But the moment the party reached the spot where the flying machine rested he went at once to the locker where he had stowed the very powerful telescope that he had insisted upon bringing with them from home. With Washington's help he was an hour in setting up the telescope and properly adjusting it, while the boys and Andy worked steadily upon the repairing of the flying machine. Roebach had loosed his dogs again and threw them the last bits of fish he had for them, and they were fighting over the putrid flesh at one side. The oil man watched the repairs with interest. He had agreed to travel as far as Aleukan with the party and there hire fresh Indians and sleds, hoping to find these dogs on his return. He had to have assistants and provisions before he could go on with his work for the Universal Oil Company. "Merely that yonder oil-shoot turned into a mud-bath doesn't feaze him," chuckled Jack to Mark. "Earthquakes and volcanoes don't seem to bother that chap any more than they do the professor." "Just watch him now," suggested Mark, suddenly. "Watch who--Roebach?" "The professor," explained Mark. The old gentleman was certainly deeply interested at that moment in his study of the great pale globe that was rising toward the zenith so much more quickly than any moon that the boys had previously seen. The professor was crouched at the mirror of the telescope gazing into it through the powerful lens. Suddenly he threw up his hands and staggered back from the instrument, turning a pallid face upon his companions. "What done happened yo', Perfesser?" cried Washington White. "What done skeer yo' now? Dis suah am de startlin'est place dat we ebber got into. Gollyation! Ain't dat moon risin', dough?" "It is no moon!" declared the professor. "A most mysterious thing," Mark said. "Is it some great planet out of its orbit, sir?" "It is a planet--of course it is a planet," admitted the professor, going back to his telescope with eagerness. "And how light it is getting--almost like day," said Jack. "No moonlight was ever like this." "Why, we're not as far away from that planet as the moon is from the earth," said Mark. "Suppose it bumps us?" "All the more reason for our getting the _Snowbird_ into flying shape," responded Jack. "Maybe we'll be able to escape the bump!" "You can laugh," grumbled Mark. "But I don't like the look of that thing." "Evidently the professor does not like it, either," agreed Jack. "See him now." Professor Henderson was gazing first into the telescope and then drawing upon a paper before him. For several minutes he was thus engaged. Finally he beckoned the boys to him. "What do your eyes tell you that looks like?" he demanded of Jack and Mark, pointing to the outline he had drawn upon the paper. The boys gazed on his drawing in surprise. It was Jack who exclaimed: