Kitabı oku: «The Boy Aviators in Record Flight; Or, The Rival Aeroplane», sayfa 8

CHAPTER XIX.
ARRESTED BY AEROPLANE

What had happened soon transpired as the men in the auto hastily jumped out and started to rip off the shoe of a rear tire.

“I guess a cactus thorn punctured them,” commented Harry.

“That’s just about what happened,” rejoined Frank.

“I see Wild Bill Jenkins,” suddenly shouted the sheriff. He bent over and picked up one of the rifles with which the side of the chassis was furnished.

A hasty exclamation from Frank checked him.

“Don’t shoot!” cried the boy

“Wall, stranger, if you don’t beat all. The reward holds good for him alive or dead.”

“Well, we can just as easily capture him alive,” said Frank coolly, “and I don’t want to see human life taken in that wanton manner.”

The sheriff regarded him amazedly, but nevertheless put down the weapon.

“Wall, if we lose him it will be your fault,” he remarked grimly.

But they were not to lose the desperado. As the aeroplane swooped to earth the sheriff hailed the auto party which comprised Luther Barr, the red-bearded man, Wild Bill Jenkins, and Fred Reade. They looked up from their frenzied efforts at adjusting the tire and, surmising from the authoritative tones of the sheriff who he must be, old Barr hailed him in a piping voice:

“We have done nothing against the law, sheriff. What do you want?”

By this time the aeroplane had come to a standstill, and the boys and their companion were on the ground.

“I ain’t so sure about that frum what these boys told me of yer doings last night,” said the sheriff dryly; “but as they ain’t got no proof on you, I suppose we can’t arrest yer. But we want one of your party – Wild Bill Jenkins yonder.”

As he spoke there was the vicious crack of a pistol, and the sheriff’s hat flew off. The man they were in search of had hidden himself behind the tonneau of the machine, and it was he who fired the shot. There would have been further shooting but for the fact that at that moment old man Barr, much alarmed lest he should be implicated in the proceedings, called out:

“You had better give yourself up, Bill Jenkins. I won’t protect you.”

“That’s because I didn’t kidnap the right man for you, you old scalliwag, I suppose, and you got my plan of the mine, too,” angrily muttered Wild Bill. “Well, I’ll get even with you yet. All right, sheriff, I’ll go along with you.”

“Just stick up those hands of yours first, Bill, and throw that gun on the ground,” ordered the sheriff.

The bad man, realizing that there would be no use in putting up a fight, meekly surrendered, and a few seconds later he was handcuffed.

“Now, then,” demanded Frank, stepping up to Luther Barr, “where is our auto that you stole last night and where is Mr. Joyce?”

“Your auto that we stole, my dear young man?” meekly inquired Barr.

“Ha! ha! ha! that’s a good one,” laughed Reade.

“Yes, that you stole – you or the ruffians you have chosen to make your associates.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” resumed old Barr; “but I will tell you this: two bad men, named Hank Higgins and Noggy Wilkes, did bring an auto in White Willow this morning. I suspected they’d stolen it somewhere.”

“Ha!” cried the sheriff, “I want those fellows, too. Where are they?”

“How do I know, my good man?” asked Luther Barr.

“Well, if you won’t tell, I’ve got no means of making you,” rejoined the sheriff, “although I’m pretty sure you do know. By the way the boys told me your party had two autos. Where’s the other?”

“Why – why, it’s gone on ahead,” said old Barr, who seemed somewhat taken aback.

“Gone on ahead? Then, that’s where Hank Higgins and Noggy Wilkes are, for sure,” exclaimed the sheriff. “Well, it’s no good chasing after them now, besides, there’s no reward for them, anyhow.”

“At least, you will not be so hard-hearted as not to tell us what has become of Mr. Joyce?” said Frank, seeing that it was no use to threaten old Barr, who seemed to have the upper hand just then.

“Joyce – Joyce,” repeated Barr, professing to be very much puzzled. “Oh, yes, I do remember an old man of that name – one of your friends, wasn’t he? Why, my dear boys, if you don’t know where he is how should I?”

“Base as you have shown yourself to be, I didn’t think you would carry your wickedness to this pitch,” exclaimed Frank, his fingers itching to strike Reade, who sat by with a sneering smile on his face while his aged companion mocked the boys.

