Lost on the Moon by Roy Rockwood

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"By gum!" suddenly exclaimed Andy.

"What's the matter?" asked Jack, for the old hunter was capering about
like a boy.

"Matter? Why, the matter is that I'm a double-barrelled dunce," was the
answer. "Look here; do you see that?" and he held up his rifle.

"Sure," replied Jack, wondering if their sufferings and worry had made
the old hunter simple-minded.

"What is it?" asked Andy, shaking it in the air.

"Your rifle," answered Mark, looking at Jack in surprise.

"Of course," answered the hunter, "and a rifle is made to be fired off,
and here I've been carrying mine for nearly three days now, and I
haven't shot it once. You wanted a signal to make the folks in the
projectile hear us. Well, here it is I I guess they can hear this, and
when they do they can come and get us, for we don't seem able to reach
them. I'll just fire some signal shots."

"That's the stuff!" cried Jack, and Andy proceeded to discharge his
rifle.

The report the gun made in that quiet place was tremendous, and the
effect was curious, for, there being no air in the ordinary acceptance
of the word, there was no echo. It was as if one had hit two shingles
together. Merely a loud, sharp sound, and then an utter silence, the
vibrations being swallowed up instantly.

"Do you think they can hear that?" asked Andy.

"It sounds loud enough," answered Jack. "Shoot some more," which the
old hunter did. They wandered on still farther, firing at intervals all
that day, but there came no answering report or calls to direct them to
the projectile. They climbed once more to the tops of towering peaks,
but there they found their range of vision limited by peaks still
higher, while there were great valleys, in one of which, whether near
or far they could not tell, they knew, the _Annihilator_ was hidden.

They had almost lost track of time now, and they did not know how far
they had wandered. They had sought out lonely caves to sleep in when
they were so weary they could go no farther, and they had sat about on
bleak rocks shivering, and had eaten their scanty meals--shivering
because in spite of their fur garments they were cold, as they did not
eat enough to keep their blood properly circulating. They could not
when they did not have the food to eat!

Andy used up all but a few of his cartridges in firing signals, but to
no purpose. Their water was all but gone, and of their food only enough
remained for a day longer, though their life-torches still gave forth
plenty of vapor.

"Well, what's to be done?" asked Jack, as they sat about, looking
helplessly at one another.

"Might as well give up," suggested Mark bitterly.

"Give up? Not a bit of it!" cried Andy, as cheerfully as he could.
"Let's keep on. We'll find the projectile sooner or later."

So they kept on. It was while making their way between two great
mountain peaks that towered above their heads on either side, thousands
of feet up, making a sort of natural gateway, that Jack, who was in the
lead, cried out in astonishment at the sight that met his gaze when he
had passed the pinnacles.

"Look!" he shouted, pointing forward.

What he indicated was a great crater--larger and deeper than any they
had yet met with. It seemed a mile across, and, if gloom and darkness
were any indications, it was a hundred miles deep.

But it was not the size of the great hole in the ground, not its
fearful gloom, that attracted their attention. What did was a great
natural or artificial bridge of stone that was thrown across the middle
of it from edge to edge. A bridge of stone that spanned the abyss; a
roadway, fifty feet wide, which reached into some unknown land,
connecting it with the desolate country in which our friends had been
wandering.

"A bridge of stone across the cavern," said Jack, "but see. Here is a
house of stone. This was the guard-house, I'll wager--the guardhouse at
the entrance to some city, and that bridge is the means by which the
inhabitants entered and left. Maybe we are at the edge of the inhabited
part of the moon!"

His words thrilled them. They pressed forward to the beginning of the
bridge across the crater. They looked into the stone hut. Clearly it
had been made by hands, for it was composed of blocks of stone, neatly
fitted together. Jack's theory seemed confirmed.

Mark peered into the house, and uttered a cry of alarm.

"There's a petrified man in there!" he gasped.

Jack and Andy looked in at the open window. They saw, sitting at a
table, which was also of rock, a man, evidently a soldier, or rather he
had been, for he was nothing but stone now, like the hut in which he
dwelt.

The wanderers looked at each other with fear on their faces. What
dreadful mystery were they about to penetrate? "Let's cross the
bridge," suggested Jack, in a low voice. "Maybe this marks the end of
desolation. Perhaps we may find life and food across the crater."

"But--but the petrified man!" gasped Mark.

