Skillful Strategy
Both of the racing cars kept on at full speed, but a steadily widening
gap showed between them as the first continued to draw away from its
pursuer.
Soon the _Arrow_ was directly above the second of the two cars. Phil
kept moving steadily earthward and was now flying at a height of about
two hundred feet. It was plainly to be seen that Phil’s supposition had
been correct, for the car held half a dozen policemen heavily armed. It
seemed probable too, that Tom in his radio message had told the police
of the starting out of the airplane, for the officers seemed to realize
that they had an ally in the plane and gesticulated vigorously, shouting
and pointing to the road ahead.
Phil waved one hand at them, as a signal that he understood, and darted
ahead until he had overtaken the fleeing car. The top of this was up, so
that at first the robbers did not see the plane. But they heard the
roaring of the motor, and first one head and then another was thrust out
at the side of the machine looking upward. At first they did not seem
especially alarmed, thinking probably that it was out on a practice
flight and just happened to be in their vicinity. But as it continued to
keep pace with them and in the same direction, suspicion seized them,
and the car leaped frantically forward as the last ounce of speed was
extracted from its motor.
Phil’s eyes kept scanning the landscape ahead and at last saw the chance
for which he was looking. About a mile in advance was a level field with
no bars between it and the road. He quickened speed, swooped down in a
graceful curve, landed in the field with scarcely a jar and at just the
spot where the wheels under the momentum of the flight carried the plane
into the middle of the road blocking it completely.
Quick as a flash the Radio Boys clambered out on the further side of the
plane.
“Guess that will stop them,” exclaimed Phil triumphantly.
“It sure will,” agreed Dick admiringly, “but at the same time it will
smash the plane.”
“If it does, it will have to,” replied Phil. “But I don’t think they’ll
drive into it. They’d wreck their own car or overturn it or at any rate
get all tangled up in the gear of the plane. They’ll stop all right. The
police car is less than a minute behind them, and I figure it will be
right on top of the bandits before they get over their confusion. We’ll
soon know, for here they come.”
Around a curve in the road three hundred yards away came the robbers’
car and bore straight down on the plane which seemed doomed to
destruction.
And while Phil and Dick stand there with every pulse athrill waiting for
the outcome, it may be well for the benefit of those who have not read
the preceding volume of this series to tell who the Radio Boys were and
what had been their fortunes and adventures up to the time this story
opens.
Phil Strong had been born and brought up in the town of Castleton, where
his father was a physician with a large practice. From his early years,
Phil had been a natural leader among the boys of his own age, and had
been foremost in the athletic sports that appeal to all healthy,
red-blooded boys. He had been the crack pitcher of his school nine and a
speedy full back on the school eleven. His freedom from conceit or
meanness of any kind had made him exceedingly popular. His brain was
keen and worked quickly, and he was seldom at a loss in extricating
himself from any trying situation into which chance might have brought
him. He never looked for trouble, but he never sidestepped it when it
came, and his coolness and courage made him a valuable friend and a
formidable enemy. At the time the incidents here narrated took place, he
was eighteen years old, tall, athletic, of fair complexion, with keen
blue eyes and brown hair. He had a sister, Phyllis, a pretty girl of
sixteen.
His special chum among the Castleton boys was Dick Weston, who, as we
have seen, was the son of the cashier of the Castleton bank. Dick was
about the same age as Phil, but differed from him in appearance, having
brown eyes and swarthy complexion. The two had been friends since their
earliest recollections and were almost inseparable. Where one of them
was found the other was quite sure not to be far away. Dick lacked the
initiative of Phil, but was always ready to follow where the latter led.
Where Phil was captain, Dick made an admirable first mate, backing Phil
up to the limit and standing by him through thick and thin. He had two
brothers, Harry, fifteen, and Joe, thirteen years of age.
Closely linked in friendship with Dick and Phil were Steve Elwood and
Tom Hadley, who had become acquainted with them through a curious
combination of circumstances told in the first book of this series.
Steve Elwood was the son of a prosperous business man living in New
York. He was a fine upstanding fellow, generous in the extreme, but hot
tempered and impulsive and ready to fight at the drop of a hat. He had a
stubby nose, freckled face and red hair, which explained perhaps the
fiery disposition that usually goes with that kind of head covering.
Phil’s coolness had more than once got Steve out of scrapes into which
his headlong nature had carried him.
Tom Hadley was of another type, good-natured, jolly, always ready for a
joke or a laugh, and perfectly certain that the world was a good place
to live in. His father was an electrical engineer of Chicago. Tom had a
firm idea that Chicago was the only town on earth, and as Steve had a
similar idea about New York, there were many wordy arguments between the
two that afforded immense enjoyment to Phil and Dick, who took an impish
delight in egging them on when there was a lull in the battle.
At the time this story opens, Steve was in Texas, while Tom had dropped
in on a visit to Phil and Dick in Castleton.
What perils and adventures the four friends had faced in common; how
many times they had been within a hairsbreadth of death; how they had
served their government in tracking and delivering up to justice a band
of cunning and desperate criminals is fully told in the first book of
this series, entitled: “Radio Boys In the Secret Service; Or, Running
Down the Counterfeiters.”
