"It's a shooting shtar, begobs!" exclaimed the Irish lad.
"Not much!" broke from Frank. "That is no star. It looks like a light, with a reflector behind it."
"Well, who knows but thot's th' woay a shtar looks?"
"It is not a star," said Old Solitary; "but what it is I cannot say."
Old Solitary gave a muttered exclamation of incredulity.
"It is not impossible," asserted Frank. "It was in the _Eagle_ that we came here from Blake."
Then in a few words Frank told the man of their trip from Blake, how Professor Scudmore had gone mad, and how they had captured the ship from the professor, who afterward escaped and got away with the _Eagle_ in the night.
The boy's apparent sincerity convinced Old Solitary that he spoke the truth, and by the time Frank had finished, the air ship had settled close to the earth. They could see its outlines through the darkness, and could see a man in the car.
The _Eagle_ came down gently, and the man stepped out.
"It was somewhere amid these mountains that I left those poor boys," he murmured. "There is not one chance in ten thousand that I shall ever find them again."
"You have stumbled on that one chance," said Frank, speaking distinctly, and advancing fearlessly toward the man.
Professor Scudmore seemed on the point of leaping into the air ship and taking to flight, but he suddenly changed his mind.
"Can't get away quick enough to escape," he said. "Have let off enough gas so the ballast brought her down, and I could not throw out the rest of the ballast and get away. If enemies come, I am lost."
"We are not enemies," assured Frank. "We are the boys you left not many miles from here."
"It can't be possible!" cried the lank professor, in the greatest surprise and delight. "Then this is the work of Providence--it must be!"
"I was mad at the time," he explained; "I must have been. Otherwise, I'd never done such a thing. I came to my sober senses after a time, and then I resolved to come back here, hoping to find you, but not expecting to."
"Begorra! ye done a great thrick thot toime!" put in Barney Mulloy. "Frankie, me b'y we'll get away in th' _'Agle_, an' th' Danite thot catches us will have to have wings."
"That is right," said Frank. "This will provide a means of escape for us, if the professor will take us along."