“Where we found the treasure but nearly lost our lives,” replied Tom, his face growing a little sober with the recollection. “Phew! it makes me shiver just to think of it. We’ve been in some pretty tight places, Ned, but that was the closest squeak of all.”
“I wouldn’t care to repeat it, for a fact,” said Ned. “But I’ve no doubt that you’ll be going into something just as dangerous before long. You’re a glutton for danger. I’ll bet you’re just pining for some other adventure.”
“Nothing in sight just now,” disclaimed Tom, with a laugh. “But I’m not saying that if anything beckoned I’d give it the glassy stare. There are lots of things we haven’t tried yet.”
“I’d like to know what they are,” returned Ned skeptically. “You’ve been near death as many times as I have fingers and toes.”
“And yet you’ll notice that I’m far from being a dead one yet,” said Tom lightly. “Or if I am dead, I’m a pretty lively corpse,” he added. “Don’t worry about me, old man.”
“The pitcher that goes to the well too often, you know,” warned Ned.
“Yes, I know that old wheeze,” laughed Tom. “But I’m not a pitcher and——Great Scott! what’s that fellow up to?”
The exclamation was wrenched from him by the peculiar gyrations of an airplane about two miles distant. They had noted its presence some time previously, but as they were not far from an aviation field and it was a common thing to see planes flying about, they had not given it any special attention.
Now, however, they noted that the plane was behaving much as a ship might which had lost its rudder. Its motions were confused and erratic. It would plunge downward nose first and then right itself abruptly and sail about in circles. There seemed to be no coherent plan on the part of the aviator, and indeed it acted as it might if the aviator were missing.
“Some fool aviator trying to do stunts,” was Ned’s comment, after he had watched it for a moment. “Those fellows make me tired. There are risks enough in flying without going out of the way to find them.”