Now Phil and Dick were facing a peril of another kind, of which no one
could predict the result. They had no weapons with them, and they knew
that the bandits in the onrushing automobile were desperate criminals
and would not hesitate a second in taking life if that would aid their
escape. But they had known this when they took the chance, and although
their hearts beat furiously, they awaited the result without flinching.
For the first hundred yards the car came on with unabated speed. Then it
perceptibly slackened, while the inmates could be seen with their heads
together in an excited colloquy. The man in the seat beside the driver
leaned far out and motioned furiously to the boys to wheel the plane out
of the road. As they stood motionless, he shook his clenched fist at
them and shouted out an order to the men behind him.
The next instant a fusillade of shots came whistling over the heads of
the boys, who, divining the nature of the command, had thrown themselves
flat on the ground. One of the wings of the plane was clipped by a
bullet but no other damage was done by the volley.
Again the car leaped forward as though the bandits had determined to
take a desperate chance and plough their way through the plane. But when
they were a hundred feet away, the driver seemed to lose heart and
slowed down.
With a furious exclamation, the man sitting beside him struck the driver
and grasped the wheel from him. In the mixup the front wheels of the car
slewed violently to one side, and the car ran into a deep ditch at the
side of the road where it overturned.
There was a tumult of shouts and oaths as the car went over, and at the
same moment the police car came in sight around the turn. Its occupants
were quick to grasp the situation, and the boys could see them rising in
their seats with their weapons in their hands ready to leap.
Out from the overturned car the bandits came swarming like so many bees.
An instant’s glance told them of the trap into which they had fallen.
Before them was the plane behind which were at least two men, whether
armed or not they could not tell. Behind them were half a dozen officers
of the law, fully armed, who were already jumping from their seats and
running toward them.
Their only chance lay in reaching a patch of woodland that lay a little
ways back of the road. Once in its shadows some of them at least might
stand a chance of eluding their pursuers.
At a command from their leader, the bandits fired a volley at the
officers and then turned and ran toward the woods. A fusillade from the
police revolvers followed them, and one of the robbers was shot in the
foot and fell. The rest kept on, the fear of capture lending wings to
their feet, and three of them reached the woods. One however, was headed
off and ran into the open field where the plane had made its landing. He
was fleeter than the two heavily built men who were pursuing him, and
would have easily outdistanced them had not Phil taken a hand in the
game.
Like a panther he was on the trail of the fugitive. The latter turned
and saw him coming and redoubled his speed. There was no shaking Phil
off however, and he gained rapidly. The man turned and fired at him but
the bullet whizzed by harmlessly. The next instant Phil had launched
himself on him and the two went to the ground together.
The fall had knocked all the breath out of the robber, and there was
little fight left in him. Phil wrenched the revolver out of his grasp,
and as Dick came up just then, they bound the robber’s arms together
with Dick’s belt, rendering him powerless. Then they helped him to his
feet and marching behind him with an occasional prod of the pistol butt
in his back when he showed an inclination to balk they came to the
police car, in which the wounded robber had already been placed.
“Two of them anyway,” remarked the officer in charge. “That was mighty
quick and plucky work on your part, young fellow. He was getting away
surely when you put out after him.”
“Do you think there’s any chance of nabbing the rest of them?” inquired
Phil.
The officer shook his head dubiously.
“If we could have winged them before they got to the woods as we did
this fellow,” he said, indicating the wounded thief, “it would have been
all right, but once in those thick woods it’s an easy thing to lose
sight of them. You can hear that there isn’t much shooting going on just
now. That means that our fellows can’t find any targets to shoot at.”
His prediction was verified when half an hour later his comrades came
straggling back without additional prisoners.
“Don’t believe they’ll get far though,” the chief comforted himself.
“They’re on foot and their description has been sent broadcast by radio,
so that at this minute there are at least a thousand people looking for
them. Every road in this county will be patrolled night and day and
their chances of getting away are mighty slim.”
The boys were not at all so sure of this, but they repressed their
doubts.
“How about the stolen money?” asked Dick eagerly. “Have you recovered
any of that?”
“Quite a heap I imagine,” answered the chief, lifting up the seat of the
car and displaying several large packages of bills. “Of course I don’t
know just how much the thieves grabbed, and I guess the bank don’t know
yet either. These were found in the car that turned over. Probably they
dropped out of the leader’s pockets in the mixup. We’ll make another
search of the car before we leave, but I guess we’ve got all that was
there.”
The search was made but yielded no further results. “I’ll have to take
charge of this money and turn it over to the authorities in Castleton,”
remarked the chief, “but just for my own protection I’d like to have you
boys count it now before us all, so that there can’t be any question of
the amount.”
The Radio Boys did this willingly, and were relieved to find that the
total footed up to a trifle over ten thousand dollars.
“That’s a lot of money,” said Phil hopefully. “Maybe that’s all they
were able to grab.”
Here there was a snicker from one of the captured thieves.
The chief whirled about like a flash.
“What are you laughing at?” he demanded angrily.