THE DEMON'S LAIR
Straight and true Don sent the swift, light Dart to its mark.
Over the swamp they had last seen the helicopter.
In the half hour that had elapsed it could, of course, be far away.
"But I don't believe it is," Garry murmured into his Gossport tube.
Don, listening, agreed with Garry's surmise.
"Did you notice how that Thing looked while Chick's flare burned?"
Garry continued his conversation. "Under the big, bulky body, the
helicopter had two things jutting out--I think they were pontoons. They
have some sort of special bracing, and shock absorbers, so it can set
down on land; but I am sure that the two projections were pontoons--and
that, Don, tells us that the helicopter can get down on the water just
as easily as a regulation amphibian."
Don agreed as he watched the horizon line ahead.
"That Thing is human," Garry added. "Ghosts don't set off rockets."
Once more Don was in full agreement.
They scanned the dark, silent sky around them and ahead of the nose as
they approached, on swift wings, the scene of their recent struggle to
escape annihilation and to get the mail in on time.
"Not a thing in sight!" Garry checked Don's decision.
Where had the mystery ship gone?
As he asked the question, Garry removed the speaking tube from his lips
and bent his eyes downward, over the cockpit cowling.
He searched the unrevealing water, grass and ooze of the swamp.
"Don!" his lips were again at the tube, "forward of the right wing,
just where the fifth brace connects to the leading edge covering, I see
a little light flickering. There--the wing is over it. Look! In a
second it will be just at the trailing edge--there it is!"
Don saw the flicker.
As he started downward in a tight spiral, to keep close over the area
and get lower, Garry spoke quickly.
"No, Don!" he objected. "Stay high, and go on away. Then we will climb
higher and come back."
Don took the ship out of the tight spiral, but turned his head
inquiringly.
"It might be a lure!" Garry explained.
Don saw the logic of his chum's reasoning: if the Demon, as he thought
of that strange occupant of the helicopter, wished to draw them down
into a trap, it--or he--would chose such a ruse.
Don, lifting the nose, soared away, climbing.
A mile away he banked around, and returned.
"There it is, again!" Garry, observing, indicated the flicker. It was
more vivid than the intermittent glow of marsh gas which they saw in
spots where rotted vegetation gave off its luminous aura.
"He is trying to lure us down, I'm sure," Garry declared.
Adjusting the controls so that the ship, well-balanced, flew itself for
a moment, Don scribbled a note, passing it to Garry.
"I don't know," Garry responded, reading and considering the
communication. "It might be safe and it might not to go down. I know we
can't get anywhere flying around up here; but anybody as deadly as that
Demon is dangerous to get close to."
Don hesitated.
He wished to beard the deadly one in his lair, to come to close grips;
he did not desire to risk Garry's safety without his chum's consent.
Nevertheless that was what he had asked for a volunteer to help him
with.
Garry, he knew, was cautious, not cowardly. Therefore Don hesitated.
Once more Garry's steady voice came to his ears.
"How about doing this?" Garry asked, "let's fly away as though we
hadn't seen the lure, get over the airport, and signal by blinking the
flying lights. The Demon can't read them that far off, and we won't be
dropping flares to warn him. We can tell Chick we have located our 'bad
man' and he can get your uncle, with the police, to surround the marsh.
Then we can start sending over flares, go down, and guide the officers.
They will catch the Demon if he runs, and, by closing in on all the
paths, he can't get away."
Don agreed by switching the nose quickly in the proper direction.
Over the control tower they made a glide.
With the flying lights snapping on and off, Don spelt out a signal to
Chick as he held the Dart in a tight, banked circle.
No response came, the control tower remained unresponsive. Its pilot
signal beam, a small spot, did not flicker on and off to spell the "O.
K." Don expected from his watching chum.
Chick, as a matter of fact, was otherwise occupied.
"Let's set down," Garry suggested. "The Demon will probably wait,
hoping we will go over again and see his lure. He must have meant us
harm or he wouldn't have set those rockets to strike the Dragonfly."
Don, flashing the "must land" signal of distress with his blinking
flying lights, got no response: he decided to risk approach without the
signal, and finally tumbled out of the Dart with Garry already on the
ground.
Leaving the Dart idling, slipping chocks under the wheels, Don and
Garry hastened into the big main hangar.
It was empty, echoing, deserted.
So, too, they found the upper offices.
"There has been an awful 'shindy' in the designing department," Garry
whispered, training his finger, at the door, after flashing on the
office lights. "Somebody has tried to break into the locked cabinets,
and there is a wastebasket turned over and a chair upset. There must
have been a fight in there."
Don, looking, agreed.
