“And may I know who Gideon is?”
“Why haven’t you heard of Gid Akers?” asked the surprised niece; “he’s one of the greatest guides in the Adirondacks. He is off now with a party, near Sanford Lake and Mount McMartin. He’s been hired till the end of August, but manages to take a run down here once in awhile.”
“You know I never was in the Adirondacks till the other day and really know nothing of them. You tell me, Aunty, that it was on Sunday morning that you saw the couple going northward in the airship. Did you see them return?”
“That was the funny part of it,” replied the woman with a smile; “I was home alone all day, busy about the house, for I don’t often get to church, when I went out again to the spring. I was dipping up water, when a queer shadow whisked over me and made me look up. There was the Professor, as you call him, going with the speed of the wind to the south.”
“Alone?”
“Yes; he paid no more attention to me than before, though he must have seen me, but the seat beside him didn’t hold any one.”
This information was important, as confirming a part of Harvey Hamilton’s theory: Professor Morgan had carried Bohunkus Johnson to some spot at an uncertain distance to the north, and left him there, with orders to stay until his master was ready to pick him up and start across the Atlantic.
“He went north again this morning,” said the visitor, “and of course was alone.”
“Where were you when you saw him?” asked the lady.
“On the other side of the ridge to the south, where I had hidden my aeroplane.”