"I'll say she did," said Murray, "but what happened, anyway? I thought that light-ray of theirs wouldn't work on these ships." "It won't--in air," said Sherman ruefully, surveying the wreck of the _Monitor_. "But the air blankets down the effect a lot. Out there we got the whole dose. Even then it shouldn't have hurt us so seriously, but I expect a lot of our lead sheathing got jarred loose when we went through those yellow rays and when they let that light-ray go, she leaked all over the place. Wonder what made that Lassan ship blow up like that, though? I thought she sure had us." "Oh," said Ben, "I think maybe I did that. When the light-ray came on it occurred to me that the gravity-beam might go down their beam of light just as fast as it would down ours, and they must have a port-hole or something through their gravity-screen or they couldn't let the ray out. So I just let them have it." "Boy, you sure saved the lives of four of Uncle Sam's flying men that time. About one second more of that stuff and we'd have cracked up right there. Look at the front of our bus. The outer plating is all caved in and the inner is starting to go." "She is pretty well used up isn't she? What gets me though, is that there's one more of those things loose." "Look!" cried Gloria suddenly, pointing upward. Far in the zenith above them they saw a point of light; a point that grew and spread and became definite as a great star; then it became a shooting star, plunging earthward, and so great was its speed that even as they watched they could make out a green fragment, flame-wrapped in its midst. "The last one!" said Sherman. "Thank God for that. Wonder how they got her?" "Wonder what we do next," remarked Murray, practically. They looked about them. They were on a hillside in a little clearing in a high, narrow valley. On every side were woods, dark and impenetrable. Just below they could hear the purl of a brook, and the trees about them were bare with the dark bareness of spring, a few fugitive buds being the only announcement that the season of growing was at hand. No landmarks, no roads were visible, and the sky was darkening fast. "The question," said Gloria, "is not where do we go, but where are we going from." "It might be most anywhere," remarked Murray. "Adirondacks, Catskills, or even Laurentians. I don't think we got far enough west for it to be the Blue Ridge or the Appalachians, but there's no way of telling." "Well," Gloria offered, "I've been in a lot of mountains in my day, but I never saw any where following a stream didn't take you somewhere sooner or later. I vote we trail along with that brook there and see what happens." "Bright thought," commented Ben. "Let's see what we can dig out of the wreck by way of weapons." "What for? There aren't any animals, and they couldn't hurt you if there were. If we meet any of the Lassans any weapon you got out of that mess wouldn't be much use. Wish we had a flashlight though."