o--pro--projectile!!"

"What of it? What? Oh what?? Speak!!"

"IT'S BACK!!"

Marston uttered a wild yell of mingled horror, surprise, and joy, jumped
a little into the air, and then fell flat and motionless on the
platform. Had Belfast shot him with a ten pound weight, right between
the two eyes, he could not have knocked him flatter or stiffer. Having
neither slept all night, nor eaten all day, the poor fellow's system had
become so weak that such unexpected news was really more than he could
bear. Besides, as one of the Cambridge men of the party, a young medical
student, remarked: the thin, cold air of these high mountains was
extremely enervating.

The astronomers, all exceedingly alarmed, did what they could to recover
their friend from his fit, but it was nearly ten minutes before they had
the satisfaction of seeing his limbs moving with a slight quiver and
his breast beginning to heave. At last the color came back to his face
and his eyes opened. He stared around for a few seconds at his friends,
evidently unconscious, but his senses were not long in returning.

"Say!" he uttered at last in a faint voice.

"Well!" replied Belfast.

"Where is that infernal Pro--pro--jectile?"

"In the Pacific Ocean."

"What??"

He was on his feet in an instant.

"Say that again!"

"In the Pacific Ocean."

"Hurrah! All right! Old Barbican's not made into mincemeat yet! No,
sirree! Let's start!"

"Where for?"

"San Francisco!"

"When?"

"This instant!"

"In the dark?"

"We shall soon have the light of the Moon! Curse her! it's the least she
can do after all the trouble she has given us!"

CHAPTER XXII.

ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND.

Leaving M'Connell and a few other Cambridge men to take charge of the
Great Telescope, Marston and Belfast in little more than an hour after
the receipt of the exciting dispatch, were scudding down the slopes of
Long's Peak by the only possible route--the inclined railroad. This
mode of travelling, however, highly satisfactory as far as it went,
ceased altogether at the mountain foot, at the point where the Dale
River formed a junction with Cache la Poudre Creek. But Marston, having
already mapped out the whole journey with some care and forethought, was
ready for almost every emergency. Instinctively feeling that the first
act of the Baltimore Gun Club would be to send a Committee to San
Francisco to investigate matters, he had determined to meet this
deputation on