clouds whatever; neither did any form of winged life make its
appearance. So Smith took note of sounds.

Presumably his agent--whoever or whatever it might be--was located in
some sort of aircraft; for an extremely loud and steady buzzing,
suggesting a powerful engine, filled the engineer's borrowed ears. Try
as he might, however, he could not identify the sound exactly. It was
more like an engine than anything else, except that the separate sounds
which comprised the buzz occurred infinitely close together. Smith
concluded that the machine was some highly developed rotary affair,
working at perhaps six or eight thousand revolutions a minute--three or
four times as fast as an ordinary engine.

Meanwhile his agent continued to stare into the sky. Shortly something
arrived in the field of vision; a blurred speck, far to one side. It
approached leisurely, with the unknown agent watching steadfastly. It
still remained blurred, however; for a long time the engineer knew as
little about its actual form as he knew about his mysterious agent.

Then, like a flash, the vision cleared. All the blurring disappeared
instantly, and the form of a buzzard was disclosed. It was almost
directly overhead, about a quarter of a mile distant, and soaring in a
wide spiral. No sound whatever came from it. Smith's agent made no move
of any kind, but continued to watch.

Shortly the buzzard "banked" for a sharper turn; and the engineer saw,
by the perspective of its apparent speed, that the aircraft whose use he
was enjoying was likewise on the move. Apparently it was flying in a
straight line, keeping the sun--an object vastly too brilliant to
examine--on the right.