“Ned is examining his ’plane, preparatory to going back to camp,” the boy thought. “Wonder if he’s been all this time lookin’ for me?”
The boy paid little attention to what Slocum said after this. Most of the time he was looking into the sky, or anywhere rather than where his thoughts were fixed. He had no intention of directing the gaze of the alleged forester to what was going on in the cañon.
Directly he saw the flashlight flutter over the white planes then become stationary. Ned, he knew, was getting ready to make a flight. He could imagine what the boy’s feelings were, for he knew Ned’s affection for him. Indeed, it was with a heavy heart that the patrol leader left the place without Jimmie.
“And there is also a suspicion that you boys are interested in getting opium over the border without settling with Uncle Sam,” Jimmie heard Slocum saying, as he watched the aeroplane move forward, lift for a moment, and then drop down out of sight. He knew of the precipice just ahead of the machine, and trembled for fear that Ned had not been able to lift the aeroplane, but had tumbled into the cañon with it.
“Anyway,” Slocum continued, “we shall place you under arrest for setting fire to the woods and also for smuggling.”
Just at that moment Jimmie was not at all interested in what Slocum was saying to him. He took no interest whatever in any threat made by the fellow. He was watching the cañon for some sign of the reappearance of the aeroplane.
After what seemed an eternity to the lad he saw the light again, this time higher up than before. It was lifting slowly, turning round and round in a spiral, and Jimmie knew that there was no room to mount into the sky in a straight line. Ned’s control of the machine was wonderful, and it lifted gradually until it was above the line of the hills on the other side and shot away to the west.
Then Slocum saw it. Jimmie blamed himself for calling his attention to it by lifting his head to follow the flight across the sky.
“There is another aeroplane,” Slocum said.
Jimmie could not restrain a laugh, which intruded oddly enough on the tense silence of the moment.