“Come, Harry, there is no good waiting here,” he went on. “We must get back to White Willow. Mr. Joyce must be there. But, mind,” he exclaimed, “if any harm has come to Mr. Joyce I shall hold you responsible before the law for it.”

Still sneering, Barr and his companions drove off.

The sheriff accepted the boys’ offer to carry them through the air back to White Willow, and in a few minutes’ time they were there, Wild Bill Jenkins, it is safe to say, being thus the first prisoner to be carried to jail in an aeroplane. The first man they sought out in the town was the old inventor to whom they had sent the wireless message. They found him a dreamy, white-haired man, more interested in his inventions and their aeroplane than in the questions with which they plied him. He insisted, in fact, on taking them up the hillside, in which scores of abandoned mine shafts still remained, to show them an invention he had for washing gold. He was in the middle of exhibiting the workings of his device when the boys were startled to hear a low groan which seemed to come from near at hand.

At first they had some difficulty in tracing it, but they finally located the sound as proceeding from the mouth of one of the empty shafts.

“Who is there?” they shouted, while the old inventor stood in amazement.

“It must be the ghost of Bud Stone who fell down that shaft and was killed,” he exclaimed and started to run away.

“Who is there?” cried Frank again, leaning over the deep pit which seemed to be of considerable depth.

“I am Eben Joyce – help me!” came a feeble cry from the regions below.

“Hold on!” shouted Frank. “Be brave, and we’ll soon have you out. Are you hurt?”

“No; but I am most dead from thirst,” came the answer.

“Have you strength enough to attach a rope beneath your shoulders if we lower one to you?”

“Yes – oh, yes. Oh, boys, please get me out of this terrible place.”

It did not take long to get a rope and followed by half the population of the little town, the boys made their way back to the mouth of the shaft. But here a fresh difficulty presented itself. It seemed that old Mr. Joyce had swooned. At all events he did not answer their shouts to him.

Frank began making a noose in the rope which he slipped under his own armpits.

“What are you going to do?” asked Harry.

“Going down there to get the old man out,” was the cool reply.

Despite Harry’s protestations Frank was finally lowered over the lip of the black pit. It had been agreed that after he reached the bottom that two tugs was to be the signal that he wished to be hauled up. Pretty soon the men lowering him felt the rope slacken and knew that he had reached the bottom of the pit. It seemed a long time before the reassuring two tugs gave them word that all was well.

But when they started to haul the boy and his unconscious burden up a fresh difficulty presented itself. The rope which was already badly chafed would certainly break under the uneven hauling of the men, and also the rough edge of the pit mouth would undoubtedly wear it through before the boy and the old man had been hauled to the surface.

“Get another rope,” cried Harry.

“There ain’t another long enough in the camp, stranger,” replied one of the army of rescuers.

“Here, I hev it,” suddenly exclaimed the sheriff, who, by this time, had placed his prisoner in the town lockup and had joined the onlookers, “let’s git a log of wood and use it as a roller.”

“That’s a good idee,” was the consensus of opinion, and soon two men were lying one at each end of a round log, over which the rope had been run. Then the crowd began to heave again, but although their intentions were good their manner of hauling was so jerky that every tug strained the rope almost to breaking point.

“Ef only we had a windlass,” groaned the sheriff, “we could git a good, even pull and soon hev ’em on terrible firma.”

“I know what we can do!” suddenly exclaimed Harry, “we can hitch the rope to the automobile and get them out.”

In his excitement he had forgotten that they had not yet located the auto.

“But where is yer buzz wagon?” objected the sheriff.

“That’s so,” said Harry in a chagrined tone. “Where can they have hidden it? It must be here somewhere.”

“What’s that, young feller?” asked a tall man in blue overalls.

“Why, our auto. Some men stole it last night and drove it here. They stole the poor old man who is down in the pit, and brought him here in it,” exclaimed the excited lad. “So far as we know, it’s here yet, but we don’t know whereabouts.”

“Maybe I kin help yer, thin. There’s a buzz wagon down back of my house behind a haystack. Looks like some one tried to hide it there.”

“That’s it,” cried Harry, racing off and in a few minutes he was back with the auto which, to his great joy, was found to be unharmed.

