The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone Part 10

"And what may that be?"

"Did you ever hear of Z.2.X., doctor?" was the entirely unexpected question.

CHAPTER XXII.

"Z.2.X."

"Z.2.X.? Well, such things are rather out of my line, but I have heard of it--yes," replied the doctor, looking more puzzled than ever. "But what do you know about it?"

"Till two days ago--nothing," replied Jack, "but now I believe that I know where there is a trainload of it."

"Good heavens, boy, you don't know what you're talking about. Why, the stuff is as valuable--as valuable as radium. Possibly it is worth more."

"Then even a small quant.i.ty would restore my father's fortune and his health?" asked Jack, persisting in his line of inquiry.

"Undoubtedly it would restore his fortune, and in my belief his health, which he is unlikely to gain otherwise."

"Then I'll do it," said Jack, speaking for himself and Tom, for the two lads had discussed the idea the night before. "Those dividends from our share of the hydroaeroplane plant will fit out an expedition, and if we fail--well, we can still sell out our interest and help dad get on his feet again."

The telephone bell jangled. Jack answered it. The voice that came over the wire was that of Professor Jenks. His tones trembled with excitement as he spoke to the boy.

"I have a.n.a.lyzed that sample from the Colorado River," he said.

"Well, what is your verdict?" asked Jack, with a painfully beating heart.

"That when all the expenses of reduction and refining and transportation and digging are deducted that it will be worth at least $100 an ounce," was the reply. "It would bring an even higher price, for the placing of a large amount on the market will probably have the effect of lowering it."

"Great Scott!" breathed Jack, "and there's a whole island of it there for the taking."

"Yes; but how are yow going to get it? The cliffs are unscalable, the river unnavigable. It might as well be in Mars for all the good it does anyone," objected the professor.

Jack's next words were direct, to say the least.

"I've figured out all that," he said. "We can get it, if it's there to be got. I've a reason now for going out there if it's possible to come to some arrangement with Zeb c.u.mmings. Can you meet me at the hospital this afternoon to talk over the matter?"

"Are you serious?" gasped the professor.

"Perfectly," Jack a.s.sured him. "If we can't get at it by earth or water we can reach it from the air, can't we?"

"Heaven bless my soul, I never thought of that," choked out the professor. "I--Melissa's calling me. I'll meet you at the hospital this afternoon."

"Tom and I will be there," said Jack, but the professor, at the imperious bidding of Melissa, had hung up the receiver.

The result of the conference held that afternoon at the bedside of Zeb c.u.mmings was the formation of the Z.2.X. Exploration Company, the members being Jack, Tom, Zeb c.u.mmings and the professor. The capital was to be furnished in equal amounts by the professor and the boys, and Zeb c.u.mmings was to be an equal partner in the enterprise, he having furnished the information on which Jack hoped to rehabilitate his father's fortunes.

As for the professor, he did not so much regard the pecuniary side of the expedition as the opportunity he would have to write an epoch-making book and confound his scientific rivals. In their enthusiasm, the adventurers did not take into consideration the fact that the map might be wrong, or that the strange metals be just visionary deposits. The boys' enthusiasm drowned all doubts in their minds; Zeb and the professor never were as optimistic.

Dr. Mays, when he had been placed in full possession of the facts and considered them, decided that under the circ.u.mstances the boys could go and undertook to quiet any apprehensions Mr. Chadwick might have concerning the trip. It was found that enough had been saved from the wreck of the inventor's fortunes to enable him to live comfortably while the boys were away, besides which he had royalties from several inventions coming in. Still, the bulk of his fortunes had vanished and the radio telephone was not yet a practicable instrument to put upon the market.

But with Z.2.X. the boys hoped to make it a perfect transmitter of speech over great distances.

Of course, Jack's plan was to utilize the Wondership on the enterprise of finding Rattlesnake Island and its treasures. After long consultations with Zeb, who was now convalescent, it was decided to ship the craft, in sections, to Yuma on the Colorado River and make the start secretly from some point below there.

