He found Sergeant Apperson, his chief non-com, in the photo hut. Apperson was a gray-haired veteran who was as reliable as a tax collector and knew more about cameras than the inventors thereof. Anything from a pocket machine to a motion picture outfit was in his professional bailiwick. He was a wiry, weather-beaten little Scotchman who retained a trace of the brogue of his youth. “We’ll have oor base oot yonder, no doot?” he queried. “We’ll be ready in the mornin’, sir-r-r!” The invaluable Apperson was likewise an excellent mechanic in addition to his other praiseworthy talents, so Hemingwood told him to have the ship warmed and ready by six in the morning. Whereupon he dismissed everything from his mind. Apperson never failed. CHAPTER II At precisely six-forty-five next morning Hemingwood was commencing to look for the Salters River, which was his principal landmark to aid in finding East Point. For a half hour he had been flying over the mountains. As far as the eye could see, even from the airy perch of three thousand feet, low rolling, heavily wooded hills rolled away to the skyline. It was not difficult to believe the bloody history of those thousands of acres of unkempt wilderness as one looked down on the grim fastnesses which hid in their depths a strange breed who lived and fought and died in a shadowed, primitive world of their own. George himself had had a sample of the suspicious mountain people when he had been forced to land in the hills a few months before. Another flyer would have been taut with the strain of flying continuously over a wilderness which presented no possible landing field. The failure of two or three cylinders of the twelve-cylinder, four hundred and fifty horsepower Liberty meant crashing into the trees at seventy miles an hour. But no worry bothered George Arlington Hemingwood. His untroubled eyes scanned the glistening instruments, and he enjoyed the ride. He couldn’t be worried until disaster actually overtook him. The specially built ship, carrying a hundred and thirty-five gallons of gas, roared along over the mountains at a hundred miles an hour. To offset the extra weight of gas, oil, and electric cameras, it was streamlined to the last possible degree, and it was a tribute to Apperson’s loving care down to the last turnbuckle glistening in the morning sun. Finally the tiny stream came in sight, and he swung southward. It twined along between the mountains, sometimes in deep gorges and sometimes level with tiny fields on its banks. Herkimer came in sight, and he instantly vetoed the one field near it. It was ploughed land and the furrows were high and soft. He sped along over the village, and deeper up into the mountains. Herkimer was lost to sight almost immediately. There was a three-minute interval when he only picked up one cabin.