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

As Harry obeyed, the sharp rattle of the exhaust, which had made the whole craft quiver under the strain of the hard-driven engine stopped and became a gentle purr hardly audible.

“That’s better,” commented Frank.

“How does she head for the fires now?” was his next question.

“South-by-a-quarter east,” replied Harry, switching on the binnacle light for a second and squinting at the compass.

“Bear up two points to the east,” ordered Captain Frank.

Harry obeyed and the Golden Eagle slid away from her straight course for the lights, – leaving them off on her starboard side.

“Just circle round a few times,” commanded Frank as they grew nearer and nearer, “the moon ought to be up shortly and then we can get some light on the subject.”

“It will make us a target for them if they see us,” he went on, “but that can’t be helped. We must trust to luck and their bad aim.”

As Frank had prophesied the moon shoved the edge of her rim above the low hills that surrounded the encampment a short time later. From his lookout place on the floor of the car Frank could see far below him the silvery radiance that flooded the tree-tops getting stronger and stronger. It showed him too, to his great delight, that there was a big space of ground, covered with what seemed to be short scrub, near to the camp, but separated from it by a dense grove of trees. It looked as if it would be feasible to swoop down to the earth at this spot close enough for the daring boy to drop to the ground from the end of the swinging rope ladder.

“Raise her a hundred feet or so,” said Frank, as soon as he had completed his survey. “Steer her right over the camp,” he ordered a second later.

“What?” demanded Harry; not sure that he had heard aright.

“Steer her over the camp,” repeated Frank, “It’s taking a long chance, – but I’ve got to know the lay of the ground.”

If Frank ordered a thing done Harry was accustomed to obey him without a word; so he put the Golden Eagle about and pulling the raising plane levers shot the craft up, till Frank cried.

“She’ll do at that.”

As the Golden Eagle swept high in the air over the sleeping camp Frank noticed with exultation by the flag seen in the light of the bivouac fires it was indeed Zelaya’s camp. He also observed that they kept a very poor watch. Several men, evidently supposed to be doing sentry duty were asleep round the blaze of one of the outer fires, and only in front of a small tent detached from a group of several that Frank assumed to be those of the officers, was there a guard patrolling. This fellow walked up and down unceasingly with his rifle over his shoulder and from time to time pulled open the tent-flap and peered in.

“He’s guarding a prisoner,” thought Frank, noticing these actions, and, he added to himself, “if the prisoner isn’t Billy I shall be much surprised.”

His survey of the camp completed, Frank had a pretty good mental photograph of it fixed in his mind. The next step in the rescue of Billy Barnes was to be the most dangerous; except the actual dash for freedom.

“Now keep cool Harry,” wound up Frank, after the boys had selected the spot on which the Golden Eagle was to be brought near enough to the ground in a low curve for Frank to swing himself off onto terra-firma.

“All right Frank,” replied the boy, as he manipulated the needful levers for the downward swoop. He did not trust himself to say more. The next minute he felt Frank’s firm grip on his shoulder.

“Don’t take your hand off the wheel,” remonstrated Frank, as Harry prepared to grip his brother’s hand in farewell. “Good-bye old fellow and good luck to us all three.”

A few seconds sufficed to throw down the ladder and Frank slid down it to its lowest rung with the agility of a cat. He hung there on the plunging contrivance while the Golden Eagle swept downward like a pouncing hawk. Suddenly there was a jerk and Frank felt the end of the ladder hit the ground. The Golden Eagle’s impetus had almost ceased at this lowest point of her swoop and Frank, as he let go with a whispered prayer, could feel the vibration, even where he hung as Harry, opened the engine up for the ascent, – without which the Golden Eagle would have been dashed to pieces.

Frank landed in a pile of low bushes which broke his fall and saved him from possible serious injury. Harry in performing the ticklish evolution had been unable to check the speed of the air-craft sufficiently to avoid giving Frank a severe tumble when he dropped off, as Frank learned later the Golden Eagle had, in fact, very nearly refused to answer her helm.

As soon as he collected his senses Frank ducked down behind the clump into which he had fallen and lay very still. He wanted to ascertain if the solitary sentry had noticed anything unusual. Apparently he had not, for the relieved boy could catch the sound of his regular footfalls as he paced to and fro in front of the tent in which, Frank was pretty certain, Billy lay a prisoner.