To attach the rope to it was the work of a second, and then as Harry started up the engine the half-suffocated man and boy were hauled out of the pit. It took quite a little time for old man Joyce to recover, but Frank was soon himself again. As soon as he could talk Mr. Joyce told the boys that in their rage and fury at finding that he was the wrong man and not Bart Witherbee whom they had intended to kidnap, Barr and his associates had lowered him into the mine shaft, and then on the threat of shooting down it and killing him, had made him undo the rope, which they then hauled up.

“I wonder what became of Barr’s other auto?” queried Frank as the boys and their friend, the sheriff, surrounded by an admiring crowd, walked back toward the town.

“Why, Barr said it had gone on ahead,” replied Frank. “Maybe he wasn’t telling the truth, though, and it’s still here.”

But the other auto had gone on ahead, as the boys found out later, and in it had also gone the Slade aeroplane, repairs on which had not been finished. But White Willow, having suddenly come to be regarded by Luther Barr, for obvious reasons, as unhealthy, it had been decided to hustle the machine out of town on the motor car.

“But,” exclaimed Harry, when the boys heard of this from some men in the town who had seen the aeroplane loaded onto the automobile, “that is an infraction of the rules of the race. The contestants must proceed under their own power.”

“Well, we’d have a hard time proving they did such a thing,” rejoined Frank, “so the best thing for us to do is to buckle down and make up for lost time. We’d better get right over to Gitalong in the auto, pick up the others, and start on our way. You can drive over with Mr. Joyce, and I’ll fly the Golden Eagle over.”

The rejoicings in Gitalong on the part of the young adventurers may be imagined when they saw the auto coming, speeding over the level rolling plain with the aeroplane flying high above it. The sheriff and his prisoner followed on horseback. With warm handshakings and amid a tornado of cheers and revolver shots, the boys started off once more on their way half an hour later, more determined than ever to win the great prize.

CHAPTER XX.
CAUGHT IN A STAMPEDE

That night, as may be imagined, the adventurers spent in hearty sleep. Although they had no means of knowing how far behind they were in the race, at the same time they were too exhausted by the exciting events through which they had passed to consider anything except refreshing their wornout frames. But boy nature is a wonderful thing, and both Mr. Joyce and Bart Witherbee were hard as nails, so when the entire party awoke the next day – well over the border line into Arizona – they were as refreshed as if they had rested a week.

Breakfast was over, the auto packed and everything ready for a start when suddenly in the distance a low growling was heard, something like the voice of an approaching thunderstorm.

“Thunder!” exclaimed Billy; “if that isn’t tough luck.”

“Thunder!” echoed Bart incredulously; “not much. Why, the sky’s as clear as a mirror.”

“Well, it’s queer, certainly,” agreed the others, looking about, but as they saw no cause for the queer noise the auto party got aboard and Frank and Harry mounted in the aeroplane.

The desert in this part of Arizona is full of little dips and rises, and from the dip on a river bank where grew a sparse collection of trees, by which the boys had camped, they had not been able to see far across the plain. As soon as Frank and Harry rose in the air, however, they perceived at once what had been the cause of the rumbling sound they had heard.

Not more than a mile away, and coming toward them like the wind, was one of the deadliest perils of the plains.

They shouted warnings to the boys in the auto below.

“What’s the matter?” yelled back Lathrop, who was at the wheel.

“Matter?” shouted back Frank. “There’s a herd of stampeded cattle coming straight for you.”

The effect of these words on Bart Witherbee was electrical.

“Great guns, boys!” he exclaimed; “that’s the worst news we could have. If we can’t escape them we are as good as dead. Put on all the speed you can.”

Only half realizing the terrible nature of the peril so rapidly approaching, Lathrop put on all the speed the auto possessed, and the machine seemed to fairly leap forward. Bart Witherbee stood up in the tonneau the better to see what was approaching behind them. Even he blanched under his tanned, weather-beaten skin as he saw that the cattle, an immense herd, were advancing in a crescent-shaped formation that seemed to make escape impossible.

Billy Barnes, who stood at his elbow, also sighted the maddened steers at the same moment as they rushed over a rise not more than half a mile away now.

“Whatever started them?” he gasped.

