Lost on the Moon by Roy Rockwood (best fiction novels .txt) 📕
But the spirit of adventure was still strong in the hearts of the boys and the professor. One day, in the midst of some risky experiments at college, Jack and Mark, as related in "Through Space to Mars," received a telegram from Professor Henderson, calling them home.
There they found their friend entertaining as a guest Professor Santell Roumann, who was almost as celebrated as was Mr. Henderson, in the matter of inventions.
Professor Roumann made a strange proposition. He said if the old scientist and his young friends would build the proper kind of a projectile, they could make a trip to the planet Mars, by means of a wonderful motor, operated by a power called Etherium, of which Mr. Roumann held the secret.
After some discussion, the projectile, called the Annihilator, from the fact that it annihilated space, was begun. It was two hundred feet long, ten feet in diameter in the middle, and shaped like a cigar. I
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about forty miles an hour, and at times they went even slower than
that, when they were passing over some part of the surface which the
professors wished to photograph or observe closely.
They did not rise high into the air, but flew along at an elevation of
about two hundred feet, steering in and out to avoid the towering peaks
scattered here and there. Occasionally they found themselves over
immense craters that seemed to have no bottom.
For two days they moved here and there, finding no further signs of
life, neither petrified nor natural, though they saw many strange
sights, and some valuable pictures and scientific data was obtained.
It was on the third day, when they were approaching the side of the
moon which from time immemorial has been hidden from view of the
inhabitants of the earth, that Jack, who was with Mark in the engine
room, while the two professors were in the pilothouse, remarked to his
chum: “Mark, doesn’t it strike you that the water pump and the air
apparatus aren’t working just right?”
“They don’t seem to be operating very smoothly,” admitted Mark, after
an examination.
“That’s what I thought. Let’s call Mr. Henderson. The machinery may
need adjusting.”
Jack started from the engine room to do this, and as he paused on the
threshold there was a sudden crash. Part of the air pump seemed to fly
off at a tangent, and a second later had smashed down on the Cardite
motor. This stopped in an instant, and the projectile began falling.
Fortunately it was but a short distance above the moon’s surface, and
came down with a jar, which did not injure the travellers.
But there was sufficient damage done to the machinery, for with the
breaking of the air pump the water apparatus also went out of
commission, and together with the breakdown of the Cardite motor had
fairly stalled the Annihilator.
“What’s the matter?” cried Professor Henderson, running in from the
pilothouse, for an automatic signal there had apprised him that
something was wrong.
“There’s a bad break,” said Jack ruefully.
“A bad break! I should say there was,” remarked the scientist. “I think
we’ll have to lay up for repairs.” And he called Mr. Roumann.
LOST ON THE MOON
Notwithstanding that they were somewhat accustomed to having accidents
happen, it was not with the most pleasant feelings in the world that
the moon travellers contemplated this one. It meant a delay, and a
delay was the one thing they did not want just now.
They desired to get to the other side of the moon while the long period
of sunshine gave them an opportunity for observation. True there was
some time yet ere the long night of fourteen days would settle down,
but they felt that they would need every hour of sunshine.
“Well, it’s tough luck, but it can’t be helped,” said Mark.
“No, let’s get right to work,” suggested Jack.
They got out their tools and started to repair the two pumps. It was
found that the Cardite motor was not badly damaged, one of the negative
electrical plates merely having been smashed by a piece of the broken
connecting rod of the air pump. It was only a short time before the
motor was ready to run again.
But it could not be successfully operated without the air and water
pumps, and it was necessary to fix them next. New gaskets were needed,
while an extra valve and some sliding gears had to be replaced.
“It’s an all day’s job,” remarked Professor Henderson.
But many hands made light work, and even Washington and Andy were
called upon to do their share. By dinner time the work was more than
half done, and Professor Roumann, announced that he and Mr. Henderson
would finish it if Jack and Mark would take a look at the exterior of
the projectile, to see if any repairs were needed to that.
The boys found that some of the exterior piping had become loosed at
the joints, because of the jar of the sudden descent, and, taking the
necessary tools outside, while they stuck their life-torches upright
near them, they labored away.
At four o’clock the two lads had their task completed, and at the same
time Professor Henderson announced that the air and water pumps were
now in good shape again.
“Then let’s get under way at once,” suggested Mr. Roumann. “We have
lost enough time as it is. Hurry inside, boys, and we’ll start.”
The two chums were glad enough to do so, and in a few minutes they were
again moving through the air toward the unknown portion of the moon.
Below the travellers, as they could see by looking down through a
plate-glass window in the floor of the projectile, were the same rugged
peaks, the same large and small craters that had marked the surface of
the moon from the time they had first had a glimpse of it. There was an
uninteresting monotony about it, unrelieved by any save the very
sparest vegetation.
“I am beginning to think more and more that we will find people on the
other side of this globe,” remarked Mr. Roumann, as he made an
observation through a telescope.
