ON THE VIKING TRAIL.
There were five of the Vikings. As they came into sight along the
path, Nick the Rat whispered to his gang, who lay, with rifles ready,
concealed behind a clump of bushes: "When I say the word, give 'em the
works."
"I tank--" began Swede.
"Fire!" shouted Nick, and out blazed five rifles.
Two Vikings fell. The three others stood irresolute for a moment. Then,
hurling their spears before them, they rushed full at the bush. Once
more the rifles blazed, and then the gangsters leaped to their feet and
met drawn swords with the roar of automatics.
It was all over in an instant. The five Vikings lay on the ground, four
of them motionless, the fifth propped up on one elbow, with his other
hand to his chest, coughing.
Scutari had fallen flat on his back, with a spear through his heart.
Nick Fratelli's right forearm was pinned to his side with a slender
Viking sword which he was frantically trying to push out with his left
hand. Cicero, torn and bleeding about one shoulder, had dropped his
automatic, and was leaning against a tree, feeling of the injured part.
Friday, the Eskimo, had fled.
Swede Johnson stood over the dying Viking. The latter coughed
and murmured something. Swede bent low to catch the words, then
straightened up.
"The curse of Thor!" he muttered in sudden superstitious horror.
The Viking coughed once more, transfixed Cicero with a baleful glance
and dropped prone on the grass.
"I tank--" began Swede, but Nick interrupted him:
"Can the chatter, and pull out this butcher knife. Easy now," as Swede
obliged him.
The hole in Nick's side turned out to be merely a flesh-wound, but the
blade had penetrated his forearm right between the two bones.
As Swede dexterously tore off a part of Nick's shirt and bandaged the
arm, the wounded man growled: "The nerve of those squareheads, fighting
against all our guns."
"Dey vere Vikings!" asserted Swede proudly.
Friday reappeared, and was given quite a dressing-down by Fratelli
in the Eskimo's guttural tongue. Then the four took Scutari's rifle,
pistol, food and ammunition, and the helmets, swords, bucklers and
other trappings of the dead enemy. Fratelli helped himself to a purple
cloak which struck his fancy; Cicero took a jeweled dagger, marked with
a jade swastika.
Laden with booty, the four started back down the trail, leaving the
bodies of the five Vikings and Scutari, with perfect unconcern, to rot
beneath the sweltering beams of the central sun.
"I tank--" began Swede.
"You think too much," interrupted Nick Fratelli testily. "What I think
is that we better not get within reach of any more Vikings if we can
help it. Come on, you guys, or we'll be in a jam."
* * * * *
About the time when Nick and his gang had started out on the exploring
trip, Scarface and his party began their circuit of the plateau, which
was to end in their utter rout by a woolly mammoth, which had run
Scarface himself up a tree.
The beast had then continued to bunt at the tree, until the tree
leaned at such an angle that the brute's head could no longer secure a
purchase against the slanting bark.
Thereat the elephant changed its tactics. Going to the other side of
the tree, the beast stood beneath the man, and, applying its trunk to
the tree trunk, began pulling downward with all its strength. The tree,
already very much loosened at the roots, could not long withstand the
weight of such a huge animal.
But Scarface, coolly leaning down until his arm was within reach of
the beast's trunk if it had seen fit to release its hold on the tree,
blazed away all seven shots of his automatic, square at the center of
the high flat forehead, which now constituted such a point-blank target.
Stunned, the mammoth recoiled on its haunches for an instant; then
flung itself at the tree in a frenzy of rage. The shots must have
missed the brain, which in these prehistoric elephants occupied but a
very small part of the massive skull.
The tree was now swaying like a reed, but Scarface calmly inserted
another clip, steadied himself with his left hand, and blazed away
again, this time at the two little red eyes of hate that glared up at
him.
Again the impact of the forty-fives stunned the beast and forced
it back upon its haunches. And again it returned to its onslaught
against the tree. But this time, totally blinded, it missed the tree
completely, and went dashing off across the plain.
Dropping with a grunt of relief from the well-nigh horizontal tree,
Scarface unslung his rifle, knelt, and discharged all five shots of
his magazine at the departing animal; but, unaffected by his shots, it
disappeared into the woods which lined the plain.
Scarface, exasperated, brushed off his soiled and disarranged yachting
costume, as Mike Murphy, Tom Jones and Little Arty dropped one by one
from neighboring trees.
From the air above them rang out a silvery laugh. All four looked up.
Over the edge of the cliff-top, they saw a face, at each side of which
an ash-blond braid hung down over the rocks.
Scarface doffed his hat, and blew a kiss to the lady from his
finger-tips. The face promptly disappeared.
"It's hard to tell at this distance, but I think she's a pippin,"
remarked Little Arty.
"I believe that that must be the Swede girl that I've always dreamed of
meeting some day," announced the handsome young gang leader.
"Good luck to you, Romeo," chimed in Tom Jones.
"That's all very well," said Murphy, "but how do we get up there,
anyhow?"
"We holler, I guess," replied Scarface, and suited the action to the
word.
