CHAPTER IX
A TRAGEDY IN THE AIR
"Then we'd better be gettin' up in the air, so we can see what's going on," Jimmie replied. "I'd like to see where the motor car goes."
"We can satisfy our curiosity on that point without going up in the air," Ned answered. "The Vixen was left just over that cliff. There is a valley—a dent in the slope of the mountain—on each side of that elevation, and the Vixen and the motor car are in one of them and the Nelson in the other."
Jimmie started away on a run almost before Ned had finished speaking. In a few moments he was seen on the shelf, then he darted around the shoulder of rock and was lost to view. The popping of the motors continued.
Ned hesitated a moment, uncertain as to the advisability of leaving the machine in the sole care of the Indian, and then followed. When he gained the shelf on the opposite side he saw the Vixen slowly lifting in the air. The automobile stood above her, on the level yet treacherous spot where Ned had landed. In it were Thomas Q. Collins and the man he had seen in the automobile cap and goggles!
The Vixen did not look to be in good repair, just as Ned had supposed, for the newcomer had had only a short time to work over her, but for all that she was slowly leaving the narrow pit into which she had tumbled. Her motors were working, but did not appear to be doing any lifting.
Then Ned saw that a rope attached to the machine was doing the work. The motor car, moving very slowly forward, was pulling her up the steep acclivity, her rubber-tired wheels drawing and bounding against the rocks.
"If they get her up on that level space," Jimmie predicted, "they'll get her up in the air. You can see where they've been patching the planes, and the motors are workin' all right."
"What I'm interested in, just now," Ned said, "is that automobile.
I'd like to find the highway through which she entered that valley.
It must be through some tunnel, for there's no path over the
slopes."