Some of the gang were so alarmed at the sight of the great airship settling down on their camp, that they could only stand and stare at it. Others were gathering sticks and stones, as if for resistance, and some could be seen to have weapons. Off to one side was a small hut, rather better than the rest of the tumbledown shacks in which the tramps lived. Tom noticed this, and saw several men gathered about it. One seemed familiar to the lad. He called the attention of Mr. Damon to the fellow.
"Do you know him?" asked Tom eagerly.
"Bless my very existence! If it isn't Anson Morse! One of the gang!" cried the eccentric man.
"That's what I thought," agreed Tom. "The bank robbers are here," he added, to the sheriff.
"If we only recover the money we'll be doing well," remarked Mr. Sharp.
Suddenly there came a shout from the fringe of woods surrounding the camp, and an instant later there burst from the bushes a number of men.
"My posse!" cried the sheriff. "We ought to be down now!"
The airship was a hundred feet above the ground, but Tom, opening wider the gas outlet, sent the craft more quickly down. Then, just as it touched the earth, he forced a mass of vapor into the container, making the ship buoyant so as to reduce the shock.
An instant later the ship was stationary.
Out leaped the sheriff.