“Sure, I did!” was the reply. “He ducked away when he saw me coming, and ran away into the field in the direction taken by the cab.”
“Gee!” exclaimed Carl. “Do you think the cabman brought that man out to work some mischief with the flying machines?”
“I don’t think much about it,” Jimmie answered, “because I don’t know much about it! He might have done something to the machine which will cause us to take a drop in the air directly, but I don’t think so. Anyhow, it’s running smoothly now.”
“Still we’re taking chances!” insisted Carl.
The moon now stood well up in the eastern sky, a round, red ball of fire which looked to the lads large enough to shadow half the sky a little later on. Below, the surface of the earth was clearly revealed in its light.
“We’ll have to hurry!” Carl suggested, “if we get back to the hotel before daylight, so I’ll quit talking and you turn on more power.”
“I may not be able to find this blooming old valley where we left the tents,” Jimmie grumbled. “If you remember, son, we left that locality in something of a hurry!”
“I certainly remember something which looked to me like a jungle scene in a comic opera!” grinned Carl. “And the noise sounded not unlike some of the choruses I have heard in little old New York!”
Jimmie drove straight north for an hour, and then began circling to left and right in search of the little valley from which they had fled so precipitously. At last the gleam of running water caught his eyes and he began volplaning down.
“Are you sure that’s the place?” asked Carl, almost screaming the words into Jimmie’s ears. “I don’t see any tents down there, do you?”