A BATTLE IN THE AIR
The consternation with which the news of the loss of the canoes was
received by the young adventurers may be imagined. It meant that
they were cut off from communication with the coast entirely unless
some unforeseen circumstances arose. But in spite of the oppression
that naturally affected them at the first news of their serious loss,
Frank's confident manner had its effect in restoring some sort of
hope. Like the born leader that he was, Frank, the minute he
recovered from the first effects of his bitter dismay, set about
cheering up the others.
"We've always got the Golden Eagle," he comforted, "and anyway it's
likely if no one stops them, that some at least of the canoes will
drift down the river to the coast. M. Desplaines will no doubt be
able to surmise something serious has happened when he hears of
their arrival and will send aid. In the meantime we have to
consider what we are to do about the ivory cache."
As a matter of fact, as the boys learned later, none of the canoes
ever reached the coast, being intercepted by river-tribes.
"I vote for going ahead," cried Harry, catching the optimistic note
that his brother's words conveyed.
"That's the stuff," cried the young leader, "that is exactly what I
was going to propose."
"How about you, red-top?" asked Billy turning to Lathrop.
"Of course I'm on," was the reply.
"I hate to dash your enthusiasm," said Frank, "but you fellows must
see that it is impossible for all of us to go. My plan is to take
Ben Stubbs along and leave you fellows and Sikaso here to guard the
camp. Then, too, there is the possibility of a relief expedition
arriving as soon as they discover that we have lost our canoes."
Old Sikaso leant apart on his mighty war-axe. He seemed to regret
heartily that he had not had an opportunity of testing its metal on
the head of the knavish Portuguese.
"What do you say to that plan, Sikaso?" asked Frank, who already
placed a high value on the old warrior's judgment.
"That it is good, my white brother. Sikaso will stay with the
four-eyed one and the ruddy-haired one and we will see that no harm
comes to the camp of the young white warriors."
"It is well," replied Frank, who was falling into a trick of
addressing the stately Krooman in the same grandiloquent fashion as
the latter was in the habit of using, "I place my trust in you."
"Hum," snorted Billy, "four-eyes and red-top that's a nice
combination for you! I'd like to do something to show that old chap
that we can do just as much as anyone else when it comes to a
show-down."
This remark, however, was made sotto voce to Lathrop, as Billy
really stood in great awe of the six foot-two of ebony flesh and
muscle that was Sikaso.
But Stubbs was delighted at his selection to accompany the boys in
their aerial dash for the ivory cache. He spent half the night by
lantern light pottering about the great craft and stocking her up
with provisions and equipment for the journey. By the time he had
finished it was almost midnight and he turned in to join the boys in
the land of dreams where Frank and Harry, and doubtless the others,
too, were already busy shooting down Diegos and hippopotami and
flitting through the air above the great African forest and
performing all sorts of wonderful feats.
At dawn everybody was up and about and after farewells had been said
the Chester boys and their sturdy old companion clambered into the
chassis of their craft. Frank had already laid out his course,
which lay about two points west of north. The boy calculated that
this direction would bring them within a few miles at any rate of
the cache. To find it they would have to trust to persistence and a
modicum of luck.
Old Sikaso, who had, of course, never seen anything even remotely
resembling an aeroplane, stood apart from the excited group
clustered about the big craft and gazed at it with astonishment, not
unmixed with awe. The other Kroomen--the packers and camp-workers,
however, gathered close about the machine and the boys had a lot of
trouble keeping their busy fingers from unscrewing nuts and
loosening turnbuckles.
"Anything more like a pack of monkeys on a picnic I never saw,"
exclaimed Billy as for the twentieth time he chased a long, skinny
native away from the propellers, where he would have assuredly been
decapitated if he had remained till the engine was started.
A few turns with the clutch thrown out showed the engine was running
as true as on the day the Golden Eagle made her trial trip. The
muffler was cut out and the effect of the wide-open exhaust on the
Kroomen was magical. Within a second from the time that Harry threw
in the switch and the gatling gun uproar of the exhaust made itself
manifest, not a solitary one was to be seen. From the greenery of
the jungle that rimmed the clearing, however, their frightened faces
could be seen peering, like some strange sort of fruit among the
tropical growth. Only old Sikaso stood his ground.
But even that stolid old warrior grasped his great war-axe a little
tighter and stood erect as if about to face an unknown enemy as jets
of blue flame and smoke shot from the detonating exhaust.
"All ready, Harry?" cried Frank to the younger boy who was at his
old station by the engines.
"Ay, ay!" came the response in a hearty tone. "Then let her go."
With a quick movement Frank threw in the clutch.
The mighty propellers began to beat the air with the whirring sound
of a swarm of gigantic locusts in full flight, and after a short run
the great aeroplane took the air in a long graceful rising arc.
Half an hour later, to the watchers in the camp, she was little more
than a speck against the sky.
Frank, his eye constantly on the compass, kept the ship on a true
course for the Moon Mountains which, now that they were flying far
above the dense forest region, lay a rugged mass of blue and brown,
piled like some giant's playthings--on the northwestern horizon.
Even from the distance at which the boys viewed them they conveyed
an almost sinister impression in their rugged shapes. Their harsh
outlines cut the sky in a serrated line like the teeth of a huge
saw.
"Look, look, Frank!" shouted Harry suddenly as they were passing
high over a small clearing.
Both Frank and Ben peered over the side in answer to the boy's
excited hail.
Far below them was a strange sight.
