About midway in their way they experienced some difficulty with the engine, and were obliged to make a landing in a pasture and remedy the difficulty. This took the better part of an hour.
"I feel that we're goin' to get him to-day," said Herb, as Fly once more lifted the plane above the green meadowland. It was one of those rare, quiet, contented summer days, when even the bee's buzzing sounded noisy. The mountains, with all their towering majesty, seemed challenging the young aviators, who, calm and confident, rose steadily upward and forward, the fresh air blowing cool and sweet against their faces. It was a day such as fills the veins with a joyousness of life, a willingness to undertake anything, and a confidence that bespeaks success.
They were soon passing swiftly over the rugged mountain's face, its huge irregular boulders, tufted here and there with stubborn plant life, rapidly receding. The tall majestic firs, which, as the boys looked down from their superior height, dwindled to miniature Christmas trees with the morning dew still upon them glistening like toy candles, and the foaming torrents rushing down the time-scarred and waterworn ravines.
Above all they could see, as they mounted higher, the gloomy old tower lifting its dark head to the sunshine, and rising out of a mass of rock, stone and dense growth.
"Look! Look!" panted Herb when they at last circled above the mysterious dwelling.
Fly looked down through the mica window at his feet and saw, crouching between the four walls of the roof, a monstrous feathered shape, apparently headless, its wings folded. Like some gorged dragon it lay there, contentedly wallowing in a bed of bones, skeletons, sheeps' wool and meat still red, the remains of many an ill-gotten feast.
Startled by the noise of the propellers, it drew out from under its wing its great shining black head, disclosing a vicious hooked beak.
Meanwhile, the rest of the party had arrived on the other side of the ravine. They shouted at the boys in the air, but the tremendous noise caused by the roaring water and the whirring propellers, drowned their voices completely. Herb and Fly had seen them, however.
"Scare him out," suggested Fly. "Then they can all see him and have a shot."
"I hate to shoot an enemy in the back," said Herb. "But he deserves it." And he fired down into the roost. But the plane was going at such a speed that his aim was not true. The bullet struck the side of the structure, throwing up dust and mortar. The creature fluttered and stirred, moving its head about perplexedly, but remained in its nest.