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 Station is in beyond it?” asked Mr. Dacre.
“That’s right. Must look lonesome to you Easterners.”
“It certainly does,” agreed Mr. Dacre. “Boys,” he went on, looking anxiously landward, “I don’t see a sign of a shore boat yet.”
At this point of the conversation the captain pulled his whistle cord, and the ugly, old side-wheeler’s siren emitted a sonorous blast.
Poking his head out of the pilot house window, he shouted down at Mr. Dacre and the boys:
“I’m a goin’ ter lay off here for ten minutes. If no shore boat shows up by that time, on we go to Seattle.”
“Very well,” responded Mr. Dacre, hiding his vexation as best he could. “We must – but,” he broke off abruptly, as from round the point there suddenly danced a small sloop. “I guess that’s the boat now, captain!” he hailed up.
“Hope so, anyhow,” ejaculated Tom, while the captain merely gave a grunt. He was annoyed at having to slow up his steamer. As the engine room bell jingled, the clumsy old side wheels beat the water less rapidly. Presently the old tub lay rolling in the trough of the sea almost motionless. On came the boat under a press of canvas. She heeled over smartly. In her stern was an upright figure; the lower part of his face was covered with a big, brown beard. As he saw the party, he waved a blue-shirted arm.
“That’s Colton Chillingworth!” exclaimed Mr. Dacre. “I haven’t seen him for ten years, but I’d know that big outline of a man any place.”
The deck hands were now all ready with the travelers’ steamer trunks. The boys had their suit cases, gun bags, and fishing rods in their hands.
“How on earth are we ever going to board that boat?” wondered Jack, rather apprehensively, as the tiny craft came dancing along like a light-footed terpsichorean going through the mazes of a quadrille.
“Jump!” was Mr. Dacre’s response. “These steamers don’t make landings. I’m glad Chillingworth was in time, or we might have been carried on to Seattle.”
And now the boat was cleverly run in alongside. She came up under the lee of the heavily rolling steamer, her sails flapping with a loud report as the wind died out of them.
“Hul-lo, Dacre!” came up a hearty hail from the big figure in the stern. “Hullo there, boys! Ready to come aboard?”
“Aye, aye, Colton!” hailed back Mr. Dacre. “We’ll be with you in a minute.”
“If we don’t tumble overboard first,” muttered Jack to himself.
“Better take the lower deck, sir,” suggested one of the deck hands.
Accordingly, our party traversed the faded splendors of the little steamer’s saloon and emerged presently by her paddle box. Between the side of the vessel and the big curved box was a triangular platform.
“Stand out on this, sir, and you and the boys jump from it,” suggested the deck hand.
“A whole lot easier to say than to do,” was Tom’s mental comment. He said nothing aloud, however.
In the meantime their baggage had been lowered by a sling. A second person, who had just emerged from the cabin of the little boat, was active in stowing it in the cockpit. This personage was a Chinaman. He wore no queue, however, but still clung to the loose blue blouse and trousers of his country.
“Allee lightee. You come jumpee now,” he hailed up, when the baggage was stowed.
“Here goes, boys,” cried Mr. Dacre, with a laugh. He made a clean spring and landed on the edge of the deck of the plunging sloop. The Chinaman caught him on one side, while the lad’s uncle braced himself on the other by grabbing a stay. Another instant and the boys could see him and Mr. Chillingworth warmly shaking hands.
“Go ahead, Jack,” urged Tom. But for once Jack did not seem anxious to take the lead. He hesitated and looked about him. But he only saw the grinning faces of the deck hands.
“Come on!” shouted his uncle, extending his arms. “It’s easy. We’ll catch you.”
“Hum! If I had my diving suit here, I’d feel better,” muttered