"What of it? He won't hurt us. Maybe there are live men, who will take
care of us, beyond there," and Jack pointed across the bridge of stone.

There was nothing to keep them where they were--in the land of
desolation. They could not live much longer there, with no food and
water. To pass on over the crater seemed the only thing to do.

"Come ahead," called Jack boldly. They followed him. They kept in the
middle of the road, for to approach the edge, where there was a sheer
descent of so many feet that it made them dizzy to think of it, filled
them with terror. On they hurried until, in a short time, they had
crossed the great chasm.

The road over the crater came to an end between two peaks, similar to
those at the beginning. Jack was the first to pass them, and as he
emerged he once more uttered a cry--a cry of fear and wonder.

And well he might, for in a valley below the wanderers there was a
city. A great city, with wonderful buildings, with wide streets well
laid out--a city in which figures of many men and women could be seen--
little children too! A fair city, teeming with life, it seemed!

But then, as they looked again, struck by the curious quiet that
prevailed, they knew that they were gazing down on a city of the dead--
a city where the inhabitants had been turned to stone, even as had the
soldier on guard in his lonely hut.

They had come upon a petrified city of the moon!

CHAPTER XXVI

SEEKING FOOD

"Well, if this isn't the limit!" burst out Jack, when he had stood and
contemplated the silent city for several moments, which also his
companions did. "After all our wanderings and troubles, when we do find
a place, it isn't any good to us. I don't suppose there is a square
meal in the whole town! Isn't it wonderful, though--every person turned
to stone!"

"Wonderful!" gasped old Andy. "I never saw anything like it in all my
life! What do you reckon did it, boys?"

"The same thing that turned the man in the hut, and the one Washington
thought was a ghost, into stone," answered Mark. "There was a rain of
some lime-water, or a liquid charged with similar chemicals, and the
people were turned to rocks."

It was uncanny, and for a moment they hesitated on the edge of the
city, which lay in a sort of cup-like valley, surrounded on all sides
by towering peaks of the moon mountains. The bridge over which they had
come afforded the only entrance to the city, and in times of war
(provided the inhabitants of the moon ever fought) the passage must
have been well guarded.

It was evidently a time of peace when the calamity that turned the
inhabitants to stone came upon them, for only one soldier was in the
guard hut--doubtless being there merely to give an alarm, or possibly
to keep out undesirable strangers.

"Well, are we going to stand here all day?" asked Jack of his
companions, when they had contemplated the silent city for five minutes
longer.

"I say, let's go down there and see what we can find. I'm getting
hungry."

"There'll be nothing there to eat," declared Mark. "If there ever was
anything, it's now stone. Think of a loaf of bread like a brick, and a
chunk of meat like some great rock!"

"Let's go down, anyhow," added Andy, and they advanced.

As they got down into the streets, the weird effect came over them more
strongly. It was as if they had suddenly entered some large town, and
at their advent every living person had been turned into an image.

"Wonderful, wonderful!" murmured Jack.

"I've read of the uncovering of the ancient buried cities, and how they
found women in the kitchen baking bread, and men at their work, but
this goes ahead of that, for here the people are not dust--they are
statues!"

"It certainly is wonderful," agreed Mark. "I only wish the two
professors could see this. They could write several books about it.
This proves that the moon was once inhabited, though it is dead now.
The projectile should have come to this part of the moon."

"Maybe they'll bring it here, when we get back and tell them what we've
seen," suggested Jack.

"Yes, if we ever do get back," went on his chum, with a return of his
gloomy thoughts.

The strangeness of the scenes all about them can scarcely be imagined.
Think of looking at a city street teeming with life, men and women
hurrying here and there, dogs running about, children at their play,
and then suddenly seeing that same street become as dead as some
mountain, with the people represented as stones on that same mountain,
and you can get some idea of what our friends looked upon.

Here was a woman, looking in a store window, probably at some bargains,
though even the very window and store itself was now stone, and the
woman was like a block of marble. Near her was a little child, also
turned to stone, and there were a number of men, standing together on a
street corner as if they had been talking politics when the calamity
overtook them.

There were shops where the workers had been turned to stone at their
benches, there were houses at the windows of which stone faces peered
out, and there were parks on the benches of which sat men, women and
children, stiff and solid--creatures of stone! Truly it was a city of
the dead!

