Smith really was enjoying a very cheerful journey. He kept the wheel until he was tired, then put Brown in the pilot’s seat, and throwing himself down on a pile of rugs, lay looking up at the sky. Evening gathered around them like a cloak, and the stars, large and intimate, commenced to sparkle. He took the wheel long enough for Brown to set the lights properly. There were rules of the road even for these wayfarers in the sky—really traffic rules that must be observed. Then he once more resigned the wheel to his henchman and went to look at the guns.

There were four of them, the latest model, rapid fire, small bore, any one of them throwing a bullet that would pierce a dirigible at the maximum distance of any shooting machine made. They cost a small fortune and had been secured by the syndicate of scoundrels who at that very moment were waiting so anxiously for the papers under Mr. Ridgeway’s feet. Smith had personally seen to the mounting of them. Solid as the very wood and steel they were screwed to and blocked by, they pushed their wicked thin little noses up as though trying to look through the tarpaulins that covered them. When the dirigible had been anchored in the hangar outside of Washington, these guns had been concealed by seats that ran around the swinging cabin. These Smith had tossed aside, and they had afterwards been destroyed in the fire that had burned down the hangar. That this fire had occurred and that his own cigarette had started it, Smith did not know.

Once in a while something happened that Smith did not know, although he would not have admitted it.

Having looked the guns over, Smith went back to his rugs and, lying down, stared at the sky until sleep overcame him. He could afford to sleep. All was going well. At the wheel, like a big gray wolf, Brown sat staring toward his prey through the deepening dusk. He could feel the soft cool shape of countless jewels dripping through his fingers. What did he care if they were stained with blood?

Brown also wondered a little about John and his friends. He could have told Smith that he was not altogether sure of the three precious scoundrels. He did not feel that they were quite as afraid of Smith at long range as they were when his pale, baleful eye was fixed on them. Brown could have told Smith that and more, but one was not invited to exchange confidences with Smith. That was his mistake. Brown did not doubt the death of O’Brien unless something had come up to put the three in danger. He knew that they were first, last and always intent on saving their own necks. Brown mistrusted them as much as they mistrusted Brown. And that was wholly. Yet it was funny they had not showed up when they knew that the jewels were to be secured on that very trip. They would have enjoyed the fight, would have enjoyed the first glance of all the flashing, glowing things in the cabin of the schooner. What indeed would they have cared that the gems were stained with blood?

CHAPTER XI

In the third dirigible, as the night dropped down the dead awoke! O’Brien stirred, rubbing his bruised face and working his stiff jaws. Other than the small discomfort of feeling that his countenance had been stepped on, he felt once more like himself, ready for anything.

“The top av the night to ye,” said O’Brien briskly, sitting up. “Also Mizpah, Selah, Judah and the rest of them intertainin’ east-side sayin’s. I never did know was they a t’reat or a promise. Back when I was ridin’ in the Mounted Police of Upper Canada, there was a felly always said ... but that’s neither here nor there.” He checked himself. O’Brien never told stories of the North and its frozen trails although his friends spent hours trying to trick him into some of the hair-raising yarns that they knew he could tell if he only would. But no use. O’Brien was silent as the grave. More silent, some of the fellows grumbled. You could dig into a grave. Nothing could pry into or dynamite O’Brien.

“Have a good sleep?” asked Hank, looking wistfully at O’Brien’s welted face.

“So-so,” said O’Brien. “I dreamed. And it’s no time at all for dreamin’. What’s gone on since I slept?”