Sons of the Air E-Book

T.C. Bridges

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

This spring was the most treasured possession of Kurt, since without him there could not have been a trout farm that gave him life. There was never a day when he did not inspect it, and it was very fashionable to keep a thermometer in it to see that the temperature does not change. He never knew a change of more than four degrees – from thirty-eight degrees to forty-two. When he picked up the thermometer, he noticed a flicker of white in the dark jaws of spring. Something rose, spinning in a rush of water.

Leseprobe

Contents

I. A CLOSE CALL

II. SLEUTHS OF THE AIR

III. THE GHOST PLANE

IV. WHEN THE STORM BROKE

V. TEA AND TOAST

VI. A MIDNIGHT MYSTERY

VII. BROWLE'S BAD MORNING

VIII. "OLD CROSSCUT"

IX. ON THE CRAG FACE

X. JACK'S SECOND CHANCE

XI. "THE JOLOGIST"

XII. A SPOT OF OIL

XIII. THE TREASURE-SEEKER

XIV. FOGGED

XV. WHEN THE TANK WAS EMPTY

XVI. UNDER ARREST

XVII. A DUD NOTE

XVIII. JACK MAKES A PROMISE

XIX. FIRE

XX. A DAY'S FISHING

XXI. DICKY SETS A TRAP

XXII. THE LAST OF MARK NYLAND

XXIII. JACK'S BAD JOB

XXIV. UP TO THE CEILING

XXV. IN THE HEART OF THE STORM

XXVI. DICKY TAKES A HAND

XXVII. THE ATTACK ON THE HANGAR

XXVIII. KIP WANTS WAR

XXIX. NIGHT IN THE RIFT

XXX. NO ESCAPE!

XXXI. UNDER THE HILLS

XXXII. THE D.H

XXXIII. AIR MANOEUVRES

XXXI. DRIVEN DOWN

I. A CLOSE CALL

“YES, my little lads, you’re doing very nicely,” said Curtis Clinton, with a smile on his pleasant sun-burned face, as he gazed down into the clear pool where hundreds of tiny trout darted about. He scattered a little food for the baby fish, then went up to the head of the pool where a tiny spring of ice- cold, crystal-clear water bubbled up from a small crevice in the limestone.

This spring was Curt’s most cherished possession, for without it the trout farm which gave him his living could not have existed. There was never a day when he did not inspect it, and it was a fad of his to keep a thermometer in it to see that the temperature did not change. He had never known a change of more than four degrees–from thirty-eight degrees to forty-two. As he lifted the thermometer he noticed a flicker of white in the dark mouth of the spring. Something rose spinning in the rush of the water, and as it came to the surface he picked it out. He could hardly believe his eyes when he found it to be a small fragment of newspaper.

“Of all the rum things!” he gasped, as he turned and, carrying the paper very carefully, took it back to his little bungalow, which stood further down the slope close above his biggest pond. There he laid it flat on a sheet of blotting paper which drew the water from it, and taking this outside pinned it on a board in the strong spring sunlight.

In a very few minutes it had dried sufficiently for the print to become visible, and, getting a magnifying glass from the house, he scanned it eagerly. The first word he made out was Tiedende in large letters, and this he saw was part of the title.

“Dutch!” he exclaimed. “Well, if this doesn’t beat cock- fighting. Will some one kindly tell me what a piece of a Dutch newspaper is doing in my spring? And here’s the date too, May 3rd. Why, it’s only about three weeks old.” He frowned thoughtfully. “Well,” he said at last, “the whole country is full of underground streams. This paper must have fallen into one of them through a cleft and come through goodness knows how many miles of dark rock pipes until it came out through my spring. But Dutch–why Dutch?”

His musings were sharply interrupted by a hoarse shout.

“Mr. Clinton, them there boys o’ yours is up to some new devilment. Flying like kites. You better come an’ see.”

Curt, bolting round the corner of the house, almost ran into a man hurrying in the opposite direction.

“Flying, Agar!” he exclaimed. “What do you mean?”

Agar, a grizzled old fellow who had a small farm a little way down the valley, grinned till his parchment-like face was a mass of wrinkles.

“It’s true, sir. I seed ’em from my place. They got something like a big kite, and one on ’em was right up in the air in it. I’ll lay it’s that there Jack Milner–him and Kip Carter.”

