The Boy Aviators in Nicaragua; or, In League with the Insurgents

While the runway was being cleared, several of the native workmen had been at work, under the boys’ direction, hauling away the ballast sacks with which the Golden Eagle had been weighed down at the time of her engine test. Harry had also produced a brand-new ensign which he ran up on halyards rigged to a stern stanchion, while his brother and father gave three hearty cheers for the fluttering Stars and Stripes.

The last thing the boys did before their final farewells was to tuck a map of the country over which they were to travel in a corner pocket of the pilot-house, and also load up a waterproof silk tent and an axe, shovel and pick.

“It’s always as well to be prepared for everything,” Frank remarked when his father questioned him about the utility of these last articles. “We don’t know but we may have to dig for water or – or anything in fact in which these tools will come in mighty handy.”

Mr. Chester nodded admiringly at his son’s foresight.

“That’s right, my boy,” he assented, “be ready for everything and you can’t go far wrong.”

“Now,” declared Frank, after the boys had gone over every stay-wire, stanchion and brace on the machine, and the engine had been carefully wiped and the brass parts polished, “the Chester expedition is ready to get underway!”

Harry hopped nimbly into the pilot-house and took up his seat at the rear of the chassis. His job was that of engineer. Captain Frank followed him a second later and with his hand on the guide wheel to which the controls were connected gave a comprehensive look over the aeroplane.

“What would the Junior Aero boys do if they could see us now?” Harry hailed from his seat, looking up from his adjusting of the grease cups.

“What wouldn’t any of them give to be going along?” responded Frank.

It had been arranged that the Golden Eagle was to be headed toward the northwest where, like a blue cloud, the Cordillera range loomed against the sky. Somewhere over in that little known part of the country Rogero and his men were marching toward the coast and – the thought thrilled in both the boys’ minds, though neither spoke of it – it was over there, too, somewhere in those dim blue mountains, that the lost mines of the Toltecs lay and the little known relics of that ancient civilization.

There was a final handshake between the boys and their father and a shouted good-bye to Jimmie Blakely.

“All right astern, Harry?” hailed Frank.

“Ay, ay, sir,” responded his brother.

Harry threw in the switch, having opened the valve that connected the engine with the gasolene tank a few minutes before. At the same instant Frank started the engine. There was an involuntary cheer from the hands who had clustered around the machine but at a respectful distance, recollecting their disconcerting experience at the time that Frank tested the engine.

With her fifty horsepower whirring round her propellers at eight hundred revolutions a minute, the Golden Eagle began to move. Faster and faster she glided over the ground till after a run of about two hundred yards her forward end lifted and she shot upward into the air as Frank’s trained hand had directed the upward gliding planes. The engine was going at its work with a will and the rhythmical purr, so sweet to the ear of the operator of an aeroplane, showed that there wasn’t going to be any balk out of it on this trip.

The watchers below saw the Golden Eagle, like a great yellow bird, leave the ground for the upper air in absolute silence. It was such an impressive sight that even the usually voluble natives failed to make any demonstration. At a height of about two hundred feet Frank pulled the control tiller hard over and the Golden Eagle swung round slightly on an almost even keel from the eastward course she was on and headed away to the northwest. The last the group at La Merced saw of her she was a dull bronze speck against the brilliant blue sky, heading steadily for the mountains at a height of about six hundred feet.

It had been arranged between the boys that they should keep going till dusk and then alight in some suitable place and make camp for the night. That they were running great and grave risks they well knew, but neither of them was of the caliber that talks much of such things and so as they forged steadily for the hills with the exhaust throbbing as evenly as a healthy pulse, their conversation was mainly about the course they should adopt to save Billy Barnes if he had actually fallen into Rogero’s hands.

That there would have to be quick action neither boy doubted. Rogero was not the man to stop at half measures, and that Billy would be shot or tortured after a drumhead court-martial; or, perhaps, with even not that attempt at legal formality, was practically certain.

As he sat at the wheel, Frank, from time to time, called Harry to take his place at the duplicate tiller wheel while he with the field glasses swept the earth below for any sign of any camp. The portion of Nicaragua over which the Golden Eagle was soaring is very sparsely inhabited. With the exception of an occasional river bank camp of wandering rubber-cutters, there is little human life.

“What are we making, should you judge, Frank?” asked Harry, when they had been underway about an hour with only the monotonous dull-green jungle, like a leafy carpet beneath them.

“Easily twenty,” replied Frank, “throttled down as we are.”

“Has it occurred to you that we are going to find some difficulty in securing a suitable landing-place?”

“I’ve been thinking of that,” replied the elder boy, “it is of course impossible to make a landing anywhere here, and I can’t for the life of me, see any break in the jungle in the direction we are headed.”

“No,” replied Harry, eagerly, “but have you noticed those hills? As we get nearer to them I can see through the glasses that there seem to be rocky plateaus on their upper ridges that would just about suit us for a settling-down place.”

“What do you propose then?” asked Frank.

“I was thinking that it would be a good idea to speed up a bit so as to reach the mountains by dark and make camp there till we can scout about a little and get Rogero’s bearings.”

“That’s a good idea,” replied Frank, “I’ve been thinking anyway that we would do Billy more harm than good if Rogero knew that we were flying to his rescue. Our best plan is to pitch our tent there in the hills on one of the plateaus and work from that point as our headquarters. There’s the question of gasolene, too, we don’t want to run out of that and the less needless flying we do the better say I.”

