SAVED BY AN AEROPLANE.
The sentry paced by the tent as these greetings were exchanged, and both
boys held their breath as he hesitated in front of it but, to their
unspeakable relief, he passed on.
“You’ll have to cut me loose,” murmured Billy, as the sentry’s
retreating footsteps informed them that he had got a safe distance away,
“I’m tied hand and foot and my head feels as if it had a hole in it like
the crater of a volcano.”
In a flash, as Billy spoke, Frank conceived a daring plan. He would wait
till the next time the sentry passed and then slip bodily into the tent
under the rear flap. As a matter of fact the most risky part of this
business would be the actual creeping in. Once inside there was not much
chance of discovery unless the sentry should take it into his head to
come right inside—a thing which Frank thought was not likely to happen.
His brief inspection of the room when he first lifted the flap had shown
him that the unfortunate Billy lay on a cot. It would be, then, an easy
matter to slip under this in case the sentry took it into his head to
lift the front flap periodically,—as Frank had seen him do from the
_Golden Eagle_.
Waiting till the man had once more passed and was swinging down to the
end of his post Frank wriggled under the tent-flap and into it.
“You seem to take a personal delight in risking your life to save mine,”
whispered Billy with a pitiful attempt at humor as Frank whipped out his
knife and stood waiting till the sentry should have passed again, before
cutting the ropes that were bound round the unfortunate reporter’s feet
and hands so tightly as to cut into the flesh.
As a measure of precaution Frank crawled under the cot as the man’s
footsteps drew near once more and it was a lucky thing that he did so
for this time the vigilant sentry pulled aside the front flap and peered
around the dim place. He saw nothing unusual, however, and dropped it
again with a grunt and fell to pacing up and down.
“Now, Billy, we’ve got no time to lose,” snapped out Frank, slipping
from under the bed. With a swift slash he released the reporter’s hands.
A second later the ropes about his feet fell to the floor cut through.
“If he peeks in this time we are goners,” whispered Frank as the heavy,
regular tread drew near once more; but the man passed by and as his
footsteps died away the reunited boys clasped hands warmly.
“You can tell me all that has happened when we get away from here,”
whispered Frank, cutting short the narrative of his adventures the
irrepressible Billy had plunged into, “we’ve got all our work cut for us
now.”
“What are we going to do?” asked Billy helplessly, “I’m so stiff from
those ropes that I can hardly run and when they knocked me down they
gave me this bump that doesn’t make my head feel any too good.”
“Rub your joints, to get the circulation going again,” was Frank’s
rejoinder. “You’ll soon feel all right.”
“Yes, but then what are we going to do?” repeated Billy, “We can’t get
off through the forest. They’ll discover that I’ve gone in a short time
and Rogero will send his whole army through the woods to find us. It
would never do for him to lose me now, you see. I know too much.”
“We are going to get away by aeroplane,” was the startling answer. “Once
we get up aloft, I don’t think that even Rogero can get us.” Billy used
as he had recently become to the boys’ resourcefulness gasped out:
“What?” in such an amazed tone that, grave as was their position, Frank
couldn’t help laughing.
“That’s the idea,” rejoined Frank, then hastily he sketched out to Billy
their plan. He also pointed out to him the absolute necessity of keeping
a cool head when the crucial moment came.
“There will be no second chance,” he warned impressively, “even to bring
the _Golden Eagle_ so near to the earth once, is a desperate measure. If
we don’t make the ladder on the first jump it’s goodnight, remember.”
To Billy’s credit, be it said, that he listened to Frank’s amazing
proposal without batting an eyelid. Indeed, he had come to have such
faith in the younger boy’s ingenuity and ability that he would willingly
have jumped over a precipice if Frank had told him it would be all
right. All he said was then:
“Count on me, Frank, if this thing gets ‘pied’ it won’t be my fault.”
“Or ours either, I can promise you that,” returned Frank earnestly.
