THE TWO-FINGERED MAN.
The _bonga_, urged along by her two peaked sails, ran alongside the
_Aztec_, a quarter of an hour later. The boys were leaning over the rail
looking very natty in neat, white duck suits and Panama hats, and the
meeting after Mr. Chester and Blakely had clambered aboard up a hastily
thrown Jacob’s Ladder, can be better imagined than described.
The first greetings over and the boys having been introduced to Blakely,
the conversation naturally turned to the _Golden Eagle_. Led by Frank
and Harry, Mr. Chester and the overseer proceeded to the fore deck where
the crew of the _Aztec_ assigned to that duty were making fast a sling
to hoist the first of the blue boxes over into the lighter that lay
alongside the steamer.
“You see,” explained Frank to his interested listeners, “that we have
taken good care to cage our _Golden Eagle_ securely. I suppose, father,
that you would like to hear a few details of its construction. Well,
then, ladies and gentlemen,”—adopting a grandiloquent showman’s
manner—“the _Golden Eagle_ is a biplane machine—that is to say, that she
has a double set of planes one above the other. They have a spread of
fifty-six feet by six and are covered with balloon silk of a special
quality lacquered over with several coats of a specially prepared fire
and water composition.
“She can lift a weight of two hundred pounds in addition to the three
passengers she is capable of carrying. I believe that we will be able
before long to stay up in the air for a sustained flight of two hundred
miles or more. Already we have made a flight of a hundred and fifty
miles and with the new twin propellers that we have adjusted I think we
can make the longer distance easily.
“Our engine is fifty horsepower of what is known as the opposed type and
every bit of it made in an American shop. It ‘turns up’ twelve hundred
revolutions a minute. We rarely run it that speed, however. The gasolene
and the water for cooling the cylinder jackets are suspended in tanks
under the deck-house. A pump circulates the water through the cylinder
jackets and into a condenser where it is cooled off and is ready to be
forced through the cylinders again. The lubricating oil is fed also by a
force system which is much more reliable than the gravity method
particularly in an air-ship where there is a tendency to pitch about a
lot in the upper air currents.
“The frames upon which the covering of the planes is stretched are
formed of an alloy of aluminum and bronze which makes an exceptionally
light and strong material for the purpose. We put a few ideas of our own
into the _Golden Eagle_ when we built her, among them being an improved
bird-like tail which makes her handle very readily even in heavy
weather.
“And—Oh, yes, I almost forgot the wireless plant. That is really the
most unique feature of our craft. We carry our _aerials_, as the long
receiving wires are called, stretched across the whole length of the
upper plane and the receiving and sending apparatus is right handy to
the operator’s right hand. We have a double steering wheel fitted
tandem, so that anyone sitting behind the operator can handle the rudder
while he is busy at the wireless.
“In the pilot-house, as we call it, but it is really more a sort of
cockpit in the deck-house, are fitted small watertight mahogany boxes
which contain our navigating instruments and we have a brass binnacle
boxing in a spirit compass which is lighted at night by the current from
a miniature dynamo which also supplies power for a small but powerful
searchlight.
“Then there is the ration basket. It weighs but fifty pounds full, but
it carries enough provisions for three persons for five days. In it also
are three pairs of thin blankets made of a very light but warm weave of
material and a water-filter. It contains, too, some medicines and
bandages and lotions in case we have a smash-up. So you see,” concluded
Frank with a laugh, “we have a pretty complete sort of a craft.”
After good-byes had been said to the _Aztec’s_ captain and a few of
their fellow-passengers who still remained on board, and the last of the
dozen cases containing the _Golden Eagle_ had been lowered into the
lighter, the little party descended the Jacob’s Ladder and took their
places in the bonga. While they had been on board one of the
brown-skinned fishermen who manned her had rigged up a sort of awning
astern with a spare sail, and this gave the voyagers a welcome bit of
shade. With a cheer from the boys her crew shoved off and the bonga
heeling to the breeze headed for the palm-fringed shore.
“About time they put about and ran up to the wharf, isn’t it?” asked
Harry as the bonga scudded along so close to the shore that the roar of
the heavy surf as the big waves broke on the yellow beach could be
distinctly heard.
“Here’s where you are going to get a new experience,” laughed Mr.
Chester, “I want to see whether such bold air sailors as you boys can
stand shooting the surf without being scared.”
“You don’t mean to say that we are going to land on the beach?” gasped
Harry.
“That’s just what I do,” cheerfully replied his father. “In a few
minutes you’ll see something that will show you that all the wonders of
the world aren’t monopolized by New York.”
The men in the bonga were lowering the sails as he spoke and when they
had them tied in gaskets each took an oar while the captain ran to the
stern with a long sweep.
The men rowed slowly toward the shore till they were almost hurled bow
on into the tumbling surf. Suddenly, at a cry from the man in the stern,
they stopped work with their oars and the bonga tossed up and down on
the racing crests of the big waves while they “backwatered.”
All at once the man with the steering oar, who had been watching for a
large wave to come rolling along, gave a loud command. The rowers fell
furiously to work. The boys felt the bonga lifted up and up on the crest
of the big combers and a second later they were swept forward, it seemed
at a rate of sixty miles an hour. The surf broke all about the bonga,
but she hardly shipped a drop.
