. It was so very
wonderful, this coming of a modern aeroplane to snatch him from his
living grave. And then that voice, how like the one he had never
expected to hear again!

But by degrees, as the little Bleriot monoplane sank lower, and the
forms could be more plainly seen, he began to grasp the truth. Again he
showed the most intense excitement, waving his arms and running to keep
up with them.

"Wait," said Frank, presently, as he saw that Andy was so excited he
could not carry on an intelligent conversation. "I'm going to speak with
him and find out if there's any clear spot where we can land."

"Uncle Philip!" he shouted presently, when Andy had subsided. "This is
Frank, your nephew, and Andy, your own son. Is there any clear place
where we can land?"

The aeronaut understood, because all this was right in line with the
profession which he had been following at the time of his vanishing from
mortal sight.

He indicated the quarter where a landing might be risked and upon
investigating by hovering over the same, Frank decided that it promised
success.

So the aeroplane dropped down and touched ground. It bumped along for a
little distance and then Andy, leaping out, managed to bring its
progress to a halt. They were in the enchanted valley, from whence those
wonderful messages had floated, one of which, by a strange freak of
fate, had eventually reached the boy thousands of miles away, for whose
eyes it had been intended!

And immediately Andy was clasped in the arms of his father. He knew him
despite the long gray beard, which had grown during his many months of
confinement, with hope daily choked by despair. His clothing was almost
in tatters, and he seemed thin and peaked; but the look upon his drawn
face now was of supreme happiness.

Then, after they had in some measure recovered from all this intense
excitement, the boys sat down to tell what a miracle had been wrought,
bringing the message to the home in far away Bloomsbury. With an arm
still encircling the form of his boy Professor Bird listened and asked
many eager questions.

"And to think," he said, finally, "that little messenger you saw going
up just now was constructed of the very last fragment of the old balloon
silk. I made a fire with flint and steel, filled it with hot air and
sent it up with prayers, believing that it was my forlorn chance. And
then I heard the exhaust of your motor. I feared my mind was giving way
under the terrible