“Well, there are the trees behind which I hope my airship is hidden,” announced Tom, as they came to the spot.  “Good old Red Cloud!  Maybe we won’t do some eating when we get aboard, eh?”

“Bless my appetite! but we certainly will!” cried Mr. Damon.

“There’s somebody walking around the place,” spoke Mr. Jenks.

“I hope it’s no one who has damaged the ship,” came from Tom, apprehensively.  He broke into a run, and soon confronted an aged miner, who seemed to have established a rude sort of camp near the airship.

“Is anything the matter?” asked Tom, breathlessly.  “Is my airship all right?”

“I guess she’s all right, stranger,” was the reply.  “I don’t know much about these contraptions, but I haven’t touched her.  I knowed she was an airship, for I’ve seen pictures of ’em, and I’ve been waiting until the owner came along.”

“Why?” asked Tom, wonderingly.

“Because I’ve got a proposition to make to you,” went on the miner, who said his name was Abe Abercrombie.  “I’ve been a miner for a good many years, and I’m just back from Alaska, prospecting around here.  I haven’t had any luck, but I know of a gold mine in Alaska that will make us all rich.  Only it needs an airship to get to it, and I’ve been figuring how to hire one.  Then I comes along, and I sees this big one, and I makes up my mind to stay here until the owners come back.  That’s what I’ve done.  Now, if I prove that I’m telling the truth, will you go to Alaska—­to the valley of gold with me?”

“I don’t know,” answered Tom, to whom the proposition was rather sudden.  “We’ve just had some pretty startling adventures, and we’re almost starved.  Wait until we get something to eat, and we’ll talk.  Come aboard the Red Cloud,” and the lad led the way to his craft which was in as good condition as when he left it to go to the diamond cave.  Later he listened to the miner’s story.

Tom Swift did go to the valley of gold in Alaska, and what happened to him and his companions there will be told of in the next volume of this series, to be called “Tom Swift in the Caves of Ice; or, the Wreck of the Airship.”

It did not take our friends long, after they had eaten a hearty meal, to generate some fresh gas, and start the Red Cloud oh her homeward way.  Tom wanted to take Bill Renshaw with him, but the old man said he would rather remain among the mountains where he had been born.  So, after paying him well for his services, they said good-by to him.  Abercrombie, the miner, also remained behind, but promised to call and see Tom in a few months.

“Well, we didn’t make any money out of this trip,” observed Mr. Jenks, rather dubiously, as they were nearing Shopton, after an uneventful trip.  “I guess I owe you considerable, Tom Swift.  I promised to get you a lot of diamonds, but all I have are those I had from my first visit to the cave.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” spoke Tom, easily.  “The experience was worth all the trip cost.”