“It can’t be! Must be a rock!” gasped Elmer, unbelievingly.
“Whoop! hurrah!” yelled Hiram. “Oh, glory!”
Dave’s young assistant acted mad as a March hare. He could not help it. He sang and danced. Then he reached down and grabbed up handfuls of the light sand at his feet, and flung it joyously up in the air as if it were grains of precious gold.
“Sure as you live,” exclaimed the bewildered Elmer. “It’s solid land—oh, what luck!”
The young aviator was filled with surprise and satisfaction. Such rare good fortune seemed incredible. He stood still, not caring if it was a sand bank or a desert island. They had escaped a fearful peril—and the Comet was safe.
“Who cares for the fog. Why, if it’s only a ten foot mud bank we’re so glad nothing else matters much just now,” declared the overwrought Hiram.
“It’s something better than that,” responded our hero brightly, all buoyed up now after the recent heavy strain on nerve and mind. “We must have landed on some island not down on the chart.”
“Let us explore,” suggested the impetuous Hiram.
“Let us eat first,” added the hungry Elmer. “It’s brought back my appetite, after that big scare.”
Dave went all over the machine, more with the sense of touch than actual eyesight inspection in that enveloping fog. He came back to his comrades not a whit discouraged.