CHAPTER XXV
THE PROFESSOR’S COUSIN
Though Professor Snodgrass worked desperately to keep his companions awake, he was at a disadvantage, for he, too, was beginning to feel the influence of the unseen but deadly bushes. His eyes were heavy, and his feet began to lag as he hurried about the cabin, shaking first one and then another of the men or boys.
“Wake up, Bob—Jerry!” he cried, but Bob only answered as he fell back in his bunk:
“Oh, let me alone! I’m so sleepy and tired!”
“Yes,” murmured the scientist, “but it means rest forever if you sleep now! Wake up!” and he punched Bob vigorously.
The professor himself was fighting like a Trojan to ward off sleep.
“I must do something to save them—save myself,” he thought, as he looked on Tod and Nestor, both slumbering heavily, while it seemed that Jerry’s breathing was already becoming less vigorous as the deadly fumes overcame him. “I can’t move the airship alone,” thought the scientist, “and it would hardly be safe to do so in the darkness. Yet I must take some action. If there was only some way of overcoming the fumes, or making them less harmful——” he paused suddenly in his musing. His scientific mind was at work. Already he was recalling what he knew of the fatal bushes. He had once analyzed the juice from them, for it was from the sap that the exhalation came, carrying death. The bushes only gave off the odor at night. In the day they were harmless.
“I must make some other kind of fumes that will neutralize those of the bushes of death,” reasoned Professor Snodgrass. “Let me see what will be the most effective.”
He had a small stock of chemicals with him, and it did not take him long to decide which he would use. He made a mixture of sulphur, carbolic acid, creosote and some other acids, and placed them in a pan. This he placed on top of the gasolene stove, and lighted a fire beneath it. All the while the scientist himself was fighting off sleep, but as he was vigorously moving about, and as he realized what it would mean to succumb, it served to keep him awake. The others were slumbering more heavily.
Rapidly the professor worked. When the mixture was sending forth the badly smelling fumes, which, however, would serve to kill the exhalations from the bushes, the scientist carried the pan into the cabin. Then, suspending it over a small lamp, he caused a still greater vapor to be given off. The cabin was filled with the fumes.
“Wake up now! Wake up!” urged the scientist again, as he roused the sleepers. Already the good effects of the boiling mixture were apparent, for Mr. Snodgrass felt less sleepy. Once he had aroused the others, he knew they would be comparatively safe. He managed, after strenuous work, to shake them so that they opened their eyes. Jerry was the hardest to arouse, for he had worked hard that day, and was exhausted. But finally they were all sitting up, staring stupidly about them, scarcely aware of what had taken place, yet knowing it was something unusual. They sniffed the strong odor, and it served to drive out from their lungs the fumes of the bushes. In a little while the air of the cabin was entirely void of the dangerous exhalations. The carbolic acid and other chemicals had neutralized them.
“Now, Bob, make strong coffee,” urged the professor. “That will complete the work I started and will make us all feel better.”
“What happened?” asked Ned drowsily, while the others rubbed their heavy eyes.
The professor explained. Soon Bob had made a big pot of the strong beverage, and it was gratefully received.
“We’d better get away from this place as soon as we can,” remarked Jerry, when he was himself again. “We must move the ship at once.”
“There is no need of that,” the professor assured him. “With the fumes from the chemicals filling the airship, it will be perfectly safe to stay here. It does not smell very nice, but it is better than being killed by sleep. We can now shut our eyes and take an ordinary nap, without fear. The chemicals will boil all night. In the morning there will be no danger, for the plants only exhale an odor at night. Then, when it is light, we can see to move the ship to a place where there are none of the bushes of death.”
This plan was followed, but it was not without a little feeling of fear that the adventurers stretched out once more for a needed rest. The night passed safely, however, though they all awoke with a heavy feeling, due to the fumes they had been obliged to breathe in order to preserve their lives. They hurried out to the fresh air as soon as it was daylight, and inhaled deeply of the oxygen.
“There are the dangerous bushes,” announced the professor, pointing to a tangle of them near the bow of the airship. “I think we can find a place where there are none. And I think we can move the ship there without danger of the Indians seeing us. If I know anything about savages, they will avoid this end of the valley. It may be that they depend on the bushes of death to keep their white captives from escaping this way, by impressing on them the danger of never-waking sleep should they venture here.”
The boys gathered about the scientist, and looked toward the clump of peculiar-looking bushes. The leaves resembled long green serpents, and waved and wiggled uncannily in the breeze, not unlike so many reptiles.
After breakfast, following some cautious scouting on the part of the boys, the airship was slightly inflated, and, moving along but a short distance above the ground, was taken to another location, well away from the bushes of death.
“Now,” remarked Jerry, when they had all gathered in the cabin, “we must consider how we are to save these poor people. What is to be our first move?”
“We had first better get some information as to how the land lies,” remarked Jim Nestor. “We want to find where the houses of the whites are located, what is the best time to attempt the rescue, when the Indians are least likely to be about, and information of that sort. Yes, we must do some scouting.”
“That’s what,” agreed Tod, “and I was about to propose that Jim and I undertake it. We know something of Indians, even if these redmen are of a strange tribe. We’ll get the information you need.”
“Such information would certainly be desirable,” put in Mr. Bell. “My late friend, Mr. Loftus, did not go much into details on those points. We must depend on a surprise to overcome the Indians. If we only could get word to the whites that we are here, they could, perhaps, tell us how to proceed.”
“That’s hardly possible,” remarked Jerry. “I guess we will have to depend on Jim and Mr. Tod. Still, that’s somewhat dangerous, for if they discover them it will be all up——”
Bob, who had gone out on the forward deck, came hurrying in, his face white with fear. He was trembling.
“What’s the matter?” asked Jerry, noticing his chum’s agitation.
“There’s a man—outside—he’s looking at the airship,” stammered Chunky. “An old man, with a long white beard. He’s coming this way.”
“The Indians!” cried Ned. “They have discovered us!”
Jim Nestor and Sledge Hammer Tod reached for their rifles, and looked to the revolvers at their side. Jerry, hardly knowing what he was doing, started from the cabin to go out on deck. He was followed by Mr. Bell and the professor.
As soon as they reached the deck they saw the old man. He was staring at the airship, as if in a dream, and it needed but a glance at him, to tell that he was a white, and not an Indian. At the sight of the figures of Jerry and his friends, the man uttered a cry, and started forward. At the same instant Professor Snodgrass fairly leaped overboard from the ship to the ground. He rushed toward the old man, with outstretched arms.
“Amos Deering!” cried the scientist! “My long-lost cousin! Amos Deering, of all men in the world!”
The old man seemed dazed. He stood still. Then he spoke in a hollow voice:
“Who are you, and why are you here?”
“I am your cousin, Uriah Snodgrass,” was the reply, “and we have come in this airship to save you and all the others!”