A NOVEL S. O. S.
It was a silent sun-drenched street. Down at the bull ring they were
just then watching Estramadura in the act of despatching his second
bull, with ahead of them the prospect of Juan Salento playing a return
engagement, making the fourth and final fight of the afternoon. No
well-regulated bull fight at Nueva Laredo would pretend to be worthy of
consideration without four encounters. Estramadura had been followed by
his Mexican rival, who had successfully defended his reputation and had
performed even more thrillingly than his fellow matador from Spain.
Practically all Nueva Laredo was down there making holiday, and so not a
soul appeared in sight on the sun-filled Calle Libertad except Captain
Cornell.
Reconnoitering from the corner, Bob watched the departing back of his
companion, enviously at first. Just his luck, he thought somewhat
bitterly, to be left out of the fun. He recalled his words earlier
uttered to Frank and Jack to the effect that no adventures ever were
going to happen to him again. Well, wasn’t this proving the truth of his
prophecy, he argued? Here he was, led up to a possible adventure, and
then left standing safely, out of all possibility of becoming involved
in it himself.
Then he grinned to himself as he noticed Captain Cornell swinging
farther along the silent, deserted street. Probably, after all, nothing
was going to happen to him, either. It certainly looked as if that house
of mystery, with the midnight blue car at the door, was incapable of
producing adventure. Captain Cornell would have his walk for nothing.
He’d just swing around the block and come back to where Bob was
standing, and have his pains for nothing.
Bob grinned as he shifted weight on the other foot, and sought a new
resting place for his shoulder against the ’dobe wall of the little
house against which he was leaning. It was a sour grin. After coming
this far, after running off with somebody else’s car, Bob wanted
something to happen. Nevertheless, nothing was going to happen. Of that
now he became convinced. It took Captain Cornell an interminably long
time to reach the house of mystery. But now at last he was abreast of
it. Bob peering forth contracted his brows in a frown of disappointment.
He didn’t want any harm to come to his companion, of course. Just the
same, he did have the feeling of having been cheated by fate. There was
Captain Cornell sauntering leisurely by the house into which Ramirez had
disappeared, glancing casually at the car of midnight blue and pausing a
moment to examine it.
Bob paid due tribute to that bit of acting. “Just what a fellow
strolling by might be expected to do,” he told himself. “Naturally, when
he sees a handsome car like that, all by itself, out here in the
‘Sticks,’ he’ll give it a glance.”
Then two men came out of the house. The figure of one was unfamiliar.
The other, however, Bob made sure, despite the distance intervening, was
Ramirez. Captain Cornell straightened up at the sound of footsteps
behind him.
Bob held his breath. No, they were merely going to climb into the car,
it appeared. And the doughty flyer was saying something to them.
Doubtless, a word of apology for examining the car. All three stood in a
little group. Ramirez and Captain Cornell seemed to be engaged in
conversation.
Suddenly, so swiftly that for the moment Bob was left stunned and
breathless, the other of the precious pair who was slightly in the rear
of the American flyer hit him on the head with some small object.
Captain Cornell did not even scream. Instead, he fell forward stricken
into the waiting arms of Ramirez, and the latter and his companion
started dragging him up the steps.
At that Bob’s wits returned in a measure and, darting away from the
corner as if hurled from a bow, he shot forward at arrow-like speed. He
uttered no sound, his feet made no noise on the dirt sidewalk that could
be heard far down the block. And Ramirez and his companion did not look
toward him.
But before he had gone a hundred feet, the two men dragging the
insensible form of the American flyer disappeared within the house.
Bob groaned and pulled up short. To dash on and beat at the doors of
that sinister house, unarmed and alone, would be nothing less than
madness. It was the thing which he felt like doing, but good sense
warned against it.
No, he must think of some other way of rescuing his companion. And now,
as standing there in the street, the knowledge of what depended upon him
alone came to him, he was filled with anxiety lest already he might have
attracted unwelcome attention to his presence. He looked around quickly
to see if he was observed, but the street was as blank, as deserted, as
before Captain Cornell had started strolling down its length.
Yet tragedy had struck in those few brief minutes! Bob shivered, not
with physical fear, but in the uncanny feeling that everywhere there
were eyes watching his every move. He couldn’t see anybody, yet the
feeling persisted. Putting it down to taut nerves, and deciding that the
best thing for him to do was to get back around the corner and out of
sight Bob turned and ran back to his former vantage point. There he
paused for another look down the Calle Libertad. What irony, he thought!
Liberty Street!
