We did not have to risk our necks to that extent, however, for at last, stealing along among the rocks and trees like so many creeping savages, we came to that flat space where we had landed; and there, in unbelievable good fortune, we found our machine.
"Covered, too, by jingo! Would you think they had that much sense ?" cried Terry.
"If they had that much, they're likely to have more," I warned him, softly.

"Bet you the thing's watched." We reconnoitered as widely as we could in the failing moonlight--moons are of a painfully unreliable nature; but the growing dawn showed us the familiar shape, shrouded in some heavy cloth like canvas, and no slightest sign of any watchman near.

We decided to make a quick dash as soon as the light was strong enough for accurate work.
"I don't care if the old thing'll go or not," Terry declared.

"We can run her to the edge, get aboard, and just plane down--plop!--beside our boat there.

Look there--see the boat!" Sure enough--there was our motor, lying like a gray cocoon on the flat pale sheet of water.
Quietly but swiftly we rushed forward and began to tug at the fastenings of that cover.
"Confound the thing!" Terry cried in desperate impatience.