are as much out of place among trees as is a seaplane.

For a minute or so I clung there to my battered flyer, now useless
beyond redemption, my brain numbed by the frightful catastrophe
that had befallen me. All my plans for the succor of Bowen and
Miss La Rue had depended upon this craft, and in a few brief minutes
my own selfish love of adventure had wrecked their hopes and mine.
And what effect it might have upon the future of the balance of
the rescuing expedition I could not even guess. Their lives, too,
might be sacrificed to my suicidal foolishness. That I was doomed
seemed inevitable; but I can honestly say that the fate of my
friends concerned me more greatly than did my own.

Beyond the barrier cliffs my party was even now nervously awaiting
my return. Presently apprehension and fear would claim them--and
they would never know! They would attempt to scale the cliffs--of
that I was sure; but I was not so positive that they would succeed; and
after a while they would turn back, what there were left of them,
and go sadly and mournfully upon their return journey to home.
Home! I set my jaws and tried to forget the word, for I knew that
I should never again see home.

And what of Bowen and his girl? I had doomed them too. They would
never even know that an attempt had been made to rescue them. If
they still lived, they might some day come upon the ruined remnants
of this great plane hanging in its lofty sepulcher and hazard vain
guesses and be filled with wonder; but they would never know; and
I could not but be glad that they would not know that Tom Billings
had sealed their death-warrants by his criminal selfishness.