“How far do you suppose those hills are from us now?” asked Harry.

Frank consulted his map.

“Not more than fifty miles at the outside. We can make them easily by sundown if we speed her up,” he announced. As he spoke he increased the velocity of the engine till it was running almost at its revolution capacity. Under the increased impetus the Golden Eagle drove forward a good ten miles an hour faster.

As the hills grew nearer both boys eagerly focussed their glasses on them. At a distance the range had not looked to be a very considerable mountain formation, but on a closer approach the boys were astonished to see that they were a formidable chain of hills, slashed and cut into every direction by deep canyons, between which there were several broad plateaus almost entirely unwooded. In other places giant trees clothed the hills almost to their summits.

“One of those bare plateaus will make an ideal landing-place,” said Frank, as the Golden Eagle swung steadily forward toward her decided destination. “The big trees will screen us from the view of anyone except an airship scout and I don’t think that there will be much likelihood of our encountering one of those.”

It was twilight when Frank swung the starboard rudder over and the Golden Eagle began to describe swooping circles above a plateau about five hundred feet up on the mountain-side. It was a ticklish job to land, but under Frank’s skilful manipulation of the planes and rudders the boys’ ship settled down as gently as a tired bird toward the smooth surface of the plateau. As she struck the ground in a little cloud of dust, but without the slightest jar, Harry threw in the brake clutch that controlled the settling wheels and after sliding about twenty feet, the Golden Eagle came to a stop in the wildest part of the Cordilleras of Nicaragua. With a cheer both boys jumped out and excitedly assured each other that their adventures had really begun at last.

There was but little time that night to survey their landing-place. By the time the sun dropped, however, they had accomplished such good work that the tent was up, the portable cots erected and Harry had a fire lighted; while Frank had announced with a shout of triumph that he had found a little runnel of water oozing from the mountain-side which by a little enlargement with the pick and shovel soon formed a pool of clear, cold water.

It was with light hearts that the boys fell to on a supper of fried bacon, coffee and bread. There was not time to cook a more elaborate menu that night, but both declared enthusiastically that what they did have tasted to them as good as a banquet. Supper over and a lantern lighted in the tent it was arranged that Frank should take the first watch, lasting till midnight, and that he should then awake Harry who would do sentry duty till dawn. Till they learned if they had any undesirable neighbors this was agreed to be the prudent course.

After Harry turned in Frank looked over his rifle and revolver and took up a position by the camp-fire. He employed the early part of the night with pencil and pad, figuring out some aeronautical problems, but as it grew near to his hour to be relieved he grew so sleepy that he got up and paced about to fight off his drowsiness. He had made perhaps a dozen turns up and down in front of the tent when something happened that caused even the usually hard-headed boy to start violently and feel a queer sort of chill down his spine.

It was the tolling of a bell!

The hour, the loneliness of the spot all combined to augment Frank’s startled amazement at the sound. He could hardly believe his ears. With a beating heart he strained his attention to locate the sound. It seemed to come from a spot further up the mountain-side. Whoever the bell-ringer was he paid no attention to time or rhythm. The bell would toll loud and sharp for a few minutes and then its clangor would die down and almost cease. Then without any apparent reason it would start up again furiously. Hurriedly Frank awoke his younger brother.

“What on earth do you suppose it is? Spooks?” demanded the startled Harry.

“I don’t know, but it’s something human, and I mean to find out before we leave this place,” declared Frank, doggedly.

CHAPTER X.

THE ONE-EYED QUESAL

Seen in the bright light of the early tropic day the plateau upon which the Golden Eagle had settled was certainly an ideal spot for a boy’s camp. It was in form a rough circle about a quarter of a mile in circumference. To the west the mountain-side shot up in a rugged cliff. To the east a deep canyon cut down to the valley below, clothed heavily with huge Manacca palms, plane and rosewood trees, here and there interspersed by a lordly mahogany grove. Huge ferns as big as rose-bushes in America shot up out of the rich dark soil, and from the tops of many of the trees whose names were unknown to the boys trailed magnificent orchids and lianas and parasitic plants of many varieties.

From below it would have been quite impossible to have sighted the camp and the mountain above was so rugged and precipitous that any attack or observation from that quarter would have been most improbable. As soon as it was light Harry, with the collapsable canvas bucket went to Frank’s spring and got a supply of water. This done he set about getting breakfast. In the meantime Frank had been skirmishing about for fruit, and by the time the fragrant odor of Harry’s steaming coffee-pot had diffused itself about the camp the elder boy returned triumphantly with an armful of bananas and dark-green bread-fruit. Harry selected two of the largest of these last and cutting them open set them on the hot coals to roast.

“Why, where on earth did you learn tropical cookery?” demanded Frank as he watched Harry deftly turning the appetizing looking slices.

“I watched the natives down at La Merced,” replied Harry, “you see I figured that when you are in Rome do as the Romans do, and that as the jungle is good enough to provide us with ready-grown loaves we ought to return the compliment by knowing how to cook them.”

Naturally enough the boys’ conversation fell on the mysterious bell-ringing of the night before.

“I can hardly believe that I didn’t dream it,” remarked Frank.

“But I heard it too,” rejoined Harry, “and there is no question that it was a bell and a good, loud-toned one at that.”

“Well, what a bell-ringer, let alone a bell, can be doing round here is inexplicable,” said Frank. “I took a good look around before breakfast while I was out getting the fruit and I can see no sign of any habitation or settlement that might account for it.”