But Curt was gone. Rushing round to the shed, he got out his motor bicycle, sprang into the saddle, kicked off, and the next moment was roaring down the rough road at a perilous pace. Agar watched him.

“Looks to me as if he’s as like to break his neck as any on ‘em,” he observed. “Gosh, but I wouldn’t be master o’ them there Scouts for something! Young demons, specially that there Jack!”

Old Agar was a little prejudiced, for in point of fact the boys of the Pipit Patrol, of which Curt was Scoutmaster, were as nice a set of lads as any in all that wild countryside. As Curt often said, there was not an ounce of real harm in any of them. The only reason why they sometimes got into trouble was that they were healthy, open-air lads with a craving for adventure and a wild desire to be always trying something new.

“Of course, it’s Jack,” said Curt to himself, as he sent his machine crackling up the steep slope which ran at right angles from the valley road.

As he reached the top he came into view of the village of Garth lying in a hollow below, and of a great bare fell stretching steeply up to the right. On a ledge high up the hillside three boys were standing holding a fourth who lay spread on a kind of framework beneath a kind of tiny biplane.

“A glider!” gasped Curt. “How in sense did they get hold of a thing like that?”

He pulled up, left his bicycle leaning against the bank, scrambled through the hedge and began to run up the steep with long springy strides. He was still too far away for even his loudest shout to reach the boys, and his only chance of stopping them was to get near enough before Jack took off.

It was no good, for long before he was within hailing distance there came the gust of wind for which the youthful pilot had been waiting. Curt saw him signal with one hand to the others, saw them run forward down the slope holding the glider which tugged like a kite. Then they let go, and Curt’s heart was in his mouth as he saw the glider swoop upwards and outwards exactly like a rising kite.

“He’ll be killed,” he gasped in horror. “He can’t possibly know how to control the thing.”

Yet somehow the boy pilot did manage to control the machine. He worked his ailerons with surprising skill and kept on a level keel as the glider, with the fresh spring wind under her planes, soared onwards.

A freckled-faced boy with bright blue eyes was the first to hear Curt coming, and turned to meet him.

“Isn’t it fine, sir?” he cried, with glowing face. “And Jack’s promised that I shall have next turn.”

“Next turn, you lunatic! There won’t be any next turn. We shall be lucky if we ever see Jack alive again.”

Kip Carter’s face dropped.

“W-why, what’s the matter?” he gasped.

“Matter, Kip! Mean that you don’t understand how confoundedly dangerous it is? There are only about a dozen men in England who have ever handled gliders successfully. Jack knows nothing, and if the wind tilts him he’s done. He’ll come down like a stone.”

“I–I never thought of that,” said Kip in dismay, but he spoke to empty air, for his Scoutmaster was already plunging down the hill in pursuit of Jack.

“He’s in an awful paddy,” said Kip to Butter Briggs, a solid- looking youth who was gazing round-eyed at the glider. “We’d better go on after him.”

A fresh gust caught the glider and tilted it so sharply that Curt’s heart was in his mouth again. But Jack, who seemed to have no sense of fear, got her back on even keel. He was about fifty feet up, hovering in the wind stream like a hawk, and Curt, looking up from below, saw his face shining with delight.

“What an airman he’ll make!” was the thought that flashed through his mind. “My word, what an airman!” Then he stopped. “Jack!” he shouted. “Can you hear me?”

“Fine, sir,” replied Jack.

“I wish you’d come down, Jack. We’ve got to go to Fandle this afternoon. Can you manage it?”

“I think so, sir.”

“You’ll have to be careful,” said Curt, speaking in quiet, distinct tones. “The wind is gusty, and it won’t do for you to side-slip. Keep her head a little down and head for the leasowe.”

“Prickly sort of place to come down, sir,” grinned Jack, but he did as he was bid.

The leasowe was a rough field further down the slope, covered with clumps of brier and blackberry bushes. It was exactly because these were there to break a possible fall that Curt had ordered Jack to make for the spot. He knew that otherwise there was nothing for the boy to do but fly right across the valley. Then when he got to the dead area where the wind was cut off by the opposite hill he would drop like a stone. It was impossible to come back to the starting point, for a glider depends entirely for its flying power on the wind striking upwards on the cambered surfaces of its planes, and the moment it turns with the wind it is bound to fall.

