ck piece of paper, written on with white ink," replied the lad. He
was reading it, and, as he perused it a look of surprise came over his
face.

"Listen to this!" called Tom. "It's evidently from the diamond makers."

Holding up the black paper, on which the white writing stood out in bold
relief Tom read aloud:

"Be warned in time! Go back before it is too late! You are near to
death! Go back!"

"Bless my shoelaces!" cried Mr. Damon. "This is getting serious."

CHAPTER XV--THE LANDSLIDE

Gathered about the young inventor, the three men looked at the warning.
The writing was poor, and it was evident that an attempt had been made
to disguise it. But there was no misspelling of words, and there were no
rudely drawn daggers, or bloody hands or anything of that sort. In fact,
it was a very business-like sort of warning.

"Rather odd," commented Mr. Jenks. "Black paper and white ink."

"White ink is easy enough to make," stated Mr. Parker. "I fancy they
wanted it as conspicuous as possible."

"Yes," agreed Tom, "and this warning, together with the antics of the
thing in white last night, shows that they are aware of our presence
here, and perhaps know who we are. We will have to be on our guard."

"Do you think that fellow Munson, whom we left in the forest, could have
gotten here and warned them?" asked Mr. Damon.

"It's possible," admitted Tom, "but now let's see if the person who
pinned this warning on our tent took any of our things."

A hasty examination, however, showed that nothing had been disturbed,
and Tom and Mr. Damon were soon getting supper ready, everyone talking,
during the progress of the meal, about the events of the day, and the
rather weird culmination of it.

"Well, we haven't had a great deal of success--so far," admitted Tom, as
they sat about the fire, in the fast gathering dusk. "I think, perhaps,
we'd better try on the other side of the mountain to-morrow. We've
explored this side pretty thoroughly."

"Good idea," commented Mr. Jenks. "We'll do it, and move our camp. I
only hope those fellows don't find our airship and destroy it. We'll
have a hard time getting back to civilization again, if we have to walk
all the way."

This contingency caused Tom some uneasiness. He did not like to think
that the unscrupulous men might damage the Red Cloud, that had been
built only after hard labor. But he knew he could accomplish nothing by
worrying, and he tried to dismiss the matt