"No—the Indians!" yelled the scientist. "A whole tribe of them is rushing this way!"
"I thought so!" cried Abe Abercrombie. "Where's my gun?" and he dashed into the airship.
Tom slid down off the platform.
"Get ready for a fight!" he gasped. "Where are you, Ned?"
"Here I am. We'd better get to the mouth of the cave, and drive 'em back from there."
"Yes. If I'd only thought, we could have blockaded it in some way. It's as big as a barn now, and they can rush us if they have a mind to. But we'll do our best!"
The adventurers were now all armed, even to Mr. Parker. The scientist had recovered from his first fright, when he spied the Indians coming over the snow, as he was "observing" some natural phenomenon. Tom, even in his excitement, noticed that the professor was curiously examining his gun, evidently more with a view to seeing how it was made, and on which principle it was operated, rather than to discover how to use it.
"If it comes to a fight, just point it at the Indians, pull the trigger, and work that lever," explained the young inventor. "It's an automatic gun."
