The Lost City [20]
forcing a bright smile as he glanced from face to face. "And why not? How better could my last years be employed than in piercing the clouds of mystery, and doubt, and superstition, with which this vast tract has been enveloped for uncounted ages?"
"Is it really so unknown, then, uncle Phaeton?" hesitatingly asked Bruno, touched, in spite of himself, by that intensely earnest tone and expression. "Of course, I know what the Indians say; they are full of a rude sort of superstitious awe, which--"
"Which is one of the surest proofs that truth forms a foundation for that very superstition," quickly interjected the professor. "It is an undisputed fact that there are hundreds upon hundreds of square miles of terra incognita, lying in this corner of Washington Territory. No white man ever fairly penetrated these wilds, even so far as we may have been carried while riding the tornado. Or, if so, he assuredly has never returned, or made known his discoveries."
"Provided there was anything beyond the ordinary to see or experience, shouldn't we add, uncle?" suggested Waldo, modestly.
"There is,--there must be! No matter how wildly improbable their traditions may seem in our judgment, it only takes calm investigation to bring a fair foundation to light. In regard to this vast scope of country, go where you will among the natives, question whom you see fit, as to its secrets, and you will meet with the same results: a deep-seated awe, a belief which cannot be shaken, that here strange monsters breed and flourish, matched in magnitude and power by an armed race of human beings, before whose awful might other tribes are but as ants in the pathway of an elephant."
Waldo let escape a low, prolonged whistle of mingled wonder and incredulity, but Bruno gave him a covert kick, himself too deeply interested to bear with a careless interruption just then.
"Of course there may be something of exaggeration in all this," admitted the enthusiastic professor. "Undoubtedly, there is at least a fair spice of that; but, even so, enough remains to both waken and hold our keenest interest. Listen, and take heed, my good lads.
"You have often enough, of late days, noticed these mountains, and if you remark their altitude, the vast scope of country they dominate, the position they fill, you must likewise realise one other fact: that an immense quantity of snow in winter, rain in spring and autumn, surely must fall throughout the Olympics. Understand?"
"Certainly; why not, uncle Phaeton?"
"Then tell me this: where does all the moisture go to? What becomes of the surplus waters? For it is an acknowledged fact that, though rivers and brooks surely exist in the Olympics, not one of either flows away from this wide tract of country!"
The professor paused for a minute, to let his words take full effect, then even more positively proceeded:
"You may say, what I have had others offer by way of solution, that all is drained into a mighty inland sea or enormous lake. Granting so much, which I really believe to be the truth as far as it goes, why does that lake never overflow? Of all that surely must drain into its basin, be that enormously wide and deep as it may, how much could ordinary evaporation dispose of? Only an infinitesimal portion; scarcely worth mentioning in such connection. Then,--what becomes of the surplusage?"
Another pause, during which neither Gillespie ventured a solution; then the professor offered his own suggestion:
"It must flow off in some manner, and what other manner can that be than--through a subterranean connection with the Pacific Ocean?"
Bruno gave a short ejaculation at this, while Waldo broke forth in words, after his own particular fashion:
"Jules Verne redivivus! Why can't WE take a trip through the centre of the earth, or--or--any other little old thing like that?"
"With the tank of compressed air as a life-preserver?" laughed Bruno, in turn. "That might serve, but; unfortunately, we have only the one, and we are three in number, boy."
"Only two, now; I'm squelched!"
"Is it really so unknown, then, uncle Phaeton?" hesitatingly asked Bruno, touched, in spite of himself, by that intensely earnest tone and expression. "Of course, I know what the Indians say; they are full of a rude sort of superstitious awe, which--"
"Which is one of the surest proofs that truth forms a foundation for that very superstition," quickly interjected the professor. "It is an undisputed fact that there are hundreds upon hundreds of square miles of terra incognita, lying in this corner of Washington Territory. No white man ever fairly penetrated these wilds, even so far as we may have been carried while riding the tornado. Or, if so, he assuredly has never returned, or made known his discoveries."
"Provided there was anything beyond the ordinary to see or experience, shouldn't we add, uncle?" suggested Waldo, modestly.
"There is,--there must be! No matter how wildly improbable their traditions may seem in our judgment, it only takes calm investigation to bring a fair foundation to light. In regard to this vast scope of country, go where you will among the natives, question whom you see fit, as to its secrets, and you will meet with the same results: a deep-seated awe, a belief which cannot be shaken, that here strange monsters breed and flourish, matched in magnitude and power by an armed race of human beings, before whose awful might other tribes are but as ants in the pathway of an elephant."
Waldo let escape a low, prolonged whistle of mingled wonder and incredulity, but Bruno gave him a covert kick, himself too deeply interested to bear with a careless interruption just then.
"Of course there may be something of exaggeration in all this," admitted the enthusiastic professor. "Undoubtedly, there is at least a fair spice of that; but, even so, enough remains to both waken and hold our keenest interest. Listen, and take heed, my good lads.
"You have often enough, of late days, noticed these mountains, and if you remark their altitude, the vast scope of country they dominate, the position they fill, you must likewise realise one other fact: that an immense quantity of snow in winter, rain in spring and autumn, surely must fall throughout the Olympics. Understand?"
"Certainly; why not, uncle Phaeton?"
"Then tell me this: where does all the moisture go to? What becomes of the surplus waters? For it is an acknowledged fact that, though rivers and brooks surely exist in the Olympics, not one of either flows away from this wide tract of country!"
The professor paused for a minute, to let his words take full effect, then even more positively proceeded:
"You may say, what I have had others offer by way of solution, that all is drained into a mighty inland sea or enormous lake. Granting so much, which I really believe to be the truth as far as it goes, why does that lake never overflow? Of all that surely must drain into its basin, be that enormously wide and deep as it may, how much could ordinary evaporation dispose of? Only an infinitesimal portion; scarcely worth mentioning in such connection. Then,--what becomes of the surplusage?"
Another pause, during which neither Gillespie ventured a solution; then the professor offered his own suggestion:
"It must flow off in some manner, and what other manner can that be than--through a subterranean connection with the Pacific Ocean?"
Bruno gave a short ejaculation at this, while Waldo broke forth in words, after his own particular fashion:
"Jules Verne redivivus! Why can't WE take a trip through the centre of the earth, or--or--any other little old thing like that?"
"With the tank of compressed air as a life-preserver?" laughed Bruno, in turn. "That might serve, but; unfortunately, we have only the one, and we are three in number, boy."
"Only two, now; I'm squelched!"