“All right, Chunky, enough said!” cried Ned. “Slow up, Jerry, I’m hungry too.”
Accordingly the Chaser was brought down to a speed that just kept her afloat, and Bob opened the lunch basket. It was no novelty for the boys to dine while high in the air, but it was rather more inconvenient in an open aeroplane than in the Comet. Still they managed.
They spent the afternoon going straight on, or circling about at times to cover a wider area, but with all their looking, and peering through powerful binoculars, they had no glimpse of the craft they sought. It was beginning to get dusk, and Jerry suggested that they had better go down, and seek a resting place for the night.
“There’s no use flying after dark,” he said, “and we can pick out a better landing place if we do it now, than if we wait until later.”
They were flying over a rather lonesome section of the country just then, and no houses were in sight. But, a little later, Jerry picked out a small cabin in the midst of a clearing in the woods, and said:
“I guess this will do as well as anything. It doesn’t look very big, but we can sleep out-doors if we have to.”
Jerry tilted the deflecting rudder, and the craft gracefully swooped down toward the earth. While yet a little distance from the ground the boys were surprised to see a tall, lank man, followed by a woman and several children, rush from the cabin, and take refuge behind a pile of wood. Then, as the airship came to a stop, after running across the ground on the bicycle wheels, a rifle was poked over the top of the logs, held unwaveringly on the three lads, while a voice drawled out:
“Hold on, strangers! I may not be able to manage one of them consarned flippity-flop shebangs, but I’m a tolerable good shot with this gun, and she goes off on a hair trigger. So if you don’t want to be made into coffee strainers, git!”
“Why, what’s the matter?” asked Jerry. “We don’t mean anything, we only want——”
“Ye can’t fool me!” cried the voice of the man who held the gun. As for himself he was hidden by the wood. “Ye can’t come none of them games on me. Keep hid, ’Mandy, an’ don’t let the children stick their heads up. I’ll drive these pirates off.”