“Speaking of Chinks,” laughed Carl, “I wonder what that Chink thought when he saw us heading our machines directly for the precipice.”
“It’s a good bet that he didn’t stop long enough to think,” Ben suggested. “The chances are that he flew back to his companions in the cave at a pace that set his pigtail straight out in the air.”
“You found him tied up, didn’t you?” asked Ben.
“Then why should he go back to the people who served him a trick like that?” asked Ben.
“That’s a fact,” Jimmie replied, “I never thought of that.”
“Now, I’d give a dollar to know what they were doing to him, anyway,” Carl put in. “I can’t understand why they should tie up one of their own crowd in that way.”
“He was a queer-looking fellow,” suggested Kit.
“Well,” Kit went on, “when I held the light in his face and bent down over him, it seemed to me that he drew a grin that meant something more than amazement. And, then, did you notice how he chuckled when we turned him loose?”
“I only noticed that he smelled like a Chinese laundry!” Jimmie answered. “I never did like a Chink.”
“Now, if we sit around here talking all day, we won’t any of us get any sleep,” Carl exclaimed, after a while. “We’ll give Jimmie a chance to get up one of his square meals, and then all flop in this nice soft grass and wake up when we hear the sun going down.”
“That’ll suit me!” Kit said. “I wouldn’t sleep if I had a chance! You fellows go to it, and I’ll watch the machines.”
The breakfast was not so elaborate as the boys desired, but there was plenty of it, and in a short time the three were stretched out on the grass sound asleep, their faces protected by a rude awning hastily constructed out of a shelter tent.
Kit wandered about the little valley aimlessly for a long time. The whole situation was new to him, and he was filled with wonder at the things he had seen since leaving the little settlement where the boys had found him.
The valley where the flying machines had landed has been called a little bowl between two parallel ridges. The word bowl describes it exactly.
It was as round as if dug out by the hand of man. The bottom was covered with lush grass, and through the center a small stream trickled from ridge to ridge. Where the rivulet started and where it ended no one knew. For years the valley had been known as the Place of the Lost Brook.