“That’s right,” added Colonel Howell. “All the gas can’t get out through the new opening, but enough of it ought to escape to make it possible to work on the top opening. But we’ll hardly finish the ditch before the boys get back?”
“Hardly,” smiled the happy Paul. “They ought to be here before dark.”
While Ewen and Miller were busy with picks and shovels, Colonel Howell and Paul devoted themselves to improvising the long wooden handle for the chisel to be used in cutting the pipe. But the workmen had not finished the trench when night came and, to the surprise of Colonel Howell and Paul, the Gitchie Manitou had not returned. This fact especially disturbed Colonel Howell and Paul because soon after noon the bright day had ended and the afternoon had passed with lowering clouds and other evidences, including a decided drop in the temperature, that a bad night was approaching.
The northward flight of the aviators had been made without any premonition of this change. After the monoplane had reached the high ground, Norman could not resist a temptation to make his way some miles back from the river, where the boys could see that the sparse timber grew very much thinner and that within five miles of the river the timberland disappeared altogether in a wide prairie or plain. Still farther to the east, they could make out irregular elevations on the plain, which appeared to be treeless ridges.
“I wish we had time to go over there,” remarked Roy, “for we may never get back this way and I’d like to have had one good look at the caribou lands.”
But the general nature of this treeless, barren waste had been ascertained and Norman brought the swift car back on its flight toward the river. Colonel Howell had explained to them that the Indian village they were seeking was one hundred miles from the gas camp. As it was not certain that Pointe aux Tremble could be easily made out from a distance, it was necessary to keep careful watch of the chronometer and the propeller revolution gauge.
The flight over the picturesque banks of the great river was now getting to be an old story to the boys and protected as they were in the inclosed cockpit, the journey proceeded with only occasional comment. They had left the camp at nine twenty-five o’clock, having set the engines at fifty miles, and, allowing for their detour, at a quarter after eleven o’clock Roy arose and began to use his binoculars. But either the reputed distance or the boys’ calculations were wrong, for it was not until a quarter of twelve o’clock that they caught sight of a few cabins scattered along the riverbank within a fringe of poplar trees.
It was necessary to find a suitable landing place and both aviators busied themselves in this respect with no great result. What clearing there was seemed to be full of tree stumps and large brush. The car, having passed over the few cabins of what seemed to be a deserted village, with no living thing in sight, it was necessary to make a turn to look for a landing place in the vicinity. In doing this, Norman made a wide swing.
The only naturally open place was some distance to the east. Without consulting Roy, he made for this white glare of snow. As the monoplane dropped toward the wide opening, Roy made a desperate dive toward the floor of the cockpit and, before Norman learned the situation, his chum was pulling its new mooseskin jacket from the .303 rifle.
“It’s a moose!” shouted Roy, “and a dandy. Gi’ me a shot at it. I’ve got to shoot something from the machine.”