Curt was in an agony as he followed just below the tossing, quivering glider. He was not the sort ever to make favourites among his boys, but now he had to acknowledge to himself that red-haired, cheeky, cheery Jack Milner was the one of them all whom he could least easily spare. It seemed to him too that he was the one whom his country could least spare, for a boy like Jack would make a splendid man.

A sharp puff caught the glider and lifted her several yards, and for a moment it seemed as if she were clean out of control. Beads of cold sweat started on Curt’s forehead as he waited for what seemed the inevitable crash. But again Jack cleverly got control, and again he forced her nose down.

“Got a bit of a bump that time, sir,” he called cheerily. “But the wind’s all right now, and I’m doing fine.”

“Keep down,” begged Curt. “If you go too far you’ll get into calm air and stall.”

“All right,” Jack answered. “Coming down now, sir.”

Down he came as easily and smoothly as any old hand.

“The boy’s a marvel,” said Curt to himself, and the words were hardly out of his mouth before the crash came.

The breeze at this lower level seemed to fail completely, the glider stalled, her nose came up, then she turned right over and dropped–dropped straight into the centre of one of those clumps of bramble on the near edge of the leasowe.

Curt felt sick as he heard the crash of the crumpling framework, and he ran madly towards the spot.

As he reached it Jack came crawling out from among the ruins. A large bleeding scratch ran all down one cheek, but that was not what was making his lips quiver.

“Oh, sir, I’ve broken it badly!” he cried in despair.

“Broken it, you lunatic!” answered Curt. “What does that matter if you haven’t broken yourself? Don’t you understand that you’ve had about as narrow an escape from death as any chap ever had?”

Jack’s eyes grew round as billiard balls as he looked at Curt.

“I–I didn’t know that, sir,” he stammered. “I hadn’t thought–”

“I don’t suppose it would have mattered if you had known it,” returned the Scoutmaster; “but don’t do it again, Jack. You’ve taken ten years off my life in these last ten minutes.”

“I’m awfully sorry, sir,” said Jack, and Curt saw that he meant it.

At this moment the hoarse hoot of a klaxon came echoing across the hillside from the distant road. All Jack’s gloom vanished.

“It’s Mr. Trask, sir. He’s come to take us to Fandle. Isn’t it jolly good of him?”

II. SLEUTHS OF THE AIR

DICKY TRASK lay back in the deep driving seat of his great car.

“Hullo, you chaps!” he said in his odd squeaky voice. “Thought I’d drop round and run you up. It’s the dooce and all of a walk over the fell.”

“It’s uncommon good of you, Dicky,” said Curt. “Jack, you come in front with me; the rest of you pile in behind. And mind the paint, or Mr. Trask will never give you a lift again.”

They all piled in, and Dicky sent the big car rolling noiselessly up the long slope.

“What the dickens were you chaps doing?” enquired Dicky, glancing round lazily. “Looked to me as if you’d got some sort of a big kite up, but I was too far off to see what happened except that it came down.”

Curt told him of Jack’s exploit, and Dicky whistled softly.

“Great snakes, Curt, but you do keep a menagerie! Jack, ain’t you ashamed of scaring the hair off your kind teacher?”

“I didn’t think of it that way, sir,” replied Jack seriously.

Dicky glanced at the boy.

“Make a proper old bus driver, wouldn’t he, Curt?” he observed thoughtfully, and after that devoted his attention to driving the car at a very high rate of speed along the rough and narrow hill road.

It was not the Pipit’s first visit to Fandle Fell Aerodrome, for owing to the kindness of Dicky Trask, who was by far the richest and therefore in a sense the most important member of the Flying Club, they had a sort of general invitation to be present at Meets, where they made themselves useful, and in return got a good deal of useful teaching from the mechanics and an occasional flip from a member. All of them, but more particularly Jack Milner and Kip Carter, were mad on flying, and not one, except, perhaps, Butter Briggs, but would make a good pilot. Butter was just as keen as the rest, but he was a bit slow in the uptake. That was the only thing against him.

“Topping afternoon, eh?” remarked Dicky, as he pulled up by the big shed. “Ought to be quite good topside. Want a flip, Jack?”

Jack Milner’s eyes glowed with delight. “Oh, thank you, sir!” he cried.

“All right. I’ll be ready in two shakes,” replied Dicky.

