toward the Arctic regions."

After some further talk, Tom and Ned took their departure, making
good time back to Shopton in the speedy monoplane.

For several days after that Tom busied himself about his big airship
the RED CLOUD, for it needed quite a few repairs after the long trip
to the mountains where the diamond makers had been discovered in
their cave.

"And if we're going up amid the ice and snow," reasoned Tom, "I've
got to make some different arrangements about the craft, and provide
for keeping warmer than we found necessary when we went west."

So it was that Tom had no time to learn anything further about Andy
Foger's airship, even had our hero been so inclined, which he was
not. He looked for Abe Abercrombie any day now, for though the old
miner had given no date as to when he would arrive, he had said, in
his letter, that it would be soon.

It was one day, nearly a week after Tom's attempt to make Eradicate
like aeroplaning, that there might have been seen, coming along the
Shopton road, which led toward Tom's house, the figure of a grizzled
old man. His clothes were rather rough, and he carried a valise that
had, evidently, seen much service. There was that about him which
proclaimed him for a westerner--a cattleman or a miner.

He walked slowly along, murmuring to himself.

"Wa'al, I might better have taken one of them wagons at th' depot,"