The Lost City by Jr. Joseph E. Badger (me reader .txt) 📖
- Author: Jr. Joseph E. Badger
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the miscalled “twister,” which has wrought such dire destruction
throughout a large portion of our own land during more recent
years.
While that little lecture would make interesting reading for
those who take an interest in such matters, it need scarcely be
reproduced in this connection, more particularly as, just when
the professor was getting fairly warmed up to his work, an
interruption came in the shape of a sharp, eager shout from the
lips of Waldo Gillespie.
“Look—look yonder! What a funny looking cloud that is!”
A small clump of trees growing upon a rising bit of ground
interfered with the view of his brother and uncle, for Waldo was
pointing almost due southeast; yet his excitement was so
pronounced that both the professor and Bruno hastened in that
direction, stopping short as they caught a fair sight of the
object indicated.
A mighty mass of wildly disturbed clouds, black and green and
white and yellow all blending together and constantly shifting
positions, out of which was suddenly formed a still more ominous
shape.
A mass of lurid vapour shot downwards, taking on the general
semblance of a balloon, as it swayed madly back and forth, an
elongating trunk or tongue reaching still nearer the earth, with
fierce gyrations, as though seeking to fasten upon some support.
Not one of that trio had ever before gazed upon just such another
creation, yet one and all recognised the truth,—this was a
veritable tornado, just such as they had read in awed wonder
about, time and time again.
Neither one of the brothers Gillespie were cravens, in any sense
of the word, but now their cheeks grew paler, and they seemed to
shrink from yonder airy monster, even while watching it grow into
shape and awful power.
Professor Featherwit was no less absorbed in this wondrous
spectacle, but his was the interest of a scientist, and his pulse
beat as ordinary, his brain remaining as clear and calm as ever.
“I hardly believe we have anything to fear from this tornado, my
lads,” he said, taking note of their uneasiness. “According to
both rule and precedent, yonder tornado will pass to the east of
our present position, and we will be as safe right here as though
we were a thousand miles away.”
“But,—do they always move towards the northeast, uncle Phaeton?”
“As a rule, yes; but there are exceptions, of course. And unless
this should prove to be one of those rare ex—er—”
“Look!” cried Waldo, with swift gesticulation. “It’s coming this
way, or I never—ISN’T it coming this way?”
“Unless this should prove to be one of those rare exceptions, my
dear boy, I can promise you that—Upon my soul!” with an abrupt
change of both tone and manner, “I really believe it IS coming
this way!”
“It is—it is coming! Get a move on, or we’ll never know—hunt a
hole and pull it in after you!” fairly screamed Waldo, turning in
flight.
CHAPTER II.
PROFESSOR FEATHERWIT TAKING NOTES.
“To the house!” cried the professor, raising his voice to
overcome yonder sullen roar, which was now beginning to come
their way. “Trust all to the aeromotor, and ‘twill be well with
us!”
The wiry little man of science himself fell to work with an
energy which told how serious he regarded the emergency, and,
acting under his lead, the brothers manfully played their part.
Just as had been done many times before this day, a queer-looking
machine was shoved out from the shed, gliding along the wooden
ways prepared for that express purpose, while Professor
Featherwit hurried aboard a few articles which past experience
warned him might prove of service in the hours to come, then
sharply cried to his nephews:
“Get aboard, lads! Time enough, yet none to spare in idle
motions. See! The storm is drifting our way in deadly earnest!”
And so it seemed, in good sooth.
Now fairly at its dread work of destruction, tearing up the rain
dampened dirt and playing with mighty boulders, tossing them here
and there, as a giant of olden tales might play with jackstones,
snapping off sturdy trees and whipping them to splinters even
while hurling them as a farmer sows his grain.
Just the one brief look at that aerial monster, then both lads
hung fast to the hand-rail of rope, while the professor put that
cunning machinery in motion, causing the air-ship to rise from
its ways with a sudden swooping movement, then soaring upward and
onward, in a fair curve, as graceful and steady as a bird on
wing.
All this took some little time, even while the trio were working
as men only can when dear life is at stake; but the
flying-machine was afloat and fairly off upon the most marvellous
journey mortals ever accomplished, and that ere yonder
death-balloon could cover half the distance between.
“Grand! Glorious! Magnificent!” fairly exploded the professor,
when he could risk a more comprehensive look, right hand tightly
gripping the polished lever through which he controlled that
admirable mechanism. “I have longed for just such an
opportunity, and now—the camera, Bruno! We must never neglect
to improve such a marvellous chance for—get out the camera,
lad!”
“Get out of the road, rather!” bluntly shouted Waldo, face
unusually pale, as he stared at yonder awful force in action. “Of
course I’m not scared, or anything like that, uncle Phaeton,
but—I want to rack out o’ this just about the quickest the law
allows! Yes, I DO, now!”
“Wonderful! Marvellous! Incredible! That rara avis, an
exception to all exceptions!” declared the professor, more deeply
stirred than either of his nephews had ever seen him before. “A
genuine tornado which has no eastern drift; which heads as
directly as possible towards the northwest, and at the same
time—incredible!”