Seeing no signs of life behind him, he started to retrace his steps
toward the commandeered flivver, over the route which he and Captain
Cornell had so recently covered. There was only one thing to do, and
that was to act as Captain Cornell had directed. Get into that flivver,
race madly for the Bridge, abandon the car out of sight of the Bridge
police, and then get a taxi to the American side and there telephone
Captain Murray at the flying field.
“He’ll know what to do,” Captain Cornell had declared.
“Hurry, hurry, hurry,” was beating in Bob’s brain. He began to run.
“Senor, Senor,” a voice called. Bob turned his head. It was the Mexican
lad with whom he had been talking only a short time before. “Senor,”
said the boy, coming to the fence as Bob slowed his pace, “are you not
going to inspect my radio?” There was entreaty in his voice. But it was
not the lad’s pleading which caused Bob to pale as if smitten. Great
Scott, why hadn’t he thought of this before? Why, he could radio the
American flying field from this station, and while rescuers were on
their way, could keep the house into which his friend had been dragged,
under surveillance.
“Look here,” said he, swinging up to the fence, and leaning across with
his hands gripping the pickets, “my friend is in trouble. Will you help
me?”
“Senor, what do you mean? How can I help?”
“Let me use your radio to call for assistance for him.”
Bob’s eyes bored into the lad. How far dared he trust him?
A shrewd look crossed the Mexican youth’s features. He looked up at Bob,
towering above him.
“Is it something about the house of the Japanese?”
“Yes, it is.”
Bob leaped the fence. If the lad gave him permission to use the radio,
well and good. If he didn’t, well—Bob’s lips set into a grim line. Now
that he saw this way out of his dilemma, he intended to use it whether
the youngster objected or not. But, instead of objecting or of showing
fear, the boy, on the contrary, was all eagerness to help.
To him this was the call to adventure. He sensed the presence of a
mystery, and he was all a-quiver to have a hand in it. Seizing Bob by a
sleeve, he turned and sped toward the open door of the little house.
“Come, come, Senor,” he cried. “If my radio can be of service, use it.”
In two steps they were across the threshold and in a spotlessly neat
room sparsely furnished, with a shining array of instruments along one
side wall, upon which Bob’s eye instantly fell. But before making for
the radio table, Bob turned to the boy and asked: “Your mother?”
“She visits her sister. I am alone.”
Ignoring everything else in the room Bob crossed the intervening space
in two great strides and flinging himself into the waiting chair began
hastily running his eye over the instrument board in front of him. His
host was at his shoulder, explaining in quick prideful phrases.
Impatiently Bob stopped his flow of words with upraised hand. He was
trying to think.
“What street is this?”
“Senor, but—” The boy’s thoughts did not follow so readily. “Oh, the
Street of Our Lady of Guadalupe.”
“Huh. And that street back there”—pointing—“the one where you said was
this secret passage into the Japanese house?”
“The Avenue of the Presidents.”
“Good enough,” said Bob. “Thanks.” And he swung the transmitter toward
him. “Say, you know the calls of the stations around here?”
“Senor, there are none except my own.”
The boy swelled out his chest like a pouter pigeon, and Bob had hard
work cloaking a grin.
“I mean across the Border. What’s the call of the American flying
field?”
“Senor, it doesn’t broadcast. I do not know. But is it the flyers you
would call? Are you an aviator? Is your companion an aviator? What has
happened? You have not told me.”
“Hold your horses,” said Bob, at this flood of questions, lapsing into
English. “Thou shalt be told,” he added hastily in the youth’s own
speech. “All in good time. Meantime, there is a man to be aided.”
“And do you call a Doctor?”
“Yes,” said Bob, grimly. “A couple of them.”
And at that a plan of procedure which his mind had been busy upon all
the time that he had been answering the boy’s questions took shape and,
picking up a hammer and a metal bar, he began striking them together in
front of the broadcaster.
“Clang, clang,” rang the strokes in the little room, until it sounded
like a smithy. The boy stood with open mouth. It was hot, and the
perspiration poured down Bob’s face in runlets. But still he hammered
on. Once he paused to pick up the headpiece from the table and clap the
phones to his ears. Then he resumed operations. For a moment or two he
would bang away, then wait, listening; then he would start banging
again.
At last the boy could not restrain himself any more. He plucked Bob by a
sleeve.
“Senor, what is it?”
“Morse,” flung out Bob. “Keep quiet a minute. Think I’ve got ’em.”
He listened, and a triumphant grin overspread his features. Then,
rapidly, with hammer and metal bar, he again resumed telegraphing.
Finally, laying his makeshift key aside, he spoke rapidly into the
transmitter. “I’ll be waiting,” he said, “speed up.”