The message, from the managing editor of the _News_, was brief and to
the point.
"Ralph kidnapped this afternoon. Come home."
The shocking news paralyzed Tim's brain and he leaned helplessly against
the clerk's desk, his face drained of all color.
"Are you ill?" asked the clerk.
"No, I'll be all right in a minute," Tim managed to say. "Just some
surprising news from my managing editor."
The flying reporter went to a nearby lounge and sat down.
Ralph kidnapped.
It must be impossible; it was impossible, he told himself. Yet there was
the telegram from Carson--so simple and yet so startling.
"Ralph kidnapped this afternoon. Come home."
They needed him in Atkinson and Tim pulled himself together and went to
the desk to inquire about the air passenger service west.
"You can get a plane at seven in the morning," said the clerk. "By
changing at Dearborn you'll land at Atkinson at five in the afternoon."
"Telephone my reservation," said Tim and he turned to hasten to his
room.
He partially undressed and threw himself on the bed, still dazed from
the shock of the telegram.
What could Ralph have been doing; what had he run into that had resulted
in his kidnapping? Who would want to kidnap him and how had they done
it? These and a dozen other questions raced through Tim's tired mind.
Finally, in complete physical and mental exhaustion, he dropped into a
sound sleep.
Afternoon of the following day found Tim disembarking from the mail and
passenger plane at his home airport. Carson and the field manager were
waiting to greet him.
"What's this about Ralph being kidnapped?" demanded Tim, to whom the
hundred and ten mile an hour schedule of the passenger plane had seemed
slow as they winged their way westward from New York.
"There isn't a whole lot to tell," said the managing editor. "The day
after you left Ralph took one of the cars and headed for Cedar river
valley. Said he had a hunch that the bandits had a hideout there and
that he might improve his time while you were away by making a sort of a
lone search for them. He was still boiling mad over their stealing the
_Good News_ and cracking it up."
"I feel that way myself," said Tim. "Go on."
"Ralph never got to the valley," said Carson. "In fact, he didn't get
more than fifty miles from Atkinson. The first we knew he was in trouble
was a report late in the afternoon of one of our cars being found
abandoned on a road east of here and on the way to the valley I knew it
was the machine Ralph had taken and personally headed the
investigation."
"What did you find?" asked Tim breathlessly.
"Signs of a hard scrap," said the managing editor. "Ralph must have
stumbled on Sam and Pierre or they might have been trailing him. It was
along a lonely road with lots of underbrush nearby."
"Anything to show that Ralph was hurt?"
"There were several bullet marks in the body of the car but there was no
sign of blood," said the managing editor.
"Find anything else?"
"Some peculiar marks in a clearing nearby. They were similar to those
you reported at railroad fire and bank robbery."
"I was sure those marks would be there," mused Tim. "Well, one thing
sure," he added, "Sam and Pierre are about at the end of their string. I
know what they've been using to make their escapes and have the means of
detecting them the next time they come into the open."
Tim told Carson and Hunter of his visit to the aircraft company in New
York and how the chief designer and Mac Giddings had helped him, of the
discovery of the secret airplane factory in the Jersey woods and of the
marvelous plane that they had developed. Then he explained the radio
detector which Mac Giddings had perfected and his plan for catching
Shanghai Sam and his companion.
"It sounds O. K.," said the managing editor enthusiastically.
"I've got a plane here at the field you can equip," volunteered the
field manager. "I'll have the mechanics start getting it in shape."
Throughout the night Tim remained at the airport, supervising the
installation of the radio detector in the fast biplane which Hunter
provided for his use.
By dawn the plane was ready to go.
"What are you going to do now?" asked the managing editor.
"Start a steady patrol of the Cedar river valley," said Tim. "When I get
tired Hunter has agreed to relieve me. We'll both ride the plane and
only come down when we need gas and oil."
"Won't they get suspicious of what you're up to?" asked the managing
editor.
"I doubt it," said Tim. "We'll be up ten to twelve thousand feet all the
time and with the muffler Carson has fitted on the exhaust they won't be
able to see or hear us on the ground."
"And will the radio detector work at that height?"
"Giddings said it was good up to twenty thousand feet," replied Tim. "At
least it is the best we have and if it does work we'll soon put an end
to these marauders."
An hour later the silver-gray biplane which they had equipped was
cruising over the Cedar river valley. The altimeter showed 10,000 feet
and Tim throttled down the engine as he started the patrol of the
valley. Hunter, in the forward cockpit, had a headset on and was
listening for some sound in the radio detector.
