CHAPTER IX
A HURRIED DEPARTURE
Three men were seated about a table in a small room. On the table wereseveral instruments, a delicate scale, glass vessels and test tubes,a burning alcohol lamp that flickered under a pan, in which boiled,bubbled and steamed some odd-smelling mixture.
“Isn’t it almost done?” asked one of the men. “It seems to me,Professor Bailey, that it has cooked long enough.”
“What do you say, Professor Snodgrass?” was the reply of the oneappealed to.
“Hum! Well, you might put a little more of the clay in, and adda bit more glycerine. I think that would make it about the rightconsistency,” and the little bald-headed man bent over the steaming pan.
“All right, here goes a little more of the clay,” and the third memberof the trio, who in the dim light could be identified as RickfordFussel, put in the pan some of the yellow mud that he and his men haddug from the swamp. “There’s plenty of it--that’s one consolation,” helaughed, “and if it proves to be what we want, why, there’s a fortunein it.”
“Several of them, I should say,” was the opinion of the man who hadbeen called Professor Bailey. He looked at Professor Snodgrass forconfirmation.
“Yes,” admitted the little scientist, nodding his head thoughtfully.“There is no reason why this mixture should not replace theold-fashioned poultice and mustard plaster. It seems to be highlyefficacious. But I want to make that final test on a large swelling, asI told you, before I give my deciding opinion.”
“And you want to be sure the mixture is just right before you try it;is that it?” asked Fussel.
“That’s it,” said Professor Snodgrass. “You say you have the subject onwhom it can be tried?”
“Yes, I’ve got the subject. He’s one of our workmen, and his knee isbadly swelled from rheumatism. If this yellow clay, with the medicineswe have put in it, will cure that, it will do other things in themedical line that will make it worth all the money we paid for theland, and more too.”
“I think so,” responded Professor Snodgrass, gravely.
Again he bent over the pan that was simmering above the alcohol flame.He put in some more of the yellow clay, that was in a box on thetable, and added some glycerine and other things, stirring the mixtureslowly. A pleasant, aromatic odor filled the room.
“I think we might now call in the man on whom we are to try theexperiment,” said Dr. Snodgrass, after taking some of the mixture, andexamining it.
Fussel went to the door and called:
“Here you are, Bill!”
A man limped and shuffled into the room.
“How’s the pain?” asked Professor Bailey, a man with curiously shiftingeyes. He never, except by chance, looked you squarely in the face.
“The pain is fierce!” exclaimed Bill.
“And the swelling?” asked Fussel.
“Worse! My knee is as big as your head!”
“That’s good,” and Fussel rubbed his hands.
“Good!” cried Bill, indignantly. “Huh!”
“Well, I mean it’s good for our experiment, and it’ll be good for youwhen the pain is gone and the swelling reduced. Now put out your legand we’ll clap the plaster on.”
The man, whose trouser leg was slit to the knee, exhibited a red,inflamed and swollen leg. He could hardly move it.
“Now look here!” blustered Bill, “no monkey business, you know! I’mwilling to stand for this experiment, ’cause you paid me, and ’causenone of the other doctors seem to do any good. But no hocus-pocus! Nocutting, you know.”
“No, nothing like that,” agreed Fussel, smilingly.
“Perhaps I had better explain,” Professor Snodgrass said.
“Perhaps,” agreed Professor Bailey.
“My friends here,” began Dr. Snodgrass (and how Jerry would have staredhad he heard the scientist address Fussel as a “friend”), “my friends,”Professor Snodgrass went on, “have accidentally discovered a valuablemedicinal clay.”
“We discovered it,” broke in Fussel, “but it wasn’t until we appealedto you that you suggested a use for it.”
“Well, be that as it may,” went on the professor. “They have found adeposit of a curious clay that, when there is mixed with it certainkinds of medicine, acts as a most efficient poultice, or plaster.”
“Maybe you know what you’re talkin’ about, but I don’t,” grumbled Bill.“All I know is that my legs hurts.”
“Exactly,” said Professor Snodgrass. “Well, I will make it more simple.Did your wife ever put a mustard plaster on you for pain?”
“Indeed she has, and it burned like fire, too!”
“Ah, yes, I expect so. And did you ever have on a flaxseed poultice?”resumed Mr. Snodgrass.
“Once, when I had pneumonia.”