It was in the midst of these plans, and while the boys' workshed was littered with lists of provisions and equipment that d.i.c.k Donovan injected himself into the situation. The red-headed young reporter descended upon them one day when they were busily packing the Wondership away in big crates, which were labeled in various ways so as to give no inkling of the contents.

Of course d.i.c.k, being in a way a member of the firm, had to be told what was going on, and the result was that after a lot of hard pleading the boys consented to allow him to come along.

"He's got red hair," said Zeb, "and that ought to make him good on the trail, same as a buckskin cayuse."

The boys didn't quite see the logic of this, but they knew from former experiences that the young reporter was a good campmate, and they were, on the whole, glad that they had included him. But when young Donovan came to High Towers, he was not aware that he was followed by Bill Masterson, who, as we know, was the son of the proprietor of the Boston Moon, on which paper young Masterson also worked as a reporter.

Ever since d.i.c.k Donovan had written for his paper, the Boston Evening Eagle, the wonderful story of the boys' adventures on the trail of the giant sloth of Brazil, other Boston reporters had regarded him as worth watching. In some way, young Masterson learned of d.i.c.k's frequent visits to High Towers while the preparations for the Colorado trip were going forward.

"It's my idea," he told his father, "that those Boy Inventors are planning another big stunt and that d.i.c.k Donovan is to go along and write the story. Do we want to get beaten again?"

"We do not," said his father, a heavily-set, dictatorial man, perpetually at war with the Evening Eagle. "That last beat of Donovan's on the Brazil story jumped the _Eagle's_ circulation sky high."

"Well, why not let me trail along after them and find out what I can?" said young Masterson. "No use letting the Moon get soaked again, and besides, I want to get even on those young fellows, anyhow, for the mean trick they played in having me arrested, even if it didn't come to anything, and the case was dropped.

"Jove!" he cried suddenly, as a new train of thought was suggested to him. "I'll bet I've got it. This trip, or whatever it is, they are planning has something to do with that miner, Zeb c.u.mmings, the chap I ran down."

"Well, it's worth keeping a weather eye on, anyway," decided his father. "I guess you'll get the a.s.signment."

"And I'll run it down, too," declared young Masterson boastfully. "I owe that red-headed, chesty Donovan a grudge anyhow."

That evening young Masterson met by appointment the two youths who had been with him in the automobile the day that Zeb was run down. They were both sons of wealthy men, and had more money than was good for them. Masterson found that both Sam Higgins and Eph Compton were willing to do all they could to harm the boys who had been responsible for their arrests, and so it came about that Jupe, on his way to the village to post some letters, was enticed into talk one night, and while he was chatting and accepting the good cigars three amiable young men pressed upon him, the mail was abstracted from his pocket.

There were two letters, one from d.i.c.k to his city editor telling him of the progress made and informing him of the day for the start, and the other from Jack to his father, who was a guest of Dr. Mays. Jack gave full details of their plans and other information concerning the trip, so that the three plotters, a few days before the expedition set out, knew as much about it as the boys themselves.

Armed with this information, Masterson, Higgins and Compton had no difficulty in getting money from their parents, all of whom would have described themselves as "keen business men." As for Jupe, he was too badly scared to say anything about the loss of the letters, and as Masterson, after steaming them open and abstracting what he wanted of their contents, posted them to their proper destinations, the boys started out on their long journey west without the slightest idea that anyone but themselves and one or two others knew of their plans.

The professor's going was not unaccompanied by difficulties. Miss Melissa had insisted that if he was to accompany the expedition, she was going along, too. This being manifestly impossible, the man of science was driven to the subterfuge of placing a bag of fossils in his bed to represent him. On the night of the start, Miss Melissa looked into his room every few minutes to make sure he had not escaped.

It was not till morning that she discovered that the man of science had effected his escape through his bedroom window, climbing down a latticework to the ground. At first she was half inclined to pursue him, but thought the better of it when she read the note the professor had left behind.

"Well," said Miss Melissa to her little maid, "there's one good thing--he won't be cluttering up the house with old stones and rocks for some time to come."

"What shall I do with them fossils what he put in his bed to make believe it was him, miss?" asked the maid.

