They had been on the Pacific coast, driving the plane equipped with the two dust-burning motors and with one of the motors using the six connecting-rods of mysterious steel, for a week when one day Johnny decided to make a short drive over the country alone. Not suspecting that anyone could, this time, be on their trail, he told Pant of his intention while in the lobby of their hotel while a number of persons were present.
He made a successful trip of some two hundred miles. A fog had blown up from the sea but he knew the location of a beautiful mountain lake which he had often longed to visit. On an island in this lake, he had been told, were to be found traces of the wonderful fossilized forests for which the West is famous.
By circling low he succeeded in locating the placid surface of the lake and in making a creditable landing. Unbuckling his harness he rose stiffly, stretched his cramped limbs, then, turning hastily, unlashed a small skiff from the back of the fuselage and, having tossed it lightly into the water, seized the paddle, leaped into the skiff and paddled rapidly toward the shore.
He had been gone for perhaps five minutes when, without warning, from out of the white fog there appeared the prow of a small motorboat. The engine was not going. The two occupants of the boat were rowing, each with one oar. Their destination, beyond doubt, was the seaplane.
Not a word was spoken until the taller of the two men, a strange-appearing fellow with unusually long fingers, put out a hand and, steadying himself for a moment, leaped from the boat to the lower wing of the plane.
“Work fast,” the shorter man cautioned in a whisper. “He may be back any moment.”
“Count on me. Don’t want any mix-up. Nasty business,” whispered the other, then with a spring he was away down the length of the plane. The next minute he had climbed to a narrow platform parallel with the powerful motors which hung suspended halfway between the upper and lower planes.
Drawing a wrench and a pair of pliers from his pocket, he worked over the engine to the right for some eight or ten minutes. When he had finished, he mumbled something that sounded like:
“Guess that’ll slow him up,” then thrusting his tools, together with some other small objects, into his pocket, he leaped back to the plane, and, racing down its length, sprang into the motorboat.
“Thought you had decided to stay,” grumbled the waiting man.