goosestep. Once more they all had a good
laugh. Then Bob and Jack walked into the outer room of the cave,
followed by Frank and Roy Stone. Stone had thrown caution to the
winds, and had decided not to try any longer to hide his defection
from Morales and Von Arnheim.

"I'll soon be riding away from here with you, anyhow," he told Frank.
"And they'll find out then, if they haven't already suspected. I'm
going down to the airplane to see the kids off."

Frank had demanded this privilege of going down to the valley and
seeing Bob and Jack get away, and the others had no thought of denying
him. So all four, bearing the oil torches kept in the cave by Stone
for the purpose of lighting the landing field at night, descended from
the cave. Tom Bodine was left to guard the two prisoners.

These had again suffered the ignominy of having their hands tied,
after they had undressed, and, wrapped in the rubber ponchos given
them by Bob, they had flung themselves down on the pallet prepared the
previous night by the boys.

Stationed in the outer entrance of the cave, Tom Bodine looked around
at the two prone forms several times. But always they lay motionless
under their ponchos, and there seemed no cause for suspicion regarding
them. Poor fellows, thought Tom, who held no particular animosity
against them, they had had a hard time of it lately. After landing
from a flying trip, they had been set upon and beaten. Then, made
prisoner, they had spent the intervening hours cramped in bonds and in
doubt as to what their captors intended doing with them. Probably were
tired out and asleep by now, thought Tom. He even tiptoed over to
where they lay and found, as he had expected, that both had their eyes
closed and were breathing heavily.

Returning to the entrance, Tom took a step or two forward so as the
better to see past the big rock outside and thus get a clearer view of
the airplane. The boys had reached it by now, the oil flares were
planted to both sides, and it was illuminated, standing out in the
tossing light like a great bird.

As the propeller began to whirl, Tom took another step or two forward.
An airplane was a new puzzle to him, and he was so interested in
watching it get under way that he forgot his trust, forgot he had
prisoners to watch, forgot everything but the mystery of that piece of
mechanism, that gigantic bird, running bumpily now over the ground and
now beginning to lift into the air, and now----

Tom whi