"You may throw them into the creek at the back of the house, Mary," said Miss Melissa, and went placidly about her dusting and sweeping and "setting to rights."

But of all this, the professor, on the train speeding westward, was blissfully unconscious. Perhaps even if he had known it, he would not have cared much, for even his scientific mind was warmed and thrilled by the prospect of the aerial search for the mineral treasures of Rattlesnake Island.

CHAPTER XXIII.

ON THE BORDER LINE.

The long train of gray-coated coaches, filmed with the arid dust of the desert, rolled into Yuma, the little town at the junction of the Gila and Colorado River, popularly supposed to be the hottest place in America. The boys, glad that their long journey had come to an end, felt that it was living up to its reputation as they alighted and stood in the blistering heat while their personal baggage was thrown off.

The professor, however, was quite oblivious to the scorching rays of the afternoon sun. He darted about seeking specimens, and he had soon gathered up quite a collection of small rocks. In the meantime Zeb c.u.mmings, who was quite in his element, had helped the boys get their things together and see them loaded on a mule wagon which rattled them off to a small hotel, for they did not want to make themselves any more conspicuous than was necessary.

The boys wore gray flannel shirts, khaki trousers, stout high boots and broad-brimmed hats, and had fastened red handkerchiefs round their throats to keep off the sun from the back of their necks. Zeb had a similar outfit.

The professor, however, still wore his baggy black garments, his only concession to the heat being a big green umbrella, which looked like a gigantic verdant mushroom. As they drove off in a rickety sort of bus, having with difficulty persuaded the professor to leave off specimen hunting for a while, the boys did not notice that from the opposite side of the train three young men had alighted who, from a point of vantage behind a water tower, watched their movements.

The trio were Bill Masterson and his two cronies, Sam Higgins and Eph Compton.

"Well, here we are, Eph," said Bill, as they watched the boys drive off.

"Yes, and here they are, too," grunted Eph.

"I'm glad we've got here at last, though. Keeping out of sight on that train was beginning to get on my nerves."

"Same here," said Sam Higgins, stretching himself. "But I guess we succeeded in keeping ourselves hidden all right."

"Sure," rejoined Masterson. "They haven't a notion we are here."

In the meantime the lads found accommodations till the next day at the small hotel on a back street where Zeb had insisted on their coming so as to escape observation. Yuma is full of prospectors and miners, and every stranger in town is suspected of having some sort of a scheme, he explained, and as a consequence is closely watched.

Zeb's first care, therefore, was to circulate a story that the professor, a noted savant and geologist, was going into the desert with his party to collect specimens. This appeared to satisfy the landlord, who was at first inclined to be curious.

The professor had hardly been shown his room before he was out again with his hammer and satchel and his attention was almost at once attracted by a big stone that held up one corner of the barn at the back of the hotel. The boys knew nothing of what he was doing till they heard a loud, angry voice crying: "Hey, you in ther preacher's suit! Quit tryin' ter pull thet thar barn down, will yer?"

"But, my dear sir," came the professor's voice, in mild expostulation, "are you aware that you have built your barn on the top of a splendid specimen of primordial rock?"

"Don't know nuthin' about a prime order of rock," came back the other voice.

The boys looked out of the window. They saw the landlord of the hotel, a surly-looking fellow, with a big black mustache and tanned cheeks, striding across the yard to the professor, who had blissfully resumed his chipping.

The landlord reached out one brawny hand to grab his guest, when something happened that made him temporarily cease hostilities. A big chunk of rock suddenly flaked off under the professor's a.s.sault. It flew in the air and the next instant a yell of pain apprised them that the landlord had got it right in the eye.

The professor looked round as the man emitted a bellow of rage.

"Bless me, where did that bit of rock go? Ah, there it is! Right at your feet, sir," and he darted forward with a smile of satisfaction and, picking up the chunk of rock that had struck the indignant landlord, placed it in his satchel.

"Thank you very much for stopping it, sir," he said, with a bow, and then, before the thunderstruck landlord could say anything, the scientist strolled off under his umbrella in search of more specimens. The boys fairly choked with laughter.

But the landlord was too dumfounded even to speak for a minute. His face grew as purple as a plum. He appeared to be about to burst.

