THE MOON COLONY
BY WILLIAM DIXON BELL
THE GOLDSMITH PUBLISHING COMPANY
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
Copyright 1937 by
The Goldsmith Publishing Company
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
I Bullet Proof
II The Stowaway
III An Arctic Blizzard
IV A Flashing Cylinder
V Down into the Den
VI A Dangerous Scientist
VII Ready to Crush Out Life
VIII Billy Takes a Part
IX Start to the Moon
X Toplinsky Calls the Bluff
XI Tables Turned and No Eats
XII Toplinsky Grinned Slyly to Himself
XIII The Landing
XIV A Moon Army
XV Battling with Crickets
XVI Billy Disappears
XVII “Something’s Got Me”
XVIII In the Chamber of Horrors
XIX The Knife Dance
XX Mysterious Cavern Lamps
XXI Crickets Swarming to War
XXII The Wheezing Ramph
XXIII Sons of the Great Selina
XXIV Behind a Copper Wall
XXV Gunpowder vs. Chlorine Gas
XXVI Writhing, Wriggling Ramphs
XXVII Carza’s Use of Lava Streams
XXVIII In the Armory
XXIX Out of the Depths
CHAPTER I
Bullet Proof
Julian Epworth reasoned that his departure from Salt Lake City was a
profound secret. The fact that an airship carrying gold was on the way
to Los Angeles convoyed by armed airplanes had been kept inside of the
office. Because of this Epworth thought that he had an easy job.
“What’s the big idea about all this fancy maneuvering?” Billy Sand
inquired curiously as Epworth gave the order to close up a little on
the other nine planes flying in a straight line ahead in military
formation. “You are acting as if there is a war on, and if we were
trying to hatch a machine gun nest.”
“Now that we are up in the air, and there is no chance of a leak I
will explain. The twin red and green lights that you see ahead are on
one of our airplanes carrying a gold shipment consigned to the mint.
Recently a plane similarly loaded disappeared, and our company lost a
million dollars. We do not propose that such a steal shall be
repeated.”
“A million! And this crate ahead is carrying that much?”
“It is carrying two million. But,” Epworth’s lips twisted
determinedly, “I do not think that an air pirate will be able to get
away with it—not as long as these ten little babies can shoot.”
Julian Epworth was the head of the secret service of the
Atlantic-Pacific Airlines, Inc., and he imagined that his plans had
been extremely well laid.
Billy glanced up at the clear sky, picked up the signals, and, in
obedience to Epworth’s command, closed in on the four planes flying on
the left of the large passenger ship in the lead. A ship launched
secretly into the air in the dead of night, and picked up on the
desert by an escort of ten planes, should certainly be safe from a
robber.
“Not a chance in a million that we will be stopped,” he remarked
thoughtfully. “Look at the moon and the stars! We could see a plane
ten miles away, and get it long before it could get in shooting
distance.”
Feeling in a good humor and perfectly safe, Epworth tuned in on the
radio—just loud enough to bring the news of the world to them, and not
loud enough to give a warning to any other flyer in the sky that might
be secretly approaching.
Suddenly Billy leaned toward his companion excitedly, and caught his
arm.
“Did you hear that? I am speaking about that noise that is coming over
the radio.”
“Of course I heard it.”
The radio was saying:
“This is Clarence Ainslee, astronomical observer at Mount Wilson
Observatory. Are you looking at the moon? If not, get a large
telescope and look at the extreme western extremity of the Sea of
Vapours. You will see something you never saw before. There is a lake
or sea forming there. At least that is the judgment of astronomers.”
“What do you think about it?” Billy asked.
“Horse radish.”
Both aviators looked toward the bright shining full moon.
“But,” Epworth remarked, “we could not tell anything with our naked
eyes.”
“In addition to the appearance of a new lake,” the radio continued,
“vegetation is appearing not far from the eastern border of the water.
The mystery of this is now puzzling the scientific world.”
“Let them puzzle,” Epworth muttered as he switched the radio dial. “I
should worry.”
“This is the news report from the morning _Blade_,” they heard the
radio say. “Station WGCF. The report has just come in that twenty
masked men, all of whom spoke a foreign tongue, have robbed the Swift
& Co. laboratory. They lined up the seventy chemists and their
assistants, and while the gunmen held them and their helpers the
bandits looted the plant. Thousands of dollars in liquid air,
saltpeter, and chemicals were carried off in two enormous airplanes,
dim shadowy things that stretched out two thousand feet in length.”