“Now,” he went on, to Billy, who had been vigorously chafing his numbed
ankles all this time, varying the performance by rubbing his wrists
alternately; “if you’ve got some of the stiffness out the sooner we are
on the move the better.”
“All right, Frank,” bravely whispered Billy. “It feels like every step I
took somebody was jabbing a knife into me,” he went on in a rueful tone,
“but I guess I can do my part of this job.”
“Bully for you,” whispered Frank in reply. “Now then,” as the sentry’s
footsteps died away, “it’s now or never.”
As he spoke he slipped under the tent-flap closely followed by Billy
who, plucky as he was, couldn’t suppress a slight groan at the pain his
wounded head and rope-grazed joints gave him as he moved.
A second later both boys were in the dark shadows of the clump of trees
and in comparative safety. That is they were safe till the sentry looked
in the tent again and discovered that his prisoner had vanished, a fact
they both fully realized.
“We’ll have to sacrifice caution to speed,” counseled Frank, gliding
swiftly along with wonderful speed and making very little noise. Poor
Billy with his hurts and stiffness did not make such good progress.
“Come on, Billy,” whispered Frank grabbing him by the arm, and half
dragging him along, “it won’t be long now.”
“I don’t think I can last much longer, Frank,” groaned Billy. “You’d
better get out and leave me here. I don’t suppose they’ll dare to do
anything much to me.”
“They won’t, eh?” returned Frank, “well you don’t know as much of these
people as I do. No, Billy, we’ll stand or fall together. Come on, buck
up, and in a few minutes we’ll be safe in the good old _Golden Eagle_.”
Frank’s words and his bold determined manner had the effect he intended.
Billy put on a stiff upper lip and a few minutes later they emerged into
the moonlight at the edge of the clearing. Frank fumbled in the bosom of
his shirt for the signal light as they cautiously crept across the
brilliantly moonlit patch in which Frank and Billy both felt that they
must be as conspicuous objects as a pair of bull elephants.
When he found the tiny flash-light with which he was to give the signal
to Harry in the _Golden Eagle_, that both boys could now see hovering
above them, Frank pressed the button twice. Harry, scanning the ground
below him anxiously, saw the tiny flashes instantly and with a feeling
of relief, that, so far, the enterprise was going well. The boy set the
downward planes of the _Golden Eagle_ and muffled down the engine for
the peril-filled descent.
Crouching in the brush Frank and Billy, one of them at least with a
queer, sinking sensation at the pit of his stomach—watched the great
aeroplane swoop down on them like a bird of prey. It was small wonder
that they felt apprehensive. What they had to do was to grasp the end of
a swinging rope-ladder as, for but the fraction of a minute, it brushed
by them—yet neither of them dared entertain the thought of missing it.
To do so would have been to unnerve them when they most needed every
ounce of presence of mind and cool calculation they could muster.
“Now!” cried Frank suddenly as the air-craft’s black shadow enveloped
them.
Bracing every muscle till they were tense as steel springs Frank made a
leap for the lashing end of the ladder as it tore by him at what seemed
to be terrific speed. It was about three feet above the earth. As he
jumped and caught it, bracing his foot on the lowest rung, he felt the
aeroplane sag down with the sudden weight.
“Open up!” he yelled to Harry, fearing that if she sagged any more the
_Golden Eagle_ might lose her equilibrium altogether. At the same
instant he realized that Billy was making a desperate effort to haul
himself onto the ladder also. The reporter had caught it all right but
his fingers,—weakened under the tightness of his recent bonds—refused to
grip it firmly. Already he had let go with one hand and was gazing with
a piteous white face up at Frank.
As the welcome roar of the powerful engine came to his ears and Frank
felt the good ship respond nobly to its impetus the youthful aviator
reached down and seized the reporter just as Billy’s grasp was about to
relax altogether. He managed with a desperate effort to haul him up till
Billy’s foot rested on the lower round.
“You’ll have to let me drop, Frank, I can’t hold on any longer,” he
gasped.