In the center of the clearing were four huge African elephants
solemnly conducting a sort of Brobdingnaggian game of tag. One of
the great beasts would tap the other with its trunk and then would
scamper away till it in turn was "tapped" by a blow that would have
swept a small regiment off its feet.
Frank pushed over a lever and swung the ship in a circle so that
they might watch the great animals to better advantage. Suddenly
the boys saw one of the elephants, evidently seized by sudden rage,
start goring one of its companions with its huge tusks. The
attacked animal had no chance, and but for the boys would speedily
have been killed.
"I'm going to give that big bully a shot," exclaimed Harry, and he
got out one of the heavy rifles from the rack under the starboard
transom.
"Wait, I'll drop a bit," said Frank.
In response to his manipulation the aeroplane dropped till she
hovered not more than two hundred feet above the great animals.
Then a strange thing happened. The shadow of the craft fell upon
the center of the clearing in front of the dueling beasts and the
on-looking pachyderms, and as it did so the bully stopped goring its
mate and gave a snort of astonishment.
Its note of surprise quickly changed to a loud trumpet of terror as
the great pachyderm saw swooping above it what must have appeared to
it an aerial inhabitant even larger than itself. Its note of fright
was echoed in a chorus that sounded like an assemblage of cracked
trumpets as the others also sensed the impending danger.
"Now let him have it," shouted Frank.
Harry's rifle cracked and the big bully staggered. Twice more the
boy fired and the huge creature staggered on to its knees and then
with a mighty groan rolled over on its side. The others, even the
wounded one, had made off as soon as they had caught sight of the
hovering Golden Eagle.
Even from the height at which they were the boys could see that the
dead animal had an enormous pair of tusks, no doubt extremely
valuable.
"We ought to have them there figure-heads," commented Ben Stubbs.
"What do you say if we drop down and get them?"
Frank looked at his watch. It was half-past nine.
"We cannot be more than a hundred miles now from the foot of the
range," he said, "and I suppose we have plenty of time. We might as
well drop and get them as let some native tribe have the find and
then get skinned out of them by an Arab trader."
As he spoke the boy set the planes for descending and the Golden
Eagle settled down--after a few minutes rapid falling--fairly in the
center of the clearing. It was almost a fairylike spot. On every
side it was hedged in by the densest jungle vegetation, the solid
walls being broken here and there by elephant paths leading off into
the green tangle.
The little glade in which the Golden Eagle had settled was covered
with short, yellow grass and had been trampled almost bare of
vegetation, apparently by the gambols of countless generations of
elephants.
"This must be one of the elephant playgrounds I have read about,"
exclaimed Harry, looking about him.
"No doubt it is," replied Frank. "But look at those tusks, why
there's ivory enough there alone to give us all a nice wad of pocket
money."
Ben Stubbs, with one of the small axes, at once set about hacking
out the dead elephant's huge tusks and a long job it was. Finally,
however, he managed to cut them free and clear and the boys loaded
them into the aeroplane.
"Now we are all ready for a fresh start," said Frank as they
clambered in after him and settled down in their places; but a
startling interruption occurred.
With a wild yell, that struck a sudden chill to the heart of every
one of the little group, a band of beings that at first sight looked
like nothing so much as huge gorillas, burst from the forest on
every side.
Their heads were misshapen and flat and their protruding lips were
daubed with white and red clay which gave them a ghastly unearthly
look. From their ears hung huge ivory pendants. They carried
elephant skin shields and were armed with spears and bow and arrows.
As if they did not consider themselves sufficiently hideous, several
of the tribe had cut their faces in long stripes and the hardly
healed scars of these wounds rendered their already sinister faces
terrifying indeed.
Desperately Harry threw over the wheel and the engines started
faithfully to respond but not before half a dozen of the savages had
thrown themselves on to the aeroplane.
Their weight held her down although she scudded over the ground; and
in the meantime the other natives started pouring a shower of arrows
and spears into her. Fortunately none of these struck the boys
although Frank felt an arrow whiz through the loose sleeve of his
shirt.
"Get those fellows off or I can't get the ship up," he yelled.
Harry and Ben Stubbs fired their automatics into the clinging mass
of savages.
Two dropped and the aeroplane began to rise but the others
desperately clung on.
"Get 'em off," shouted Frank, as he desperately strove to raise the
air-craft.
As he spoke he fell back with a cry of pain.
An arrow had struck him on the shoulder inflicting a painful wound.
Like a flash Harry took in the situation and leaped to the steering
wheel. As he did so the savage with whom he had been contending
clambered clear into the chassis. At the same instant Ben Stubbs'
revolver dispatched the last of the men clinging to the planes and
the Golden Eagle began to rise.
As she shot upward the savage who had climbed into the chassis gave
a wild shriek of real terror. But his outburst didn't come before
he had made a savage lunge at Ben Stubbs with a short heavy knife.
The solo adventurer dived under the black's arm and struck it upward
as he lunged and the weapon went whirling groundward out of the
air-ship.
With a cry of despair the savage rushed to the edge of the car and
was about to throw himself into empty air when Ben leaped forward to
try to restrain him.
But it was too late.
As the boys' sturdy companion gallantly attempted to save the
savage's life a flight of arrows whizzed up from below.
With a groan the man on the edge of the car pitched forward into
open space, pierced to the heart with an arrow sped by one of his
own tribesmen. Down he shot like a stone to the earth below, while
the Golden Eagle--as if rejoicing in her escape, shot upward and
onward.