of the heat and flying sparks----"

"Look here!" Ace vociferated with the suddenness of a machine gun. "I'm
going for her."

"What----!"

"Yes, sir! I can land there, anyway. Then if it queers the machine, I'll
take Rosa down to the rapids. I know a fellow that was in a big fire in
Montana. When it cut them off, each man soaked his blanket and got under
it in midstream while the fire jumped to the other bank. They made a sort
of tepee around their heads, got clear under water, and just came up for
an occasional breath. Gee! He says it roared like a thousand trains as
it swept over them. So that's what we'll do--that is, unless we can get
back in the ship."

Unconsciously he patted his machine, and Ted knew what it would mean to
him to lose it.

"Perhaps--perhaps you _can_ bring it back," he ventured.

"Sure thing!" Ace gave his spirits a toss. "Anyway, here goes!--Good-by."

"What's the idea?" yelled Ted aggrievedly. "Going to leave your side-kick
behind?" and he climbed into the observer's place.

"Coming!" Ace wirelessed the girl. "Be on meadow--we'll pick you up."

"If our propellers don't go on strike," he added to himself. Still he
knew he could slow to 80 miles an hour and pancake down. He would first
circle well away from the fire, with its super-heated air column, till
they came to the gorge of the Kawa. There would be a narrow zone, he
figured, of less destructive atmosphere, the air channel over the
2,000-foot canyon.

With a peek at castor oil and gasoline, they started, looping and curving
straight to 15,000 feet, then Westward, away from the fire zone. Though
the day was fair, the spiral of hot air rising above the flaming forest
kept them pitching and lurching in a short chop that made Ted look green,
and gave even Ace a cold feeling at the pit of his stomach.

The sea of snow-clad peaks slid by beneath them, the sun flashing from
the granite slopes. Rising and falling, rising and falling in the rough,
upper air, they felt as if they were in a swift elevator. A cloud to the
West looked like a fleecy carpet beneath them. The West wind kept
swinging the machine till Ace had continually to bring it back in line
with the rapids of the Kawa which was his objective point.

It took but instants, though it seemed ages to both boys. Now it was time
to race quivering down the gorge of canyon-cooled air. Would they make
it against the devastating breath of the flames!--Now they were looking
straight do