showed him hundreds
of armed redskins rushing at top speed for the various passes by which
that circle of hills could be over-passed, and he knew that chase would
be made as long as the faintest ray of hope lured the Aztecs on.

Thus it came that no halt was made until the inland reservoir was
reached, where there could be no possible danger in making a temporary
landing. And then Bruno stole away in hot haste, both to wash his person
and to reclothe it in garments not quite so ridiculous as he now felt
that savage rig must appear.

"Just as though the little woman wasn't used to see fit-outs like that,
old man," mocked Waldo, the irrepressible. "She'll go scare at you in
this rig; see if she doesn't, now!"

Whether or no Gladys was actually frightened as Bruno made his
appearance, need not be decided here; but one fact remains: she acted a
vast deal shyer than when she saw her gallant defender lying as if dead,
with the red blood flowing over his face.

Naturally enough, Cooper Edgecombe seemed fairly crazed by his joy.
After so many long years of hopeless grief and wistful longing, to find
his loved ones, safe and sound, far more beautiful than of yore! Surely
enough to turn the gravest of men into a laughing, jesting, voluble lad!

But throughout it all ran a vein of sadness and of mourning. Neither
Aztotl the noble, nor Ixtli the gallant, could so soon be forgotten. And
more than one pair of eyes grew dim, more than one voice turned husky,
as mention was made of both life and death,--peace to their ashes!

Heavily burdened as the air-ship now was, it would be unwise to add
more, and so but a few minor articles were removed from the cavern,
which had for so long sheltered the exiled aeronaut, then the lever
was touched, and the vessel rose slowly into air, making one leisurely
circuit of the lake, in order to show the Children of the Sun where
their husband and father came so perilously nigh to entering upon
a subterranean voyage to the far-away Pacific. And, luckily as it
appeared, they were just in time to see that "big suck" drag another
huge tree down into its ever hungry maw.

Not until the shades of night again began to settle over the earth did
the professor permit another halt, but then many miles lay between that
Lost City of the Aztecs and their present position, and, after selecting
a pleasant spot for alighting, preparations for their first al-fresco
meal in company were begun.

That proved to