The Flying Boys in the Sky

At this juncture, Grace rose abruptly from her chair and asked Harvey:

“How long have I been here?”

“Not knowing when you came I can’t tell exactly, Grace, but I am sure it is only a short time.”

“I promised Alessandro I wouldn’t stay long and I must be going.”

“Wait a little while; he won’t care – .”

“There he comes for me now! He will be angry and beat me,” she exclaimed, standing beside her young friend and looking out of the door in a tremor of alarm.

Sure enough, the miscreant had come into plain sight. He was walking with bowed head and his hands behind him, as if the wrists were fastened together, and only one or two paces to the rear strode Detective Simmons Pendar, with a revolver ready for instant use. The picture told its own story.

“Stay where you are,” said Harvey, laying a gentle hand on the shoulder of Grace Hastings; “Alessandro sha’n’t hurt you.”

With this assurance, the youth went down the few steps and advanced to meet his friend.

“I don’t admire his looks,” he remarked with a smile as he glanced at the swarthy, scowling face.

“He’s as ugly as he looks,” replied the detective.

“Is he the only one?”

“Professor Morgan’s bomb sent one flying among the trees, where he will stay until carried away. And that is Grace Hastings?” said the officer, with a radiant face, as he looked at the winsome countenance in the doorway.

“She told me that that is her name, and I think she ought to know; but what do you mean to do with this fellow?”

“I have been thinking. You know there were three of them; I exchanged shots with Catozzi when we were starting with your aeroplane. I am anxious to capture him, but he was left at Chesterton, where he will probably wait till he receives more news.”

“You can march this one ahead of you to the town and have him locked up.”

The face of the detective became grave. He shook his head.

“I am afraid that if I do that, and the truth becomes known, as it surely will be, the people will lynch him.”

“Who cares if they do?” asked Harvey; “it will serve him right.”

“He and the others deserve it, but the law should deal with them. I have a better plan.”

CHAPTER XXXI

LYNCH LAW

During this brief conversation between Harvey Hamilton and Detective Pendar, the prisoner stood slightly to one side with his bare head bent and his face looking like that of some baffled imp of darkness. Not only had he lost his pistol and stiletto, but his hands were useless to him. The weapons seemed not to have been on his person at the moment of the explosion, for his captor had seen nothing of them. Pendar looked at the woman.

“Have you a clothesline?”

“Of course I have, and I need it too,” was the reply.

“Let me have it and I’ll pay you enough to buy three new ones.”

“That sounds sensible; what do you want to do with it?” asked Mrs. Waters, pleased with the chance of driving a good bargain.

“I wish to bind this scamp so fast that he will never be able to free himself.”

“‘Cording to what you tell me you oughter put it round his neck; I’ll give you all the help I can; yes, you can have the rope,” and she walked into the kitchen to bring the article, which, although knotted in several places, must have been fifty feet long.

“In there!” commanded the detective, motioning to Pierotti, who slouched through the door, the frightened little girl backing away and staring at him. Sullen, revengeful, but helpless, the Latin submitted to every indignity unresistingly. Pendar was an adept at such work and wound the rope in and out and around, again and again until every foot of it had been utilized, and the prisoner was bound so effectually that had he been one of the famous Davenport brothers he would have been unable to loosen his bonds.

“Now, Mrs. Waters,” said the officer when he had completed his work, “you needn’t have any fear of him.”

“Fear of him!” repeated the woman with a sniff; “do you think the like of him could scare me? Do you see that poker?” she asked, pointing to the iron rod with the curved end leaning against the wall of the fireplace; “if he dares so much as open his mouth to speak to me, I’ll break it over his head.”

“A sensible idea!” exclaimed Harvey Hamilton; “don’t forget it, and I hope he will give you an excuse for doing what you have in mind.”

Man and youth stepped outside, where the latter waited for his friend to make clear his intentions.

“The thing I am most anxious to do,” said the detective, “is to reach the nearest telegraph office as quickly as I can, that I may send a message to Horace Hastings and his wife with the news that will raise them from the depths of despair to perfect happiness.”

“It will take us only a few minutes to reach Chesterton with the aeroplane.”

“True, and we can carry the little girl with us. Besides, I sha’n’t be satisfied until I have the nippers on the one still at large. Let us be off, for you have no idea how eager I am to send the tidings to the parents of Grace.”

When the little one learned that she was about to be taken home to see her papa and mamma, she clapped her hands and danced with joy. She kissed Peggy good-bye, made the child promise to come and see her in her home in the distant city and then told Mr. Pendar she was ready.

Naturally she was timid when informed that she was to take a ride with the big bird, and she clung to her protector, who carefully adjusted himself with her in his lap. She promised not to stir or even speak while on the way. Harvey had headed his machine toward the longest stretch of open ground, and set the propeller revolving. Then he dashed forward, sprang into place and grasped the levers. The biplane was already moving at a rapidly accelerated pace over the withered grass, and at the proper point rose clear and sailed away to the eastward. The tiny passenger stared and tried to hold her breath when she realized that she was far above the treetops, but she gave not the slightest trouble to her friends.

The distance to Chesterton was so brief that it seemed our friends had hardly left the earth when they began coming down again. An easy landing was made in the open space in front of the hotel and Pendar lifted Grace out.

“Now you will go with me,” he said, grasping her hand and hurrying down the main street to the telegraph office, which was several blocks from the hotel. “Harvey, you will look after your machine and I shall soon rejoin you.”

It would be hard to describe the blissful joy with which the detective seized one of the yellow telegraph blanks and wrote these words, addressed to Horace Hastings:

“I have Grace with me, perfectly well and unharmed. She asks me to give her love to papa and mamma and to say that she is coming home just as quickly as she can. As I shall be needed here for some time yet, perhaps you would better come for her. One of the kidnappers is dead, one a prisoner, and I hope soon to have the third.”

    “Pendar.”

Brief as was the absence of the detective from the hotel, the interval had been sufficient for a terrifying situation to develop. A larger crowd than usual gathered at sight of the little girl sitting on the lap of the man supposed to be a commercial traveler, and when the two hurried down the street, there were eager inquiries as to what it meant. An instinctive feeling of caution led Harvey to make evasive answers, for he feared to tell the truth to the excited crowd; but he could not falsify and was pressed so hard that he was literally forced to give the facts. The little girl, who had walked down the street with the supposed commercial traveler, was Grace Hastings, kidnapped some time before in Philadelphia, and the man who had her in charge was one of the most famous detectives in the country.

The story sounded so incredible that for a minute or two it was not believed. Every member of the group had read of the unspeakable crime, and their feelings were stirred to the depths. Parents especially were insistent that no punishment was too severe for the authors of the cruel wrong.

“And one of them was that fellow who fired his pistol at the detective when he was starting off with you in your flying machine?” demanded a red-faced listener.

Harvey nodded.

“He was; where is he now?”

“Yes; where is he?”