CHAPTER XXVIII
THE RISING FLOOD
“Well, I don’t see much here to help us,” remarked Bob.
“No, not much that tells anything definite,” agreed Jerry.
“Except parts of what seem to be a journal, or diary,” added Ned.
“But those same leaves from the journal tell a sad story,” spokeProfessor Snodgrass.
The three boys and the scientist were in the hut on Snake Island. Itwas the day after they had taken Noddy and his cronies off, and theywere seeking for traces of the person who, according to the bully, hadbeen in the hut before they arrived. They found some preserved food,older than any Noddy could have brought, and scattered pages of a diary.
“It is evident that someone--most likely a man--lived here for a time,”went on the professor, “and that up to recently, he kept an account ofhis day’s doings, for here is the last entry we can find, dated about amonth ago.”
“What does it say?” asked Bob.
“The same thing as for many days before. ‘Searched for it, but couldnot find it.’”
“What do you suppose ‘it’ can be?” asked Ned.
The professor was silent a moment, and then he said quietly:
“Radium.”
“What!” cried Jerry. “Do you think someone has been here ahead of us,looking for the radium treasure?”
“I am sure of it,” said Uriah Snodgrass, “and what is more, I believeit was Mr. Bentwell.”
“Then where is he now?” demanded Bob.
“That I don’t know,” and the professor’s voice was solemn. “Probably heis dead. He must have been here on this lonely island nearly a year.How he lived in that time no one can tell. When he and his companionswere wrecked there must have been some food saved. Or, he may have beenable to trap, or kill, small animals that are on the island, or thatwere brought down by the floods. He may have caught fish. At any rate,we know that someone was alive here up to a month ago, for the date inthe book tells us that. Where he went to, we can only guess.”
“The snakes,” suggested Ned in a low voice.
“Yes, the snakes may have killed him,” agreed the professor. “It isa sad ending to the life of a noted scholar, alone on this terribleisland. I shall preserve this record he has left, for his family.”
“But where is the rest of it?” asked Jerry. “There are only a few pageshere.”
“The others were destroyed, somehow,” replied Professor Snodgrass.“The same agency that made away with Mr. Bentwell may have destroyedthe record of his uneventful search, or Noddy and his cronies, notunderstanding the value of the book, may have used pages of it tolight a fire with, for on the hearth you can see where a fire hasrecently been kindled. It is too bad, for a scientific person, like Mr.Bentwell, probably made valuable observations of what took place inthis wonderful canyon of the Colorado.”
“Well, it isn’t doing us any good to stay here,” spoke Jerry. “It’sonly making us more gloomy. I vote that we get out, and make a carefulsearch for the radium. We won’t be bothered by Noddy and his crowd now,and there isn’t likely to be another flood, right away.”
“I agree with you,” said the professor. “We will be better off by doingsome active work. I’ll take charge of what is left of the journal, andwe’ll begin our search. What food is left we’ll pack away in the hut.Who knows but what some other daring adventurer, who seeks to navigatethe river, may be wrecked here? It may save his life.”
The food was carefully put away, and it was likely to keep for sometime, since there were no evidences that the waters had ever risenquite as high as the hut. Then our friends began their search.
It was kept up for several days, and, as thoroughly as they could, theycovered every part of the island, beginning at the shore and workingback toward the big mound in the center, with its tall pillar ofsandstone rock.
“I guess we’ll have to make a record in our notebooks, the same as poorMr. Bentwell did, ‘nothing doing,’” remarked Bob one day, after nearlya week of searching.
“Well, we’ve got all that hill to explore yet,” replied Ned. “Andthat’s the most likely place for the radium; isn’t it, Professor?”
“No, I can’t say that it is,” was the reply of the scientist. “I think,if we find it at all, that it will be on comparatively low ground. Butit begins to look as if our hunt for the treasure was likely to resultin failure.”
“And you haven’t got your two-tailed toad yet,” said Jerry.
“No, but I have hopes, boys,” and with that the professor, leaving thethree chums to search for traces of radium, went off by himself tolook for the specimen he so much wanted.
All that day the two searches were kept up, but without result. Atnight they assembled in the airship, which had been anchored on a levelpiece of high ground, near the upper end of the island, above the hut.
“Well, we’ll put in a few more days,” suggested Ned, as they arose fromthe supper table, “and then I think we’d better get back home, andadmit that we’re beaten.”
“I don’t like to give up,” said Jerry.
“Neither do I,” came from the professor. “And yet I think we had betterget ready to leave. I don’t like the looks of the weather, and thebarometer is falling more rapidly than I care to see it.”
“Do you think a storm is brewing?” asked Bob.
“I do, and a bad one, too. I think we had better stay here one moreday, and then move. I’ll have to look in some other place for the raretoad.”
When they went to bed that night there was a low muttering of thunder,and fitful lightning, and Jerry insisted on his chums helping him makethe airship more secure by ropes attached to trees.
“We don’t want to be blown away in the night,” he said.
They all slept so soundly that they did not notice the increasing roarof the river, as it rose in flood, due to heavy rains above SnakeIsland. The river was always roaring, as it tore past the black cliffs,and split in twain at the island, and, though the rain added to thisnoise, it did not awaken the adventurers.
It was not until early morning that Ned, sitting up in his berth, wasconscious of an uneasy, bobbing motion.
“Hello!” he cried, hopping out. “What’s the matter? Why did you start,Jerry? I thought you were going to stay another day.”
“Start! I haven’t started!” cried Jerry. “What are you talking about?”
Then, as he leaped out on the floor, he nearly lost his balance, as the_Comet_ pitched and tossed. Jerry gave a hasty glance out of the window.
“Boys,” he cried, “we’re afloat on the biggest flood the Colorado everhad, I guess! We’re still anchored, but the trees are under water! Theropes are holding us!”
“But how can we float?” asked Bob.
“On the hydroplanes, of course,” said Jerry. “You know we’ve beenresting on them, instead of the bicycle wheels, for I wanted to takethe weight off the tires. Lucky for us that I did, or we wouldn’tfloat. And now we’re on the surface of the river, and it’s stillrising!”