Washington White was kept busy getting together the food for the
voyage, and he had about completed his task, while Andy Sudds announced
one morning that his department was ready for inspection, and that he
thought he would go hunting until the projectile was ready to start.

"Well, if you see anything of that queer man who sent me the note, just
ask him what he meant by it," suggested Mark, for inquiry from the boy
who had brought the message, developed the fact that Dick did not know
the man, nor had he ever seen him before. He was a stranger in the
neighborhood. But, as nothing more resulted from it, the two lads gave
the matter no further thought.

"How soon before we will be ready to start?" asked Jack one day, while
he and his chum, with the two professors, were working over the
projectile, which was soon to be shot through space.

"In about two weeks," replied Mr. Roumann. "I want to make a few
changes in the Cardite plates, which will replace the ones used on the
Etherium motor. Then I want to test them, and, if I find that they work
all right, as I hope, we will seal ourselves up in the _Annihilator_,
and start for the moon."

"Are you going to try to go around it, and land on the side turned away
from us?" asked Mark, who had been studying astronomy lately.

"What do you mean by that?" asked Jack. "Doesn't the moon turn around?"

"Not as the earth does," replied his chum; "or, rather, to be more
exact, it rotates exactly as the earth does, on its axis; but, in doing
this it occupies precisely the same time that it takes to make a