“Who can tell, lad, a coyote jumping up suddenly, the hoot of a ground owl, anything will start cattle stampeding when they are in the mood for it.”

The herd came swooping on, but so far the auto, which seemed to be fairly flying over the ground, maintained its lead. The steers were bellowing and throwing their heads high in the air as they advanced, and the noise of their hoofs seemed a perfect Niagara of sound.

“Get your gun out and load. We may have to use ’em before long,” exclaimed Bart Witherbee. “Sometimes the noise of shooting will turn a lot of stampeders.”

“Do you think it will stop them?” asked Billy.

“I dunno,” was the grim reply. “Maybe yes, maybe no. We’ve got to try to save our lives as best we can.”

On and on went the chase, the auto fleeing like a scared live thing before the pursuing peril. Bart Witherbee’s face grew grim.

“Won’t they get tired soon?” asked Billy, who couldn’t see how the steers could keep up the terrible pace much longer.

“Tired,” echoed the plainsman, “not much, lad. It’ll take a whole lot to tire them. Why, I’ve seen ’em go clear over a cliff. They’re like mad things when once they’re stampeded.”

Suddenly the auto came to a stop.

“What’s the matter?” shouted Witherbee, in a sharp tone that showed his anxiety.

For reply Lathrop pointed ahead.

Right in front of them was a deep arroyo or water course with steep banks fully thirty feet in height, effectually blocking progress. The boys were trapped.

“What shall we do?” cried Lathrop with a white face.

“Not much of anything as I can see,” replied Bart with a shrug. “Looks like this is our finish.”

On swept the steers. The boys could now see the angry little red eyes of the leaders gleaming savagely. Their horns were as long and sharp pointed as spears.

“Everybody get out your guns and fire, it may scare ’em,” commanded Witherbee.

Quickly the four revolvers of the party were emptied in the face of the advancing onrush, but not a steer wavered.

“It’s all over,” groaned Witherbee.

But suddenly a dark shadow swept down from the skies so close to the boys in the auto that they could almost feel the rush of wind as the great body swept by.

It was the Golden Eagle.

Frank, who, with Harry, had watched in terrible apprehension the advance of the steers, had suddenly recollected what the cowboys had said about aeroplanes scaring them. Instantly he had set his descending levers and swept in a long, low circle full in the faces of the amazed bovines.

With bellows of terror they turned, wavered and a minute later were in full retreat. They thundered past the auto in a long line, their warm breath almost fanning the occupants’ faces, but none of them came any closer. Wild terror of the mysterious thing of the sky had seized them, and they were off in the opposite direction as swiftly as they had thundered in pursuit of the auto.

“Phew! that was as narrow an escape as ever I want to have,” exclaimed Billy, his face still white as the last of the herd scampered by.

“Same here,” echoed Lathrop.

As for Mr. Joyce and Bart Witherbee they did not say much, perhaps because they realized even more than the boys the terrible death from which Frank’s bold swoop had saved them.

Looking up to where the Golden Eagle was soaring far above them the party in the auto set up a cheer to which Frank answered with a wave of the hand. The next instant he pointed to the westward, and – skirting the banks of the steep arroyo till they found a place where a ford had been made – the boys in the auto followed them.

Late that afternoon the character of the country over which they had been traveling began to change. The road grew rugged and in places great trees grew right up to the edge of the track and overshadowed it. The aeroplane soared far above the treetops, however, and the boys had no difficulty in keeping track of it. Suddenly, however, as they drove along the rough track, Billy, who was driving, stopped the car with a jerk.

“We can’t get any further,” he remarked.

“Why not?” demanded Bart Witherbee.

“Look there.”

The boy pointed ahead a few feet up the road.

A huge tree lay across it, effectually blocking all progress.

CHAPTER XXI.
BART AND THE B’AR

“Well, boys, we sure do seem to be in for a run of hard luck,” remarked Bart Witherbee as he climbed out of the auto with the others, and they ruefully surveyed the obstruction. It was a big sugar pine and lay entirely across the road. To go round it was out of the question, for the ground on each side was timber grown and rocky.

“There’s only one thing to do – cut it away,” pronounced Bart Witherbee, starting back for the tonneau to get the axes.

“No; I’ve got a better scheme than that,” said Billy suddenly, and then broke out with a loud: “Look here, fellows!”

