“Pitchblende? Radium?”
“Tell you more later. Look! We’re off!”
They were indeed gliding over the ice. Faster and faster they went until with a graceful swoop they rose above the scrub forest and were away.
“It’s a shame!” Johnny exclaimed. “It’s a shame that a thing so marvelous as an airplane should fall into the hands of such black rascals!”
“Whither away?” he murmured as their speed increased. He could form no answer.
CHAPTER XXIV
A FACE AT THE WINDOW
The mysterious gray airplane bearing Johnny Thompson and D’Arcy Arden to some unknown destination had not been gone from the abandoned mining camp a half hour when a curious figure appeared upon the scene. His was the height of a boy of ten, the breadth of a giant. His prodigious arms, when hanging straight down, touched the snow. His face was all but hidden by a coarse black beard. A pair of red lips, a huge nose and two bead-like eyes gave character to his face. For all his physical appearance, he might have been a baboon dressed like an Eskimo. He was not. He was a hunchback Indian.
No sooner had he arrived upon the scene than he appeared to understand that something was radically wrong.
And, indeed, evidence was not lacking. In a spot of clean snow, stripped of its load and turned upside down, was Johnny’s sled. Close at hand the snow was trampled as if from a battle. In the trampled spot were footprints of a dog and a man.
The Indian searched the entire locality carefully. The cabin, the sled, the scrub forest, all fell under the scrutiny of his beady eye. He was looking, if truth were known, for a dead dog. He found none.