The days that followed were filled with weary searching. It was like the time when they had sought for the plain of the great ruined Temple in Mexico, that they might locate the underground city of gold. Only in this case they had no such landmark as a great Aztec ruin to guide them.
What they were seeking for was something unseen, but which could be felt—a mysterious wind—a wind that might be encountered any time, and which might send the Falcon to the earth a wreck.
The Russian brothers, staggering about in the storm, had seen the mine under different conditions from what it would be viewed now. Then it was winter in Siberia. Now it was summer, though it was not very warm.
On and on sailed the Falcon. The weather could not have been better, but for once Tom wanted bad weather. He wanted a blow—the harder the better—and all eyes anxiously watched the anemometer, or wind gage. But ever it revolved lazily about in the gentle breeze.
"Oh, for a hurricane!" cried Tom.
He got his wish sooner than he anticipated. It was about two days after this, when they were going about in a great circle, about two hundred miles from the imaginery centre of the district in which the mine lay, that, as Mr. Damon was
