“We miss you much, but I wish that you would stay until the analysis is made and bring the report with you. I shall feel safer than trusting it to the regular carriers. All well here.
“It will give us pleasure to have you remain,” Carlos chuckled when the message was read to him and his father.
“It will take perhaps two days to get the report and I believe that Senor Austin’s caution is very wise,” the older man declared. Although the Flying Buddies were anxious to get home and the message gave them a deep feeling of disappointment, they kept it to themselves, and grinned as if delighted at the postponement.
“Doubtless you will learn more of the mystery of my sick friend, or your Ollie,” Carlos suggested.
“It’ll be great to know what the answer is,” Jim responded cheerfully.
Later that evening when they were in Jim’s room, Caldwell lingered at the door. “I say, we were lucky that Don de Zimmon could tell us from the roughnecks.” Austin looked at him a moment.
“It was lucky that we were wearing the green emerald rings that Yncicea Haurea gave us that day we rescued him off the Island in Lake Champlain,” he replied softly.
“Sure. The Don saw mine first then had a look at yours when he shook hands with you. Guess he’s one of the Ynca descendants.”
“I might have known he couldn’t pick us out of that mess. Gee, Buddy, what a lot of things we have nose-dived into since the boy gave us those rings. I am rather glad we are staying over, perhaps we’ll see the Don again and I’d like to know if that sick lad was Ollie.”
“Me too. Suppose we better get to bed now, I’m tired as the very dickens,” Jim remarked.
“So am I, in a way, but I’m kind of hankerin’ to have a look at the ‘Lark’—”
“You mean that you want to go joy riding along the milky way,” Jim grinned. “Well, reckon I’m not too tired for that, but we don’t want to overdo it—just a little hop or the De Castros will be worried stiff.”
“Just a little one,” Bob nodded eagerly. They did not wait to do more than slip into light jackets, then they went quietly out of the house and made their way unnoticed to the new hangar where they found the “Lark” resting as if poised for immediate flight into the starry heavens. She was a beautifully built plane with all known, and several as-yet-unknown, modern improvements, for it was a gift from Don Haurea in grateful acknowledgement of services rendered him and his immediate family by the Flying Buddies. Their first plane had proudly borne the name of Her Highness, but some enemy bent on revenge had ruined her, and had almost killed Bob too.