A FALL INTO THE SEA
Out over the shining sea flew the glistening all-metal plane, and the
spirits of the boys lifted to the chase. The oldest fever of the blood
known to man is that of the chase. It comes down to us from our
prehistoric ancestors who lived by the chase, got their daily food by
it, wooed and won by it, and fought their battles by it in that dim
dawn of time when might was right and the law of tooth and claw was
the only rede.
Gone was the irritability that had possessed Frank in the noise and
din, the crowding walls and swarming hordes of human beings, back in
the city. Below him lay the broad Atlantic, from their height seeming
smooth as a ball-room floor, with the surface calm and unruffled. No
land was in sight ahead. The water stretched to infinity, over the
edge of the world. For a wonder, not a sail broke that broad expanse
due south, although to the west were several streamers of smoke where
ships stood in for port, hull down on the far horizon, while closer
at hand was a little dot which Bob, swinging the glasses, made out to
be a four-masted schooner.
It was a long distance off, ten or fifteen miles, judged Bob. The tiny
plane was heading in that direction. Was it bearing away for the
schooner? The question leaped into Bob's mind. He put it into spoken
words, into the transmitter.
"There's a schooner southwest," he said. "The plane is going in that
direction. Bear up a trifle, Frank, and slow her down. Let's see
whether the plane is heading for it."
Frank slowed the engine and altered the course sufficiently to keep
the plane in view on the new tack, but not to bring them so close to
it as to arouse suspicion. In a few moments, all could see the tiny
speck coasting down on a long slant and Bob, watching through the
glasses, exclaimed excitedly:
"The little fellow is going to land. There, he's on the water now.
He's taxying close to the ship."
"I'm going to climb," stated Frank, suiting action to word.
"Good idea," said Jack. "Let me have the glasses a minute, Bob, will
you?"
Bob complied.
"I don't believe they know of our presence," Jack presently declared.
"Do you fellows consider the plane was forced to land? Is that how it
happened to come down near the schooner? There doesn't seem to be any
attempt to put out a boat and get the pilot."
"Forced to land, my eye," said Bob, repossessing himself of the
glasses. "Do you want to know what I think? I believe the pilot is
holding a confab with the schooner. By Jiminy, that's right, too. And
it's ended. He's taxying again, and starting to rise."
Frank, at Bob's words, had swung away again to the south. After
describing a long circle, which carried them so far aloft and so wide
of the ship as to lose it from sight, he again turned the plane toward
home.
"I expect they never saw us, either from the schooner or the plane,"
Jack said. "There was never any indication of alarm. Of course, we
were too far off to tell exactly, even spying through the glass."
"Somehow, however," replied Frank. "I have the feeling that they
didn't."
"Didn't what?" asked Bob.
"Didn't see us," answered Frank.
Frank had accelerated the speed of the engine, and was driving at
eighty miles an hour, straight for home. Suddenly, an exclamation from
Bob, who again was swinging his glasses over the sea below, smote the
ears of the boys.
"Something's the matter with that little plane. Say"--a breathless
pause--"it's falling. Come on, Frank. We'll have to see if we can
help. Swoop down. There, to the left."
Rapidly Frank began spiralling and in a very short time was near
enough to the small plane for it to be seen clearly with the naked
eye. It had been flying at a considerable height. As the boys watched,
it went into a dive, with the pilot struggling desperately to flatten
out. He succeeded, when not far from the surface of the ocean. As a
result, instead of diving nose foremost into the water, the plane fell
flat with a resounding smack, there was a breathless moment or two
when it seemed as if the little thing would be swamped, then it rode
lightly and buoyantly on the little swells.
Descending to the water, Frank taxied up close to the other plane. The
figure of the pilot hung motionless over the wheel. Probably,
considered the boys, the man had been flung about and buffeted until
he lost consciousness.
"I'll close up to him head on," Frank said. "Then, if necessary, one
of you can climb into the other plane and see what we can do to help.
Probably the thing to do will be to get him aboard here, and carry him
ashore."
"Righto," said Bob, climbing out to the fuselage, behind the slowly
revolving propeller. "Now take it easy. We don't want to smash. I can
drop into the water and swim a stroke or two, and get aboard."
As the boys swung up close, however, the figure at the wheel of the
other plane stirred. Then the man lifted his head and looked at them,
in dazed fashion.
"Mr. Higginbotham," exclaimed Frank, under his breath. "Well, what do
you know about that?"
It was, indeed, the man they had interviewed earlier that day in the
McKay realty offices, back in New York.
"How in the world did he get here?" asked Jack, who also had
recognized the other.
Frank had brought their plane to a halt. It bobbed up and down slowly
on the long ground swell, not far from the smaller machine.
