The boys hastened out of the pass and into the belt of timber. Before they reached the open, they discovered the airship resting on the ground and Mr. Miles looking about him in alarm at the disappearance of the four Scouts.
“Where have you been?” he inquired as they came near. Then he added in a tone of astonishment: “And where did you get that gun?”
“We’ve had some adventure, believe me,” replied Hal, as he stopped and rested the butt of the rifle on a rock. “We’ve seen a panther and found a dead man in a cave.”
The aviator was amazed and demanded further details. The boys told their story in a picturesque manner, with many gestures and some slang. The aviator would have been glad to have made a personal investigation, but it was getting so late that he decided it best not to delay. So he said:
“We’ve got to get a move on us, or we’ll find ourselves making a trip through the air in the dark. Come on, now. Who’s going on the next trip?”
Frank and Ferdinand got aboard, and the ship again jerked and bounded over the rough ground, then arose and circled toward the school. Hal and Byron remained, with the gun for protection in case the mountain lion should appear again. But little fear was felt from that source after the experience they had had with the animal.
“I bet it’s the same panther we met over on Porcupine,” declared Byron soon after they were left alone.
“I bet it is too,” replied Hal.
In a short time after they saw the airship glide down onto the campus, it arose again, and in ten minutes it alighted on Flathead once more.
Then Hal and Byron got aboard and experienced their first thrills as aerial passengers. It was not nearly so sensational as they had expected, however. Indeed, it was hardly more thrilling than going up in an elevator, for they were shut in on all sides and could look out only through the windows, and this proved not much different from gazing out of a window of a sky-scraper in the city.