BOY AVIATORS TO THE RESCUE.
“They are murdering some one in there!” cried Frank, bringing the car to
a stop.
Indeed, the piercing cries indicated that some one was being maltreated,
if not actually murdered.
“Come on, we’ll save him,” cried Harry, drawing his revolver, for all
the boys had thought it best to carry arms on such a trip as they were
undertaking.
“Be careful. We had better peek through that window first, and see with
whom we have to deal before we announce our presence,” breathed Frank,
as the boys tiptoed up the path.
“That’s a good idea,” agreed Billy. “There might be a lot of them and
then we should have to get help.”
Cautiously they crept up the path and peered in at the window of the
deserted hut. A strange scene met their eyes.
In one corner of the bare room a rugged man with a grizzled beard was
tied hand and foot, while another man with a red-hot poker seemed about
to burn his eyes out. His cries for help were pitiful.
His captors, however—for beside the man with the poker there were two
other men in the room—seemed to have no pity for him. The man with the
poker was exclaiming in a fierce voice:
“Sign the title to the mine or we will kill you,” as the boys peeked
cautiously into the room, which was lighted by a lamp detached from the
auto. On the tumble-down hearth the fire in which the poker had been
heated smouldered.
The man with the poker had his back to the boys, but even about that
there seemed something strangely familiar. The appealing words next
uttered by the bound man soon apprised them with whom they had to deal.
“I will never do so, Luther Barr,” declared the victim in a trembling
voice.
The boys all started with amazement at encountering their old enemy in
such a surprising manner in this out-of-the-way hut at midnight.
“Your attempts to get the papers from me are of no use. Kill me if you
must, but don’t torture me.”
“So you won’t tell where they are,” cried Barr angrily.
“I will not,” said his victim firmly.
“Then take that,” cried Barr, in a cruel tone.
The horrified boys saw him lunge forward with the red-hot iron. His
victim gave a loud cry of pain as he felt the red-hot metal approach his
eyes to burn them out; but even as Barr raised his arm Frank had decided
what to do.
“Stop that!” he cried in a loud, clear voice.
As Frank had expected, this sudden interruption so startled the
miscreants that they at once left their victim and started for the door.
As they rushed toward the portal, Frank, with a cry of “Come on,” leaped
through the window frame, from which the glass sash had long ago been
broken, and followed by the others, was in the room the next instant.
“Quick, Harry; cut him loose,” he ordered, handing the other boy a big
hunting knife.
It was only the work of a few seconds to free the man. But before the
ropes had fallen from him Luther Barr and the two other men had rushed
back from the door and made a dash at the boys.
“Stay where you are, Mr. Barr,” said Frank, leveling his revolver; “I
don’t want to hurt you.”
“What, you interfering whelps, have you crossed my path again?” shouted
Barr, who had recognized the boys instantly. “This time I’ll fix you for
interfering with my plans.”
He suddenly whipped out a revolver and fired point-blank at Frank. The
bullet whistled past the boy’s ears and buried itself behind him.
The next instant the room was plunged into sudden darkness. One of
Luther Barr’s companions, in stepping backward to get a rifle that
leaned against the wall, had knocked the light over.
“Quick, boys, run for the auto,” shouted Frank, taking advantage of this
sudden diversion.
Before the others could recover their wits, the boys, half dragging the
man they had rescued with them, reached the door, and the next minute
were in their auto.
“Shoot at their tires,” they heard old Barr shout, as they whizzed off
down the road.
A shower of bullets followed, some of which struck the tonneau. But none
of the missiles, fortunately, either wounded them or hit the tires, in
which latter case they would have had to come to a standstill.
Frank put on full speed, and with the start they already had they soon
outdistanced the auto which held Barr and his two companions. It
followed them for a short distance, however, old Barr shouting
maledictions after them.
“Oh, how can I ever thank you boys?” exclaimed the rescued man, as he
gratefully clasped Frank’s arm. “That terrible man, Luther Barr, would
certainly have blinded, and perhaps killed me, if you had not arrived in
time.”
“How did you come to get in his power?” asked Frank.
