IN A BAD FIX
“Keep back!” shouted the young aviator.
He accompanied the words with a spring and a roll that took him through
and past the fringe of bushes and brought him directly against Hiram.
“Hold on, I say. The mischief!” blurted out Hiram, tipped clear off his
balance.
“Hush!” warned Dave, regaining his feet. “Don’t go ahead, don’t make any
disturbance. Stop Mr. King.”
Dave spoke the words in a hurried and urgent tone. Then, cautiously, he
crept on all fours through the shrubbery. He took a second more
comprehensive look over the plateau. Then he worked his way back to the
bewildered Hiram.
“See here, Dave Dashaway,” challenged the latter, “you’re acting mighty
strange.”
“What’s the trouble here?” inquired Mr. King, coming up to the boys,
pursuant to mysterious gestures from Hiram.
“It is trouble, I am very much afraid,” replied Dave, seriously.
“What do you mean—about the airship?”
“Yes, Mr. King. The _Albatross_ seems to be all right, but about twenty
men, all armed with guns, have our entire party cornered near some
rocks.”
“You don’t say so!” cried the airman. “Let me have a look.”
“Be careful, then,” advised Dave. “It looks to me as if another band of
these wild outlaws probably traced the searchlight, and have managed to
catch our friends away from the airship. Anyway, our folks are helpless,
and the strangers look fierce and dangerous.”
All three of the adventurers crept through the fringe of underbrush and
took a look across the plateau. They found the situation as Dave had
described it to be. The strangers held Professor Leblance, Mr. Dale,
Grimshaw and the others at bay. A big, rough-looking fellow, evidently
the leader of the band, was talking animatedly to the Frenchman. The
others of the intruders held their rifles in a way that threatened an
attack if the captives showed any resistance.
“They may be the MacGuffins,” whispered Hiram, intensely wrought up with
excitement.
“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Dave. “Mr. King, let us try to get nearer to
them.”
“Yes, we may learn what is going on and give our friends some help, if
they need it,” replied the airman.
They had to cover half a mile in a cautious detour. This finally brought
them to a thicket not thirty feet distant from their friends and
enemies. Mr. King lay flat on the ground behind some high bushes, and
his companions followed his example. Dave bent his ear keenly, to catch
what the leader of the invading party was saying.
“That don’t go with me,” the man said. “How do we know that you ain’t
here to spy on us? We fine trespassers here and we charge rent for the
use of our property.”
“You must own the whole state, you fellows must,” snapped out Grimshaw.
“We run this district, if you want to know it,” retorted the outlaw.
“Usually we just string up spies.”
“But we are no spies,” declared the professor, earnestly.
“We don’t take your word for that. Come, you’ve got to pay your
reckoning. You scrape us up as much as two hundred dollars among you,
or——”
The speaker waved his hand significantly in the direction of the
_Albatross_.
“Yes,” growled one of his fellows. “It wouldn’t take us long to make a
sieve of that contrivance.”
“I resent this outrage!” cried the Frenchman, hotly. “We are under
international protection. Our mission is in the interests of science. If
you interfere with us, you will rouse the entire community. It will be
the worse for you.”
“Hear him, boys,” rallied the outlaw leader. “Say, stranger, who’s going
to tell what we did or didn’t do to you, hey?”
The speaker grinned in a cold-blooded way that made Hiram Dobbs shiver.
“Say, Mr. King,” he whispered hoarsely, “shoot them.”
“One gun against twenty wouldn’t count for much,” responded the airman,
with a shake of his head.
“I will pay no ransom, I will give you not one cent of blackmail,”
declared the doughty Frenchman, thoroughly indignant.
“All right, then we will ransack your old gas bag and take what we
want,” boasted the outlaw.
“I warn you,” cried the professor. “The airship is one mass of devices
you do not understand. You may find trouble.”
“What do you bother with him for?” cried the man beside the last
speaker. “We’ll cover the rest of the crowd. You make him take you over
the machine and get what’s lying around loose.”
“Can’t we do something, Mr. King?” inquired the young aviator, in an
anxious tone.
“I fear not, Dashaway,” was the reply. “These are desperate men and
bound to have their own way. We can only hope that our being free will
help our friends somewhere along the line.”
“You come with me,” ordered the outlaw leader, roughly seizing Professor
Leblance by the arm and pulling him along. “Keep your eyes on those
others,” he added, to his men.
The Frenchman held back with resolute face and force. The outlaw,
however, was a great, bulky fellow of enormous strength.
They had proceeded less than twenty feet towards the airship, when a
quick word cut the air, clear and startling as a pistol shot.
“Halt!”