"Come on!" he muttered, "something has happened here. Uncle is in New
York, of course. He hasn't had time to get back from delivering the
mail we flew in. But where is the control room crew, and the hangar
man, and Doc, and--Chick?"
Up the stairway, not replying, Garry followed him.
"Nobody in here!" Don turned a dismayed, and frightened, look on his
chum, who responded with equal concern in his face.
"Something has happened," whispered Garry.
At once he became practical.
"Don, we can't stay here to find out what's wrong. You want to capture
the Demon. Run down and check your fuel, while I telephone the police
station and report this--and ask for help on our 'round-up.'"
Don raced back down the stairways.
Garry, rejoining him, a scant ten minutes later, was very sober.
"Chief wasn't at the station," he reported. "Man at desk seemed to be
half asleep. Said the Chief had been called away on a special errand.
Wouldn't say how soon he could get help out here. There's a mystery
about all this, Don. What shall we do?"
"Run up and leave a note for Uncle," Don counseled. "I'm filling the
tank. If we can't get help, we'll handle this ourselves!"
"How?"
"I'll go aloft, fly over the swamp, locate that area, and act as if I
have discovered the lure for the first time, if it is still there.
"And I think the Demon is waiting, sure we'll take his bait!" he added.
Garry scribbled an informing message for the airport owner, detailing
their purpose, and what they had experienced and the condition of the
airport. Then he rejoined Don, the chocks were removed, and as he
stepped away, with a wave, Don, alone, sent the Dart aloft.
Hardly waiting to see the fleet raft begin its trip toward the scene of
their many mysteries, Garry hurried down to the wharf and water runway,
down which the land-and-water types of craft were sent from the hangar:
to one side was a landing stage for passengers from seaplanes, and at
the end of that lay tied the "crash boat," a swift, electrically
propelled cruising launch kept always ready in case of any mishaps to
seaplanes or other craft over the bay.
To clamber in, unleash the swift craft, and swing it out from the wharf
with its speedy, quiet motor humming a low, soft drone, was the work of
a moment for Garry, whose assignment in an emergency was at the speed
control of the "crash boat."
The prow of the speedy vessel turned North, angling across the inlet to
skirt the point of land he must turn to get to the swampy channels
beyond.
Garry knew the channels quite well, and, in the darkness, with only a
dim gleam showing from his small forward light, a double, red-and-green
cruising lantern, he was able to scan the starry sky and, as he coursed
along the shore, passing the mouths of inviting channels, to discern,
quite low, and inland, the flying lights of Don's ship.
Their plan was simple.
Don, cruising, in the air, would discover if that lure called him,
tempted him to set down--perhaps to some dreadful fate.
Garry, in the silent-motored, and fast little "crash" launch, would
follow the shore to a channel known as Crab Channel. Down its somewhat
deep and broad course he could turn inland, coming closest to the scene
of their mission.
Then, hidden from inland eyes by tall grass, he could use a strong
flashlamp to signal to Don, who would be circling wide. If Don saw the
signal, and thus knew that Garry was ready, he would put out his flying
lights. Then, dropping low, he would circle over the area Garry must
reach.
With his own motive power so quiet, Garry could locate easily the
sharp, intermittent periods of noise as Don alternately fed full-gun
and gunned down. The noise, they knew, and Don's low altitude, would
fully occupy the attention of their quarry.
Don would hold his tight circle, climbing a trifle, gliding, keeping
his motor alternately full-gun and still. Garry, creeping in through
the most available channel offshoot, could locate the object of the
ruse and then, surprising him, set off a self-igniting flare, attack,
and at least hold the Demon, victim of the surprise, until Don could
set down and help make his capture certain.
Everything went smoothly. Garry gave his signal. Don's low flying
lights winked to blackness.
Over the swamp, two hundred feet up, he cruised back toward some hidden
adversary, menacing, terrible, watchful.
Swiftly, silently, Garry's light motor impelled the "crash" launch up a
channel which, with his alert ears guiding him, brought him closer and
closer to the dark spot wherein, from the water level, he saw a weird
sight.
Floating on a still, shallow pool, supported by its queerly designed
pontoons, the helicopter was hardly visible in the shadowy eel grass:
its horizontal blades, tilted by some device to a vertical line, made
only a thin, invisible angle to the sky, although Garry, from his lower
point of vantage, saw the outline against a starry background.
Intermittently, from the cockpit, and thus concealed and throwing its
beam upward only, came the periodic flickers of a handkerchief-wrapped
flash torch.
Its intermittent, dim glow illuminated the almost shapeless form and
backward-thrown head of the Thing that never was, the Man Who Never
Lived.
Tide-drifted, flare in hand, Garry floated toward the Demon's Lair.