As the long narrow craft raced into the boiling smother of white foam
her crew leaped out in water almost up to their necks and fairly rushed
the craft up the beach before the next roller came crashing in.
“Well, that beats shooting the chutes, for taking your breath away,”
remarked Harry as the party strolled along under a palm-bordered avenue
on their way to the hotel where they were to lunch. The dripping crew of
the bonga followed them carrying the boys’ smart, new baggage on their
heads.
The Hotel Grand Central was a long building with a red-tiled roof and
the invariable patio in the center off which the room opened. The boys
were delighted with the place. In the middle of the patio, in a grove of
tropical plants, a cool fountain plashed and several gaudy macaws were
clambering about in the branches of the glistening greenery. The hot
dusty street outside with its glaring sun and blazing iron roofs seemed
miles away.
As they were about to turn into the sala, in which their meal was to be
served, a man bustled out and almost collided with them. It was General
Rogero.
“Ah, Señor, we seem fated to encounter each other to-day,” he exclaimed
with a flash of irritation as his eyes met Mr. Chester’s.
The next moment he had started back with a quick: “peste!” as his dark
gaze fell on the boys.
“Why!” exclaimed Harry, “that’s the fellow who came down on the ship.
The man who said he was a diamond salesman and that he had a lot of
stones in that black bag! Do you know him, father?”
“Know him?” repeated Mr. Chester in a puzzled tone as Rogero whisked
scowling out of sight into an adjoining room.
“He was a mysterious sort of cuss,” chimed in Frank, “kept to himself
all the way down and had his meals in his cabin.”
“Perhaps he had a good reason to,” smiled Mr. Chester; “your diamond
salesman is General Rogero of the president’s army.”
As he spoke and the two boys fairly gasped in astonishment at this
sudden revelation of the true character of the man with the black bag,
Billy Barnes came hurrying up.
“Hello, my fellow-passengers,” he exclaimed heartily; “hello, Frank!
hello, Harry!”—it was characteristic of Mr. Barnes, that although he had
met the boys for the first time on the steamer he was calling them by
their first names the second day out—“as I hinted to your father an hour
or so ago, I’ve run into the biggest story of my career.”
“You rushed off in such a hurry that I could hardly call it even a
hint,” smiled Mr. Chester.
“You’ll get jolly well laid up, Mr. Barnes, if you go rushing about like
that in this climate—what?” put in Blakely.
“I beg your pardon, sir, really,” burst out the impulsive Billy
contritely, addressing Mr. Chester, “but you know when a newspaper man
gets on the track of a good story he sometimes forgets his manners. But
you will be interested in my morning’s work.”
“Here’s what I’m digging on and if it isn’t a snorter of a story never
let me see New York again.”
“Well, what is it, Billy?” asked Harry, “come on, never mind the
fireworks—let’s have it.”
“Just this;” proudly announced the reporter, “General Rogero has only
two fingers on his right hand.”
“Yes?” from the boys in puzzled tones.
“Well, what of it?” from Mr. Chester.
Billy was evidently artist enough to keep his listeners in suspense for
he went on with great deliberation.
“You remember that when he was ‘a diamond salesman,’ on board the
_Aztec_ that we hardly ever saw him?—well, there was a reason, as the
advertising men say. What was that reason? you ask me. Just this; that
he didn’t want any one to get wise that he was minus three of his
precious digits.
“Why for?—Because the man who killed Dr. Moneague in New York, was shy
on his hands in the same way—now do you see!” triumphantly demanded the
reporter.
“If our amiable friend Rogero isn’t the same man who murdered Moneague
in New York I’ll eat my camera, films and all,” he concluded.
“It doesn’t seem to me that you have any proof on which you can base
such a serious accusation,” said Mr. Chester. “Rogero is a desperate man
and an unscrupulous one, but I do not believe that even he would
deliberately commit such a crime.”
“Don’t you, sir?” contradicted Billy, “well, I do. From what I’ve
observed of him, he’d stop at nothing if he had an end to gain. The
thing in this case though is, what was his motive for killing Dr.
Moneague, except that Moneague, so the police discovered, was an agent
of the revolutionists down here?”
Like a flash the recollection of what Don Pachecho had told him about
the bit of parchment on which was traced the secret of the lost Toltec
mines crossed Mr. Chester’s mind. He hurriedly gave his interested
auditors an outline of what he knew about the clue to the treasure
trove.
“Rogero’s the man then for twenty dollars!” excitedly cried Billy. “He
had the thing in that black bag he guarded so carefully. If I only could
get hold of it we’d have his neck in the halter in a brace of shakes.
I’ve a good mind to try. The first thing I’m going to do, though, is to
flash a bit of message to New York—to No. 300 Mulberry Street—and tell
my old friend Detective Lieutenant Connolly that I think a run down here
would result in his turning up something interesting. Anyhow——,” the
reporter was continuing, when he was cut short by the sound of a shot
from outside and a loud cry of pain. The startled party hurried through
the sala and out into the street.
“A shot means a story;” remarked Billy to his camera as he adjusted it
ready for action while he hurried along after the others.