You may be sure that as the sun dipped lower, the sky toward the southwest had been frequently swept by expectant eyes, but supper was served and eaten, and the purple shadows of night began softly to drape the glaring desert and still there came no sign of the homing aeroplane.
"Reckon they don't want to risk a night flight and so have decided to camp at the mine," suggested old Peter Bell in response to Miss Prescott's rather querulous wondering as to the reason of the non-return.
"That must be it," agreed Roy easily, demolishing the last of a can of chicken.
Truth to tell, inwardly he had not expected the travelers back that night, and perhaps there lingered, too, in his mind, a faint desire to test out the other aeroplane in a task of rescue, in the event of the one Jimsy was driving breaking down.
But when morning came without a sign of the missing monoplane speculation crystallized into a real and keen anxiety. It was determined to delay no longer but set out at once in search of it. To this end the recently equipped airship was stocked with food and water, and shortly before noon Roy finished the final tuning up of the engine. The others watched him anxiously as he worked. It seemed clear enough that some real accident must have occurred to the other machine.
"James would never keep us in suspense like this," said Mr. Bell, "if he could reach us and relieve our anxiety."
Roy was just about to clamber into the chassis when Peggy and Jess, who had been missing for several minutes, emerged from their tent. Each girl wore an aviation hood and stout leather gauntlets. Plainly they were dressed for aerial flight. Roy gazed at them quizzically.
"I hate to disappoint you girls," he said, "but I've got to play a lone hand in this thing."
"No such thing," said Peggy in her briskest tones; "what if anything happened to you? Who would run the machine if we weren't along?"
"That's quite true, Roy," struck in Jess, "and besides if—if anything has gone wrong with Jimsy who has a better right to be near him than I?"