor was laden with stores or instruments, or extra clothing and blankets, as they filed away from the crippled _s...o...b..rd_. The two youthful inventors and builders of the flying machine bade good-bye to her with full hearts. It was not a certainty that they could recover the flying machine, and Jack and Mark felt pretty bad about it.

The first thought of all, however, was centered in standing once more upon the surface of the glacier. The fact that the upper part of the ice field might move at any time, and the creva.s.se be closed while they were held in it, had troubled them all.

In half an hour, however, all that danger was past. Other perils might immediately face them; but the chance of being snapped between the jaws of ice was no more to be feared.

The golden ball of the earth, around which the island in the air was following its...o...b..t, gave them plenty of light as yet, for the sun was still in such a position that its light was reflected from the earth upon the fast-traveling island in the sky.

The party, shaking with cold now, for the night was really arctic in temperature, made for the nearest morainial deposit where trees grew, under the shelter of the cliff which rose so high above the face of the glacier. As the river of ice had pushed its way downward during the past ages, it had sc.r.a.ped earth and stones from the walls of its bed, and this deposit, falling on the ice, had given root to trees and shrubs, while gra.s.s had sprung up and birds had doubtless nested there.

"They are like the oases in the desert," Mark said.

"They will afford us shelter and firewood," the professor added.

And in short order they were encamped in a clump of fir trees with a huge fire of dry branches burning before them, its warmth diffused over the whole party.

This grove of st.u.r.dy trees was backed close against the base of the cliff, and the rocky wall was sheer, mounting at least eight hundred feet above their heads.

"I suppose no life could exist higher than this cliff, eh, Professor?"

Jack Darrow asked, as they became comfortable in the fire's warmth and threw back their fur wraps.

"I am not sure of that, Jack," returned the scientist. "From our experience in the _s...o...b..rd_, since the eruption that threw us off into s.p.a.ce, and while on the higher levels of air, we cannot doubt that at a thousand feet above this ice, at least, animal life would become extinct."

"I reckon there isn't much animal life left in these parts now, at any rate," Andy Sudds said. "I don't see what we're going to do if something doesn't turn up for food. We're going to be on short commons."

Wash had set his "bird cage," as the oil man called the Shanghai's coop, within the warmth of the fire, and the rooster evidently felt the grateful glow of the flames. He had been picking up some corn that Wash flung him, grain by grain. Now he suddenly stopped, raised his head, and uttered a loud and apparently frightened squawk.

"What dat?" demanded the darkey, his eyes rolling. "b.u.t.tsy hear sumpin'--he suah do."

"What do you reckon he hears?" queried Jack, idly.

"I dunno dat. But he's some disturbed--yo' kin see it's so," returned Washington, nervously. "Does yo' hear anything yit?"

"You think he can smell out an enemy, do you?" chuckled Jack.

"He done gotter great head, b.u.t.tsy has," declared the black man. "If dere is anyt'ing prowlin' aroun' permiscuous like, he's de boy to hear 'em--yes, sah!" "By the same token it was a flock of geese that saved Rome," Mark said.

Wash had his back to the thick clump of firs. Jack was facing him.

Suddenly the boy, raising his eyes to look across the fire at the darkey, beheld a huge black object rise out of the brush directly in Washington's rear.

One glance told Jack what the creature was. There was no mistaking the gleaming eyes, the pointed, s...o...b..ring muzzle, and the hairy, yellowish breast of the gigantic Kodiak bear as it poised its huge body over the unconscious darkey.

Like a ghost the bear had crept to the camp of the explorers and was now on the eve of an attack, totally unheralded!

CHAPTER XX

THE HEROISM OF THE SHANGHAI ROOSTER

Jack Darrow was the only person in the group around the campfire who at first saw the huge bear. And he was so startled that for a breath he did not know what it was best to do. To shriek out in alarm would neither save the darkey nor frighten off the bear.

The Shanghai rooster settled down with a half-stifled squawk in the bottom of his coop. Without doubt the bird saw the bear and realized that his life was in peril.

"What de matter wid yo'?" demanded Washington, rolling his eyes and beginning to look scared himself.

Jack's mouth was dry and he had to wet his lips before he could as much as whisper. Only a few seconds had elapsed since the bear rose into view behind the darkey; but it seemed to Jack as though an eternity had pa.s.sed.

His whispered words were for the old hunter, whom he knew was always alert.

"Andy! Your rifle!"

The brown claw of the old hunter was never far from the grip of his gun when he lay before a campfire. Jack saw the hand clamp upon the weapon even before Sudds rolled over.

"What's up, Jack?" he whispered.