The wanderers walked about, seeing new wonders on every side. They
spoke in whispers at times, as though at the sound of a loud voice the
silent ones would awaken and resume the occupations or pleasures they
had left off centuries ago.

Another strange part of it was that the people were not so very
different from those of the earth. They were exactly the same in size
and feature, but their clothing, as nearly as could be told from the
stone garments, seemed of a bygone fashion, such as was in vogue
hundreds of years ago. There were no horses observed, though there were
stone dogs and cats, and the shops given over to the sale of food
contained in the windows what seemed to be chunks of meat, loaves of
bread, and pies and cakes, though now they were only pieces of rock.

"It's just as if one of our cities and the people in it should be
suddenly petrified," said Mark. "It's almost like the earth up here;
only they don't seem to have gotten to trolley cars yet."

"Maybe they would if the moon hadn't cooled off when it did, and killed
them all," suggested Jack. "But, I say, let's get down to something
more practical than theorizing."

"What, for instance?" asked Mark.

"Looking for something to eat," went on Jack. "I'm nearly starved, and
I have only half a sandwich left. I want to eat it, yet, if I do, I
don't know where I'm going to get more. And as for water, I'd give a
handful of diamonds, if I had them, for half a glass of even warm
water."

"Yes, we do need food and water badly," said Andy.

"Then let's look for it," suggested Jack. "If we can find food in any
of these houses or shops, I don't believe the people will care if we
take it."

"Find food here?" cried Mark. "Why, you must be crazy! All the food is
turned to stone, and what isn't would be spoiled! Why, no one has been
alive here for thousands and thousands of years!"

"That's nothing," asserted Jack. "Don't you remember reading how, in
the arctic regions, they have found the bodies of prehistoric elephants
and mastodons encased in blocks of ice, where they have been for
centuries. The meat is perfectly preserved because of the cold. And
what of the grains of wheat they find in the coffins of Egyptian
mummies? Some of that is three thousand years old, yet it grows when
they plant it, and they can make bread of it.

"Now, maybe we can find some wheat or something to eat in some of these
houses. If there's meat, it will be perfectly preserved, for the
temperature is below freezing."

"That may be," admitted Mark, convinced, in spite of himself, "but it's
turned to stone, I tell you."

"The outside part may be," said Jack, "but if we can crack off the
outside layer of stone we may find some good meat inside. I'm going to
look, anyhow."

"That's not a bad idea!" cried Andy with enthusiasm. "Think of having a
loaf of bread and some beefsteak thousands of years old. I suppose they
had beefsteak here," he added cautiously.

"Some kind of meat, anyhow," agreed Jack. "Well, let's look for a place
that was once a restaurant or hotel, and we'll see what luck we have.
Come on."

They walked along the silent streets, with their silent occupants, and
finally Jack found what he was seeking. It was an eating place, to
judge by the appearance, and at tables inside were seated stone men and
women.

"Back to the kitchen!" cried Jack with enthusiasm. "There's where we'll
find food, if there is any!"

"It'll be all stone," declared Mark, but he and Andy followed Jack.

They came to the place where was what appeared to be a stove. It was
more like a brick oven, however, than a modern range, though in dishes
that were now stone something was being cooked when the catastrophe
occurred.

"There's meat, I'll wager!" cried Jack, pointing to several objects on
a table. They looked like chunks of beef, but when Mark struck them
with the end of his life-torch they gave forth a sound as if a rock had
been tapped.

"What did I tell you?" Mark asked, "Nothing but rocks. And the bread is
also a stone," he added bitterly.

"You're right," admitted Jack, with a sigh. "And I'm getting hungrier
than ever." They all were. For days they had been without sufficient
food, and now, when it was almost within their reach, they were denied
it by this curious trick of nature. With pale and wan faces they gazed
at each other, wetting their parched lips, for they had some time since
taken the last of their scant supply of water, and they were very
thirsty.

"I guess it's all up with us," murmured Mark. "We'll soon be like these
poor people here--blocks of stone."

"If we only could change this meat back into it's original shape,"
spoke Jack musingly, smiting his fist against a block of beef.

Suddenly Andy uttered a cry.

"I have it!" he fairly shouted.

"What?" asked Jack.

"I have a plan to get meat out of this hunk of stone!"

