very far, the two Bungalow Boys were off after it, covering the ground in big leaps. But fast as they went, the wagon rumbled down the grade – which grew steeper as it neared the creek – just a little faster seemingly – than they did. Its tongue stuck straight out in front like the bowsprit of a vessel. It was for this point that both lads were aiming. Tom had a plan in his mind to avert the catastrophe that seemed almost inevitable.
Mustering every ounce of strength in his body, he made a spurt and succeeded in grasping the projecting tongue. In a second Jack was at his side.
“Swing her!” gasped out Tom. “It’s their only chance.”
But to swing over the tongue of a moving wagon when it is moving away from you is a pretty hard task. For a few seconds it looked as if, instead of succeeding in carrying out Tom’s suddenly-thought-of plan, both Bungalow Boys were going to be carried off by the wagon.
But a bit of rough ground gave them a foothold, and, exerting every ounce of power, the lads both shoved on the springy pole for all they were worth. Slowly it swung over, and the wagon altered its course.
“Steer her for that clump of bushes. They’ll stop her!” puffed out Tom.
“All right,” panted Jack, but as he gasped out the words there came an ominous sound:
Crack!
“Wow! The pole’s cracking!” yelled Jack.
The next instant the tough wood, which, strong as it seemed, was sun-dried and old, snapped off short in their hands under the unusual strain.
A cry of alarm broke out from the watchers at the top of the hill as this occurred. It looked as if nothing could now save the wagon from a dive into the creek.
But even as the shout resounded and the boys gave exclamations of disgust at their failure, the wagon drove into the mass of brush at almost the exact point for which they had been aiming. At just that instant a big rock had caught and diverted one of the hind wheels, and this, combined with the swing in the right direction already given the vehicle, saved the day.
With a resounding crashing and crackling, and redoubled yells from the terrified young Soopendykes on the top of the load, the wagon, as it plunged into the brush, hesitated, wavered, and – came to a standstill. But as the wheels ceased to revolve, Hamish’s carefully piled load gave a quiver, and, carrying the terrified youngsters with it, slid in a mighty pile off the wagon-bed.
Fortunately, the children were on top of the load, and they extricated themselves without difficulty. Hardly had they emerged, however, before a violent convulsion was observed in the toppled off heap, and presently a hand was seen to emerge and wave helplessly and imploringly.
“Who on earth can that be?” gasped the boys, glancing round to make sure all the group was there. Yes, they were all present and accounted for, – Mrs. Soopendyke, sobbing hysterically in the midst of her reunited family, the lads’ uncle, Mrs. Bijur, Hamish, and several other boarders who had been aroused by the explosion, and had set off on a run down the hill as the wagon plunged into the brush.
Before they could hasten forward to the rescue of whoever was struggling in the hay, a bony face, the nose crowned with a pair of immense horn spectacles, emerged. Presently it was joined by a youthful, pug-nosed countenance.
“Professor Dalhousie Dingle?” cried everybody, in astonishment. “And that dratted boy, Douglas Dingle!” echoed Mrs. Bijur.
“Yes, madam,” said the professor solemnly, emerging with what dignity he could, and then, taking his boy by the hand and helping him forth, “It is Professor Dingle. May I ask if this was intentional?”
“Why, dear land, perfusser, you know – ”
“I only know, madam, that while my lad Douglas here and myself were searching for specimens in the thicket we suddenly found ourselves overwhelmed with an avalanche of dried grass – or, as it is commonly called – hay. Bah! I am almost suffocated!”
The professor carefully extricated a “fox tail” from his ear and then performed the same kind office for his son and heir.
“Pa-pa,” piped up the lad, “may I ask a question?”
“Yes, my lad,” beamed the professor amiably stepping down from the pile of hay, which Hamish was regarding ruefully.
“Well,” spoke up Douglas, “if we had not gotten out from under that hay, would we have been suffocated?”
“Undoubtedly, my boy – undoubtedly,” was the rejoinder. “Gross carelessness, too.”
He scowled at the assembled group.
“Would it have hurt, pa-pa?”
“Surely, my boy. Suffocation, so science tells us, is a most painful form of death.”
“Worse than measles, pa-pa?”
“Yes, my child, and – ”
“Perfusser,” interrupted Mrs. Bijur, with firmness, “I want to know what you intend to do about my roof?”
It was the professor’s turn to look astonished.
“What roof, madam?” he asked, still brushing hay-seed from his long-tailed black coat.
“Ther roof of my extension whar you hed thet thar lab-or-at-ory – whar you was making them messes that was liable to blow up.”
“Well, madam?”
“Wall, sir – they done it!”
“They done – did what, madam?”
“Blowed up!” responded Mrs. Bijur, with deadly calm.
“Good heavens, madam – impossible!”
“Not with them Soopendykes around!” was the confident response. “It’s my belief they’d a turned the Garden of Eden inter a pantominium. They – ”
But the professor rushed off dragging Douglas by the hand, his long coat tails flapping in the air as he sped up the road as fast as his lanky legs would carry him.
“The greatest invention of the age has gone up in smoke!” he yelled, as he flew along.
Laughing heartily over the comical outcome of events that might have proved tragic, Mr. Dacre and the boys rendered what aid they could in replacing the hay load, and then started back for the bungalow. The last they saw of the professor he was crawling about on his hands and knees, scooping up fragments of the explosive with a tin teaspoon in one hand, and waving Mrs. Bijur indignantly to one side with the other. They little imagined, as they shook with amusement at the ludicrous picture, under what circumstances they were to meet the professor again, and what a singular part his explosive was destined to play in the not very far distant future.
CHAPTER IV.
BULLY BANJO’S SCHOONER
“Guess this will be your getting-off place.”
One of the deck hands of the smoke-grimed, shabbily painted old side-wheeler, plying between Victoria, B. C., and Seattle, paused opposite Mr. Dacre and the Bungalow Boys. They stood on the lee side of the upper deck regarding the expanse of tumbling water between them and the rocky, mountainous coast beyond. The sky was blue and clean-swept. A crisp wind, salt with the breath of the Pacific, swept along Puget Sound from the open sea.
The surging waters of the Sound reflected, but, with a deeper hue, the blue of the sky. The mountainous hills beyond were blue, too, – a purplish-blue, with the dark, inky shadows of big pines and spruces. Here and there great patches of gray rock, gaunt and bare as a wolf’s back, cropped out. Behind all the snow-clad Olympians towered whitely.
Off to port of where the steamer was now crawling slowly along – a pall of black, soft coal smoke flung behind her – was a long point, rocky and pine-clad like the mountains behind it. On the end of it was a white, melancholy day-beacon. It looked like a skeleton against its dark background.
“There’s Dead Man’s Point,” added the friendly deck hand.
“And Jefferson