“You have done well,” he complimented him. “Raise him up and bring him to my tepee.”
Morning had passed. South the sun swept through blue unclouded skies. Together Kantisepa and the chief went forward through a lane of curious natives.
“This being is hurt and cannot return to his people,” said Kantisepa. “His wonder ship of the air became demolished when it fell from the clouds.”
They entered the tepee where Kantisepa deposited his burden gently on a soft rabbit-robe, then rose with a weary gesture and turned again to the headman of his tribe.
“It is a strange story,” he declared. “Yet it is true. If you will summon the chief men of the village, this afternoon I will lead you and them to the magic ship.”
CHAPTER VII
RETURNING MEMORY
When Dick sat up he saw the walls of a tepee, the tall form of an Indian of doubtful age, dressed in beaded moosehide, and the shadow of still another figure on his right and a little behind him. Kantisepa’s ministering effort had not been in vain. The strange being had recovered consciousness!
As Dick’s mind grew clearer, memory came back to him. He recalled the flight through the air from Peace River Crossing. As far as Fort Vermilion he had travelled with Randall, but there had given up his place to Sandy and Toma, he himself entering the plane which was being piloted by Cliff Stewart, a member of the Edmonton relief expedition.
From that very moment their trouble had started. In “taking-off” Stewart had slightly injured his machine in a collision with a tree. Later there had been trouble with the motor. Two hundred miles north of Fort Vermilion, a few minutes before the final tragedy, Dick had heard a sudden crackling noise and had seen Stewart’s face turn pale as he had reached for the controlling levers.
Dick shuddered at the memory of that fall from the skies when the plane became unmanageable. A terrifying spinning sensation, a horrible rush of air from below, the cracking and splitting of wood and steel, culminating in a terrific descent and the lapse of consciousness.