Through the hours of the morning they maintained their vigil and at noon
flew halfway back to Atkinson to land at an air mail emergency field and
refill their gasoline tanks.
"I'll take the controls this afternoon," said Hunter, and Tim agreed to
the suggestion.
When they were near the valley again Tim set the radio detector going.
There was a low, steady hum in the earphones for the noise of their own
motor was cut out of the set's pickup.
At two o'clock a sound came through the earphones that electrified Tim.
Hunter, in the rear cockpit, could see Tim's body tense as the flying
reporter bent over the detector and adjusted the dials for more delicate
tuning.
Somewhere below them the motor of a powerful plane was being warmed up!
The roaring in the earphones was strong; then weak, as their own biplane
swung away from the source of the sound. By following the path of the
strongest sound they would be able to find their quarry and Hunter
watched Tim's hand carefully for directions on how to pilot the plane.
When they reached the center of a dense forest along the right bank of
the Cedar the roaring was loud and steady. They were still up eight
thousand feet and too high to see what was going on below. Tim took a
pair of field glasses out of a case and leaned over the side of the ship
while Hunter banked the biplane in easy circles.
The powerful lenses made the ground leap toward them and Tim could see
every object clearly. He gasped as his glasses focused on a clearing in
one of the densest parts of the forest.
He was looking down on an exact replica of the plane he had seen in the
makeshift hangar in the Jersey woods only two days before. The upper
wings, as he had expected, were carefully painted so that detection from
the sky was almost impossible.
Under normal conditions Tim and Hunter could have flown low over the
clearing without seeing the plane but thanks to the radio detector they
had been able to spot it with little trouble.
Hunter shut off the motor and leaned toward Tim.
"What are they doing?" he cried.
"Getting ready to take off," shouted Tim. "They're climbing into the
plane. Here they come!"
"See anything of Ralph?"
"No, but there's a small shack on one side of the clearing and he is
probably in there. We'll take care of these chaps first and then drop
down and see where they've hidden Ralph."
Hunter snapped on the switch and the motor roared into action again.
Tim kept his glasses trained on the plane below. The wing motors had
been started and the ship, after a run of thirty or forty feet, was
rising almost vertically. It was a beautiful take-off and Tim knew that
the master hand of Pierre Petard was at the controls.
"We'll let them get out of the forest country," Tim shouted at Hunter.
"If we swoop down on them now we'll have them sneaking into some small
clearing where we can't follow."
"Right," cried Hunter as he swung his biplane westward and took up the
pursuit.
For half an hour the strange game of hunted and hunter continued with
Tim and Hunter keeping five to six thousand feet above the other ship.
When they were finally over open country Tim motioned for Hunter to give
his plane the gun and the field manager, anxious for action, opened the
throttle and sent his ship thundering downward.
Tim opened a black leather case in the forward cockpit and swung a
sub-machine gun over the side of the plane. They had come prepared for
any emergency for both of them realized that the men they sought would
stop at nothing to make their escape.
The biplane shrieked down on its unsuspecting quarry, flashing out of
the heavens like an avenging eagle.
Intuition must have caused Pierre Petard to glance over his shoulder
just in time to see Hunter preparing for the final swoop. They saw
Pierre reach quickly and tap Sam on the shoulder.
Instantly the man in the forward cockpit turned and in another second a
light machine gun, similar to the one Tim held, belched a stream of
bullets at them.
Sam's aim was good and the bullets traced a wicked line along one wing,
coming ever closer to the fuselage. But it was for only a second.
Hunter was a master of the air and he sent his plane into a screaming
dive that ended only when he was under the other plane and in a position
for Tim to pour a hail of bullets into the fuselage of the ship above
them.
The bandit plane veered sharply and for a second Tim had a clear shot at
the propeller. The bullets from the machine gun shattered the whirling
blade and the air was full of bits of wood.
Hunter pulled his own ship into the clear and they watched anxiously
while Pierre attempted to bring his damaged plane to a safe landing. It
fluttered down like a crippled bird, turning this way and that, now
limping along for a few feet and then abruptly dropping away until it
seemed inevitable that it should end in a deadly tailspin.
"They'll make it all right," cried Tim. "They're heading for that big
pasture," and he pointed to a large field.
Hunter gave the biplane full throttle and sped earthward at a daredevil
pace. They must beat the bandit ship down. The field manager sideslipped
into the pasture and set his plane down hard. Tim leaped from the
cockpit, his machine gun freshly loaded and ready for action. Hunter, a
repeating rifle in hand, joined him.
