they pitch their camp on the other side, over
towards the northeast; but small parties are pretty sure to rove far and
wide, coming around this way quite as often as not."

"And their garb,--the weapons they bore?" asked the professor.

Edgecombe motioned towards those articles in which such a lively
interest had been awakened, then said that, while few of the red men who
had come beneath his near observation had been so elaborately equipped,
he had taken notice of similar weapons and garments, with additions
which he strove hard to describe with accuracy.

Nearly every sentence which crossed his lips served to confirm the
marvellous truth which had so dazzlingly burst upon the professor's
eager brain, and with a glib tongue he named each weapon, each garment,
as accurately as ever set down in ancient history, not a little to the
wide-eyed amazement of Waldo Gillespie.

"Worse than those blessed 'sour-us' and cousins," he confided to his
brother, in a whisper. "Reckon it's all right, Bruno? Uncle isn't--eh?"

But uncle Phaeton paid them no attention, so deeply was he stirred
by this wondrous revelation. He felt that he was upon the verge of a
discovery which would startle the wide world as no recent announcement
had been able to do, unless--but it surely must be correct!

And then, when Cooper Edgecombe finished all he could tell concerning
those queerly armed and gaudily garbed red men, the professor let loose
his tongue, telling what glorious hopes and dazzling anticipations were
now within him.

"For hundreds upon hundreds of years there have been wild, weird legends
about the Lost City, but that merely meant a mass of wondrous ruins,
long since overwhelmed by shifting sands, somewhere in the heart of the
great American desert, so-called.

"By some it was claimed that this ancient city owed its primal existence
to a fragment of the Aztecs, driven from their native quarters in Old
Mexico. By others 'twas attributed unto one of the fabulous 'Lost Tribes
of Israel,' but even the most enthusiastic never for one moment dreamed
of--this!"

"Except yourself, uncle Phaeton," cut in Waldo, with a subdued grin.
"This must be one of the marvels you calculated on discovering, thanks
to the flying-machine, eh?"

"Nay, my boy; I never let my imagination soar half so high as all that,"
quickly answered the professor. "But now--now I feel confident that just
such a discovery lies before us, and with the dawn of a new day