He stepped leisurely out of his car and walked slowly over to the little Club House.

“You lucky brute!” growled Kip Carter, digging Jack in the ribs with his elbow. “You’ve had one go already to-day.”

“You shall have the flip, if you like, Kip,” said Jack, who was the most generous soul alive. “I mean it, Kip.”

Kip’s freckled face flushed a little.

“Rot! You go of course. Perhaps some one else will take me up.”

Dicky’s idea of “two shakes” ran to something more like ten minutes before he came out in pilot’s cap and goggles thrust up over his eyes, and walked slowly across to his plane which his mechanic, Joe Worthy, was warming up for him. She was a lean and shapely Moth with a bright yellow body and silver wings. She had two seats set tandem fashion in two separate cockpits, and was fitted with dual control. Dicky found this convenient because on a long flight he could hand over to Joe whenever he felt like it.

He panted a little as he hoisted himself up on to the lower wing and flung his leg over into the after cockpit.

“You’re getting much too fat, Dicky,” said Curt reproachfully. “You ought to take up golf or something energetic.”

“Don’t you call flying energetic?” retorted Dicky. “Come on, Jack.”

Jack slipped into his place like an eel and snuggled down comfortably. At once the engine accelerated to a roar, the little plane rolled off over the hard ground, and within fifty yards was in the air.

“Like it, Jack?” asked Dicky through the ‘phone.

“It–it’s almost too jolly, sir,” stammered Jack. “It–it makes you feel like an eagle must feel.”

“Swooping,” chuckled Dicky, as he cut out and let the machine sweep into a deep volplane. Then up again to corkscrew in circles to a height of a thousand feet. He gave the boy a good twenty minutes, came down, then, seeing the longing look in Kip’s blue eyes, took him for a short spin. “And now we’ll have tea,” he said.

The big car never travelled without an elaborate tea basket, and Joe already had the kettle boiling. All six, the two men and four boys, stretched themselves on the turf and drank tea from white enamel cups and ate most delicious sandwiches and large pieces of rich cake. Meanwhile they watched two other planes stunting over the ground.

“I say, Dicky,” said Curt presently, “a rum thing happened to- day.”

“You have all the luck,” returned Dicky. “Nothing rum ever happens to me. But get on with it.”

Curt told him about the piece of newspaper which had bubbled up out of the spring.

“And it was a bit of a Dutch paper,” he ended.

“Gosh! You’re not suggesting that your spring started in Holland and came all the way under the North Sea?” said Dicky.

“No, you duffer. The paper must have been dropped into some pot hole up on the Fells.”

Dicky grinned. “If the War was still on we’d have to start the Patrol hunting for German spies,” he chuckled. “As it is–...”

“I found a Dutch paper at home, sir,” put in Jack Milner suddenly.

Every one looked at Jack, and there was an awkward silence. Jack seemed to sense something wrong, and a puzzled look crossed his face. Curt spoke quickly.

“You did not notice the date, I suppose, Jack?”

“No, sir, but I’ll find out if you want to know.”

“It doesn’t really matter,” said Curt quickly, and changed the subject.

The sun was getting low, the other planes were down and back in the hangar, the wide field lay quiet in the evening sunlight, and the tall firs opposite flung long black shadows across it. Dicky sat up.

“Time to be shifting,” he said. “Curt, come and spend the night at my place.”

“Nothing doing,” said Curt. “Got my fishlings to feed.”

“Can’t that old blighter, Agar, do it?”

“He could, but he won’t know.”

“He’ll know all right. See here! Joe shall take these kids home and go round and tell Agar to give worms to your trout. You and I will fly back to Scarth.”

Curt hesitated. He was fond of Dicky, and it was a pleasant change to eat a meal he had not cooked himself.

“Don’t think up any more objections,” said Dicky, with a grin. “You’re coming, and that’s flat.”

Curt smiled. “All right. If you’re going to make up my mind for me, I’ve nothing more to say.”

Dicky called up Joe and gave him his instructions, which Joe received with a perfectly wooden face. All he said was:

“You better go on at once, sir. Looks to me like there might be wind up above afore long.”

“Your name ought to be Jonah, not Joe,” retorted Dicky. “Come on, Curt. Is there plenty of petrol, Joe?”

“She were filled this afternoon, sir. I put in fourteen gallon. You ought to have enough to take her to London, let alone to Scarth.”

