“What is it all about, bless you, boy?” demanded Waldo, unable longer to curb his hot impatience. “Another drifting tree, eh?” “No, but,--did you see it, uncle?” “I saw something which--what do YOU see, first?” “A great big suck,--a monster whirlpool which is hollowed like--” “I knew it! I felt that must be the true solution of it all!” cried uncle Phaeton, squirming about pretty much as one might into whose veins had been injected quicksilver in place of ordinary blood. “The outlet! Where the surplus waters drain off to the Pacific Ocean!” “I say, give me a chance, can't you?” interrupted Waldo, grasping the glasses and shifting his station for one more favourable as a lookout. He had seen sufficient to catch the right angle, and then gave a suppressed snort as he took in the view. Half a minute thus, then a wild cry escaped his lips, closely followed by the words: “Now I DO see something! And it isn't a drifting tree, either! Or, that is, something else which--shove her closer, uncle Phaeton! True as you live, there's something caught in yonder big suck which is--closer, for love of glory!” “If this is another joke, Waldo--” “No, no, I tell you, Bruno! Shove her over, uncle, for, without this glass is hoodooed, we're needed right yonder,--and needed mighty bad, too!” Little need of so much urging, by the way, since Professor Featherwit was but slightly less excited by their double discovery, and even before the glasses were clapped to Waldo's eyes the aerostat swung around to move at full speed towards that precise quarter of the compass. “What is it you see, then, boy?” demanded Bruno, itching to take the glasses, yet straining his own vision towards that as yet far-distant spot. “Something like--oh, see how the water is running out,--just like emptying a bathtub through a hole at the bottom! And see what--a man caught in the whirl, true's you're a foot high, uncle!” “A man? Here? Impossible,--incredible, boy!” fairly exploded the professor, not yet ready to relinquish his cherished belief in a terra incognita. The air-voyagers were swiftly nearing that point of interest, and now keen-eyed Bruno caught a glimpse of a drifting object which had been drawn within the influence of yonder whirlpool, but which was just as certainly a derelict from the forest. “Another floating tree-trunk for Waldo!” he cried, with a short laugh, feeling far from unpleased that the intense strain upon his nerves should be thus lessened. “Try it again, lad, and perhaps--” “Try your great-grandmother's cotton nightcap! Don't you suppose I can tell the difference between a tree and a--” “Ranting, prancing, cavorting 'sour-us' right out of Webster's Unabridged, eh, laddy-buck?” “That's all right, if you can only keep on thinking that way, old man; but if yonder isn't a fellow being in a mighty nasty pickle, then I wouldn't even begin to say so! And--you look, uncle Phaeton, please.”