“Tom and I will be there,” said Jack, but the professor, at the imperious bidding of Melissa, had hung up the receiver.

The result of the conference held that afternoon at the bedside of Zeb Cummings was the formation of the Z.2.X.  Exploration Company, the members being Jack, Tom, Zeb Cummings and the professor.  The capital was to be furnished in equal amounts by the professor and the boys, and Zeb Cummings was to be an equal partner in the enterprise, he having furnished the information on which Jack hoped to rehabilitate his father’s fortunes.

As for the professor, he did not so much regard the pecuniary side of the expedition as the opportunity he would have to write an epoch-making book and confound his scientific rivals.  In their enthusiasm, the adventurers did not take into consideration the fact that the map might be wrong, or that the strange metals be just visionary deposits.  The boys’ enthusiasm drowned all doubts in their minds; Zeb and the professor never were as optimistic.

Dr. Mays, when he had been placed in full possession of the facts and considered them, decided that under the circumstances the boys could go and undertook to quiet any apprehensions Mr. Chadwick might have concerning the trip.  It was found that enough had been saved from the wreck of the inventor’s fortunes to enable him to live comfortably while the boys were away, besides which he had royalties from several inventions coming in.  Still, the bulk of his fortunes had vanished and the radio telephone was not yet a practicable instrument to put upon the market.

But with Z.2.X. the boys hoped to make it a perfect transmitter of speech over great distances.

Of course, Jack’s plan was to utilize the Wondership on the enterprise of finding Rattlesnake Island and its treasures.  After long consultations with Zeb, who was now convalescent, it was decided to ship the craft, in sections, to Yuma on the Colorado River and make the start secretly from some point below there.

It was in the midst of these plans, and while the boys’ workshed was littered with lists of provisions and equipment that Dick Donovan injected himself into the situation.  The red-headed young reporter descended upon them one day when they were busily packing the Wondership away in big crates, which were labeled in various ways so as to give no inkling of the contents.

Of course Dick, being in a way a member of the firm, had to be told what was going on, and the result was that after a lot of hard pleading the boys consented to allow him to come along.

“He’s got red hair,” said Zeb, “and that ought to make him good on the trail, same as a buckskin cayuse.”

The boys didn’t quite see the logic of this, but they knew from former experiences that the young reporter was a good campmate, and they were, on the whole, glad that they had included him.  But when young Donovan came to High Towers, he was not aware that he was followed by Bill Masterson, who, as we know, was the son of the proprietor of the Boston Moon, on which paper young Masterson also worked as a reporter.