Dicky waddled over to the plane, and Curt following thought, not for the first time, that his friend was getting far too fat. Dicky Trask was now little more than thirty, but he weighed nearly fourteen stone, and he was only five foot seven. As every one knew, he had done excellent work in the War, where he had gained fame and an M.C. as a member of “Cottrell’s Circus,” but after that he had come in for his big place and a pot of money, and now the only things he seemed to care for were flying and motoring.

“Too much money,” said Curt to himself with a sigh, as he climbed into the front seat of the Moth and adjusted the tube of his telephone. “And such a good chap, too. If I could only get him interested in something. He’d make a splendid Scoutmaster. Why, the boys all adore him. And if he goes on like this he’ll simply go to seed and die of fatty degeneration of the heart or something horrid like that. He gets all blue in the face as it is.”

“Are you all right, Curt?” came Dicky’s voice.

“Snug and comfy, thanks,” Curt answered, and then the engine’s note deepened, and the long, light machine sped away and soared into the air.

A Moth climbs quickly, and within a very few moments they had reached a height of five hundred feet above the aerodrome; then Dicky headed for Scarth, which lay twenty miles away by road but only fifteen as a plane flies across the hills.

“Topping evening, ain’t it?” said Dicky, and “Topping,” Curt agreed, with his lips against the mouthpiece of the ‘phone.

“I’m going to quirk her up a bit,” said Dicky. “Get a mouthful of real cool air, eh, Curt?”

“Right you are, but what about that wind current Joe talked of?”

“Joe ought to have been born a raven,” chuckled Dicky. “Time enough to come down when we meet it.”

Watching the altimeter (the height meter) in front of him, Curt saw that Dicky was indeed driving upwards. Seven hundred, eight hundred, nine, and then they were past the twelve hundred mark and still rising. Even so, they were not yet above the big hills to the west, but Dicky kept on creeping up, and every moment the air grew cooler.

“Enough, Dicky,” said Curt. “Kindly remember I’ve got no overcoat.”

“Right you are, old son! I say, look down. Ain’t it topping?”

Curt looked down. The tiny machine was so high above earth that, although her propeller was turning over at seventeen hundred revolutions and she was doing just on seventy miles an hour, she seemed to be floating in the blue immensity. Beneath, the fields were dwarfed to chessboard squares and the houses to the size of toys. A long way off a small black beetle crept down a brown riband. It was Dicky’s big car taking her passengers home at forty miles an hour. Away to the east the North Sea lay like a purple bar along the horizon with here and there a trail of smutty smoke showing the progress of some coastwise steamer. The air was wonderfully still, and the Moth travelled on level keel with never a bump or swerve.

Then as he still gazed Curt became aware that the Moth was not the only machine in the air. Another plane was coming in from the direction of the sea, but at such a height that she was almost hidden by the clouds that swam above the three thousand foot level. Curt took a pair of glasses from a pocket and focused them on the stranger.

“What is she?” came Dicky’s voice from behind.

“Biggish bus. Too far off to make much of her, but she’s coming lower.”

“Rum game flying in that direction,” observed Dicky in a slightly puzzled tone. “Looks as if she must have come across from the Continent, doesn’t it?”

“That’s about the size of it,” agreed Curt. “See here, Dicky. Keep on your present course, but rise a bit higher as if you were going to cross Tall Fell. That ought to bring us right under her when she turns.”

“All right, old son, but what makes you so keen about her?”

Curt hesitated. “I am keen,” he admitted. “I’ve a notion that I’ve seen her before, and a still bigger notion that there’s something funny about her.”

Dicky chuckled. “Then this is where we start investigating. What ho! Sleuths of the Air! Sounds all right, doesn’t it?”

III. THE GHOST PLANE

THE strange plane was dropping. Curt saw her fade to a shadow as she dipped through the film of soft cirrus, then reappeared beneath the clouds. The rays of the low sun struck full upon her, and Curt was able to see that she was a powerful machine many sizes larger than the Moth, but of a make quite unfamiliar to him. Her paint work was dirty, her planes were patched, and her whole appearance was shabby, but by her speed there was evidently nothing wrong with her engine.

“Make anything of her?” asked Dicky.

