Consternation was written on every face but one in that small cabin. And why not? If their plane were wrecked, what then? Danby Force was in a hurry to get away. Every moment counted. The happiness of an entire community was at stake. Then too the breath of winter was in the air. At any moment a wild blizzard, sweeping in from the north, might send snow whirling into every crack and cranny of the mountain. Burying trails, filling canyons with fathomless depths of snow, it might shut them away from all the outside world.
In spite of this, one face was beaming, one pair of sturdy legs were hopping about in high glee. The gypsy child’s joy knew no bounds. “Now there will be a fight!” she screamed. “The big Dragon Fly has knives on his nose. They are very sharp. They whirl round and round. You cannot see them. The big bear cannot see. The big Dragon Fly will bite the big bear. He will roll down dead!”
Listening to this wild chatter, Danby Force received a sudden inspiration.
“Jeanne, start your motor,” he said in as quiet a tone as he could command. “She may attack the propeller. If she does, goodbye bear and goodbye propeller. I don’t think she will. We’ll have to risk it.”
With lips drawn in a straight white line, Jeanne took her place at the wheel, then set the motor purring.
All prepared for a second lunge at the offending box that held her fancied enemies, the bear paused to listen.
Then, with a suddenness that was startling, the motors let out a roar.
“Good!” screamed Vida, the gypsy child. “The big Dragon Fly shouts at the bear. Now she will run away.”
The bear did not run away. Instead, she turned half about to look away to the rocky ridge where her cubs were hiding. Then it was that Danby had one more brilliant idea.
“Jeanne,” he shouted in the little French girl’s ear, “wheel your plane about, then start taxiing slowly toward those cubs.”