Page:Tom Swift in the Caves of Ice.djvu/143

Rh "Bless my memoranda book!" exclaimed Mr. Damon. "The Fogers here! What's to be done about it?"

"Nothing, I guess," answered Tom. "I'd just as soon they wouldn't see us. I don't believe they will. Get back into the cave. We must use strategy now to get ahead of them. There will be a race to the valley of gold."

"Well he served us one good turn, anyhow, though he didn't mean to," put in Abe Abercrombie.

"How?" asked Mr. Parker, who was still examining his gun, as though trying to understand.

"He scared away them pesky natives," went on the miner. "Otherwise we might have had a fight, an' while I reckon we could have beat 'em, it's best not to fight if you kin git out of it."

The gold-seekers had withdrawn inside the mouth of the cave, where they could watch the progress of the rival airship without being seen. The Indians had disappeared beyond a snow-covered hill.

The airship of Andy Foger, for such it subsequently proved to be, floated slowly onward. Its progress was not marked with the speed of Tom's craft, though whether or not the occupants of the Athony [sic] (as Andy had