panic of fear would not help them. If the car should become unmanageable,
they would make the best landing they could and, half burying the
monoplane in the snow, would await in the protected cockpit the breaking
of the blizzard and a new day.

"Anyway," announced Roy at one time, "while I ain't exactly stuck on
being here and it ain't as cheerful as I thought it would be, you got to
say this, the _Gitchie Manitou_ ain't falling down any."

No attention was given to supper and it did not get so cold but that the
heavy clothing and enclosed cockpit--for they had long since been forced
to put up all the sections--were ample protection for the young men.
Seven o'clock, by which time they had expected to be in camp, came, as
did eight and nine. It was now long after dark and, while the storm had
abated somewhat, there was still a heavy wind and plenty of snow.

For hours the boys had been simply following the compass. They had not
caught the roar of the Grand Rapids and felt themselves practically lost.
By their calculation, and allowing for a head wind, they had concluded
that they would have covered the three hundred miles by ten o'clock. If
at that time they could make out no signal light, they had decided to
come down on the upland and go into camp for the night.

Their calculation was purely a guess but it was not a bad one. Some time
after half past nine both boys made out in the far eastern sky a soft
glow.

"I thought it had to be a clear night for the Aurora Borealis," suggested
Roy, conscious that his companion had also seen the same glow. For a time
Norman made no response but he headed the machine directly toward the
peculiar flare and ceased his tacking.

"That's no Aurora," he said at last. "I think the woods are on fire."

For ten minutes, through the thinning wind-tossed snowflakes, the
_Gitchie Manitou_ groaned its way forward.

"I wonder if it ain't a big signal fire for us," suggested Roy at last.

"It's a big blaze of some kind," answered Norman.

Through the obscuring snow, the nervous aviators had located the light
many miles in the distance. Now it began to rise up so suddenly before
them that they knew it had not been very far away. Yet they could not
make up their mind that it was a signal fire. It did not at all resemble
a blaze of that kind.

"Well, don't run into it, whatever it is," shouted Roy a few minutes
later as a tall spire-like shaft of yellow light seemed almost to block
the