The Motor Rangers' Cloud Cruiser

CHAPTER IV.

PROFESSOR GRIGG AND MR. TUBBS

“So it is. What on earth can it be doing out here? Wait a jiffy, I’ll go below and get the glasses.”

Joe, now fully recovered, dived into the after cabin and soon reappeared with a pair of powerful binoculars.

Nat focused them on the distant object, which, by this time, was visible, even to the naked eye, and reported it to be a small boat, painted white, and looking like a ship’s dinghy, or small lifeboat.

Excitement ran high on board the Nomad when Nat proclaimed that he was almost certain he had seen an arm wave from the small craft.

“I couldn’t be quite sure, though,” he admitted. “Here, Joe, you take a look.”

The chubby-faced Joe now bent the glasses on the object of their scrutiny.

He gazed intently for a minute, and then uttered a shout.

“By ginger, Nat, you’re right!” he exclaimed. “There is someone on board. There must be something the matter with them, though, for they seem to be collapsed in a kind of bundle on the thwarts.”

“We must make all speed to their aid,” said Nat, signaling for more power. “Poor fellows, if they have been adrift in all that flare-up, they must be about dead.”

“I should say so,” agreed Joe.

As they neared the boat, Nat began blowing long blasts on the electric whistle, to let the occupants know that aid was at hand. In response, a figure upreared itself in the drifting craft, waved feebly once or twice, and then subsided in a limp-looking heap.

“I reckon we’re only just about in time,” said Nat grimly, coaxing another knot out of the Nomad.

As they drew alongside the boat, they saw that not one but two persons occupied it. The one who had signaled them from a distance proved to be a short, stocky little man, with a crop of brilliant red hair and a pair of twinkling blue eyes. The merry flash in those optics had not been dulled, even by the terrible ordeal through which, it was apparent, he and his companion had passed.

“Hullo, shipmates! Glad to see you!” he chirruped, grinning up at the boys on the bridge with a look of intense good humor.

His white duck clothes were scorched, and his rubicund hair, on close inspection, proved to be singed, but nothing appeared capable of downing his amiability.

His companion was of a different character entirely. He was dressed in duck trousers and black alpaca coat. White canvas shoes adorned his extremely large feet. But it was his face that attracted the boys’ attention. It was large, round and learned looking, with a thin-lipped mouth cutting the lower part of it like a gash. Above this, a huge, bony nose protruded, across which was perched a pair of big, horn-rimmed spectacles. A crop of sparse gray locks crowned his high forehead and was scattered sparingly over his large, but well-shaped head, which was bare.

“God bless my soul, George Washington Tubbs, but I’ve lost my hat again!” he exclaimed to his companion, as the Nomad drew alongside.

“We’d have lost more than that, I fancy, if it hadn’t been for this here craft,” observed George Washington Tubbs, with a wink at the boys. “We’d have been a pair of buckwheat cakes, well browned, professor, when they found us.”

“I wish I could find my hat,” muttered the spectacled individual in a contemplative tone, peering about under the seats.

“It was blown off when the island busted up,” rejoined Mr. Tubbs. “But we’re keeping these gentlemen waiting. I presume,” he went on, addressing the boys, “that it is your intention to rescue us?”

Nat could hardly keep from laughing. His first impression was that they had encountered a pair of harmless lunatics. But something in the manner of both men precluded this idea almost as soon as it was formed.

“Won’t you come aboard?” he said politely.

It seemed as inadequate a remark as Stanley’s famous one to Livingston in the wilds of Africa; but, for the life of him, Nat couldn’t have found other words.

“Thanks; yes, we will,” responded Mr. Tubbs, with decisive briskness. “Oh, by the way! Don’t move! Don’t stir! Just as you are, till I tell you!”

Nat’s suspicions of lunacy began to revive.

Mr. Tubbs bent swiftly, and picked up what looked like a large camera from the bottom of the boat. Only it was unlike any camera the boys had ever seen. It was a varnished wooden box, with a big handle at the side. Mr. Tubbs gravely set it up on its tripod and began turning the handle rapidly.

“Now, you can move about! Let’s get action now!” he shouted, waving his free hand.

“This will be a dandy film!” he continued, addressing the world at large. “Gallant rescue of Professor Thaddeus Grigg and an obscure individual named Tubbs, following the disappearance of the volcanic isles.”

In good-natured acquiescence to Mr. Tubbs’ orders, the boys began bustling about. Ding-dong Bell, who had come on deck when he got the signal to stop his engines, was particularly active.

“Now, then, professor,” admonished Mr. Tubbs, “up with you.”

“Without my hat?” moaned the professor; but he nevertheless clambered over the side of the Nomad, the boys helping him, while Mr. Tubbs kept up a running fire of directions.