The two boys gazed at the old hunter as though they thought he had lost
his reason, but, chuckling gleefully, Andy took from his pouch several
cartridges, and proceeded to remove the wads, and pour the powder from
the paper shells out on the stone table.

"I'll have some meat for us," he muttered. "We shan't starve now!"

CHAPTER XXVII

THE BLACK POOL

"What are you going to do, Andy?" asked Jack, as he watched the old
hunter.

"What am I going to do? Why, I'm going to blast out some of this meat,
that's what I'm going to do! I heard you boys talking about elephants
and other things being preserved for centuries in a cake of ice, and,
if that's true, why won't the meat in this petrified city be preserved
just as well? It's always below freezing here, and that's cold enough."

"But the meat has turned to stone," objected Mark.

"Only the outside part of it, to my thinking," answered Andy. "I
believe that inside these lumps of rock we'll find good, fresh meat!"

"But how are you going to get it?" asked Jack.

"Just as I told you--blast it out with some of the powder from my
cartridges. I used to be a miner before I turned hunter, and when we
wanted gold we used to fire a charge in some rocks. Now we want meat,
and I'm going to do the same thing. I'll put some powder underneath
this block of stone that looks as if it was a chunk of roast beef, and
we'll see what happens. It's lucky I saved some of my cartridges."

While he was talking the old hunter had taken some of the powder and
put it back in one of the paper shells. Then, making a fuse by twisting
some powder grains in a piece of paper he happened to have in his
pocket, he inserted it in the improvised bomb, using some dirt and
small stones with which to tamp down the charge. He discovered a crack
in the big stone, which they hoped would prove to be a chunk of roast
beef, and Andy put the cartridge in that.

"Look out now, boys," he called, "I'm going to light the fuse. I didn't
make a heavy charge, but it might do some damage, so we'll go outside."

They hurried from the place, with its silent guests and waiters, and
reached the street. A moment later there sounded a dull explosion.

"Now, let's see what we've got!" called Jack.

Back to the kitchen they ran, the two boys in the lead.

"Why--why--the stone has disappeared!" cried Jack, in disappointment,
as he glanced all around.

"Yes, but look here," added Mark. "Here are bits of meat," and he
picked up from the stone table some scraps of meat.

"Is it really roast beef?" cried Jack. "Good to eat?"

Mark smelled of it. Then he put the morsel cautiously to his lips. The
next instant it had disappeared. It was proof enough.

"Good! I should say it was good!" exclaimed Mark. "I wish there was
more of it! What happened to the rock of meat, Andy?"

"I used too heavy a charge, and it blew all to pieces. I'll know better
next time. There are lots more chunks of meat, and we'll soon have a
feast. I'll make another bombshell."

He worked rapidly while Jack sampled some of the shreds of meat that
had been scattered about by the explosion. The beef was perfectly
cooked, and in spite of its great age it was as fresh and palatable as
frozen meat ever is. Besides the heat generated by the explosion had
partly thawed it, so that there was no trouble in chewing it.

Once more came the explosion, a slight one this time, and when the
adventurers re-entered the kitchen they found that what had been a lump
of stone had been broken open, and the middle part, like the kernel of
a nut, was sweet and good. It was cooked, so they did not have to eat
it raw.

"Say, maybe this isn't good!" exclaimed Jack, chewing away. "It's the
best ever!"

"And there's enough in this city to keep us alive for months, if we
can't find the projectile in that time," declared Andy.

"Don't you think we will?" asked Mark.

"Of course, but I was only just mentioning it. Now, eat all you want,
boys, I have quite a few cartridges left. I didn't fire away as many as
I thought I did, and we can blast out a dinner any time we want it. So
eat hearty!"

They needed no second invitation, and for the first time in several
days they had enough to eat. It was comfortable in the petrified
restaurant, too, for they could move about without carrying their life-
torches constantly in their hand. The gases from the perforated boxes
filled the rooms, and were not quickly dispelled by the poisonous
vapors as they were outside, so they could walk around in comparative
freedom.

"Now, if we could only blast out a loaf of bread, we'd be all right,"
said Jack. They found some petrified loaves, but on breaking one open
it was found to be stone all the way through.

Spurred on by an overwhelming thirst, they wandered about the dead
city, but found no moisture. They tried to chew some of the pale green
vegetation that grew more plentiful on this side of the moon, but it
was exceedingly bitter, and they could not stand it, though there was
some juice in it.