“Well, this new plaster, made of medicated clay, takes the place of amustard plaster, or a poultice. It will draw out pain, soreness andswelling, as we have proved in several cases. We now wish to try it ona larger scale, and with a severe case. It will not hurt you, and it maybenefit you greatly. Are you willing to risk it?”
“I’ll risk most anything to get rid of this pain!” cried Bill. “It’sfierce! Go ahead with your plaster.”
The mixture in the pan was stirred some more. Then a part of it wasspread on a cloth, and, when it was cool enough, it was put on theinflamed knee.
“Ouch! It burns!” cried Bill, jumping up.
“It will soon cool,” said Professor Snodgrass. “Sit still!”
The knee was bound up, and Bill limped away.
“We’ll look at it in the morning,” said Fussel. “Then you’ll be muchbetter.”
“If I’m any worse I’ll be dead,” grunted Bill.
“It is most fortunate that we met you, Professor Snodgrass,” spokeProfessor Bailey, when the things had been cleared from the table.“We thought there was some value in the clay of the swamp, but itneeded your specific line of knowledge to bring it out. We are deeplyindebted to you.”
“Oh, not so much as you imagine,” was the professor’s answer. “Myaccidental visit to the swamp resulted in the finding of severalvaluable entomological specimens. And I have not yet despaired offinding the two-tailed lizard here. I must resume my search to-morrow.”
The professor, who was stopping at the hotel in Bellport, sought hisroom, leaving the two men, in the house they had engaged not far fromthe hostelry, gazing thoughtfully at each other.
“He put us on the right track,” said Fussel.
“He sure did,” agreed his companion. “And as soon as we have thewidow’s land we won’t need to keep under cover any longer. Once we havethe deed we can announce our discovery, and I guess the stock of theUniversal Plaster Company won’t soar! Oh, no!”
“It will be a big thing,” agreed the other. “Medicated clay--no moreflaxseed poultices or mustard plasters. The new method will receive theindorsement of all physicians. There’ll be a fortune in it for all ofus.”
“And the best of it is that no one around here suspects what we are upto,” went on Fussel. “We’ve fooled ’em all!”
“And we mustn’t let this Snodgrass give us away,” cautioned Bailey. “Wemust get rid of him, now that he has shown us how to use the clay.”
“That’s right. I hope it works on Bill.”
And it did. The new plaster mixture did all that was expected of it.The swelling was all gone from Bill’s inflamed knee next morning, andthe pain much less.
“I thought it would work!” cried Professor Snodgrass, as he came overfrom his hotel to look at the patient. He went into a long explanationof the process of the plaster--how it contracted the small capillaries,and brought the internal poisons to the surface, where the clayabsorbed them.
“I don’t care how it did it, as long as my swelling is gone down, and Ican go to work!” cried Bill.
The new plaster was a success. They had proved it before on smallcases, and now, on this severe one, their opinions had been confirmed.
r />
“And there’s clay enough in that swamp to make us all rich!” criedFussel to Professor Bailey, when they were alone.
“Yes, but we must get the Hopkins tract,” was the answer. “The bestand the most of the clay is on that. We must have her land--by hook orcrook.”
And so, while Professor Snodgrass was busy looking for the two-tailedlizard, and other rare specimens, and, incidentally, giving adviceto his new “friends” about the yellow medical clay, negotiations forobtaining the land of Mrs. Hopkins were under way. They were nearlyconcluded, when, one night, Professor Snodgrass, who was calling onProfessor Bailey and Fussel, remarked:
“Well, I don’t believe I am going to find that lizard here. I willleave the hotel and go back to my friend, Jerry Hopkins. He and hischums must be about ready to start on a trip. I am always lucky when Igo with them. I shall surely find my two-tailed lizard!”
Fussel and Professor Bailey stared at each other. Then they looked atProfessor Snodgrass. The same thought was in the minds of both.
“Are--are you a friend of Jerry Hopkins?” asked Fussel.
“Why, yes. I’ve known him for some years. He and his chums have oftentaken me with them on their trips. I’ve been with them ever since wediscovered a buried city in Mexico. Oh, what rare specimens I gotthere! Those were happy days. But now I need that two-tailed lizard,and they may be going to the very place where I can find it.”
“And where is that?” asked Fussel, winking at his companion over theprofessor’s head.
“Oh, I can’t say, as to that. But no matter where the boys go I am sureto have some luck.”