He pointed excitedly to the trunk of the tree where it had been severed from the roots.

The fresh marks of an axe were upon it.

“It’s Luther Barr and his crowd,” cried the boy. “They figured on blocking us, and they would have succeeded but for a scheme I’ve just thought of.”

“What’s that?” demanded Bart Witherbee.

“Why, let’s get the rope out of the tonneau and haul the tree out of the way with the auto.”

“Say, that’s a good plan,” assented Bart Witherbee, starting back for the auto once more. In a few minutes he had the rope and it was quickly looped round the tree and then tied to the rear axle of the auto, after the machine had been turned round.

Billy took his place at the wheel and started the car up. There was a great sound of cracking and straining, and for a second the auto’s wheels spun uselessly around. Then suddenly as the boy applied more power the great log started.

Amid a cheer from the boys it was pulled entirely away, and a few seconds later the road was clear.

“Well, what do you think of men who would descend to a mean trick like that,” demanded Bill angrily as the adventurers resumed the road.

“As it happened it didn’t do them much good,” remarked Bart.

“I should say not,” rejoined Billy. “I reckon they didn’t think that we could hit upon a way of getting it off our track.”

The auto chugged on through the sweet-smelling pine woods till the declining sun began to tint their dark branches with gold.

“Hadn’t we better send the boys a wireless?” asked Billy, and as the others agreed that it was important to know where they were the mast was set in position and a call sent out. A reply was soon obtained from the others, who were camped at a small plateau further up the side of the foothill.

Half an hour later the boys were all in camp together, and the events of the day were discussed with much interest. It was a wild country in which they found themselves. Great stretches of barrens mingled with dense pine woods, and Frank and Harry had serious thoughts of once more taking to the plains. Bart Witherbee, however, assured them that if they kept on to Calabazos they would find a good landing and ascending place, and from there could easily wing their way to level ground. He represented to them that they would be taking a short cut also by following this route. So the boys decided to keep on to Calabazos with the old miner, a decision which was not wholly disinterested, for they were anxious to see the mine of which he had told them so much.

Naturally, the position of the other contestants in the race was a topic that came up for a lot of discussion, but the boys were still talking it over when it was time to turn in without having arrived at any definite conclusion. From what they had heard in White Willow they were pretty certain that Slade’s aeroplane was disabled. Concerning the condition of the dirigible or her whereabouts, however, there was by no means the same amount of assurance.

They were chatting thus and speculating on their chance of winning the big prize when Bart Witherbee suddenly held up a warning hand.

“Hark!” he exclaimed. They all listened.

“Did you hear anything?” he asked of Frank.

“Not a thing,” replied the boy.

“I thought I heard footsteps up the trail,” returned the old miner, “but I guess I was mistaken.”

“Why, who could it be?” asked Billy.

“It might very easily be some of Luther Barr’s gang prowling about. We are near the mine now, and they are no doubt determined to get the papers showing its location before I have a chance to file my claim,” put in Bart Witherbee.

The boys kept a sharp lookout after this, but they heard no more, if, indeed, there had been any sound, which they began to doubt, and soon after they were snug asleep in their blankets.

Suddenly Frank was awakened by shots and loud shouts. Springing up from his blankets he was amazed to see Bart Witherbee rolling over and over on the ground with somebody who seemed of immense size gripping him tightly.

The boy could hear Bart gasping for breath. He seemed as if he were being crushed.

Frank’s shouts awakened the others.

“Robbers!” cried Billy.

“Indians!” yelled Harry.

“Murderers!” cried old Mr. Joyce, as their sleepy eyes took in the struggle.

Harry raised his rifle to fire at Bart’s antagonist, whoever he might be, and was about to pull the trigger, even at the risk of hitting the miner, when Frank interrupted him with a cry of:

“Don’t shoot, you might hit Bart.”

“But the robber will kill him.”

“It’s not a robber at all,” suddenly cried Frank, as the two contestants rolled over nearer to the firelight. “It’s a big bear!”