Bob was still astride the fuselage.
"Hello," he called. "We saw you fall and came over to see if we could
help. Engine gone wrong, or what was it?"
Higginbotham was rapidly recovering his senses. He stared at his
interlocutor keenly, then at the others. Recognition dawned, then
dismay, in his eyes. But he cloaked the latter quickly.
"Why, aren't you the lads who were in my office to-day?" he asked,
ignoring Bob's proffer of help.
"You're Mr. Higginbotham, aren't you?" answered Bob. "Yes, we are the
fellows you spoke to."
"What in the world are you doing out here?" Higginbotham demanded,
sharply.
"Why, we told you we lived near here. We had flown to Mineola and then
motored to the city. And we were just flying home when we saw you
fall, and came over to do what we could."
"Oh."
Higginbotham stared from one to the other. Had he seen them pursue him
and spy on him as he visited the schooner? That was the question each
boy asked himself. Apparently, he had not done so, for his next
question was:
"Do you fly around here often in your plane?"
Frank took a hand in the conversation. If big Bob were left to carry
on alone, he might blunderingly give this man an inkling of what the
boys knew or suspected about their mysterious neighbors. Frank felt
that his chill of suspicion, experienced when he encountered
Higginbotham in New York, was being justified. Decidedly, this man
must be in with the mysterious inhabitant of the old Brownell place.
Equally certain was it that he had lied in stating he did not know the
name of the man who had bought the property.
"Oh," said Frank, "we haven't had the plane out for weeks until a day
or two ago, when we made a trial spin, and again to-day. We've been
busy for a month overhauling it."
That, thought Frank, ought to stave off Higginbotham's suspicions.
Evidently, the other was feeling around to learn whether they had
flown sufficiently of late to have spied out the secret radio plant or
seen the radio-controlled plane in operation.
"And I'll bet," Frank said himself, "that it is a complete surprise to
him to find there is a plane in his neighborhood. Probably, he thought
he could operate without fear of discovery in this out-of-the-way
neighborhood, and it's a shock to him to find we are here."
Some such thoughts were passing through Higginbotham's mind. How could
he get rid of these boys without disclosing to them that his was a
radio-controlled plane?
"I'm very much obliged to you, gentlemen," he said, smoothly, "for
coming to my aid. As it is, however, I do not need help. This is a
plane of my own design, I may as well state, for I can see its
surprising lines have aroused your curiosity. I would prefer that you
do not come any closer but that, on the other hand, you would leave me
now. I want to make some minor repairs, and then I shall be able to
fly again."
"Very well, sir," answered Bob composedly, climbing back from the
fusilage to his seat in the pit. "We don't want to annoy you. Good
day."
With that, Frank swung clear, the propeller to which Bob had given a
twist began anew to revolve, the plane taxied in a circle, then rose
and started for the shore.
"We certainly surprised him," chuckled Jack. "He didn't know what to
say to us. In his excitement and his fear of discovery of some secret
or other, he acted in a way to arouse suspicion, not dispel it. Well,
Frank, you win the gold medal. Your hunch about Higginbotham being
untrustworthy certainly seems to have some foundation."
"I'll say so, too," agreed Bob. "But what do you imagine happened to
him?"
Bob sat with the glasses trained backwards to where the little plane
still rode the sea.
"That's easy," answered Jack. "Something went wrong at the secret
radio plant and the continuity of the dash which provides the juice
for the plane's motor was broken. That's the only way I can figure it.
I say. Let's tune up to 1,375 meters, and see whether that continuous
dash is sounding."
"It's not there," Bob announced presently. "Not a sound in the
receivers. Neither does the plane show any signs of motion. Look here.
Suppose that whatever has happened at that fellow's radio plant
cannot be fixed up for a long period, what will Higginbotham do? Ought
we to go away and leave him?"
"Well," said Jack, doubtfully, "it does look heartless. He's four or
five miles from shore. Of course, we might shoot him a continuous dash
from our own radio plant."
"Zowie," shrieked Bob, snatching the receiver from his head, and
twisting the controls at the same time, in order to reduce from the
1,375-meter wave length. "There's his power. No need for us to worry
now. Oh, boy, but wasn't that a blast in the ear?"
Ruefully, he rubbed his tingling ears. Jack was doing the same. Poor
Frank, whose eardrums had been subjected to the same shock, also had
taken a hand from the levers at the same time and snatched off his
headpiece.
"She's rising now," cried Bob.
Without his headpiece, Frank could not hear the words and kept his
eyes to the fore, as he swung now above the line of the shore. Jack,
however, also was straining his eyes to the rear, and he snatched the
glasses from Bob and trained them on the plane.
True enough, Higginbotham was rising.