CHAPTER IX
THE EARTHQUAKE
The long twilight which preceded full day had now grown so strong as to reveal matters more plainly about the spot where Mark and Andy Sudds had disembarked from the flying machine. They soon saw several objects running through the grove toward them, and these objects proved to be the returning Indians.
There were half a dozen of them, and they were all armed with rifles.
The moment they beheld the old hunter and the youth, with Phineas
Roebach, they gave every indication of shooting, for they stopped and
raised their rifles, pointing them at Mark and Andy.
Mr. Roebach sprang between his Aleuts and his visitors and began to harangue them angrily in their own harsh dialect. However, his huge body so entirely sheltered Mark and Andy that neither was much terrified by the Indians. Besides, the Maine hunter advanced his own rifle and calculated he could do considerable execution with it while the red men were hesitating.
"They believed you all spirits of the air," said the oil man, turning finally to speak to his new friends. "They were much frightened."
"Ask them for news of Professor Henderson and the others," begged the anxious Mark.
"They chased the crippled flying machine for some distance, but did not find it. My horn bade them return," replied Mr. Roebach.
Even as they started to walk with the oil man and his sullen Indians toward various shacks which they saw through the trees, and lower on the mountain side, they heard a hail and looked up to see Professor Henderson, Jack Darrow, and the negro, Washington White, descending the mountain in their rear.
"This is your party; is it?" demanded Mr. Roebach.