The aged professor and Andy Sudds showed no perturbation. Jack and Mark had been through so many wonderful experiences with the professor, Andy, and the negro, that they were not likely to be panic-stricken. Yet all realized that death was imminent. The finger on the dial showed a hundred feet from earth, and still they descended. Fifty feet! "Hold hard!" commanded the professor. "We'll be down in a minute." There seemed to be a break in the hurrying clouds. There was light in the sky--the twilight of the Long Day, for they were far beyond the Arctic Circle. Looking down they could dimly see objects on the earth--trees, a house of some kind--several houses, in fact. And then suddenly there was added to their perils an unlooked-for danger. Out of the murk which covered the earth below the flying machine sprang a point of light and the explosion of a gun echoed in the aviators' ears. A rifle bullet tore right through to the inside and passed between the professor and Andy Sudds. There were men with firearms below, and they were firing point blank at the flying machine. CHAPTER VIII PHINEAS ROEBACH, OIL HUNTER As has been said, the boys and their older companions had been in many perilous situations; but no adventure promised to end more tragically than this flight of the huge airship. The descent of the _Snowbird_, punctuated by the rifle shot below, seemed likely to be fatal to them all. "What kind of people can they be?" gasped Mark. "They are trying to shoot us." "Give me my rifle! I'll show 'em!" exclaimed the old hunter. "You'll do nothing of the kind, Andy," commanded Professor Henderson. "Do not make a bad matter worse by yielding to your passions." A second shot was fired by those upon the ground; but the bullet went wide of the mark. Jack shouted: "We are drawing away from them. Look out! we all but hit that tree!" "Steady, Jack," admonished the professor. "We'll be down in a minute, my lads. Cling to anything handy. She will bounce some, but I believe we shall not be injured." The calmness of the aged scientist would have shamed the others into some semblance of order, were it needed; but both the boys were courageous, Andy Sudds did not know fear, and if Washington White was in a panic of terror, he did not get in the way of the others to hamper their movements. The _Snowbird_ was fluttering over the ground like a wounded bird, while so black were their surroundings that none of the party could distinguish anything of nearby objects. The clouds had broken but little, and only for a moment. "She's down!" suddenly shouted Mark Sampson, and the flying machine jounced on its rubber-tired wheels, and then struck the ground again almost immediately. Mark leaped down on one side and Andy Sudds on the other. Instantly, relieved of their weight, the flying machine was carried on again and Mark and Andy were thrown to the ground.