“Keep in the picture, please. Look around now, professor. Fine! Good! Great!”

These last exclamations came like a series of pistol shots, and seemingly proclaimed that the speaker was well satisfied with the pictures he had made. The professor being on board, Mr. Tubbs followed him, the boys helping him up with his machine, and with a box which, so he informed them, contained extra films.

Professor Grigg, as the red-headed, moving-picture man had called him, was too much exhausted to remain on deck, but retired to the cabin escorted by Ding-dong. As he went he was still murmuring lamentations over his hat.

“It’s his weakness,” explained Mr. Tubbs, who seemed to be in no wise the worse for his experience, “he’s lost ten hats since we left ’Frisco in the Tropic Bird.”

The name instantly recalled to Nat an item he had read in the papers some months before, concerning the setting forth on a mysterious expedition of Professor Grigg of the Smithsonian Institute and one George Washington Tubbs, a moving-picture photographer of some fame. The object of the expedition had been kept a secret, and the newspapermen could elicit no information concerning it. It had been rumored, however, that its purpose was to record the volcanic phenomena of the South Pacific.

“Is – is that the Professor Grigg?” asked Nat, in rather an awestruck tone.

“It is,” responded Mr. Tubbs, “and this is the Mr. Tubbs. I’ve taken moving pictures of the Russo-Japanese war, of the coronation, of the Delhi Durbar, of the fleet on battle practice, of – of everything, in fact. I’ve been up in balloons, down in submarines, sat on the cowcatchers of locomotives, in the seats of racing automobiles, hung by my eyebrows from the steel work of new skyscrapers; but I’ll be jiggered if this isn’t the first time I ever took a moving picture of an island being swallowed up alive – oh, just like you’d swallow an oyster.”

“Then the island was swallowed?” asked Joe, with wide-open eyes.

“Swallowed? I should say so. And with a dose of boiling water, too. But I got my pictures! I got my pictures!” concluded Mr. Tubbs triumphantly.

“But where’s your schooner? How did you come to be drifting about in an open boat?” inquired Nat.

“Ah, as Mr. Kipling says, ‘that’s another story,’” said Mr. Tubbs. “I guess I’ll have to leave that part of it to the professor. But – hullo, here he comes now. I guess he’s feeling better already. Possibly he’ll tell you the story for himself.”

“I shall be very glad to,” said the professor, who, after partaking of some stimulants from the Nomad’s medicine chest, already felt, as he said, “much revived.”

“You see in us, young men,” he continued, “the sole members of the volcanic phenomena expedition of the Smithsonian Institute and the British Royal Geographical Society, who adhered to the duty before them. Would you care to hear how we came to be adrift as you found us?”

“Would we?” came in concert from the boys.

“Then I – ” began the professor, and then broke off and felt his bare head. “Can – can any one lend me a hat?” he asked.

CHAPTER V.

TROUBLE WITH A HAT

He was speedily furnished with a peaked yachting cap belonging to Nat. It sat oddly, almost comically, on his large head, but none of the boys was inclined to laugh at the professor just then. They were far too interested in hearing what the eccentric man had to tell about the voyage of the Tropic Bird.

“We sailed from San Francisco, as you no doubt know from the papers,” said the professor, “without the object of our mission being divulged. There is no harm in telling it now.

“It had been ascertained that a certain phase of the sun spots would be reached on this present day. As you are perhaps aware, it has long been a theory of scientific men that there was some intimate relation between that phenomenon and the volcanic disturbances and earthquakes that occur in these seas from time to time.”

“I think that we learned something like that in physics,” said Nat, nodding.

“In physic?” chuckled Joe, but was frowned down.

The professor went on:

“It was my duty, assigned to me by the Smithsonian Institute and the British Royal Geographical Society, working in concert, to investigate such a disturbance and make elaborate reports thereon. At my suggestion, it was also decided to engage a moving-picture operator to take photos of the whole scene, which must prove of inestimable benefit to scientific knowledge. The Tropic Bird was chartered to convey the expedition, and Mr. Tubbs was placed under contract to take the pictorial record of the scene, if we were fortunate enough to encounter one.

“We cruised about for some time, awaiting the exact condition of the sun spots which would indicate that a phenomenon of the kind I was in search of was about to be demonstrated. Some days ago my observations showed me that the desired condition was at hand. As fortune would have it, on that very day we sighted these islands – or rather those islands, for they have completely vanished as I predicted they would.

“We landed, and found the islands to be of distinctly volcanic origin, and, seemingly, of recent formation. At any rate, they are not charted.”

Nat nodded.