“Yes,” replied Curt. “I’ve seen her before. She came over my place one morning a month ago at dawn. I remember how puzzled I was, for I could see she had nothing to do with Fandle Fell, and there isn’t another aerodrome for miles. She was very high up, and I only spotted her through a gap in the clouds. But I noticed that patched wing, and another thing that struck me was the queer high-pitched note of her engine. Since then I have twice heard that engine, but both times at night.”

“The plot thickens,” chuckled Dicky. “I wouldn’t wonder if it was some gent doing a bit of smuggling, Curt. A pal of mine in the Customs tells me they’re doing down the Revenue to the tune of something like two millions a year.”

“I’ve heard that, too. And, come to think of it, this is mighty good country for that game. There’s not a coastguard station from Blix Bay to Horn Point.”

“All right from that point of view,” replied Dicky, “but awkward for landing. There ain’t a hundred square yards of level ground anywhere between this and my place.”

“That’s true,” said Curt in a puzzled tone, and again he focused his glasses on the strange plane. “They’ve spotted us, I fancy,” he said presently. “They’re moving like smoke.”

“Think they can get away from us, eh?” laughed Dicky. “I’ll show ’em something.”

The roar of the Moth’s engine rose a note, and the slim little machine shot forward more swiftly. The pointer on the air-speed dial advanced to ninety and quivered between that and a hundred.

“No use doing that, Dicky,” remonstrated Curt. “She’s got at least double our power, and she’s dropping while we’re still climbing. Besides, what’s the use? We’re not Revenue officers.”

“But it’s such a joke, putting the wind up them,” declared Dicky.

“You’re putting the wind up me, Dicky. I’m most poisonously cold.”

“All right! I’m a bit chilly myself. I only want to spot where they’re going, and then, hey for home and dinner!”

“You’d better turn at once,” said Curt earnestly. “I mean it, Dicky.”

“Why? What’s the trouble? You were keen enough just now.”

“I know, and now I’m not. I’ve got it in my head that the people in that bus wouldn’t think twice of scuppering you and me if they thought we were spying on them. No, I’m not scared, but does it strike you that in this little Moth we’re about as helpless as a lark under a sparrow hawk?”

As Curt spoke the bigger plane was almost exactly above them and swooping towards the huge dark ridge of Tall Fell which lay about three miles to the north-west. As Curt peered up he suddenly saw something drop from her.

“Bank, Dicky! Bank!” he yelled, and Dicky flung the little plane over to the left so suddenly that for a moment she lay almost at right angles to the ground, and Curt felt her side-slip in sickening fashion. At the same instant a dark object whizzed past with the speed of a bullet, missing the Moth by barely her own length, and shot out of sight into the tangle of wild hills far below.

“Gosh!” exclaimed Dicky in a tone half of dismay, half of glee. “The beggars tried to bomb us.”

“It looked a bit like it,” agreed Curt grimly, “but I think it was only meant as a warning.”

“Warning or not, I’m jolly well going to follow ‘em,” said Dicky in such a very different tone that Curt knew it was no use arguing. His only comfort was he was quite certain that the strange plane was travelling far too fast for the Moth to catch her.

In this he was right, for the other plane was moving at something like one hundred and fifty miles an hour, and in less than sixty seconds had streaked across the top of Tall Fell and was lost to sight behind that great mountain mass. Dicky was not more than two minutes behind, yet when the Moth had crossed the bare rock ridge there was no sign of the chase. The air was empty except for a few homeward-bound rooks. The plane had simply vanished.

“Well, I’ll be jiggered!” gasped Dicky. “I say, Curt, did we dream the whole blooming business?”

“Not much dream about it,” retorted Curt.

“Then she must have crashed,” said Dicky, with decision. “It’s a certainty no plane could have landed in that muddle of rocks and ravines.” He paused. “I’ll just cruise round a bit and see if I can spot her remains.”

He brought the Moth back to her normal speed and quartered to and fro above the valley. “A muddle of rocks,” Dicky had called it, and Curt, looking down, thought the description even less than the truth, for a wilder spot did not exist in all the north country. The desolate hillsides were cut and scarred with deep ravines, and huge boulders fallen from the heights above lay everywhere. The only inhabitants of the desolation were a few sheep looking like white dots as they grazed on the hillsides. There was not a house, not even a shepherd’s hut, within many miles.

“See anything?” said Dicky at last.

“Not a sign,” replied Curt.