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While in flight the Snowbird need be under the control of but one person at a time. The professor had rigged his catapult so that he could release the trigger from the flying machine. Mark said he was ready; the professor reached for the cord which would release the trigger. "Start your motor, Mark, a fraction of a second before I release the compressed air," commanded Mr. Henderson. "Now!"
There were men with firearms below, and they were firing point blank at the flying machine. As has been said, the boys and their older companions had been in many perilous situations; but no adventure promised to end more tragically than this flight of the huge airship. The descent of the Snowbird, punctuated by the rifle shot below, seemed likely to be fatal to them all.
"Let's have that bottle of cosmolene I saw you tuck in your pocket there at the Snowbird." "I was taking that to the professor. He said he would want it," said Mark. "What's it good for?" "You'll come pretty near seeing in a minute, Mark," returned the quick-thinking Jack. "Here, Andy! let me have that woolen scarf you wear. You'll have to say good-bye to it bid it a fond farewell."
Everybody save the professor was laden with stores or instruments, or extra clothing and blankets, as they filed away from the crippled Snowbird. The two youthful inventors and builders of the flying machine bade good-bye to her with full hearts. It was not a certainty that they could recover the flying machine, and Jack and Mark felt pretty bad about it.
From midway of the gambling-hall rose the noisy exhortations of some amateur gamester who was breathing upon his dice and pleading earnestly, feelingly, with "Little Joe"; from the theater issued the strains of a sentimental ballad. As Rouletta and her companion edged their way toward the lunch-counter in the next room they were intercepted by the Snowbird, whose nightly labors had also ended.
Now I am coming aboard." At a nod from the professor, Mark had already brought the Snowbird to a halt. She lay floating, with all planes extended and without motion of propellers, poised over the summit of Mt. Katahdin. The descending moon threw its beams over the height and revealed to the vaguely anxious occupants of the Snowbird, the other machine darting up from below.
"We will hope, at least, that this fearful catastrophe is local," said the professor, seriously. "Have a care, Jack! Don't dip like that. We do not want to descend here." It was extremely difficult to manage the Snowbird, for she answered to the levers so much more quickly than before. The air pressure on the craft was so slight that at the least touch she mounted upward like a scared quail!
Then it was Mark who shouted: "There's that 'plane again, Jack I Look out for her!" The enemy had missed them. She was some miles away, and although still on a level above, at the pace the Snowbird was now traveling it would take a fast flying machine indeed to overtake her.
"He'll have to abandon them if he goes with us on the Snowbird," returned his chum. It was now the long twilight of the Arctic evening. None of the party had eaten since breakfast and they felt the need of sustenance. If nothing else, this need of food would have hurried the party on to their destination farther up the mountainside. As they advanced the roaring of the mud geyser diminished.
"And I presume the earthquake and the volcanic eruption are closely connected?" suggested Mark. "We may safely believe that," agreed the professor. "I am sorry my instruments are not at hand. I sincerely hope none was damaged when the Snowbird made such a bad landing." "And I'd like to give the machine an overhauling at once to see just how badly she's damaged," Jack Darrow said, hastily.
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