“Of course there was no trace of habitation. But a few creepers and shrubs of rapid growth had taken root in the clefts of the lava-like rock, of which the islands were composed. I saw at once that it was here, if anywhere, that a seismic disturbance would result, in all probability, providing the conditions were favorable. That night, on our return to the ship, the captain of it waited on me.

“After much beating about the bush, he informed me that his crew was aware of my belief that the islands would be the center of a volcanic disturbance, and that they refused to remain in the vicinity. He denied being alarmed himself, however. I succeeded in calming the crew’s fears, and we remained at anchor off the islands for some days. At last, signs of the storm which broke to-day began to make themselves manifest on my instruments. I realized that the great moment was at hand.

“I warned Mr. Tubbs, here – a most valuable assistant – to be ready at any moment. I was confident that with the breaking of the storm the islands would vanish. But nothing was said to the crew. Quite early to-day Mr. Tubbs and I embarked in that small boat and lay off the islands. I was certain that the storm would be magnetic in character, and would break with great fury.”

“However did your boat live through it?” asked Nat.

“She is fitted with air chambers, and specially built to weather any storm,” was the reply. “But to resume: The cowardly captain, when he saw the storm coming up, sounded a signal for us to return on board. When we did not, he hoisted sail and made off, leaving us to our fate. The storm broke, and there was a spectacle of appalling magnificence. Mr. Tubbs behaved with the greatest heroism throughout.”

Here Mr. Tubbs blushed as red as his own hair, and waved a deprecatory hand.

“I guess it was watching you kept me from feeling scared,” he declared, addressing the professor; “but anyhow, I got my pictures.”

“We have some faint idea of what the storm was,” put in Nat; “but can you explain something to us?” and he described to the professor the manner in which the Nomad had been drawn toward the volcanic islands.

“Pure magnetism,” declared the scientist, “a common feature of such storms.”

“But our craft is of wood,” declared Nat.

“Yes, but your engines, being metallic, of course, overcame that resistance. You are fortunate, indeed, not to have been drawn down when the islands vanished. It was a terrific sight.”

Nat explained that during that period they were all unconscious and then went on to tell of the experiences through which they had passed.

“Oh, why wasn’t I on board your craft?” moaned Mr. Tubbs, as he concluded. “What a picture that chasm would have made! It’s the opportunity of a lifetime gone.”

The boys could hardly keep from smiling over his enthusiasm; but Nat struck in with:

“It’s an opportunity I don’t want to encounter again,” an opinion with which everybody but Mr. Tubbs – even the professor – concurred.

“And now,” said the man of science suddenly, “I don’t wish to alarm you, young men, but it is possible that there may be some reflex action exerted by this storm. In other words, there may be a mild recurrence of it. In my opinion we had better get as far away from this spot as possible.”

The others agreed with him. Ding-dong dived below to his engines. Nat took his station on the bridge.

“By the way, what about the boat?” asked Nat suddenly, referring to the craft from which they had rescued the scientist and his assistant.

“Unless you want it, we will let it drift,” said the professor. “It is too large for you to hoist conveniently, and it would impede your speed if you towed it.”

And so it was arranged to leave the boat behind, but Mr. Tubbs took a series of pictures of it as the Nomad sped away. The professor also waved the craft, in which they had weathered so much, a farewell. But, when doing so, in some manner the peak of his borrowed cap slipped from between his fingers. The headpiece went whirling overboard, and fell into the sea with a splash.

“God bless my soul, I’ve lost my hat!” he exclaimed for the second time that day, as the catastrophe happened.

“He’ll use up every hat on board. You see if he don’t,” confided Mr. Tubbs to Nat, while the professor gazed fondly at the spot where the cap had vanished.

CHAPTER VI.

“WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TO A VOYAGE IN THE AIR?”

After breakfast the next morning, the professor appeared on the bridge with Nat when the latter took his daily observation, a practice which was, of course, in addition to the regular “shooting the sun,” which took place at noon. The man of science had already made a deep impression on the lad. He was eccentric to a degree; but in common with many men of ability, this was a characteristic that in no way appeared to affect his scientific ability. The evening before he had entertained all hands with fascinating tales of his experiences in various parts of the world. Already everybody felt the same respect for Professor Grigg as was manifest in the manner of the irrepressible Tubbs.

Nat operated his instruments and then noted the result on a pad, to be entered later in the log book. The professor peered over his shoulder as he jotted down his figures.

“Pardon me,” he observed, “but you are a hundredth part of a degree out of the way on that last observation.”

For an instant Nat felt nettled. He colored up and faced round on the scientist. But Professor Grigg’s bland look disarmed him.

“Is that so, professor?” he asked. “How is that?”

