a wide spiral as she mounted rapidly, circled once far above us
and then disappeared over the crest of the cliffs. We all stood
silent and expectant, our eyes glued upon the towering summit above
us. Hollis, who was now in command, consulted his wrist-watch at
frequent intervals.

"Gad," exclaimed Short, "we ought to be hearing from him pretty
soon!"

Hollis laughed nervously. "He's been gone only ten minutes," he
announced.

"Seems like an hour," snapped Short. "What's that? Did you hear
that? He's firing! It's the machine-gun! Oh, Lord; and here we
are as helpless as a lot of old ladies ten thousand miles away!
We can't do a thing. We don't know what's happening. Why didn't
he let one of us go with him?"

Yes, it was the machine-gun. We would hear it distinctly for at
least a minute. Then came silence. That was two weeks ago. We
have had no sign nor signal from Tom Billings since.





Chapter 2