Finally he reached a point where he was missing the tree tops by inches and, before he knew it, the ground had started dropping from beneath the plane. They had reached one of the small creeks which empty into the Umpqua. Bill did not even realize it at the time, for he was busy fighting the bumps in an endeavor to keep his plane from striking the mountain sides. Then all of a sudden it seemed as if the flood gates of the heavens had opened on them, and, to make matters worse, the lightning flashed and blazed all around the plane.