Lost on the Moon - Roy Rockwood (year 7 reading list .txt) 📗

voice sure enough! I

wonder—can it be possible—that man—with his head all bandaged up—

his queer actions—I—I–-”

 

Words failed the youth. Throwing wide open the door, he sprang out of

the projectile. A moment later there dashed into the yard, where the

great projectile rested, a strange figure astride of a puffing

motorcycle. The figure was torn and, ragged, and the nondescript

garments were covered with dust, for Mark had had a fall. But there was

no mistaking the face that peered eagerly forward.

 

“Jack!” cried the youth on the machine.

 

“Mark!” ejaculated the lad who had sprung from the projectile. “What

has happened? Who is the fellow who has been masquerading as you?”

 

“A scoundrel and a villain! Let me get at him!” and, slamming on the

brakes, as he shut off the power, Mark leaped from the motorcycle,

stood it up against the projectile, and clasped his chum by the hand.

 

“What’s the matter?” asked Professor Henderson, as he, too, ran out of

the Annihilator. “What does that tramp want, Jack? Give him some

money, and get back in here; we ought to have started long ago.” He

looked at the ragged figure.

 

“This isn’t a tramp,” cried Jack. “It’s Mark!”

 

“Mark! I thought–-”

 

“There have been strange doings,” gasped the lad in tramp’s garments.

“I have just escaped from being kept a prisoner. Where is the

mysterious man? Oh, I’m glad I arrived in time! Were you about to

start?”

 

“That’s what we were,” replied Jack. “Oh, Mark, but I’m glad to see you

again! I didn’t know what to think. You acted so strange—or, rather,

the fellow we thought was you had me guessing!”

 

“Good land a’ massy!” exclaimed Washington White, as he stood in the

doorway, with Andy Sudds behind him. “Am dere two Marks? What’s up,

anyhow?”

 

“Don’t let that fellow get away—the fellow who passed himself off as

me!” shouted Mark. “Lock him up! There’s some mystery about him that

must be explained. He’s a dangerous man to be at large.”

 

Professor Henderson turned back to enter the projectile. Jack advised

Andy to get his gun ready, with which to threaten the scoundrel in case

of necessity.

 

At that instant there sounded a crash of glass, and the whole front of

the big observation window in the side of the Annihilator was smashed

to atoms. A figure leaped—a figure which no longer had its head

bandaged, and whose arm was no longer in a sling—the figure of a man—

the mysterious man who had held Mark a prisoner!

 

“There he goes!” shouted Jack. “Catch him, somebody! Andy, where’s your

gun?”

 

“I’ll have it in a jiffy!” cried the hunter, as he dashed back to get

it.

 

But the man did not linger. Scrambling to his feet after his fall,

caused by his leap from the broken window, which he had smashed with a

sledge hammer as soon as he understood that his game was up, he raced

out of the yard. He turned long enough to shake his fist at the group

assembled around the projectile, and then leaped away, calling out some

words which they could not hear.

 

“Let’s take after him,” proposed Mark.

 

“Come on,” seconded Jack.

 

“No, let him go; he’s a desperate man, and you came just in time to

unmask him,” said Professor Henderson. “He might harm you if you took

after him. Let him go. He has not done much damage. We can easily

replace the broken window. But I can’t understand what his object was

in disguising himself as Mark. He certainly looked like you, Mark,

especially when he kept his face concealed. Why did he do it?”

 

“He wanted to go to the moon in my place,” answered the former prisoner

of the deserted house.

 

“But why?” insisted Jack.

 

“Because, I think, he’s crazy, and he didn’t really know what he did

want. But he certainly had me well concealed,” spoke Mark. “I’m free

now, however, and as soon as I get some decent clothes on I’ll go with

you to the moon. I wouldn’t want the moon people to see me dressed this

way.”

 

“How did it happen?” asked Jack. “Tell us all about it. My! but I

certainly have been puzzled since you—or rather since the person we

thought was you—came back last night all bunged up. Give us the

story.”

 

“I will; give me a chance. I guess that villain is gone for good.” Andy

Sudds came out with his gun, and insisted on taking a look down the

road and around the premises. The man was nowhere in sight.

 

“Now we’re in for another delay,” remarked Jack ruefully, as he gazed

at the smashed window. “It seems as if we’d never get started for the

moon.”

 

“Oh, yes, we will,” declared Professor Henderson. “We have some extra

heavy plate glass in the shop, and we can soon put in another

observation window.”

 

“Let’s get right to work then,” proposed Jack. “That man may come back.

Did you learn who he was, Mark?”

 

“No, he wouldn’t tell his name, and he said he was doing this to get

revenge on us for some fancied wrong. I can’t imagine who he is. But

let’s work and talk at the same time. I’ll tell you all that happened

to me,” which he did briefly.

 

Mark soon got rid of the tramp clothes, and donned an extra suit which

had been packed in his trunk in the projectile. Then he helped replace

the broken window, which, in spite of their haste, took nearly all the

rest of the day to put in place.

 

“Shall we wait and start to-morrow?” asked Jack, when four o’clock

came. “It will soon be dark.”

 

“Darkness will make no difference to us,” announced Professor Roumann.

“Our Cardite motor will soon take us out of the shadow of the earth,

and we will be in perpetual sunshine until we reach the moon. As we are

all ready, we might as well start now.”

 

They all agreed with this, and, after a final inspection of the

projectile, the travellers entered it, and Jack was once more about to

seal the big door.

 

Before he could do so there came riding into the yard, on his

motorcycle, which he had claimed that afternoon, Dick Johnson.

 

“Wait a minute,” he cried. “I’ve got a letter for you. It’s from that

man!”

 

“What—another thing to delay us?” cried Jack, but he called to

Professor Roumann not to start the motor, and ran to take from Dick the

letter which the lad held out.

 

“That same man who gave me the one for Mark gave me this, and he paid

me a half a dollar to bring it here,” said the boy.

 

“All right,” answered Jack impatiently.

 

He looked at the note. It was addressed to the “Moon Travellers,” and,

considering that he was one, the youth tore open the envelope. In the

dim light of the fading day he read the bold handwriting.

 

“I have fixed you,” the letter began. “You will never get to the moon.

I shall have my revenge. You took my brother Fred Axtell to Mars and

left him there. I determined to get him back, and to that end I

disguised myself as one of the boys, and got aboard. When we were

safely away from the earth, I would have compelled you to go to Mars

and rescue my brother. But my plan has failed. I will have my revenge,

though. You will never reach the moon, even if you do get started.

Beware! George, the brother of Fred Axtell, will avenge his fate!”

 

“The brother of the crazy machinist!” gasped Jack. “Now I understand

his strange actions. He’s crazy, too—he wanted to go to Mars—he says

we will never reach the moon! Say, look here!” cried Jack, raising his

voice. “Here’s bad news! That scoundrel has put some game up on us!

Maybe he’s tampered with the machinery! It won’t be safe to start for

the moon until we’ve looked over everything carefully! He says he’s

fixed us, and perhaps he has!”

 

From the projectile came hurrying the would-be moon travellers, a vague

fear in their hearts.