Ned and Alan clambered aboard; the rocks were cast overboard, and as the Cibola shot skyward the boys could hear Elmer calling:
"Member, boys—we all'll be at Camp Eagle an' supper will be awaitin'."
CHAPTER XXIV
A GRAVE IN THE DESERT
But Ned and Alan did not eat with their friends that night, nor for some days to come. And when they saw each other again one of Elmer's juicy venison steaks would have seemed to all of them the sweetest morsel ever eaten by man.
Ned only waited to help inflate the balloonet in the big balloon with the little hand blower for the Cibola showed quite perceptibly the loss of gas after her twenty hours of inflation. Then, the course having been laid, he left the wheel and engine to Alan's care and turned in for his long needed rest.
Alan had determined on a record flight. He allowed the Cibola to rise higher than it had yet flown, about 5,000 feet, and then setting the aeroplanes on a slight incline he headed the car on a down slant for Mount Wilson's just visible peak, thirty miles away.
There was no economy in half speed, for time and the utilization of their gas were more precious than gasoline. "We can always float without gasoline," the boys had said to themselves, "but we can't move without gas." Therefore the Cibola was soon at its maximum and the enthusiastic Alan knew that Ned would have a short sleep.
In an hour and twenty-one minutes the swift dirigible was abreast of the peak of Mount Wilson, and then, without slackening speed, Alan altered her course southeast toward the scene of the previous night's hair-raising experience. Long before he reached the place he was able to make the juncture of the two rivers his landmark, and the ship pointed her course as straight as a railroad train. After thirty minutes sailing from Mount Wilson, Buck's rendezvous could be made out, three miles beyond.