The meal occupied several minutes.  Not once did the strange occupant of that machine relax his stony stare at the sky, and Smith tried to forget how hungry he was by estimating the extent of his vision.  He decided that the angle subtended about a hundred and sixty degrees, or almost half a circle; and he further concluded that if his agent possessed a nose, it was a pretty trifling affair, too small to be noticed.  It was obvious, too, that the fellow’s mouth was located much lower in the face than normal.  He ate without showing a single particle of food, and did it very quietly.

At length hunger was satisfied.  There was complete stillness and silence for a moment, then another short lurching journey through the cane; and next, with an abruptness that made the engineer’s senses swim again, the fellow once more took to the air.  The speed with which he “got away” was enough to make a motorcyclist, doing his best, seem to stand still.

It took time for Smith to regain his balance.  When he did, the same unbroken expanse of sky once more met his gaze; but it was not long until, out of the corners of those unblinking eyes, he could make out bleary forms which shortly resolved themselves into mountain tops.  It was odd, the way things suddenly flashed into full view.  One second they would be blurred and unrecognizable; the next, sharply outlined and distinct as anything the engineer had ever seen.  Yet, there seemed to be no change in the focus of those eyes.  It wasn’t as though they were telescopic, either.  Not until long afterward did Smith understand the meaning of this.

The mountains grew higher and nearer.  Before long it seemed as though the aircraft was entering some sort of a canon.  Its sides were only sparsely covered with vegetation, and all of it was quite brown, as though the season were autumn.  For the most part the surface was of broken rock and boulders.

Within a space of three or four minutes the engineer counted not less than ten buzzards.  The unknown operator of the machine, however, paid no attention to them, but continued his extraordinary watch of the heavens.  Smith began to wonder if the chap were not seated in an air-tight, sound-proof chamber, deep in the hull of some great aerial cruiser, with his eyes glued fast to a periscope.  “Maybe a sky patrol,” thought the man of the earth; “a cop on the lookout for aerial smugglers, like as not.”

And then came another of those terrifying stops.  This time, as soon as he could collect his senses, the engineer saw that the machine had landed approximately in the middle of the canon, and presumably among the boulders in its bottom.  For all about it were the tops of gigantic rocks, most of them worn smooth from water action.  And, as soon as the engine stopped, Smith plainly heard the roar of water right at hand.  He could not see it, however.  Why in the name of wonder didn’t the fellow look down, for a change?