But the cliffs above might just as well have been barren, uninhabited
rocks for all the effect that their shouting developed, then or later.
They separated to circle the plateau.
* * * * *
They met again, two meals later, at their starting point, without any
of them being able to report any progress. Accordingly they withdrew
for another "night" of turns at watching and sleeping.
Finally rested, they ate breakfast--the last that was left of their
compressed rations--and then decided that some change of tactics was
imperative if they would rescue Terry. So they set out to the southward
along the trail which they had seen taken by the Vikings who had left
the plateau two days ago. In this way they hoped either to reach
wherever the Vikings might be bound, or to meet them coming back.
The trail led sometimes through tangled forests and sometimes through
open plains. The central sun beat pitilessly down, and aloft in the
heavy air circled one huge and solitary leather-winged _skwaa_, in
search of carrion. After several hours, hunger began to gnaw at them,
and the circling _skwaa_ took on a menacing aspect.
A bit further on, a long-legged rabbitlike creature suddenly appeared
in the trail ahead of them. All four rifles blazed simultaneously, and
the little creature fell.
"Bedad, we eat!" exclaimed Murphy.
"Let's carry it till we come to water," suggested Tom.
They had not gone far, when they came to a grove of gigantic
orange-trees beside a little river which crossed their path at right
angles. There they halted and built a fire, and soon the little animal,
skinned, dressed, and spitted, was sizzling savorily over the crackling
flames.
After the meat, they peeled and divided one monster orange, and
reclined, their backs against trees, eating the segments as though they
had been huge slices of watermelon.
A cool breeze blew through the little grove. The brook tinkled merrily
over its pebbles. The moss which covered the ground beneath the trees
was thick and comfortable. Large green and blue and silver butterflies
fluttered lazily about in the shafts of crimson sunlight that fell
through the openings in the leafy canopy. The four men were replete,
and would have been completely at peace with the world, if it had not
been for their thoughts of little Terry.
But their rifles lay handy, Scarface's across his knees, for they
hadn't yet forgotten the elephant episode.
"Not a bad meal at all," mused their dark curly-haired leader, rising
to his feet. "There is not an eating-joint in the States could beat it."
"_Staap!_" came a challenging shout from across the stream.
Murphy leaped erect. Tom and Little Arty rushed back for their rifles.
On the other bank of the stream stood two Vikings, with weapons alert.
* * * * *
Now that the first moment of surprise was over, Scarface threw his
rifle into the crotch of his left elbow, where it was handy, but not
threatening and holding his right hand aloft in what he had read
somewhere was a gesture of friendship, he said: "We've been looking for
you--"
"_Yee forstaar ikka_," replied one of the Norsemen.
"I guess you're right," agreed Jimmy, advancing with his friendliest
smile, "Now the idea is--"
But the Vikings motioned him back and brandished their spears
menacingly. Jimmy halted and frowned, then held up his rifle and
pointed to it. He could be threatening, too, if the occasion demanded.
How absurd they were, these men out of the past, to dare to match their
puny spears and swords against Springfield rifles and Colt automatics!
Well, they ought to know what firearms were, from their experience with
Eric and Angus.
This gave him an idea.
"Eric Redmond. Angus Selkirk," he pronounced clearly and distinctly.
"_Yah! Yah!_" replied the Norsemen, their expressions indicating that
they now realized that these four strangers were compatriots of the two
young Americans which he had named.
Jimmy's three henchmen now stood at his side. And more Vikings had
joined those on the opposite bank of the stream. But still both parties
hesitated to make further overtures.
At this moment a glad girlish cry broke from the thicket behind the
Vikings.
"Yoo-hoo, Mr. Jimmy," she cried. "Gee, but I'm glad to see you again."
And Theresa Ferreira bounded onto the scene.
With this introduction, the Vikings signalled to the Americans that
they might cross, and soon Theresa was delightedly hugging her former
comrades, much to their present embarrassment.
"Terry!" exclaimed Tom fervently.
"Where did you come from? And how do you happen to know these men?"
inquired Scarface.
"It's a long story. I ducked out from the wop, and these squareheads
picked me up," said the girl. "Tell you all about it in a minute."
Then the Vikings warmly shook hands with the four Americans.
"Isn't this better, Scarface," asked Tom, when they secured a moment's
breathing space, "than to shoot down these fine fellows and try to
steal their country away from them?"
But Scarface Boston Jimmy reserved his opinion on that subject. In
spite of his reading and the superficial culture that had won him the
half derisive, half respectful title of "Boston" Jimmy, he was at heart
a Chicago gangster.
Suddenly Terry looked around her with puzzled bewilderment.
"But where's father?" she asked.
"You poor child," replied Scarface, putting his arm protectingly across
her shoulders. "Your father is dead. He was shot in the fight for the
Miami."
Theresa burst into tears.
"The thing to do," suggested Scarface gently, "is to get your friends
to back-trail and help me recover possession of our boat."
"Yeah?" said she, smiling through her tears. "But how are we going to
tell it to them? Can any of you talk Viking?"