The storm in the clutch of which the flying machine had traveled so many hundred miles had wrenched her not a little. And the two landings she had made on the mountainside had done her no particular good. There was a broken plane, any number of wires to splice, and bent rods innumerable. These were the more apparent injuries. But the more delicate machinery of the _Snowbird_ required a thorough overhauling. It was absolutely necessary for them to have the use of a forge, and Jack had already learned that such an article was among the oil hunter's possessions at his camp. They were a solid three hours putting to rights the machine and correcting the damage done to her smaller parts. Then, with several rods to be straightened and the light framework of the broken plane, that must be put in the fire for a bit, the party started down the mountain to Phineas Roebach's camp. The four had left the plateau where the _Snowbird_ lay and were just descending into the forest, carrying two storage battery lamps with which the easier to find their way. There was no preliminary trembling of the earth or the air. There was an unheralded clap of sound--a sharp detonation that almost burst their ear-drums. They did not fall to the ground; the earth, instead, seemed actually to rise and smite them! A cataract of sound followed, that completely overwhelmed them. They realized that the huge trees were swaying and writhing as though a sudden storm-breath had blown upon them. Had a tornado swept through this wood no greater danger could have menaced them. Trees about them were uprooted; many bent to the earth; some snapped off short at the ground--great boles two and three feet through! Jack and Mark, with Andy Sudds and the terrified Wash, would have been destroyed within the first few seconds of this awful upheaval had it not been for a single fortunate circumstance. When the cataclysm was inaugurated the first shock drove the four into a sort of hollow walled about with solid rock. Upon this hollow fell the first huge tree trunk of the flying forest--and it sheltered them instead of crushing them to death. The four had but small appreciation of this--of either their temporary safety, or the perils that menaced them. Suddenly the thick air seemed to stifle them. They could neither breathe nor see. The lamps had been lost when they were flung--like dice in a box--into the rock-sheltered hollow. As the huge tree fell across their harbor of refuge, they all lost consciousness. What happened during the next few minutes--perhaps it was a quarter of an hour--none of the little party of adventurers ever knew. It was Jack who first aroused. The whole world seemed still shrouded in pitch darkness. But he could breathe without difficulty and he sprang to his feet with a peculiar feeling of lightness as he did so. But then he stumbled over Mark, and his chum came up, too, ejaculating: "What is it, Jack? What is the matter now?"