“Put your leg through the lower round,” commanded Frank sharply. With a
last effort, that almost cost him his place on the ladder, the reporter
obeyed the order and found that he had at least a chance of holding on
with his leg hooked firmly over in this position.
At this moment,—and as the _Golden Eagle_ gave a sickening leap upward
that made Billy’s head swim and would undoubtedly have been the last of
the reporter but for the firm grip Frank had of his arm—a shot flashed
out from the camp. Instantly there was a turmoil in the place that
reached the boys’ ears even above the roar of the laboring engine’s
exhaust.
Lights could be seen moving rapidly about below, and shouted commands
rang sharply out on the night. With the additional weight she was
carrying, at an angle to which she was not accustomed,—and for which she
had not been designed,—the _Golden Eagle_ behaved erratically. Despite
Harry’s most skilful handling and jockeying she refused to rise at her
usual rapid pace. In fact she seemed as sluggish as a snail and yawed
and lurched in a manner that swung Frank and the reporter about as if
they had been suspended at the end of a pendulum.
In this urgent crisis the men in the camp perceived the unaccustomed
sight of the struggling aeroplane and, shouting in Spanish, made a dash
through the grove of trees into the open space above which the Boy
Aviators’ craft was struggling bravely to attain the upper air.
Frank, as if in a dream, saw from his perilous perch a dozen rifles
leveled at them and, in the glare of a kerosene torch, perceived Rogero
hurrying about giving orders and striking men with the flat of his sword
in his fury at losing his prisoner.
It seemed as if it was all over when suddenly from the car above them
Harry’s clear voice rang out.
“Stand clear; or I’ll throw the bomb!”
The effect of his words was instantaneous. The boys, clinging to the
swaying ladder, saw the soldiers dash back as if terror-stricken and
Rogero himself—crazed with fury—seemed to have ordered the men not to
fire for they dropped their rifles.
Like a flash Frank saw his opportunity. If they could reach the top of
the ladder the lurching aeroplane would answer her helm.
“Climb, Billy. Climb! It’s your last chance!” he cried. “Climb with
every drop of strength in your body!—Quick Harry—the picric acid!”
[Illustration: “CLIMB, BILLY. CLIMB! IT’S YOUR LAST CHANCE.”]
As though galvanized into a last spurt of life by Frank’s emphatic
words, Billy’s tired muscles came into play and slowly, with what
difficulty he never knew, for to this day the young reporter says he
doesn’t know how he did it—he managed to follow Frank up the ladder. As
they did so Harry emptied the acid into the gasolene tank and urged by
the tremendous impetus this gave her engines, the ship began to rise.
As they climbed desperately higher, the _Golden Eagle_ gradually
regained her equilibrium and began to respond to her riding planes as
Harry frantically manipulated them. Frank crawled after what seemed an
hour through the trap in the pilot-house floor. Instantly stretching
himself out—he reached down to Billy. He seized the reporter by the
wrists and fairly lifted him into safety beside him.
Of this brave struggle, however, Billy knew nothing; for as he was
pulled through the trap his overwrought nerves gave way and, as the
_Golden Eagle_ shot into safety at thirty miles an hour, the young
reporter lay in a dead faint on her pilot-house floor.
* * * * *
“Bravely done, Harry,” cried Frank, grasping his younger brother’s hand
in a firm grip which you may be sure was heartily returned.
“That’s all right. All’s well that ends well”—replied Harry,—with a
grin, “it was just a bit of bluff, Frank, but it worked.”
“What did you do?” demanded Frank.
For reply Harry pointed to the brightly-polished cylinder of the
searchlight that, detached from its socket lay on the floor.
“You heard me call, ‘Lookout for the bomb!’ or words to that effect?” he
inquired.
“Yes,” replied Frank, puzzled, “but those fellows don’t understand
English.”
“Well, they understood what it meant when they saw me raise that
searchlight over my head as if I was going to chuck it down and blow
them all to Kingdom Come,” replied Harry, cheerfully.