“And you want a two-tailed lizard?” mused Fussel, thoughtfully.
“Indeed I do!”
There was a rapid interchange of looks between the two conspirators.
“Say!” suddenly exclaimed Fussel, “why didn’t I think of it before? Youknow that shack of mine--that hunting cabin up in the Maine mountains,Professor Bailey?”
“Of course I know it, Rick. What about it?”
“Why, don’t you remember those queer-looking, crawling things that usedto bother us so. Weren’t they lizards?”
“Why, yes, now I come to think of it; they were!”
“And didn’t they have a sort of double tail; not two tails side byside, but one on top of the other--the short one on top; didn’t they?”
“By Jove! So they did!” cried Professor Bailey, clapping his hand onhis leg as though the idea had just occurred to him.
“Maybe they’re just what the professor is looking for,” went on Fussel.“I didn’t dream of it before, but those were a sort of two-tailedlizard.”
Professor Snodgrass, with a hopeful look on his face, gazed from one tothe other.
“Gentlemen, is this so?” he asked, eagerly.
“Well, of course I don’t know what sort of a two-tailed lizard you areafter,” observed Fussel, slowly, “but the kind you want might be uparound a place I have in the mountains. If you like, I’ll let you staythere and hunt for the things. Glad to do it, in fact.”
“I’ll go!” cried the professor, with enthusiasm. “Where is it? How do Iget there? Tell me about it!”
They did, in a jumbled, confused way which showed how quickly they hadmade up the story between them. But the professor was not critical. Allhe thought of were the lizards.
“I’ll go!” he decided. “I’ll leave for Cresville at once, and get thethings I left with Mrs. Hopkins. Then I go. The boys can join me laterif they wish. I’ll go to Cresville at once!”
“No, you don’t need to do that!” exclaimed Fussel, again winking at theother professor. “You can get a train from here. In fact, one leavesthis afternoon.”
“But I have many things, and some rare specimens, at the Hopkins house.”
“No matter. We’ll send there and get them for you, and forward them toyou. Just write a note, or order, saying you want them. We’ll attend tothe rest.”
“All right,” agreed Professor Snodgrass. He was in a sort of daze.All that stood out clearly in his mind was the chance of getting thetwo-tailed lizards.
While he was writing the note to Mrs. Hopkins, requesting her todeliver to the bearer his possessions, Fussel and Bailey went out ofthe room.
“Whew!” exclaimed Bailey. “A close call, that!”
“I should say so! I never knew he was a friend of the Hopkins chap, orI’d never have asked him to make an examination of this clay.”
“Well, we’ve done it now. It’s too late to be sorry.”
“But no damage is done, if he doesn’t tell how valuable it is until weget possession of the land. After that we don’t care what happens.”
“No; but we must get him out of the way before he has a chance to talk.We’ve got to ship him right off. He mustn’t even see the Hopkins lad,or his chums.”
“You’re right; he mustn’t. We’ll have to keep him on the move.Fortunately he’s so wrapped up in this lizard business he won’t thinkof anything else. Now we’ll stick by him until the train leaves. Oncehe’s up in the mountains, hunting for lizards that don’t exist, we’llbe safe. We’ll have the land in our possession in a few days.”
The two conspirators took the note the professor had written. Then,never leaving him for an instant, they got him ready for his trip tothe mountains, where Fussel really did own a hunting cabin. It wasunoccupied, and was to be placed at the disposal of the professor.
“There you are now!” exclaimed Fussel, as he and Professor Bailey wentto the station with Dr. Snodgrass. “Just in time for the train.”
“And you won’t forget to send for my things at Mrs. Hopkins’s house?”asked the professor.
“We’ll attend to that,” promised Bailey.
“And you’ll tell her and the boys, why I had to leave so hurriedly--inorder that I might not miss a chance to get those lizards; will you?”
“Oh, yes, we’ll tell them,” glibly promised Fussel.
The train pulled in. The professor was hurried aboard with somearticles of wearing apparel hastily provided for him.
“Sorry to have to hustle you off in this way,” said Fussel, as thetrain pulled out, “but you really had no time to go to Cresville, yousee.”
“No, indeed,” added his fellow conspirator. “Those lizards are scarythings. They’re here to-day and gone to-morrow.”
“Don’t forget to send on my things!” cried the professor from the carwindow, “and don’t neglect to tell the boys to come and see me!”