"He's locoed," he burst forth at last, "locoed as a horn toad, by the 'tarnal hills."

Then, holding a hand to his eye, he reentered the hotel and could be heard shouting for hot water to bathe his injury.

Zeb, who had been out looking for a trustworthy man to take their effects out to a spot along the river where they could put the Wondership together without exciting undue curiosity, returned shortly before supper with news that he had been successful in his search, an old, wrinkled prospector named Pete McGee, who had learned the secret of silence during the long years he had spent on the desert.

After the evening meal old McGee put in an appearance and a bargain was struck. But if he was, as Zeb put it, "close-mouthed" on some subjects, he was not on others.

"So yer are a'goin' out inter the desert, hey?" he asked the boys.

"That's our intention," said d.i.c.k.

The old man shook his head.

"The desert's a tough place," he said. "A mighty tough place. Reckon it's likely yer are er goin' prospectin', maybe?"

The boys returned an evasive answer. But old McGee rambled on with the crisscross wrinkles forming and fading round his washed-out blue eyes.

"Wa'al, I had my share on it, ain't I, Zeb?" said the old man to Zeb, who had just strolled up, smoking a short, black pipe. The professor, after adjusting his difficulties with the landlord, was sorting and labeling specimens in his room.

"Reckon you have, Pete," responded the yellow-bearded miner. "You didn't never find that thar lost Peg-leg Smith mine, did yer?"

"No; but I will some day," declared the old man, a fanatic gleam shining in his faded optics. "I'll find it some day, Zeb. I never got to it, but I come mighty close--yes, sir, ole Pete he come mighty close."

"Tell the boys about Peg-leg Smith's lost mine," suggested Zeb.

"Give me the fillin's, then, an' I will," said old Pete, holding out a blackened and empty corncob, "though I'm surprised they ain't never heard on it. Thought everybody had heard of Peg-leg's mine."

"Wa'al, you see they come frum ther East," explained Zeb apologetically.

"Ah, that accounts fer it," said old Pete indulgently. "You couldn't 'spec Easterners ter know nuthin' 'bout it. 'Wa'al, young sirs, somewheres out on the desert ter the east uv here thar is three b.u.t.tes a stickin' up, and right thar is Peg-leg Smith's lost mine whar they say the very sands is uv gold.

"Who was Peg-leg? Wa'al, that's in a way not very well known. Anyhow, his name was Smith, and he was shy an off leg, and so he gets his name. Back in 1836 Peg-leg he blows inter Yuma with a party of trappers that hed worked down ther Colorado.

"They decides to quit trapping and go ter gold huntin', and makes their way up the Gila River and then cuts off inter ther desert. Frum Yuma they goes southeast and kep' on fer four days across the desert. At ther end of the fourth day they 'lows that ther water ain' a-goin' ter hold out a turrible lot longer, and they decides to look fer a water-hole in a canyon at ther end uv which stands three lone b.u.t.tes sticking up, like sentinels against ther sky.

"Wa'al, they hunts ther canyon through but nary a drop of water. In time they reaches ther b.u.t.tes. They climbs to ther top ter see what might lay beyond, but they see nuthin' but ther same G.o.d-forgotten country.

"But Peg-leg, who fer all he was minus a limb, could travel with any of 'em, he finds at the top of the southernmost b.u.t.te a lot of chunks of black rock lying round promiscous, an' some of them has specks an' chunks of yaller as bright as Zeb's beard on 'em. Peg-leg he opines ther yaller is nuthin' but copper, or maybe fool's gold.

"That night they camps, feelin' considerable blue, fer ther's mighty little water left an' they've come too far ter go back. But in ther distance thar's a big mountain and they make up their minds they'll find water thar or bust and wither on the desert.

"Ther next evening, more dead than alive, they reaches the mountain and finds a little spring. It was ther finest thing they'd seen fer a long time, and in honor of Peg-leg, who suggested going to ther mountain, they calls it Smith Mountain, and that's its name to this day. In time they worked round to San Bernardino and then Smith he hunts up a mineral sharp who tells him that what he had found was gold.