Zeb cooked a fine breakfast to which he urged everybody to do justice, as they had a long and possibly a trying day ahead of them.  The badger was given decent burial by Dick.

“Let its fate be a lesson to you,” said Jack, at which they all laughed, for Dick was always on the spot at meal times.

When the morning meal was finished and the things all packed away, the Wondership was inflated and soared into the clear air.  Nights and early mornings on the desert are cool, and it was crisp and invigorating in the hours before the sun had risen high.  But by noon the heat grew blistering, and they were still soaring above the river without a trace of Rattlesnake Island being visible.

However, that afternoon they sighted a group of islands of which the largest at once attracted their attention.  A prominent feature of Rattlesnake Island, as outlined on the map, was a big dead pine, situated like a beacon, at the summit of the peak into which the island rose.

The river at this point broadened out.  Great cliffs overhung it.  They were made up of strata of brilliant colors.  It looked from above as if they had been painted by some titanic sign painter—­nature, the artist.

Jack was the first to call attention to the island which had caught his eye while he scanned the river below them with the binoculars.  He at once noticed its formation, long and narrow, with a high, rocky peak rising out from amongst trees and bushes which clothed it almost to the summit.

Then his eye caught a great white pine trunk, standing like a flagpole almost at the apex of the peak.

“Hurrah, boys!” he cried.  “I guess that’s the place.  Welcome to Rattlesnake Island!”

Tom was steering, “spelling” Jack at the wheel.

“You can see the island?” he demanded.

“Yes, or if it isn’t it, it’s like enough to be its twin brother.”

Everybody began to get excited.  Zeb took the glasses and after a careful scrutiny and a reference to the map, declared that the island below them tallied in every way with its description.

“Then down we go,” said Jack.

“All right,” nodded Tom, who was almost as good an air pilot as his cousin.

The Wondership dropped rapidly.  Soon they were immediately above the island, which was now seen to be rocky and precipitous, except at one end where there was a great open place, bare and desolate looking.

On the edges of this cleared spot, which looked swampy and unwholesome, were serried rows of trees, every one of which was dead as if from a blight, and offering with their gaunt, leafless branches a sharp contrast to the green leafiness of the rest of the island.

Jack scanned the place sharply as they dropped down and Tom prepared to land on the edge of the swamp.  As they got closer to the ground, he suddenly became aware of something that caused him a sharp shock of surprise.