CHAPTER XXIV
THE LUMINOUS SNAKES
“Get the guns!”
It was Harvey Brill who exclaimed this, as he darted for the motorship.But Jim Nestor laid a restraining hand on his partner’s arm.
“Now, hold on,” suggested the mine foreman, in easy tones. “This isno time for shooting irons. I’m opposed to ’em on general principles,anyhow. There’s very few times when you need ’em. We can attend tothose fellows all right without getting down to desperate measures.”
“But I’m not going to have ’em take that gold from me!” exclaimed theminer, fiercely.
“No danger,” said Jim, easily. “They’re quite a way off, and they’regoing to have their own troubles getting down to us. Besides, wehaven’t found the gold ourselves yet.”
“Well, maybe that’s so,” admitted the miner, calming down somewhat.“What had we better do?”
“Try and discover exactly what they’re doing,” decided Jerry, promptly.“Ned, get the glasses from the pilot house, and we’ll take a look at’em!”
In a few moments the tall lad was peering sharply at the partyhigh up on the cliffs. So far away were they that they looked likesmall children, and only the fact that they did not present thecharacteristics of Indians led to the assumption that they were NoddyNixon’s companions and himself.
“It’s them, all right!” announced Jerry, after a moment. “And they’relooking at us with spy glasses. I guess they think they can see us whenwe find the gold.”
“Well, as long as they don’t come down I won’t worry so much,” spokeMr. Brill. “But as for finding the gold here we’re not going to do it.”
“Why not?” asked Jerry and Ned together, in alarm. Bob had gone to theairship galley to see about the meal.
“Because, after all, this isn’t the place,” said the miner. “I’ve madea mistake. It was coming down the valley the other way that I spottedthe rock that looks like a church, and there I hid the gold. Comingtoward this rock from the opposite direction did make it look like thesame one. But now, when I get a different view of it, I see that itisn’t the place. We’ll have to hunt again.”
“Then we’ll have to go up to the other end of the valley, and startfrom there,” decided Jerry. “We can get the right view of the rockthen.”
“It’s the only way, I guess,” agreed the miner.
“And there’s no more use digging here,” came from Jim Nestor, as hetook up the pick and shovel and started toward the airship. “It’ll foolthose fellows,” and he chuckled as he waved his hand toward the groupon the cliff above them.
“They seem some put out,” observed Ned, who was looking at Noddy andhis cronies through the glasses. “They’re holding a conference, Iguess.”
“What about the professor?” asked Mr. Brill, as they all left the bigrock. “If we’re going to the other end of the valley do we want toleave him near here?”
“No, we’d better pick him up,” agreed Jerry.
“Let’s have dinner first,” suggested Bob. “I’ve got it almost ready.”
“That’s right, Chunky; don’t let anything interfere with the meals,”laughed Jerry.
Another look at the place on the cliff where the spies had been, showedthat they had vanished. Probably they had observed that they were beinglooked at with glasses, and did not want to betray their movements toomuch.
“I wonder what they’re up to?” said Ned.
“After the gold, of course,” came from Mr. Brill. “But they’ll have afight before they get it. I think I saw some of the grub-stakers in thebunch,” he added, for he had gazed long and earnestly at those on thecliff.
“And maybe we’ll have trouble before we get the nuggets,” put in JimNestor. “If you can be mistaken once on your landmarks, Harvey, you maybe again. And this valley seems to be full of queer-shaped rocks.”
“It is,” assented the miner; “but once we start down it from the otherdirection I know I can pick out the place where I buried the nuggets.I’ll get ’em!”
“I hope so,” murmured Ned, for he knew his father had placed muchconfidence in the efforts of himself and his chums.
“Now to pick up the professor,” announced Jerry, when the meal wasover, and the airship ready to proceed. A look at the cliff showed nosigns of the spies, though all realized that they might be down behindrocks, peering at the gold-seekers, and so hidden as to be out of sighteven of the powerful glasses.
The _Comet_ sailed back down the valley, keeping but a short distanceabove the tallest peaks, or groups of boulders.
“Look for the red flag,” counseled Jerry. “I told the professor tohoist it on a pole to guide us to him.”
“And he’s just as likely to take it and make some sort of snake trapof it, as he is to hoist it,” said Ned. “In fact I doubt if even heremembers to put it up, he’ll be so much taken up with looking for thesnakes.”
As they neared the place where they had left the scientist they alllooked down for a sight of him, but they saw no red flag, nor did theyglimpse the little figure of the collector.
“He must be back of some rocks,” said Bob. They were drifting alongnow, before a gentle wind, and the motor was shut off. Moving as aballoon, and guided only by the breeze they made not a round.
Suddenly the silence was broken by a cry.
“Help! Help!” shouted a voice. “Help! I’ve got the snakes, but I’mcaught and they may get away! Help!”
“The professor!” shouted Ned.
“And a snake has him!” added Bob.
“It can’t be,” declared Harvey Brill. “The luminous snakes are onlylittle things. They couldn’t hurt a cat.”
But again came the cry:
“Help! Help! Help me save the luminous snakes!”
“He must have ’em!” declared Jim Nestor.
The airship drifted around a pile of rocks, and there, lying at fulllength on the ground, his foot caught under a big stone, was ProfessorSnodgrass. In either hand he held a wriggling serpent.
LYING AT FULL LENGTH ON THE GROUND, WAS PROFESSORSNODGRASS.]