“Let me test your instruments,” was the reply. “It is impossible to tell without that.”

Nat handed the various instruments over to his learned companion. The professor scrutinized them narrowly.

“I think,” he said finally, “that the magnetic influences of yesterday’s storm have deflected all of them.”

“Of course,” agreed Nat. “How stupid of me not to have thought of that! Is it possible to adjust them?”

“I will try to do so,” said Professor Grigg, and, placing a sextant to his eye, he began twisting and adjusting a small set screw.

Several times he lowered the instrument, and, taking out a fountain pen and a loose-leaf notebook, wrote down his readings. Nat watched him with some fascination. There is always a pleasure to a clever lad in watching a man doing something which he is perfectly competent to do. The professor, the instant he laid his hands on the instruments, impressed Nat as possessing the latter quality to a degree.

“Just as I thought,” said the professor finally, “your instruments have been deflected. But we will set them right at noon. A few simple adjustments, that is all. But I find that you have kept them in wonderful shape, considering your rough and trying experiences.”

“We have always tried to,” said Nat. “We knew how much depended on them.”

“And yet,” mused the professor, with his eyes fixed intently on Nat, as the lad stood at the wheel, “without the ability to understand them, those instruments would be worthless. Conradini, the Italian explorer, learned that.”

“At the expense of his life,” put in Nat. “The lesson was lost.”

“Ah, you have heard of Conradini?” asked the professor, in seeming surprise.

“I have read of him in that pamphlet on aerial exploration issued by the Italian Royal Society,” was the reply.

The professor readjusted his glasses. In his astonishment, he almost lost his latest piece of headgear – loaned him by Ding-dong. It was a not too reputable-looking Scotch tam o’shanter.

“You have a knowledge that surprises me in one so young,” he declared at last. “You take an interest in exploration, then?”

“That was the object of the Motor Rangers, when first we founded them,” declared Nat. “I think,” he added, with a twinkle in his eye, “that we’ve had our fair share of adventure.”

“From what you have told me of your enterprises, I agree with you,” assented the professor warmly. “But you have not told me yet of the future.”

“How do you mean?” asked Nat.

“I mean, what plans have you ahead of you? What do you intend to do next?”

The question came bluntly. Nat answered it with equal frankness.

“I really don’t know,” he said. “As you are aware, though, our course is now laid for Santa Barbara.”

“So you said last night, when you kindly offered us a passage home,” said the professor.

He paused for an instant, and Nat swung the Nomad’s bow around a trifle more to the south.

“Have you no plans for further adventurous cruises or auto trips?” pursued the man of science.

Nat laughed.

“I guess we’ve had our fill of adventure for a time,” he said; “that cleft between the volcanic islands nearly proved our Waterloo.”

“Nonsense; such lads as you could not live without adventure,” admonished the professor, making a frantic grab at his hat, as a vagrant wind gave it a puff that set it rakishly sidewise above one ear. “Do you mean to say that you feel like settling down to humdrum life now, after all you have seen and endured?”

“I guess we all feel like taking a rest,” said Nat. “We have had a fairly strenuous time of it lately.”

“Granted. But it has put you into condition to weather further times of stress and trial. Ever since we had that talk last night about the Motor Rangers, and what they have accomplished, it has been in my mind to broach a proposition to you.”

“To us?” temporized Nat. “I don’t see where we could be of any use to Professor Thaddeus Grigg, the most noted scientist of investigation of this age.”

The professor raised a deprecatory hand.

“As if you had not been of the highest service to me and to my companion already,” he exclaimed. “Had it not been for you, we might have – oh, well, let us not talk about it. That coward of a captain – ”

He broke off abruptly. Nat waited for him to resume speaking.

“What I wanted to approach you about was this,” resumed the professor, after a minute. “From the moment I met you, you appeared to me to be self-reliant, enterprising boys, who mixed coolness and common sense with courage. Such being the case, you are just the combination I have been seeking for, to carry out a project which awaits me on my return to America. It is a scheme involving danger, excitement and rich rewards.”

He paused impressively. In spite of himself, Nat’s eyes began to dance, his pulse to beat a bit faster. Adventure was as the breath of life to the young leader of the Motor Rangers, and, to tell the truth, he had faced the prospect of a life of inactivity with mixed feelings.

“Well, sir?” was all he said, however.

The scientist continued, with apparent irrelevance.

“You three lads, from what you have told me, have operated motor cars, motor boats, and endured much in both forms of transportation?” he asked.

Nat nodded.

“I guess we’ve had our share of the rough along with the smooth,” he said briefly, but he was listening closely.

“What would you say to trying a voyage in the air?” was the question that the man of science suddenly launched at him without the slightest warning.