"I guess so," replied Jack, "though it's hard to tell what you really will need on another planet." "All I want is my gun and some ammunition," declared Andy Sudds. "I can get along with that." "How about you, Washington?" asked Jack. "'Well, I suah would laik t' take mah fowls along." "I don't see how you can do that very well, Wash," objected Mr. Henderson. "We would have to carry food for them, and our space is very limited at best. I'm afraid you'll have to get rid of your chickens." "Couldn't I take mah Shanghai rooster?" begged the colored man. "He's a fine bird, an' maybe dem folks on Mars nebber seed a real rooster. I suah does hate to leab him behind." "Oh, I guess you could take him," agreed Mr. Roumann. "I'll gib him some ob my rations," promised Washington. "He eats jest laik white folks, dat Shanghai do. Golly! I'se glad I kin take him. I'll go out an' make a cage." "What will you I do with the rest of your fowls, Wash?" asked Mark. "Oh, a feller named Jim Johnson'll keep 'em fer me till we gits back. Jim's a cousin ob mine." The next day was spent in jacking up the prow of the projectile so that it pointed in a slanting direction toward the sky. "Am yo' aimin' it right at Mars?" asked the colored man, pausing in the work of making cage for his rooster. "No; that isn't necessary," said Mr. Roumann. "Once it starts upward, I can steer it in any direction I choose. I can send it directly toward Mars." "Hit's jest like a boat," observed Washington. "That's it." "Well, to-morrow we start," spoke Jack that night, as they were gathered in the dining-room of the professor's house after supper, discussing the great trip. "And to think that in ten days we'll be on thirty-five millions of miles away from the earth!" added Mark. "It's a mighty long way," said Andy. "Mebby we'll never git back." "Oh, I guess we will," declared Jack "We got back all right from--" His words were interrupted by a breaking of glass. One of the windows crashed in, and something came through it into the room. It fell upon the floor--a square, black object. "Dat's one ob dem bombs!" cried Washington. "Look out, everybody! It'll go off!" There was a scramble to get out of the room, Washington falling down on the threshold. Jack, who was in a corner, behind some chairs, found his way blocked. This gave him a chance to take a little longer look at the object that had been thrown through the window. "That's not a bomb!" he cried. "It's something wrapped in black paper." The professor, Mark and Mr. Roumann stopped their hurried egress. They came back and looked at the object. As Jack had said, it was something tied up in black paper with pink string. "It doesn't look like a bomb," observed Mark. "More like a brick," said Jack, and started toward it. "Maybe it's an infernal machine," suggested Mark.