“What strengthens your belief?” inquired Mr. Henderson.
“The fact that the vegetation is growing thicker. There are many more
plants below us now than there were before. This part of the moon is
better able to support life than the portion we have just come from.”
This seemed to be so, but they were still some distance from the
opposite side of the moon.
“I don’t see anything of those diamonds you talked so much about,
Jack,” said Mark, with a smile, a little later. “I guess all the
Reonaris you get you can put in a hollow tooth.”
“You wait,” was all Jack replied.
The projectile was slowed up to permit the two professors to make some
notes regarding a particularly large and deep crater, and a few minutes
later when Mark, who was in the engine room, attempted to speed up the
Cordite motor it would not respond.
“Humph! I wonder what’s wrong?” he asked of Jack.
“Better call Mr. Roumann, and not try to fix it yourself,” suggested
his chum, when, in response to various movements of the lever, the
machine seemed to go slower and slower.
The German came in answer to the summons.
“Ha!” he exclaimed, “that motor is broken again. We shall have to stop
once more for repairs. I shall need to take it all apart, I fear. Get
me the negative plate remover, will you, Mark?”
The lad went to the tool chest for it. He opened the lid and fumbled
about inside.
“It doesn’t seem to be here,” he announced.
“What! the negative plate remover not there?” cried the professor.
“Why, it must be. It is one of the new tools we got, and it has not
been used for anything; has it?”.
“Oh, by Jinks!” cried Jack suddenly.
“What’s the matter?” asked his chum.
“That plate remover! Don’t you remember you and I had it when we were
fixing the pipes outside the projectile, when we had the other
breakdown? We must have left it back there on the ground.”
Jack and his chum gazed blankly at each other.
“I guess we did,” admitted Mark dubiously.
“And it is the only one we have,” said Mr. Roumann. “We need it very
much, too, for the projectile can’t very well be moved without it.”
“How can we get it?” asked Jack. “I’m sorry. It was my fault.”
“It was as much mine as yours,” asserted Mark. “I guess it’s up to us
to go back after it. It isn’t far. We can easily walk it.”
There seemed to be nothing else to do, and, after some discussion, it
was decided to have the two boys walk back after the missing tool,
which was a very valuable one.
“Take fresh life-torches with you,” advised Mr. Henderson, “and you had
better carry some food with you. It may be farther back than you think,
and you may get hungry.”
“I guess it will be a good thing to take some lunch along,” admitted
Jack. “And some water, too. We can’t get a drink here unless we come to
a spring, and we haven’t seen any since we arrived.”
“I’ll go with you, if you don’t mind,” said Andy. “I may see something
to shoot.”
The three of them, each one carrying a freshly charged vapor-torch, a
basket of food and a bottle of water, started off, well wrapped in
their fur coats. Andy had a compass to enable them to make their way
back to where the tool was left, for, amid the towering peaks and the
valley-like depressions, very little of the level surface of the moon
could be seen at a time.
They walked on for several hours, every now and then hoping that they
had reached the place where the projectile had been halted, and where
they expected to find the tool. But so many places looked alike that
they were deceived a number of times.
At length, however, they reached the spot and found the instrument
where Jack had carelessly dropped it. They picked it up and turned to
go back, when Andy Sudds saw a large crater off to one side.
“Boys, I’m going to have a look down that,” he said. “It may contain a
bear or wildcat, and I can get a shot.”
“Guess there isn’t much danger of a bear being on the moon,” said Mark,
but the old hunter leaned as far over the edge of the crater as he
dared.
“No, there’s nothing here,” he announced, with almost a sigh, and he
straightened up. As he did so there came a tinkling sound, as if some
one had dropped a piece of money.
“What’s that?” asked Jack.
“By heck! It’s the compass!” cried Andy. “It slipped from my pocket
when I stooped over. Now it’s gone!”
There was no question of that. They could hear the instrument tinkling
far down in the unfathomable depths, striking from side to side of the
crater as it went down and down.
“We’ll never see that again,” spoke Mark dubiously. “Can we get back to
the projectile without it?” asked Jack.
“Oh, I fancy I can pick my trail back,” answered the hunter. “It isn’t
going to be easy, for there are no landmarks to guide me, but I’ll do
my best. I ought to have known better than to put a compass in that
pocket.”
It was not with very light hearts that they started back, and for a
time they went cautiously. Then, as they seemed to get on familiar
ground, they increased their pace and covered several miles.
“Say,” remarked. Jack, as he sat down on a big stone. “I don’t know how
the rest of you feel, but I’m tired. We’ve come quite a distance since
we picked up that tool.”
“Yes, farther than it took us to find it after we left the projectile,”
added Mark. “I wonder if we’re going right?”
The two boys looked at Andy. He scratched his head in perplexity.
“I can’t be sure, but it seems to me that we came past here,” he said.
“I seem to remember that big rock.”
“There are lots like it,” observed Jack.
“Suppose we try over to the left,” spoke Mark,
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