CHAPTER XIII

A DIREFUL THREAT


Perhaps Washington White's Shanghai rooster did not care to make the
trip to the moon, or perhaps the fowl had not yet seen enough of this
earth. At any rate, when he flew from the projectile, uttering loud
crows, and landed some distance away, he began to run back toward the
coop in the rear of the yard.

"Cotch him, cotch him!" yelled the colored man. "Dat's a valuable
bird!"

"We'll get him when he goes in the coop," said Jack, who found it
difficult to run and laugh at the same time.

"Shall I fire my rifle off and scare him?" asked Andy Sudds.

"No, you might kill him or scare him t' death," objected Washington.

"Come on, Mark, and help," cried Jack, looking toward the projectile,
where a figure was peering from the glass-covered port of the main
cabin.

But the figure, whose hand was done up in voluminous bandages, did not
come out, and Jack wondered the more at what he thought was a growing