Even as the plane was braking to a stop, Dave, Freddy, and the Colonel rushed back to it. They pulled up to a halt, waited for the plane to roll the last few feet, then ducked under the left wing and around to the cabin door. They had already seen that there were two men aboard the plane, the pilot and a passenger. As Dave watched them come back from the pilot's nook to the cabin door, he was faintly surprised by their looks. Why, he didn't know, but somehow he had expected to see a couple of youngsters climb down from the plane. But they weren't young. They were both well along in years. They had hard, rugged faces, covered by at least a two week's growth of whiskers. They wore rough clothing, and each man carried a gun slung at his hip. The guns were not pistols, though. They were automatics, and Dave suddenly had the hunch that their rescuers were a couple of fire rangers, or at least some kind of government men. The way they leaped cat-like out the cabin door and down onto the ground seemed somehow to suggest the military to Dave. But what they were didn't matter in the slightest. They had arrived to rescue them, and that was all that counted. "Stuck, huh?" the older one of the pair grunted, and grinned. "Lucky we happened to see your smoke signal. You might have camped here for quite a spell. Army and Navy, huh?" "And in a hurry," Colonel Welsh said. Then, after introducing himself: "We had a forced landing. Er--engine trouble. Can you fly us to the nearest Air Corps Base where we can pick up another plane? I'll see that you're paid for it, of course." "Guess so," the man grunted after a look at his partner. "But where're you headed? Maybe we could hop you all the way, and save time, if you're in such a hurry." "San Diego," Colonel Welsh said. "I have to get there as soon as possible. But maybe you haven't the gas." "San Diego, huh?" the older one, who was the pilot, murmured, and arched his brows. "Yeah. I guess we can make it there from here. Had engine trouble, huh? Not much fun in this neck of the woods. Okay. Get aboard." A hidden thought was tugging at Dave's brain, but he couldn't seem to get it out in the open. Something was just a wee bit wrong with the picture, but after a moment of deep thought he decided it was worry about a take-off from the narrow space of level ground. "Think you've got a long enough run?" he asked, and jerked a thumb at the crippled Lockheed. "Maybe the five of us should haul that out of the way. But even then you wouldn't have much extra. There's a sharp drop-off just ahead of it." "Don't get in a sweat, kid," the man mouthed, and gave him a hard stare. "I wouldn't have come down if I'd thought I couldn't get off again. Just get aboard and keep your seat. We'll get you places, and with no trouble at all. Okay, Colonel, let's get going."