“Perhaps we can talk them out of it!” smiled the millionaire.
“I’m afraid we’ll have to do something more than talk,” Glenn answered.
The three now went to the east side of the cone and looked down. There was a gully leading from the shelf to a plateau below. At some past time this gully had evidently been the bed of a running mountain stream. On the plateau below were excavations and various pieces of crude mining machinery.
Between the excavations and the bottom of the gully at least a hundred men were racing for the cut, which seemed to offer an easy mode of access to the shelf where the flying machines lay.
“We’ll have to stand here and keep them back!” Mr. Havens decided.
“I don’t believe we can keep them back,” Glenn answered, “for there may be other places similar to this. Those miners can almost climb a vertical wall.”
The voices of the miners could now be distinctly heard, and at least three or four of them were speaking in English.
“Keep back!” Mr. Havens warned as they came nearer.
His words were greeted by a howl of derision.
“Perhaps,” Mr. Havens said in a moment, “one of you would better go back to the machines and see if there is danger from another point.”