SUCCESS AT LAST
The next day was a blue one for the boys. Apparently all their plans had
been knocked sideways. The hunt, for which they had worked and waited
all summer, had been nipped in the bud at the moment of success.
"Let's scout it, anyhow," suggested Fred that evening, as the downcast
group huddled together on Jerry's veranda.
"What d'ye mean?" asked Dunk, uninterestedly.
"Well, make a trip up into the mountains and see what we can do,"
continued the easterner.
"How you going to get across that ravine?" disparaged Fly, who had been
moping all day. "It's too wide even to throw a rope across."
"I could get across if you could span it with a rope ladder," said Carl.
"Maybe Herb wounded him so badly he's dead up there somewhere," Jerry
went on. "You know he told us over the phone that he and Gray found some
feathers about where he shot the other night."
"Whether it's a bird or not, it's got wings," said Carl. "But if those
feathers are as long as Herb said they were it can't be an eagle."
"Don't care nohow," responded Fly, shoving his hands deep into his
pockets with an air of dejection as he rose to his feet. "Hawke maybe
can't be back this summer. Didn't even have a chance to say good-bye to
the B. P. bunch. And mother just won't let me run the plane alone. Aw,
I'm going home," he continued thoroughly disgusted. "Good night."
"Wait a minute--here comes your father," said Fred.
"Just got a letter from Hawke," announced Mr. Giles, walking up to the
veranda.
"What does he say?" exclaimed Fred eagerly, the faces of all the boys
brightening at once. A faint hope of the aviator's early return sprang
into their minds.
"Don't get too excited if I tell you," said Mr. Giles mischievously.
This only served to make the boys more anxious, of course.
"Well, he says he thinks Fly's pretty steady and could handle the
machine all right alone. So we've decided to let you continue the hunt.
We owe it to Phipps anyhow," he added.
"What!" yelled Fly, scarcely comprehending the good news at first.
"Hurray!" shouted several of the boys.
"Keep cool," laughed Mr. Crawford, but Fly was unable to contain himself
for joy, and singing gayly, began hopping around first on one leg and
then the other.
"I knew it would come out all right," said Dunk, although his attitude
of a half hour before had not betokened very strong optimism.
"We'll go right over to the Phipps ranch in the morning," announced Fly,
when he became calmer, "tell Herb and Gray, and start right out. Maybe
Herb can go up with me," and he turned another handspring.
"I'd like to see a trial flight first," said the father.
"Just give me the chance," retorted Fly.
The next morning, before a skeptical audience composed of Mr. and Mrs.
Giles, Captain Crawford and his wife, Mrs. Windham and Lieutenant
Rivers, Fly practically repeated Hawke's performance of the first day.
"My, it's great!" he exclaimed after the flight, his eyes shining and
his face flushed. "I could do it with Hawke, and I knew I could do it
alone."
The older ones were satisfied, and Fly was permitted to start out for
the B. P. to get Herb, if his father would allow him to go. It was
planned that the others should ride, and going as far as they could with
their horses, climb up to the spot near the tower.
Mr. Phipps was at first reluctant, but a telephone conversation with Mr.
Giles and Captain Crawford, strengthened by eager coaxing on the part of
his son, finally gained his consent. Gray started off to meet the other
boys with his pony.
Fly and Herb remained at the B. P., for a while, to give the plane a
thorough inspection, and to make a rope ladder they had previously
planned to use if possible.
About midway in their way they experienced some difficulty with the
engine, and were obliged to make a landing in a pasture and remedy the
difficulty. This took the better part of an hour.
"I feel that we're goin' to get him to-day," said Herb, as Fly once more
lifted the plane above the green meadowland. It was one of those rare,
quiet, contented summer days, when even the bee's buzzing sounded noisy.
The mountains, with all their towering majesty, seemed challenging the
young aviators, who, calm and confident, rose steadily upward and
forward, the fresh air blowing cool and sweet against their faces. It
was a day such as fills the veins with a joyousness of life, a
willingness to undertake anything, and a confidence that bespeaks
success.
They were soon passing swiftly over the rugged mountain's face, its huge
irregular boulders, tufted here and there with stubborn plant life,
rapidly receding. The tall majestic firs, which, as the boys looked down
from their superior height, dwindled to miniature Christmas trees with
the morning dew still upon them glistening like toy candles, and the
foaming torrents rushing down the time-scarred and waterworn ravines.
Above all they could see, as they mounted higher, the gloomy old tower
lifting its dark head to the sunshine, and rising out of a mass of rock,
stone and dense growth.
"Look! Look!" panted Herb when they at last circled above the mysterious
dwelling.
Fly looked down through the mica window at his feet and saw, crouching
between the four walls of the roof, a monstrous feathered shape,
apparently headless, its wings folded. Like some gorged dragon it lay
there, contentedly wallowing in a bed of bones, skeletons, sheeps' wool
and meat still red, the remains of many an ill-gotten feast.
Startled by the noise of the propellers, it drew out from under its wing
its great shining black head, disclosing a vicious hooked beak.
Meanwhile, the rest of the party had arrived on the other side of the
ravine. They shouted at the boys in the air, but the tremendous noise
caused by the roaring water and the whirring propellers, drowned their
voices completely. Herb and Fly had seen them, however.
"Scare him out," suggested Fly. "Then they can all see him and have a
shot."
