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Already the verge lay far behind; and now the sense of empty space above and on all sides and there beloas overpowering

Stern gasped with a peculiar choking sound Then all at once, throwing the front steering plane at an angle, he brought the machine about and headed for the distant land

He spoke no word, nor did she; but they both swept the edge of the chasht

It ith tremendous relief that they both saw the solid earth oncechosen a clear and sand-barren on the verge, soht the ratitude and a relief not to be voiced in words

"By Jove!" exclai Beatrice froh to shake a ical or otherwise, I'd like to knohat is!"

"Going to try to cross it?" she asked anxiously; "that is, if there is any other side? I know, of course, that if there is you'll find out, some way or other!"

"You overestimate me," he replied "All I can do, for now, is to caure the proble is, it's evident it stands between us and our plan Either Chicago lies on the other side--(provided, of course, as you say, that there is one)--or else it's been sed up, ages ago, by whatever catastrophe produced this yawning gulf

"In either event we've got to try to discover the truth, and act accordingly But for now, there's nothing we can do It's getting late already We've had enough for one day, little girl Coht, and camp down here and have a bite to eat Perhaps by to-ainst!"

The ht, before the two adventurers had finished theirit they had kept an unusual silence The presence of that terrible gulf, there not two hundred feet away to ard of thehts

And after thethey refrained froreat the risks by night They spoke but little, and presently exhausted by the trying events of the day--sought sleep under the vanes of the Pauillac

But for an hour, tired as he was, the engineer lay thinking of the chas in vain to solve its problem or to understand how they were to follow any further the search for the ruins of Chicago, where fuel was to be had, or carry on the work of trying to find so members of the human race