“I should think they would!” laughed Carl.
“What’s the idea after that?” Sam questioned.
“I don’t know,” Jimmie returned. “Anyway, we’ll get the machine and leave them to walk back to Quito. By the time they have accomplished that stunt, we’ll be on our way to the haunted temples of Peru. I’m getting sick of this old country, anyway.”
Bending low in the darkness so as to avoid being seen from above, the three scattered, in accordance with this arrangement, and lay, securely hidden, in the tall grass when the Bertha came wavering down. Owing to the inexperience of the aviator, she struck the earth with a good deal of a bump, and exclamations of rage were heard from the seats when the motors were switched into silence.
“This must be the place,” Jimmie heard one of the men saying, as the two leaped to the ground. “There’s been a fire here not long ago, and there are the tents, just as described by the boys.”
“Yes,” another voice said, “and there is the Louise back in the shadows. It’s a wonder we didn’t see her before.”
“But where are the boys?” the first speaker said.
“We don’t care where the boys are,” a voice which Jimmie recognized as that of Doran exclaimed. “The boys can do nothing without these machines. It seems a pity to break them up.”
“We won’t break them up until we have to!” the other declared.
“I was thinking of that,” Doran answered. “Suppose we pack up the tents and provisions and such other things as we can use and take everything away into some valley where we can hide the machines and all the rest until this little excitement blows over.”