The spirits of the boys rose. They breakfasted on cold stuff cooked before they started and coffee heated over the exhaust of the engine. Ben lit his pipe, and with Frank at the wheel and Harry on lookout, any one looking at the party in the Golden Eagle would have said that they were a trio of pleasure-makers instead of adventurers engaged on a daring dash for fortune.
It was about nine o'clock in the morning when the danger they had feared loomed up out of the clear sky as suddenly as a tropic squall.
Coming straight toward them, but a mere dot on the sky, though momentarily growing larger, was an air-ship that they could not doubt was Luther Barr's.
"What are you going to do?" asked Harry, as Frank put the wheel over and brought the aeroplane on a course which would take her far to the westward of the dirigible.
"Try to avoid her," was Frank's reply; "they are equipped with a rapid-firing gun and could make mince-meat of us in a short time."
"We have rifles," said Harry.
"They would be little use against such a weapon," replied Frank.
But as the Golden Eagle shifted her course it became clear to those aboard her that the other air-ship did the same.
"They have seen us," gasped Harry.
"Yes, and mean to pursue us, too," was Frank's reply, through gritted teeth; "well, we'll give them a long chase of it."