TWO RUNAWAY AVIATORS!
Half an hour after the departure of the _Louise_, Sam awoke with a start
and moved over to where the millionaire aviator was sleeping.
“Time to be moving!” he whispered in his ear.
Mr. Havens yawned, stretched himself, and threw his blanket aside.
“I don’t know,” he said with a smile, “but we’re doing wrong in taking
all the credit of this game. The boys have done good work ever since
leaving New York, and my conscience rather pricks me at the thought of
leaving them out of the closing act.”
“Well,” Sam answered, “the boys are certainly made of the right
material, if they are just a little too much inclined to take
unnecessary risks. I wouldn’t mind having them along, but, really,
there’s no knowing what one of them might do.”
“Very well,” replied Mr. Havens, “we’ll get underway in the _Ann_ and
land on top of the fortress before the occupants of that musty old
fortification know that we are in the air.”
“That’s the talk!” Sam agreed. “We’ll make a wide circuit to the west
and come up on that side of the summit which rises above the fort. I’m
certain, from what I saw this afternoon, that there is a good
landing-place there. Most of these Peruvian mountain chains,” he went
on, “are plentifully supplied with good landings, as the shelves and
ledges which lie like terraces on the crags were formerly used as
highways and trails by the people who lived here hundreds of years ago.”
“We must be very careful in getting away from the camp,” Mr. Havens
suggested. “We don’t want the boys to suspect that we are going off on a
little adventure of our own.”
“Very well,” replied the other, “I’ll creep over in the shadows and push
the _Ann_ down the valley so softly that they’ll never know what’s taken
place. If you walk down a couple of hundred yards, I’ll pick you up.
Then we’ll be away without disturbing any one.”
So eager were the two to leave the camp without their intentions being
discovered by the others, that they did not stop to see whether all the
three machines were still in place. The _Ann_ stood farthest to the
east, next to the _Bertha_, and Sam crept in between the two aeroplanes
and began working the _Ann_ slowly along the grassy sward.
Had he lifted his head for a moment and looked to the rear, he must have
seen that only the _Bertha_ lay behind him. Had he investigated the two
rolls of blankets lying near the fire, he would have seen that they
covered no sleeping forms!
But none of these precautions were taken. The _Ann_ moved noiselessly
down the valley to where Mr. Havens awaited her and was sent into the
air. The rattle of the motors seemed to the two men to be loud enough to
bring any one within ten miles out of a sound sleep, but they saw no
movements below, and soon passed out of sight.
Wheeling sharply off to the west, they circled cliffs, gorges and grassy
valleys for an hour until they came to the western slope of the mountain
which held the fortress. It will be remembered that the _Louise_ had
circled to the east.
“And now,” Mr. Havens said as he slowed down, “if we find a
landing-place here, even moderately secure, down we go. If I don’t, I’ll
shoot up again and land squarely on top of the fort.”
“I don’t believe it’s got any roof to land on!” smiled Sam.
“Yes, it has!” replied Mr. Havens. “I’ve had the old fraud investigated.
I know quite a lot about her!”
“You have had her investigated?” asked Sam, in amazement.
“You know very well,” the millionaire went on, “that we have long
suspected Redfern to be hiding in this part of Peru. I can’t tell you
now how we secured all the information we possess on the subject. It
would take too much time.
“However, it is enough to say that by watching the mails and sending out
messengers we have connected the rival trust company of which you have
heard me speak with mysterious correspondents in Peru. The work has been
long, but rather satisfying.”
“Why,” Sam declared, “I thought this expedition was a good deal of a
guess! I hadn’t any idea you knew so much about this country.”
“We know more about it than is generally believed,” was the answer.
“Deposit box A, which was robbed on the night Ralph Hubbard was
murdered, contained, as I have said, all the information we possessed
regarding this case. When the papers were stolen I felt like giving up
the quest, but the code telegrams cheered me up a bit, especially when
they were stolen.”
“I don’t see anything cheerful in having the despatches stolen.”
“It placed the information I possessed in the hands of my enemies, of
course,” the other went on, “but at the same time it set them to
watching the points we had in a way investigated, and which they now
understood that we intended to visit.”
“I don’t quite get you!” Sam said.