“It is a long story, young man, and begins in Arizona,” said the
stranger; “but first, I must tell you my name is Bart Witherbee, and I
am well known in the West as a prospector. I located a valuable mine,
which seems abandoned, some time ago in the northern part of the state,
and I have managed to keep the location a secret till I can file a
formal claim to it. In some way the two men whom you saw with Barr
to-night, and who are Hank Higgins and Noggy Wilkes, two bad men, and
gamblers, heard of this. They formerly worked for Barr, who has mining
property in Arizona. When they learned I was coming to New York to see
my daughter, they came along, too, and informed Barr of what they knew
about the valuable mine I had found. At that time I did not know Barr,
and by these two men was tricked into meeting him on the pretense that
he had some real estate he was willing to trade for mines in Arizona. I
have other claims beside the one I located recently, and I thought I
might trade one of them for some of Barr’s property in the East.
“You can imagine my consternation when we arrived out here to find
myself in the hands of Hank Higgins and Noggy Wilkes. I tried to run,
but they caught and tied me, and, as you saw, would have either killed
me or maimed me for life if you hadn’t saved me.”
“What part of Arizona is your mine in?” asked Harry, deeply interested,
as they all were, in the man’s narrative.
“It is near to a place called Calabazos, in the northern part of the
state near the Black Cañon,” replied the man. “I want to let you boys
have a share of it for what you have done for me to-night. It would be
only a slight return.”
“Why, we are going near to Calabazos,” exclaimed Billy. “I noticed it on
the map. It’s near the Black Cañon.”
“That’s right, young feller,” said the miner; “but what are you
tenderfoots going to do out there?”
Frank explained about the transcontinental flight.
“Wow,” cried the westerner, “that’s going some, for fair. Well, boys,
I’m going to get on the fastest train I can and get back to Calabazos,
and file my claim, for you can call me a Chinese chop-stick if that thar
Luther Barr isn’t going to camp on my trail till he finds where the mine
is located.”
“I guess you are right,” remarked Frank. “Luther Barr won’t stop at
anything when he starts out to accomplish a purpose.”
“Why, you talk as if you knew him,” exclaimed the astonished miner.
“Know him?” echoed Billy with a laugh. “I should say we do, eh, boys?”
The boys’ previous acquaintance with the unscrupulous old man was soon
explained to Bart Witherbee, who interrupted the narrative at frequent
intervals with whistles of astonishment and loud exclamations of, “Wall,
I swan”; “Call me a jack-rabbit, now,” “If that don’t beat hunting
coyotes with a sling-shot,” and other exclamations that seemed peculiar
to himself.
“Wall, now, boys, you’ve got to have some part of that mine, if only for
the sake of getting even with that old man.”
The boys tried to insist that they had no right to any of Witherbee’s
property, but he was so insistent that finally they consented to visit
the mine with him when they reached Calabazos, that is, if they were far
enough ahead in the race to be able to spare a few hours.
Witherbee told them some of his history. He was the son of a stage-coach
driver, who had been killed by robbers. The miner, after the murder, had
been adopted by somebody whose name he could not recollect. It seemed
that some years after his adoption he had been kidnapped by a traveling
circus, and had sustained a severe blow on the head by falling from a
high trapeze. This made him forget everything but his very early youth.
After a while he escaped from the circus and joined a camp of miners. He
had been a miner ever since.
“I’ve often thought I’d like to meet the man who cared for me when my
father was killed,” he said, “fer he was good ter me, I remember.
Sometimes I have a flash of memory and can almost recollect his name,
but it always slips me at last. If he ever met me, though, he’d know me
all right. See this?” He rolled up his sleeve and showed them a livid
scar. “I was on the coach when it was attacked, and that’s a souvenir I
got. They didn’t mean to hit me, it was just a stray bullet.”
“And your mother,” asked Frank, “is not she alive?”
“She was killed, too, the night the robbers attacked the stage,” said
the miner softly. “She was sitting by my father when the attack came.”
They reached their camp without further incident, and found that Mr.
Joyce had sat up for them and had a hot supper ready. That they did
justice to the meal after their exciting adventures of the night, you
may be sure. The meal disposed of, the adventurers turned in for a few
hours of badly needed sleep.
“Our adventures seem to have begun with a vengeance,” sleepily remarked
Billy Barnes, as he was dozing off.
“Do you think we shall see any more of Luther Barr?” asked Harry.
“It wouldn’t surprise me,” rejoined Frank. “He is not the kind of man
not to seek vengeance for the rebuff we gave him to-night.”