The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island Part 13

"No, Harry, when they get through with this battle the big fellow will not cause us any more trouble, and we need him."

The herd of cows came up and remained standing at a respectable distance. They seemed instinctively to know that the question of kings.h.i.+p was being decided. It was entirely immaterial to them who won.

George did not wait with the herd. He saw the combat, and beyond the Professor and Harry.

"Well, you did kick up a fuss, didn't you?" said Harry.

"Apollo's got him; he'll lick him sure. See that lunge? My, what a shaking he gave him that time!" George was a dancing Dervish by this time. Then noticing the guns for the first time, seized one of them.

"I'll finish him."

"No, no, George," was Harry's reply, as he grasped the gun. "The Professor is right; Apollo will finish him."

There was now no question of the fighting ability of Apollo, and of his youth and vigor, and he knew it. His antagonist did not rush any more.

Apollo did that; the bull's main business now was to keep out of Apollo's way.

He had been whipped, and he knew it. He turned and fled. Did he go toward the cows? Not at all; but in the opposite direction. Instinct told him that if he had gone toward the cows it would have meant another fight. To leave them was the bovine manner of saying, "Well, then, take them."

The big bull did not go far. His head hung low, and the heaving flanks showed he was tired. But Apollo's head was high in the air. Dejection on one side and absolute mastery on the other were as plainly exhibited in the manners of the animals as though it had been written out and proclaimed.

"What will he do if I go up to him now?"

"The fight is all out of him."

This was true. He exhibited no alarm when they approached, and when they walked around to get a view of his other side, the mark plainly showed the following brand: "M--V."

"That is undoubtedly the brand of some person who captured the animal when young."

"How old do you suppose he is?"

"It is difficult to fix his age with any certainty, but I do not think he is over ten."

"What do you suppose the brand means!"

"It is some arbitrary term, the initials of a person, or it may be intended to designate something. Branding is a very common way of marking cattle, so as to indicate owners.h.i.+p; nearly all savage tribes have a habit of branding, or tattooing; and sailors also. Various civilized countries in the past have branded criminals as a means of identifying them."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Fig. 22. The Mysterious Brand on the Yak._]

They now had an opportunity of taking an inventory of their stock. The original herd comprised Apollo, six cows and four calves, or half-grown cattle. The new acquisition brought the count up to twenty-six cows and twenty young animals. The vanquished bull was very meek from that time forward, and the surprising thing was that Apollo was thereafter the same quiet, un.o.btrusive animal he had been before.

But there was work to do in the factory. Harry was now engaged in building an iron lathe for their further work. A drilling machine was his next tool, and as the weeks pa.s.sed the boys devoted much of their time to making such articles of machinery as could be used advantageously to turn out the simple products which future needs might demand.

The leather vats were examined and the skins found in excellent condition. These were then taken out, and grease and oil worked into them until they were pliable. The thick parts of the hides had been previously cut out, so that they could be used for the soles of contemplated boots and shoes, which they soon hoped to turn out.

Every morning the yaks would leave the enclosure and start out on trips to the feeding grounds, and sometimes Harry or George would follow them and hunt for game. On one occasion, while Harry was on the opposite hill, George saw the flash of Harry's gun, and almost immediately thereafter heard the report. This was the first time the difference between the flash and the noise attracted his attention.

"Will you tell me why I saw Harry's fire before the sound reached me?"

"Did you say 'sound' or 'noise'?"

George looked at the Professor quizzically. "Is there any difference between sound and noise?"

"Technically, there is a difference, although in common practice one word is used for the other without discriminating. Sound means a succession of vibrations produced in their regular order, like music, whereas noise is a disorganized vibration. For instance, falling water, like our cataract here, is sound, but the report of George's gun was a noise."

"I can see the difference. Would a wagon going rapidly over a pavement be a noise or a sound?"

"It would be a noise if the pavement should be irregular, but if the pavement is regular and the vibrations or beats are uniform, it is then called a sound. But you wanted to know why you saw the shot before you heard it. Simply because sound does not travel as fast as light. Sound moves 1,040 feet in a second, and light over 186,000 miles a second, which is about 850,000 times faster than sound."

"Do soft and light sounds travel at the same speed?"

"Theoretically, yes; but numerous experiments have been made, and many of them go to show that a loud noise really travels faster than a soft noise."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Fig. 23. MEASURING SOUND PITCH_]

"What is the cause of that?"

"It is attributed to the belief that a loud noise causes greater wave motions, although the sound waves may be the same lengths in both cases.

Or, it might be said that loud noises have greater strength."

"When we were going to New York in the cars, a train was coming toward us, and the engineer on that train blew his whistle when he was off quite a distance, and kept it up until long after he had pa.s.sed us. I noticed that when the whistle started the sound had a very low pitch, which kept increasing to a higher and higher pitch until the train pa.s.sed; what was the cause of that?"

"As the sound waves are uniform movements, and are at regular intervals, the vibratory action of the whistle, in case the trains were at rest, would all be the same distance apart; but as the two trains were coming together two things happened. At each moment your ear came nearer the whistle, and the distance through which the sound had to travel decreased. This made increasingly shorter waves, and not long, regular waves, as when at rest. Short waves make a high pitch, and long waves low pitch. After you pa.s.sed the train the waves began to get longer, but they increased in length more rapidly than when you were approaching each other, so that if the whistle kept on blowing the waves would finally get to be so long and so far below their original pitch that the sound would cease.

"A little sketch will show this. (Figure 23.) The line A is the pitch of the whistle; B its pitch when you first heard it; C shows the point where you pa.s.sed the whistle, and D shows how low the pitch was when it died away."

CHAPTER IX

EXCITING EXPERIENCES WITH THE BOATS

During the nine months' life on the island all had the best of health.

The Professor grew strong, and he declared that his const.i.tution was more robust than it had been for years. They lived in the open much of the time; their fare was plain and mostly devoid of sweets; the store of honey which had been several times replenished, was the stock article in the absence of sugar.

It was, therefore, a matter of surprise that Harry should complain of having a tired and uncomfortable feeling, and would frequently lie down during the day while in the workshop. The Professor was always at his side during these periods, and while he had no instruments to enable him to determine whether there was a high fever present, the flushed face of his patient showed unmistakable symptoms.

"Do you think he has a very severe fever?" was George's inquiry, as the Professor left Harry.

"It seems so, and in order to determine whether there is any change we must at once set to work making a thermometer."

"We have neither mercury nor gla.s.s, and even if we had, how can we make a tube for it?"

"That being the case, we must make a subst.i.tute for both."

"But we must have something which will expand."

"We can use iron for that. Get a piece of small steel bar, say two inches long, and bend it in the form of a C. In the meantime I will make a base to hold the thermometer."