“Crater Lake, Jack?” demanded the duly thrilled girl, now all aglow with renewed hope and expectation.
“It must be,” admitted the other, still looking through the glasses, “we were told there is no other body of water in this entire section. You know Bart said that old hermit was believed to have his hideout close by the ice water lake, for smoke had been seen rising of mornings when the air-mail carrier went through a bit off his course.”
He made a gesture to Perk the other readily understood. It meant that he should immediately bank and go back again on the same track so they could have yet another opportunity to use their eyes and learn if things were as hopeful as they had been led to believe.
Jack managed to glance in the direction of the girl close by. It was plain to be seen that Suzanne was tremendously agitated by this sudden discovery of both the secret hideout of the so-called hermit and the nearby Crater Lake, concerning which they had heard accounts from Bart Hicks.
Not a single word passed her tightly compressed lips but in her whole demeanor there was an expression of wonder, eagerness and fear—the last no doubt on account of certain possibilities that, after all their efforts they might have arrived too late or else that the hermit had seen nothing whatsoever of the long missing flyer.
Jack too, knew they were banking on what must be called a long chance for thus far it was only a mere surmise that caused them to seek out the hidden retreat of the man who shunned his fellows. Not a single thing had come to their notice to affirm that Buddy Warner had ever flown over Crater Lake in any of his passages to and fro, although his usual course lay within a few miles of the extinct volcano.
“I’ll take the stick now, Perk,” he announced as they once more caught a glimpse of that curling, eddying smoke column and then sighted the cliff encircled lake of the mountains.
One thing Jack had already settled that the sheer rocky walls did not entirely encompass the sheet of water. There was a section at the near end where the ground sloped down to the very edge of the lake. Jack could see this with his naked eye—no further necessity existed for using the magnifying binoculars, he concluded.
Then of a sudden Jack felt a warm glow pass over his whole body. What was this he saw projecting from the lake close to the shore? He had on some other occasion looked upon a wrecked plane partly submerged in some body of water, fresh or salt and here he found himself staring down at a similar object.
This would tell the story, Jack thought, better than any words could do. Some aviator must have attempted to drop down upon the lake, perhaps to ease the shock of contact when forced to descend through an accident to his outfit, that was a positive thing and what was more reasonable than to conclude the unfortunate airman must be the missing pilot for whom so many flyers were scouring the whole country up and down, east and west?