“Who’s in the shelter-tents?” he asked in a moment, and Phillips explained. “They’re nervy little foxes!” was Graybill’s only comment. The three men talked together for perhaps ten minutes, during which the provisions were being stored away on the _Louise_. Graybill stood looking inquiringly into the air most of the time, while his companions were so occupied. “It may be a bad night,” he said after a while, “and yet it may be a good one; but I’m willing to take the risk if you are. As I’ve told you, my machine is pretty well smashed, but I think the _Louise_ will carry us all if we take good care of her.” “She’s got to carry us all!” insisted Mendoza. Graybill walked cautiously over to the shelter-tent where Jimmie and Kit were still sound asleep and looked in at the sleeping boys with a smile on his hard face. “The little scamps!” he exclaimed. “They’re hardly larger than peanuts, yet they gave me a run to-day that many a trained aviator wouldn’t be able to manage.” “Mendoza was thinking of quieting the boys for good and all before leaving,” Phillips suggested, rather suspecting what the answer of the aviator would be. “Nothing doing!” said Graybill. “If he touches the boys, I’ll duck him into the first canyon we come to. They’re gritty little chaps, and I’m not going to see them harmed!” “I knew what your decision would be,” said Phillips, “and that’s why I mentioned the matter to you. I don’t want to see the boys injured.” “They won’t be!” declared Graybill. Mendoza now approached the two, declaring that the provisions were all packed on the _Louise_, and that they were ready to take their departure. “All we’ve got to do now,” he went on, “is to fix these boys so they won’t run out and tell tales after we’re gone!” “Nothing doing!” exclaimed Graybill, and Mendoza turned away sullenly. A few moments later, when Jimmie and Kit were awakened by the clatter of the _Louise’s_ motors, they crawled sleepily out of their shelter-tent and looked up into the starry sky. “That’s a joke on us!” Jimmie said. “Yes,” Kit admitted. “We didn’t understand that they could operate the machine themselves, so we went to sleep. Now we’ve lost the murderers and what’s worse, we have lost the _Louise_!” “And the _Bertha_,” added Jimmie, “and Ben, and Carl, and Mr. Havens, and the whole bunch!” CHAPTER XXI. STROUP’S INSTRUCTIONS. “How comes it that Jimmie and Kit are lost in the air?” asked Havens, as, accompanied by the sheriff and the forest ranger, Gilmore, the boys walked away from the jail. “It’s the most unaccountable thing!” Ben exclaimed almost impatiently. “We left Jimmie to watch the machines while we slept, and the first thing we knew he was up in the air, and Kit with him.” “He may have returned to the camp by this time,” suggested Havens. “If he has, I hope he’ll guard the _Louise_ better than we guarded the _Bertha_!” Carl put in.