They had been traveling but a few minutes when they heard horses approaching. Soon they saw them come around a bend in the trail. A mounted man was leading two saddled horses. He stopped as he came up to the two airmen.
“Well, you must have started early,” said the horseman. “It is only noon and you have crossed Boulder Creek. I expected to meet you on the other side. My name’s Robins. I work in the Forest Supervisor’s office.”
“Well, climb aboard, unless you are hungry,” said Robins. “I stopped for a while down the trail and watered the horses and ate my lunch. I also got an early start.”
“We can eat the sandwiches which Mollie gave us as we ride along,” said Bill as he mounted.
“I don’t know much about these creatures,” said Breene, as he struggled to get his legs afork the saddle.
“Neither one will run away with you,” said Robins.
The rest of the trip was very pleasant. They reached Tiller in the late afternoon and then pushed on to Perue, where they spent the night. The next day they hit the main road at Canyonville and then rode into Myrtleville, where they reached the railroad.
“This is some country,” said Breene to Robins. “It took us just a little less than two hours to get to that place in the woods where we landed, and here it has already taken us almost four days to get this far back, and we aren’t home yet.”
“You don’t waste much time when you travel in your airplanes,” said Robins. “I cannot imagine getting to Diamond Lake in less than two hours. Every time I have gone up there it has taken several days. I guess that you can find your way home from here. I will start back. Good luck.”
“Thanks for the buggy ride,” said Breene, and Robins left them standing on the station platform.
A couple of hours’ wait for the train and then they were en route to Eugene. The train trip seemed endless, as they were both eager to get back to their quarters so that they could change their clothing.
“You had us worried for a while,” said Captain Smith as he greeted Bill at Eugene. “We did not know whether you had made a safe landing or had cracked up.”
“I did both,” replied Bill. “I made a safe landing, for neither one of us were even scratched, and I cracked up a perfectly good ship so that it will never be flown again. I set it down in the only open space that I could see within miles. That place wasn’t any too open. The second growth timber was eight or ten feet high.”