Before them stretched the interminable line of summer cottages and hotels, untenanted now. To the right and left of it were loneliness, desolation--yet a certain arresting beauty. Hildegarde felt a sudden loneliness. Potter veered to the left over huge Muscamoot Bay, a bay whose waters were hidden by reeds and rice--a hundred square miles of reeds and rice and shallows. One could wade almost the length and breadth of it. Hildegarde picked out a tiny island in the midst of the waste, and the thought came to her that here one could hide in security if all the world joined in the hunt. She became aware that the motor no longer roared in perfect rhythm. It seemed to pant and labor, to snort in disgust. It was missing, and she saw that Potter was intent upon it. Suddenly silence fell. Hildegarde had not known that silence could be like this. It was as if the end of all sound in the universe had come, as if life had been extinguished, and they two, soaring in the sky, were alone left of all the teeming millions of the earth's population.... She was not frightened, but looked at Potter's face for its expression. It was one of irritation, not of alarm. "We'll have to 'plane down while I tinker," he said. "This is a _fine_ day for something to go wrong." "It'll be fun," she exclaimed. "Imagine being cast away down there--in an aeroplane!" "It won't be such a picnic if I can't get her going again. Hotels and mechanicians and telephone service are moderately scarce below." All the while they were sliding down an invisible hill, swiftly, smoothly. A narrow ribbon of open water lay below them, and Hildegarde imagined Potter to be heading for it as a place of landing. "Why," she exclaimed, "there's a house!" Potter did not turn his head; he was busy now with the 'plane. "There are a few scattered in the bay--squatters and summer folks. Muskrat trappers and French fishermen.... Mighty lonesome, _I'd_ say." A puff of wind caused the 'plane to swerve and rock. Hildegarde saw Potter suddenly in feverish action. They were swerving away from the ribbon of water, which was now close below, veering toward the island upon which she had been astonished to see a house.... The 'plane would not obey. It swept on and down.... Almost in a winking of the eye the solid land was before them ... a tree.... Hildegarde felt a wrench, a shock, heard a crash, and saw the planes at their right side crumple and shatter as they were sheared off in collision with the willow-tree.... The crippled 'plane careened sickeningly--and there was a frightful shock....