“You had an illustration of that at the haunted temple,” Mr. Havens
continued. “The Redfern group knew that that place was on my list. By
some quick movement, understood at this time only by themselves, they
sent a man there to corrupt the custodian of the captive animals. You
know what took place then. Only for courage and good sense, the machines
would have been destroyed.”
“The savages unwittingly helped some!” suggested Sam.
“Yes, everything seemed to work to your advantage,” Mr. Havens
continued. “At the mines, now,” he continued, “we helped ourselves out
of the trap set for us.”
“You don’t think the miners, too, were working under instructions?”
asked Sam. “That seems impossible!”
“This rival trust company,” Mr. Havens went on, “has agents in every
part of the world. In Peru as elsewhere; especially in Peru. It is my
belief that not only the men of the mine we came upon, but the men of
every other mine along the Andes, were under instructions to look out
for, and, under some pretense, destroy any flying machines which made
their appearance.”
“They are nervy fighters, anyway, if this is true!” Sam said.
“They certainly are, and for the very good reason that the arrest and
conviction of Redfern would place stripes on half a dozen of the
directors of the new company. As you have heard me say before, the proof
is almost positive that the money embezzled from us was placed in this
new company. Redfern is a sneak, and will confess everything to protect
himself. Hence, the interest of the trust company in keeping him out of
sight.”
“Well, I hope he won’t get out of sight after to-night,” suggested Sam.
“I hope we’ll have him good and tight before morning.”
“I firmly believe that he will be taken to-night!” was the reply.
The machine was now only a short distance above the ledge upon which the
aviator aimed to land. Even in the dim light they could see a level
stretch of rock, and the _Ann_ was soon resting easily within a short
distance of the fort, now hidden only by an angle of the cliff.
Presently the two moved forward together and looked around the base of
the cliff. The fort lay dark and silent in the night. So far as
appearances were concerned, there had never been any lights displayed
from her battlements during the long years which had passed away since
her construction!
There was only a very narrow ledge between the northern wall of the fort
and the precipice which struck straight down into the valley, three
hundred feet below. In order to reach the interior of the fortification
from the position they occupied, it would be necessary for Havens and
his companion to pass along this ledge and creep into an opening which
faced the valley.
At regular intervals on the outer edge of this ledge were balanced great
boulders, placed there in prehistoric times for use in case an attempt
should be made to scale the precipice. A single one of these rocks, if
cast down at the right moment, might have annihilated an army.
The two men passed along the ledge gingerly, for they understood that a
slight push would send one of these boulders crashing down. At last they
came to what seemed to be an entrance into the heart of the fortress.
There were no lights in sight as they looked in. The place seemed
utterly void of human life.
Sam crept in first and waited for his companion to follow. Mr. Havens
sprang at the ledge of the opening, which was some feet above the level
of the shelf on which he stood, and lifted himself by his arms. As he
did so a fragment of rock under one hand gave way and he dropped back.
In saving himself he threw out both feet and reached for a crevice in
the wall. This would have been an entirely safe procedure if his feet
had not come with full force against one of the boulders overlooking the
valley.
He felt the stone move under the pressure, and the next instant, with a
noise like the discharge of a battery of artillery, the great boulder
crashed down the almost perpendicular face of the precipice and was
shattered into a thousand fragments on a rock which lay at the verge of
the stream below.
With a soft cry of alarm, Sam bent over the ledge which protected the
opening and seized his employer by the collar. It was quick and
desperate work then, for it was certain that every person within a
circuit of many miles had heard the fall of the boulder.
Doubtless in less than a minute the occupants of the fortress—if such
there were—would be on their feet ready to contest the entrance of the
midnight visitors.
“We’ve got to get into some quiet nook mighty quick,” Sam whispered in
Mr. Havens’ ear as the latter was drawn through the opening. “I guess
the ringing of that old door-bell will bring the ghost out in a hurry!”
The two crouched in an angle of the wall at the front interior of the
place and listened. Directly a light flashed out at the rear of what
seemed to the watchers to be an apartment a hundred yards in length.
Then footsteps came down the stone floor and a powerful arc light filled
every crevice and angle of the great apartment with its white rays.
There was no need to attempt further concealment. The two sprang
forward, reaching for their automatics, as three men with weapons
pointing towards them advanced under the light.
“I guess,” Sam whispered, “that this means a show-down.”
“There’s no getting out of that!” whispered Havens. “We have reached the
end of the journey, for the man in the middle is Redfern!”