"I hate to shoot an enemy in the back," said Herb. "But he deserves it."
And he fired down into the roost. But the plane was going at such a
speed that his aim was not true. The bullet struck the side of the
structure, throwing up dust and mortar. The creature fluttered and
stirred, moving its head about perplexedly, but remained in its nest.
Herb shot a second time, just grazing his mark, picking off some of the
feathers on the monster's back. At this time the crouching shape sprang
upward with a sharp cry of anger, almost completely hiding the top of
the tower from view, so enormous was the spread of its wings.
"There it is! There it is," exclaimed several of the party on the back
of the ravine.
"An eagle," gasped Fred.
"The Thunder Bird," panted Carl.
"But what's the matter with him?" cried Dunk. At the same moment, the
boys, staring upward with fascinated eyes, gave a cry of alarm.
The great creature seemed flying about wildly, furiously, without sense
of, or regard for direction, beating its immense wings against the air,
and, instead of attempting to escape, flew straight for the plane,
almost colliding with it.
Fly, who had anticipated a chase, now found himself on the defensive,
and was obliged to dodge, circle, swoop and whirl in a manner that made
his head swim. Although almost near enough to touch the bird at times,
the motion of the machine and the strange uncertain course of their
antagonist made accurate aim impossible.
Above them it flew, passing like a dark cloud over the machine, then
veering down so suddenly that Fly was obliged to concentrate all his
energies to get out of its way. It was an equal conflict between
nature's great king of the air, and the supreme handicraft of mechanical
skill which had been made to conquer it in its own element.
"It must be blind," said Herb, remembering that Carl had told them the
Thunder Bird was sightless in the daylight. "If I could only get a line
on it!"
The boys below dared not shoot, lest their bullets go astray and strike
their friends. The monster seemed possessed by an insane rage, throwing
itself about in the air with blind recklessness.
"Now!" exclaimed Fly, as the wily native of the air rushed below them.
Herb, with the quickness of an experienced hunter, did not waste his
chance. There was a loud report, a shrill blood-curdling cry, such as
they had heard on two other occasions, and the creature's inert bulk
whirled to the earth, landing heavily almost in front of Jerry.
It was not yet dead however, and the boys made for a safe distance, as
the monster, in its death struggle, furiously beat the ground with its
powerful wings, springing upward again and again in a desperate effort
to recover itself, each time falling back.
"Finish him," implored Fred. "It's a shame to have him suffer."
A second later a shot from Dunk's rifle stilled the great bird's
fluttering form forever. Its frightful beak opened and closed, its
beastlike talons sought to clutch support, its owl-like eyes became
glazed and fixed. The Thunder Bird had killed his last sheep!
Hushed and silent the boys crowded around the huddled shape. Carl,
taking hold of one of its wings, pulled it out to its natural spread.
"About four feet," he said. "Must have a spread of ten. And about five
feet from the end of its beak to the tip of its tail."
"Wonder how old he is?" speculated Fred.
Just then something fell in their midst. It was a note from Herb,
weighted with a heavy memorandum book.
"We've done the deed. Now for the reward," it read. "We can see
something glistening like gold under a shelf in the roof. Ask Carl to
get it. We'll drop the ladder."
Carl waved his hat in assent, while Herb swung the rope ladder down,
attempting to hitch it at some point on the side of the gorge near the
tower. At the third trial, it lodged over a projecting rock, which
jutted, hooklike, from the wall of the ravine. Carl caught the other end
and fastened it. The crossing did not prove as perilous as it looked,
for the rope held firm, and it was an easy trick for an Indian.
After some fumbling among the shrubs, Carl disappeared, and the boys
knew he must have found an entrance to the dwelling. They were right,
for the Indian, through a low door obscured by shrubs, had crawled into
the house of mystery. Though it was dark at first, he soon perceived a
thin ray of light percolating through an opening in the roof. He was
provided with matches, and lighting a few of these, he scrutinized the
walls for some possible handhold by which he could mount. Directly under
the aperture through which the feeble light came he struck what seemed
to be poles projecting from the sides of the tower.
"A ladder," he thought, and made short work of the climb. With little
difficulty he scrambled through the roof-opening to the outside of the
tower. A wall about five feet high ran around the edge of the roof,
along the four sides of which was a projecting shelf several feet wide.
In the center, cluttered with refuse of all kinds, was the abode of the
Thunder Bird, to which he would never more return.
Under the shelf in one corner was the shining object the boys had
written of. Carl uttered an exclamation of surprise and delight when he
found this to be a beautiful bowl, apparently of beaten gold, measuring
about fifteen inches in diameter, and set with many semi-precious stones
of varied hue.
"The Holy Bowl of the Medicine Men," he said wonderingly, astonished at
its seeming newness. Though it must be decades old it appeared to have
been recently polished. A vague thought of the mysterious Indian flashed
through Carl's mind. He jumped up on the shelf and held up to the
admiring gaze of his companions below the brilliant trophy, which
glittered with dazzling brightness in the sun.
A shout greeted this sign, and, after looking around without success for
further relics, he tucked the bowl under his arm and descended. Again
pushing through the thick foliage that had obscured the low entrance, he
came out, flushed and excited, holding the prize aloft.
Suddenly the watching boys uttered a warning cry, but before he could
comprehend it, Carl was seized around the waist by strong arms and
thrown to the ground with violent force. The next moment he found
himself grappling with the strange Indian.