“Give me a knife – quick!” gasped Bart, as he and the bear rolled about. Hastily Frank threw toward him a big hunting weapon. One of the hunter’s arms was free, and he reached out and grabbed the weapon. With a rapid thrust he drove it into the bear’s eye. With a howl of pain the animal raised its paws to caress its injury. At the same instant Frank’s rifle cracked and the animal rolled over, seemingly dead.

“Are you hurt?” asked the boys, rushing forward to Bart.

“No, I don’t think so,” cautiously replied the miner, feeling his ribs. “I feel as if that thar critter had caved me in, though.”

An examination soon showed that Bart was uninjured and the bear quite dead.

“That was a close call,” remarked the miner, wiping his knife. “I guess that must have been what I heard prowling around here early in the evening, although that dead brute there was no more dangerous than that old sharp, Luther Barr.”

“Did you think it was some of his gang attacking you?” asked Billy.

“I sure did,” replied the miner. “I was lying nice and quietly asleep when all of a sudden I felt something nosing me, and could feel its warm breath on the back of my neck. If I had not been so sleepy, I’d have known it was a b’ar by the strong smell of its fur, but as it was, I thought it was Hank Higgins or Noggy Wilkes. I soon found out my mistake, though.”

After this interruption the boys turned in and slept quite soundly till daybreak, when they were up and the journey to Calabazos resumed, after the bear had been skinned and the steaks enjoyed. Before the start was made Bart gave the boys full instructions for landing the Golden Eagle in Calabazos, which lay across a small canyon not very many miles ahead.

The road now began to dip down hill, and the auto rattled along at a lively clip. Here and there the boys noticed small huts, and tunnels drilled in the hillside, which the miner told them were abandoned claims.

“Some of them is worked yet by Chinamen,” he explained: “but when the poor yellow men do unexpectedly make a strike there’s always some mean cuss ready to come along and take it all away from them. I think the gov’ment ought ter do something about it.

“Half a mile ahead now is the bridge across the canyon, and then we’ve only got a short distance to go before we’re in Calabazos. My mine is about ten miles from there,” he said a few minutes later. “I wonder who is sheriff there now. You see, that makes a whole lot of difference when yer are filing a claim against a rival. You’ve got to have the sheriff on your side, for he can make a lot of trouble for you in getting to the gov’ment office, where first come, first served is the rule.”

“But you have your claim staked, have you not?” asked Billy.

“Sure; but that don’t bind it till you’ve registered your claim,” rejoined the miner. “You see, mine’s an abandoned claim, too. Old fellow name of Fogg had it once. At least I found his name cut on a tree.”

And now they came to a sharp turn in the road.

“The bridge is right around the corner,” said the miner, “you had better put on your brakes, Billy, or we may have a runaway, for there’s a terrible steep bit of hill runs right down to it.”

The boy obeyed, and it was well he did so, for while they were speeding toward the bridge, a rude affair of pine trunks laid across long stringers suspended high in the air above a pine-clad canyon, there was a sudden shout from Bart Witherbee, who was acting as lookout.

“Hold up, boy! Stop the car!” he shouted.

“What’s up?” asked Billy, shutting down his emergency brakes with a snap in obedience to the miner’s urgent tone.

“Look there!” The miner pointed ahead.

At first the boys could see nothing the matter with the bridge, but a second glance showed them that something very serious indeed had occurred to it.

Somebody had removed two of the trunks that formed a roadway, and right in the centre of the structure was a gaping hole. Had the auto come upon it unexpectedly it must have gone through into the depths of the canyon beneath.

They all got out of the auto, all, that is, but Mr. Joyce, who was busy figuring on an invention, and hastened down to the bridge. The planks, there was no doubt, had been deliberately removed by some one, and that those persons were Luther Barr and his party none in the party could for a moment doubt.

Suddenly the bell of the wireless on board the auto began to ring.

“The boys are sending us a message,” exclaimed Billy.

He and Lathrop raced back up the hill to the car, where the latter placed the detector over his ears and tapped out his “ready” signal.

The others watched him eagerly. It was not a minute before they saw that something serious was the matter. The boy’s face paled, and he seemed much concerned.

“What is the matter?” anxiously asked Bart Witherbee. “Air the boys in trouble?”

“The worst kind of trouble, I am afraid,” breathed Lathrop in a tone of deep concern. “They are in the hands of Luther Barr.”

“Where?”

“On the other side of the canyon.”