Chapter 19: The Mighty Defender

Professor Erasmus Darwin Longworth was very grave. He felt that three lives besides his own were in his keeping, and he was resolved to protect them. None knew better than he the cunning and cruelty of the Apaches. Already he had once saved Charles at great risk to himself, and he was willing to undergo such risks again for any one of the three or for them all.

But the Professor was a wise man, learned, as few are, not alone in theory, but in action as well, and, telling the other three to watch closely, he withdrew in the morning to one of the cliff houses, in which some of his most precious possessions were stored. This house was comparatively well lighted, with a long narrow window, a slit between the stones, and drawing his materials close to the window the Professor began a work which he prosecuted with great care. He took from a case six small metal shells, not as large as a hen’s egg.

These little eggs were hollow and empty with a small hole at the end. The Professor filled every egg carefully with a composition into which picric acid entered. Then he closed up the apertures with fuses, and gingerly placed the six eggs in various pockets of his Norfolk jacket.

“I thought to use these for blowing out stone,” he said grimly to himself, “but I may need them more for other purposes. One must prepare for every contingency.”

He returned to the terrace, making no explanation concerning his absence in the stone hut, and they resumed the watch. Another hour passed, and then they heard a dull, rumbling noise on the plateau.

“What under the sun can that be?” exclaimed Jedediah Simpson.

The rumble increased to a roar, and then something struck upon the terrace with a crash. They had a glimpse of a great stone bounding by them, they felt a rush of air past their faces and then the stone shot into the gulf, from the bottom of which came the far echo of its fall.

In a minute or two another struck upon the terrace with great force, and then rebounded into the gulf. The boys looked at each other with blanched faces. This was a form of attack that they did not know how to meet.

“Great Jupiter!” exclaimed Jed, “I hope none o’ them stones will hit me!”

But Professor Longworth never lost his composure.

“I thought they would come to that,” he said. “Of course they’ve recovered their courage by daylight, and perhaps suspect a trick, when I frightened them with the electric light. It’s a wonder they did not use those bowlders sooner.”

“But how are we to get back at them, Professor?” asked Charles. “If they keep on some of these things are bound to hit unless we withdraw to the shelter of the stone huts. And if we do withdraw the pass is left undefended.”

“All that you say is true,” replied Professor Longworth. “But I think I have a method of meeting them. You three remain here, shelter yourselves as well as you can from the stones and watch the pass.”

They obeyed in silence, and the Professor went back toward the cliff house, nearest to the pole ladder stairway. A stone almost grazed him before he reached it, but he did not turn aside. When he was under the shelter of its walls he rested a moment. Then finding a foothold on the rough stones he climbed up to the flat roof. There he lay extended, not moving at all for at least three minutes. Then he slowly raised himself until he stood erect and close to the face of the cliff. The three at the head of the pass could see him, but the Apaches on the plateau could not.

The three, despite their urgent duty to guard the pass, could not keep from watching the Professor, standing on the flat roof of the stone cliff house. His face was almost entirely hidden by the enormous pith helmet. A shaft of sunshine struck fairly upon his great glasses and gave back a golden gleam. His figure remained rigidly erect upon his toes and then his right hand slipped into a pocket of his Norfolk jacket.

A great stone crashed down, and the Professor seemed to mark the point from which it came. The three saw his hand come swiftly from his pocket. In his hand he held something small, shaped like an egg, that gave back a metallic gleam when the sun struck upon it. The Professor’s arm curved back like that of a baseball player, and then shot forward with amazing swiftness.

The little metal egg left his fingers like a stone from a sling. It flew upward and inward, struck well back upon the plateau, and its impact was followed by a terrific report. Earth and stone flew into the air, and there were cries of pain and rage.

“He has thrown a bomb,” said Charles, “and it has hit among the Apaches!”

“They might have known he’d a-done it,” said Jed. “Ain’t I said all the time that he’s the greatest man in the world. It ain’t only the fact that he’s read all the books ever printed, but he can do everything, too.”

The Apaches waited a long time before they rolled another stone, but the moment it fell the Professor threw a second bomb in the direction from which it came, and, after that, the bombardment ceased entirely.

Professor Longworth waited a long time, descended the roof and returning to the stone hut, in which he had charged them, carefully removed the four remaining bombs from his pockets.

“I don’t think they’ll try that trick again,” he said to himself.

The remainder of the day passed in silence. Then came the long night. But it, too, finally passed, the darkness fled, the red sun shot up from the deep, and vapors rose from the earth. Once again the waves of hot air from the desert met the waves of cold air from the peaks, and over the mountains the clouds began to grow. Mists gathered, and close suffocating banks of air floated down the canyon. The four saw, but, save the Professor, scarcely noticed, the change in the heavens, and the Apaches below, so intent for blood and revenge, took no notice either.

But the clouds presently covered all the heavens and began to give forth flashes of fire. Then the peaks grumbled to one another in low thunder.

The four still watched. Two or three shots were fired from below, but they whistled above their heads, and the four paid no attention save to infer that all the Apaches had returned to the bottom of the canyon. Then followed a long silence and they still waited. After a while the storm came. The flashes of lightning were so fast and intense that all the mountains swam in the red glare, peaks and ridges stood back against an ashen sky, and every canyon and gorge rumbled with the continuous thunder. Then the rain rushed down, the lightning and the thunder ceased and nothing was heard, save the beat of the water upon the thirsty ground, which drank it up and asked incessantly for more. From the door of a cave house, to which they had retreated, the four watched it.

There was a noise from the canyon and all started. The Professor sprang from the entrance, and the rain dashed in a torrent into his face, but he heard a crash far down the slope, repeated four or five times, and then a thunderous echo that came through the rain.

“It was only a bowlder loosed from the mountainside by the wind and water,” Herbert said. “Those old cliff dwellers must have grown used to the grandeur of nature.”

The Professor shook his head.

“See,” he said.

All were by his side now, and they looked down. The mighty sweep of the rain had driven away the mists and vapors, and they could see through it as through a veil darkly. The other side of the ravine showed dimly like the black wall of a well, but the little river had suddenly increased many times in volume, and, with a joyful roar, leaped forward in a whirl of foam.

“There must have been a cloudburst further up,” said the Professor, “and if the Apaches were down there on the floor of the canyon when this came, they are not likely to do any hunting of man or beast again. The stream is running now, a great flooded river.”

They stood there a while, secure in this little fortress, and looked out at the wildest world that any of them had ever beheld. The thunder and the lightning had ceased entirely, but they heard plainly the rush and sweep of the torrent, as it rolled down the canyon, bearing bushes and trees upon its muddy surface.

“I’d rather be here than thar,” said Jed Simpson, and the others gave him silent but hearty assent.

The rain died away and ceased, the clouds fled, and the sun came out, shedding a flood of golden light over the ravine and the slopes, the muddy torrent sank fast, until it became again the thin, sprawling creek of every day, and only the dripping trees and bushes told of the storm that had passed.

“One thing is sure,” said the Professor, “if the Apaches were in the canyon they were washed away, but if they got out in time they are not likely to come back again soon. They will be convinced that all the gods in every mythology are against them.”

“You never spoke truer words, Purfessor,” said Jed. “It’s all been mighty cur’ous an’ interestin’, but it seems to me that Natur’ took a hand in our favor.”

“She certainly did, Jed,” said the Professor sincerely, “and now I think we’d better scout a little below, using all due caution.”