“Some little airplane. I’d like to see it!”
“Airplane?” Billy snorted indignantly. “They are using dirigibles of
course.”
“What do you suppose they wanted with all that nitrogen and
fertilizer?”
“Couldn’t guess in a million years.”
Epworth sat up straight. He had caught a view of two wriggling red
lights ahead.
“There are the signals,” he cried excitedly. “Something is going on
ahead.”
Both aviators went into action. Epworth seized the controls and Billy
grabbed a machine gun. Both were still thinking about the long
cylinder-like airplanes described by the radio. Epworth kept his eyes
fixed on the airship carrying the gold. A red rocket shot out suddenly
from the side of this airplane; followed by another. These signals
were answered by nine planes that were following Epworth’s guidance
through the silent night lanes.
To one who did not understand, the sky looked like a pyrotechnic
display.
* * * * *
Like avenging demons the entire convoy started toward the plane
sending out the distress signals, sweeping through the sky without
lights, and their silencers hiding their approach. But what they saw
caused every aviator and every machine gunner to pause for a second in
astonishment.
An immense airship, not less than two thousand feet long, was hovering
over the passenger Douglas, guiding its movements, and twenty men were
running down a ladder that had been let down into the aviator’s seat
of the Douglas.
Epworth, who was leading the formation of five on the larboard side,
did not permit his astonishment to delay action. With a jerk he seized
the control, slammed the stick into his stomach, banked slightly,
leveled out until the side of the big airship was in line with his
machine gun, and with a hoarse cry opened a broadside at the sky
pirate—for pirate he was certain the big plane was.
When he fired he was not over one thousand feet from the pirate, and
it was impossible to miss. In addition to this he had come up with a
big surprise—feeling certain that the air bandits did not know that
the treasure ship was convoyed. He expected to see his rain of lead
tear through the cowling of the stranger and deal death and frenzy.
His example was followed by every scout plane on the larboard side. A
second later the five planes on the starboard swept up and poured a
fierce rain of lead at the stranger. It was a barrage from both sides
that it seemed would destroy anything earthly.
Yet the pirate floated serenely in the air as if it had been bombarded
with peanuts, its secretly-constructed armor turning machine bullets
like pellets.
Epworth give the signal, and again both formations poured their
hurricane of death at the pirate. But when this bombardment seemed to
pass harmlessly through the stranger, Epworth changed his tactics. He
aimed at four men who were climbing down the ladder from the pirate
into the Douglas. This time his shots cut the ladder into ribbons, and
the four men tumbled down into the Douglas. Epworth, while feeling
that he had full authority to do battle, wanted to capture the pirate
and not kill the men. In this he succeeded, as to the killing, as the
four pirates fell on top of the Douglas, or into the aviator’s seat.
At this moment the bandits got to fighting. Two sheets of mysterious
flames burst simultaneously from both sides of the immense thing, and
then all became still.
But those two broadsides were enough. The ten convoy airships conked,
whirled over in the air, and began to fall.
“Jump, Billy!” Epworth cried out loudly. “Jump!”
There was need. The battle was over, and the pirate plane, with the
stolen Douglas now under complete pirate control, passed away into a
dim shadow. The twenty occupants of the destroyed convoy planes jumped
out almost at the same second, and sprang as far away from their
falling crates as possible.
Epworth’s umbrella opened within ten seconds. He saw Billy shoot by
like a chunk of lead. Billy was his best chum, and his heart sank with
the thought that he would be dashed to pieces against the ground.
Frantically he leaned out. Other pilots were going by but he managed
to keep his eye on Billy. Finally he straightened up with a cry of
relief. Billy’s parachute was spreading.
“Safe,” he cried, “but great heavens what a battle! That plane’s sides
are bullet proof, and it rides the sky as if it owned it.”
He looked upward. All he could see above his head were the stars.
These were blotted out by the rapid approach of the earth, and the
peak of the high mountain passing by him.
He landed safely but what would the president of the Air Company say
when he returned with this terrible and unexpected disaster to report?