The bandit plane was staggering down toward the field. It barely cleared
the fence and bounced toward them.
"Get back of this ridge," Tim warned Hunter. "They may try to shoot it
out and we'd make good targets out here in the open."
Hunter agreed and they sought shelter behind a low ridge along the edge
of the field.
The bandit plane rolled on and on. They could see Pierre working
desperately at the controls.
"The wing motors," cried Tim. "He's trying to start them. If he does
they'll get away from us."
"Keep down," warned Hunter, "I think the burst of bullets you put into
their ship disabled the controls to the wing motors or he'd have used
them before he landed."
The bandit plane finally rolled to a stop less than two hundred feet
away.
"Come out with your hands up!" ordered Tim.
The answer was a flicker of flame from the forward cockpit, the staccato
of a machine gun and the thud of bullets into the dirt which protected
them.
Tim answered instantly, his machine gun tracing a steady, deadly line
along the fuselage. Hunter pumped shell after shell into his repeating
rifle.
The firing from the plane ceased abruptly.
"We'll come out," cried a weak voice and Pierre Petard stood up in his
cockpit.
Tim and Hunter moved forward cautiously, fearing a ruse, but they found
that Shanghai Sam had been wounded in the shoulder in the last exchange
of shots and Pierre, knowing that the end of his career was near, was
white and shaken.
"Where is the reporter you kidnapped?" demanded Tim.
"Back in the clearing where we made our headquarters," replied Pierre.
"We didn't harm him," he added as though fearing Tim might manhandle
him.
"If he is," promised the flying reporter, "I'll give you something to
remember me by."
Shanghai Sam refused to talk and Hunter went to the nearest highway
where he stopped a motorist. Within an hour Captain Raymond and a detail
of state police were on the scene, ready to take charge of the
prisoners.
Tim, relieved of the responsibility of capturing the sky pirates,
hastened to a farmhouse where he telephoned the story to the _News_.
Carson, the managing editor, was jubilant.
"But how about Ralph?" he asked.
"State police are on their way to get him now," said Tim. "The whole
case will be cleaned up in another hour or two."
"Splendid," exclaimed the managing editor. "We're going on the street
with an extra now with the _News_ taking full credit for the capture of
those fellows."
Early that evening Tim and Ralph were reunited in the _News_ office.
They had much to tell and they had an interested audience in their
managing editor, the field manager and the members of the _News_ staff.
Ralph told how he had been on his way to the Cedar river valley when he
had seen the bandits bring their plane down in a small clearing near the
highway. Ralph had left his car to make a closer inspection but had been
discovered by Pierre and Sam. He had fled to his car but had been
captured before he could make his escape. He had been forced into the
bandit plane and taken to their hiding place in the wilderness of timber
and underbrush in the river valley.
"They took good care of me," grinned Ralph, "but I realized that when
they completed their series of daring robberies they would probably
leave me tied up in the shack, which wasn't such a pleasant prospect.
The money they had obtained in their robberies was all in the shack and
believe me I was sure happy when the state police arrived."
From New York came a telegram from Mac Giddings congratulating Tim on
the use of the radio detector and adding that federal agents had raided
the hidden factory in the Jersey woods, seizing all men and equipment.
Giddings added that his own company was making arrangements to take over
the plans and manufacture the new plane on a commercial basis.
"At least some good will come from this whole affair" said Tim. "The
plane was truly a marvel. It's too bad that it had to have its first
test in this fashion."
Captain Raymond made his way into the room. A stranger was with him but
Tim recognized the man as the chief executive of the state, Gov. Ned
Turner.
Captain Raymond introduced Tim and Ralph to the governor.
"When Captain Raymond told me all of the fine things you two have done
in capturing these sky pirates I wanted to tell you in person how much
this means to the state. It is a real privilege to commission you as
honorary life members of the state police."
When Tim and Ralph were finally alone with their managing editor, they
confessed their extreme fatigue.
"What you need is a good rest," said Carson. "You'll get the $5,000
reward the railroad offered, the banks should pay you handsomely and the
paper is going to give each of you a bonus of a month's pay. You'd
better take a vacation and spend a little of that money."
"Sounds good to me," said Tim. "What do you say to accepting the
invitation Hank Cummins extended to visit at the Circle Four ranch for a
month?"
"Make it unanimous," smiled Ralph.
"Then you can plan on leaving the first part of the week," said the
managing editor. "In the meantime we'll see about buying a plane to
replace the _Good News_ for I know neither of you will be happy until
then."