"The Alps!" exclaimed John.
"Aye, the Alps! Hundreds of thousands of you Americans have come all the way across the sea to see them, but few of you have ever looked down on them in the glow of the morning from such a height as this, and you are probably the only one who has ever done so, after an all-night fight and flight for life."
"Which makes them look all the better, Philip. It's been a wonderful night and flight as you call it, but I'll be glad to feel the solid mountain under my feet. Besides, you need rest, and you need it badly. Don't try to deny it."
"I won't, because what you say is true, John. My eyes are blurred, and my arms grow unsteady. In that valley to which we are going nobody can reach us but by way of the air, but, as you and I know, the air has our enemies. Do you see any black specks, John?"
"Not one. I never saw a more beautiful morning. It's all silver, and rose and gold, and it's not desecrated anywhere by a single German flying machine."
"Try the glasses for a longer look."
John swept the whole horizon with the glasses, save where the mountains cut in, and reported the same result.
"The heavens are clear of enemies," he said.
"Then in fifteen minutes the Arrow will be resting on the grass, and we'll be resting with it. Slowly, now! slowly! Doesn't the machine obey beautifully?"
They sailed over a river, a precipice of stone, rising a sheer two thousand feet, above pines and waterfalls, and then the Arrow came softly to rest in a lovely valley, which birds alone could reach before man took wings unto himself.