Only ears of his own caught these sentences in their entirety,
for now the storm was fairly bellowing in its might, formed of a
variety of sounds which baffles all description, but which, in
itself, was more than sufficient to chill the blood of even a
brave man. Yet, almost as though magnetised by that frightful
force, the professor was holding his air-ship steady, loitering
there in its direct path, rather than fleeing from what surely
would prove utter destruction to man and machine alike.
For a few moments Bruno withstood the temptation, but then leaned
far enough to grasp both hand and tiller, forcing them in the
requisite direction, causing the aeromotor to swing easily around
and dart away almost at right angles to the track of the tornado.
That roar was now as of a thousand heavily laden trains rumbling
over hollow bridges, and the professor could only nod his
approval when thus aroused from the dangerous fascination.
Another minute, and the air-ship was floating towards the rear of
the balloon-shaped cloud itself, each second granting the
passengers a varying view of the wonder.
True to the firm hand which set its machinery in motion, the
flying-machine maintained that gentle curve until it swung around
well to the rear of the cloud, where again Professor Featherwit
broke out in ecstatic praises of their marvellous good fortune.
” ‘Tis worth a life’s ransom, for never until now hath mortal
being been blessed with such a magnificent opportunity for taking
notes and drawing deductions which—”
The professor nimbly ducked his head to dodge a ragged splinter
of freshly torn wood which came whistling past, cast far away
from the tornado proper by those erratic winds. And at the same
instant the machine itself recoiled, shivering and creaking in
all its cunning joints under a gust of wind which seemed composed
of both ice and fire.
“Oh, I say!” gasped Waldo, when he could rally from the sudden
blow. “Turn the old thing the other way, uncle Phaeton, and
let’s go look for—well, almost anything’s better than this old
cyclone!”
“Tornado, lad,” swiftly corrected the man of precision, leaning
far forward, and gazing enthralled upon the vision which fairly
thrilled his heart to its very centre. “Never again may we have
such another opportunity for making—”
They were now directly in the rear of the storm, and as the
air-ship headed across that track of destruction, it gave a
drunken stagger, casting down its inmates, from whose parching
lips burst cries of varying import.
“Air! I’m choking!” gasped Bruno, tearing open his shirt-collar
with a spasmodic motion.
“Hold me fast!” echoed Waldo, clinging desperately to the
life-line. “It’s drawing me—into the—ah!”
Even the professor gave certain symptoms of alarm for that
moment, but then the danger seemed past as the ship darted fairly
across the storm-trail, hovering to the east of that aerial
phantom.
There was no difficulty in filling their lungs now, and once more
Professor Featherwit headed the flying-machine directly for the
balloon-shaped cloud, modulating its pace so as to maintain their
relative position fairly well.
“Take note how it progresses,—by fits and starts, as it were,”
observed Featherwit, now in his glory, eyes asparkle and muscles
aquiver, hair bristling as though full of electricity, face
glowing with almost painful interest, as those shifting scenes
were for ever imprinted upon his brain.
“Sort of a hop, step, and jump, and that’s a fact,” agreed Waldo,
now a bit more at his ease since that awful sense of suffocation
was lacking. “I thought all cyclones—”
“Tornado, my DEAR boy!” expostulated the professor.
“I thought they all went in holy hurry, like they were sent for
and had mighty little time in which to get there. But this
one,—see how it stops to dance a jig and bore holes in the
earth!”
“Another exception to the general rule, which is as you say,”
admitted the professor. “Different tornadoes have been timed as
moving from twelve to seventy miles an hour, one passing a given
point in half a score of seconds, at another time being
registered as fully half an hour in clearing a single section.
“Take the destructive storm at Mount Carmel, Illinois, in June of
‘77. That made progress at the rate of thirty-four miles an
hour, yet its force was so mighty that it tore away the spire,
vane, and heavy gilded ball of the Methodist church, and kept it
in air over a distance of fifteen miles.
“Still later was the Texas tornado, doing its awful work at the
rate of more than sixty miles an hour; while that which swept
through Frankfort, Kansas, on May 17, 1896, was fully a half-hour
in crossing a half-mile stretch of bottom-land adjoining the
Vermillion River, pausing in its dizzy waltz upon a single spot
for long minutes at a time.”
“Couldn’t have been much left when it got through dancing, if
that storm was anything like this one,” declared Waldo, shivering
a bit as he watched the awful destruction being wrought right
before their fascinated eyes.
Trees were twisted off and doubled up like blades of dry grass.
Mighty rocks were torn apart from the rugged hills, and huge
boulders were tossed into air as though composed of paper. And
over all ascended the horrid roar of ruin beyond description,
while from that misshapen balloon-cloud, with its flattened top,
the electric fluid shone and flashed, now in great sheets as of
flame, then in vicious spurts and darts as though innumerable
snakes of fire had been turned loose by the winds.
Still the aerial demon bored its almost sluggish course straight
towards the northwest, in this, as in all else, seemingly bent on
proving itself the exception to all exceptions as Professor
Featherwit declared.
The savant himself was now in his glory, holding the tiller
between arm and
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