They crossed the city, and wandered out into the country beyond. It
appeared to have been a fertile land before the stone death settled
down on it. They saw farmers in the fields, turned into images, beside
the oxen with which they had been plowing. But nowhere was there a sign
of water. Had it not been for a frozen rice pudding, they would have
perished that first day in the stone city.

As it was, they dragged out a miserable existence, eating from time to
time of the blasted meat. But even this palled on them after a while,
for their lips were parched and cracked, and their tongues were swollen
in their mouths.

"I can't stand this any longer!" cried Jack.

"What are you going to do?" asked Mark.

"Go out and look for water. There must be some in the country outside
if there isn't any in this city. I'm going to have a look. Besides, if
I'm going to die, I might as well die while I'm busy. I'm not going to
sit here in this dreadful place and give up."

His words urged them to follow him, and, with lagging steps, for they
were weak and faint, they went from the restaurant, which they had made
their home since coming to the petrified city.

Out into the open fields they went, but their search seemed likely to
be in vain. Between times of looking for the water they scanned the sky
for a sight of the projectile, which, hoping against hope, they thought
they might see hovering over them. But there was no sight of it.

They came to a vast, level plain, girt with mountains, a lonesome
place, where there was no sign of life. Listlessly they walked over it.

Suddenly Andy, who was in the lead, uttered a cry and sprang forward.
The boys ran to him, and found the old hunter gazing into the depths of
a great black pool, which filled a depression in the surface of the
moon. It was a small crater, and was filled, nearly to the top, with
some black liquid, which gloomily reflected back the light of the sun.

"I'm going to have a drink!" cried Andy, and before the boys could stop
him he threw himself face downward at the edge of the black pool.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE SIGNAL FAILS

"Stop! Don't drink that! It may be poison!" yelled Jack.

"Pull him back!" shouted Mark, and together they advanced on the old
hunter. They tried to drag him away from the black pool, but Andy shook
them off.

"Let--me--alone!" he gasped, as he bent over the uninviting liquid and
drank deeply. "It's water, I tell you--good water--and I'm almost--
dead--from--thirst!"

"Water? Is that water?" cried Jack.

"Well, it's the nearest thing to it that I've tasted since I've been
lost on the moon," spoke Andy, as he slowly arose. "My, but that was
good!" he added fervently.

"But--water?" gasped Mark. "How can there be water here?"

"Taste and see," invited the old hunter.

They hesitated a moment, and then followed his example. The liquid--
water it evidently had once been--had a peculiar taste, but it was not
bad. By some curious chemical action, which they never understood, the
liquid had been prevented from evaporating, nor was it frozen or
petrified as was everything else on the moon.

What gave the liquid its peculiar black color they could not learn.
Sufficient for them that it was capable of quenching their thirst, and
they all drank deeply and refilled their bottles.

"Now, I feel like eating again," spoke Andy, "We can take some of this
back with us, and have a good meal on blasted meat. Whenever we get
thirsty we'll have to make a trip back here for water."

The boys agreed with him. They examined the black pool. It appeared to
be filled by hidden springs, though there was no bubbling, and the
surface was as unruffled as a mirror. The liquid was not very inviting,
being as black as ink, but the color appeared to be a sort of
reflection, for when the water, if such it was, had been put into
bottles it at once became clear, nor did it stain their faces or hands.

"Well, it's another queer thing in this queer moon," said Jack. "I wish
the two professors could see this place. They'd have lots to write
about."

"I wonder if we'll ever see them again?" asked Mark.

"Sure," replied Jack hopefully. "We'll fill our lunch baskets, take a
lot of water along, and have another hunt for the projectile soon."

They did, but with no success. For several days more they lived in the
petrified city, the meat encased in its block of stone, which Andy
blasted from time to time, and the black water keeping them alive. From
time to time they went out in the surrounding country, looking for the
projectile. But they could not find the place where they had left it,
nor could they find even the place where they had picked up the lost
tool that had cost them so much suffering. They were more completely
lost than ever. They crossed back and forth on the bridge over the
crater chasm, and penetrated for many miles in a radius from that,
marking their way by chipping off pieces of the rocky pinnacles, as
they did not want to leave the petrified city behind.

From some peaks they caught glimpses of other towns that had fallen
under the strange spell of the petrification. Some were larger and some
smaller than the one they called "home."

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