It was not very difficult making a shallow grave in the soft soil, although the boys had no suitable tools to work with. When at last the body was wrapped in a canvas shroud, composed of material taken from the planes of the wrecked machine, and laid into the grave it was covered to a considerable height with heavy rocks taken from the slope.
This task completed, the boys took guy wires from the now useless aeroplane and repaired the breakage on the Louise. The tanks of the Louise being about half empty, the gasoline was drawn from the disabled motors of the wreck and added to the supply.
“It seems lonesome, don’t you know,” the Englishman said, as he took his seat on the Ann, “to go away and leave that poor fellow all alone in the valley, with no companionship save that of the stars and the wind!”
“It gives me a shiver to think of it!” declared Ben.
“Well,” Jimmie said in a tone far more serious than was usual with the boy, “every step he has taken since his birth has tended to this place. A million years ago, it was decreed that he should lie here, and that’s all there is of it!”
“Quite true, quite true!” agreed the Englishman.
“Aw, you can’t make me believe a man’s life is mapped out for him like that!” declared Carl. “I guess a fellow has some show!”
When the boys reached the camp the eastern sky was ruddy with the approach of sunrise, and Mr. Havens sat well wrapped in blankets before the fire. His face was pale and showed suffering.
“I thought you’d never come back!” he said. “I saw one of the machines drop, but I couldn’t for the life of me tell which one it was.”
“Two of them dropped,” Ben explained, and in a short time the story of the adventures of the night was told.