Reassured, Frank crept cautiously through the brush up to the edge of the grove of trees already mentioned as separating the camp from the bit of open ground on which he had landed. The solitary tent stood on the opposite edge of this clump and Frank’s plan was to creep up near to it under cover of the dark shadow cast by the grove, before he made his presence known to the occupant.

He threw a glance up from time to time as he made his way carefully over the ground. Far above him the Golden Eagle was soaring, and Frank knew that the boy at her helm was at that moment wondering with all his might how their daring adventure was to turn out. Frank noted with satisfaction that the Golden Eagle was not nearly as conspicuous as he had imagined she would have been. In fact if he hadn’t known that she was up there, he concluded that he would have had to search the sky for some time before he made her out.

It took him what seemed to be an interminable length of time to reach the edge of the clump of trees and wriggle his way up to the back of the tent, but at last he accomplished it, and lay behind the rear flap of the shelter with nothing to shield him from the eye of the sentry but a patch of deep shadow cast by the trees behind him.

Slowly Frank extended an arm and cautiously raised the edge of the flap. He was running a terrible risk he knew. It was, after all, pure assumption on his part that Billy was in there at all. It might as well be Rogero’s tent. This thought made Frank pause for a minute but he determined to go ahead as he had planned. If the worst came to the worst he had his pistol and he could make a dash for the open and trust to Harry’s being able to pick him up before they were riddled with bullets by the machine guns that he could see packed in another part of the camp.

With fast beating heart he waited till the solitary sentry had reached the farthest point of his patrol. Then he raised the flap a few inches and whispered:

“Billy, are you there? It’s me – Frank.”

The answer that came back almost made him forget the terrible risk he ran and cry out aloud with joy.

“What’s left of me;” came back a whispered rejoinder in Billy’s well-known tones, “I’d got a hunch you’d come.”

CHAPTER XIV.

SAVED BY AN AEROPLANE

The sentry paced by the tent as these greetings were exchanged, and both boys held their breath as he hesitated in front of it but, to their unspeakable relief, he passed on.

“You’ll have to cut me loose,” murmured Billy, as the sentry’s retreating footsteps informed them that he had got a safe distance away, “I’m tied hand and foot and my head feels as if it had a hole in it like the crater of a volcano.”

In a flash, as Billy spoke, Frank conceived a daring plan. He would wait till the next time the sentry passed and then slip bodily into the tent under the rear flap. As a matter of fact the most risky part of this business would be the actual creeping in. Once inside there was not much chance of discovery unless the sentry should take it into his head to come right inside – a thing which Frank thought was not likely to happen. His brief inspection of the room when he first lifted the flap had shown him that the unfortunate Billy lay on a cot. It would be, then, an easy matter to slip under this in case the sentry took it into his head to lift the front flap periodically, – as Frank had seen him do from the Golden Eagle.

Waiting till the man had once more passed and was swinging down to the end of his post Frank wriggled under the tent-flap and into it.

“You seem to take a personal delight in risking your life to save mine,” whispered Billy with a pitiful attempt at humor as Frank whipped out his knife and stood waiting till the sentry should have passed again, before cutting the ropes that were bound round the unfortunate reporter’s feet and hands so tightly as to cut into the flesh.

As a measure of precaution Frank crawled under the cot as the man’s footsteps drew near once more and it was a lucky thing that he did so for this time the vigilant sentry pulled aside the front flap and peered around the dim place. He saw nothing unusual, however, and dropped it again with a grunt and fell to pacing up and down.

“Now, Billy, we’ve got no time to lose,” snapped out Frank, slipping from under the bed. With a swift slash he released the reporter’s hands. A second later the ropes about his feet fell to the floor cut through.

“If he peeks in this time we are goners,” whispered Frank as the heavy, regular tread drew near once more; but the man passed by and as his footsteps died away the reunited boys clasped hands warmly.

“You can tell me all that has happened when we get away from here,” whispered Frank, cutting short the narrative of his adventures the irrepressible Billy had plunged into, “we’ve got all our work cut for us now.”

“What are we going to do?” asked Billy helplessly, “I’m so stiff from those ropes that I can hardly run and when they knocked me down they gave me this bump that doesn’t make my head feel any too good.”

“Rub your joints, to get the circulation going again,” was Frank’s rejoinder. “You’ll soon feel all right.”

“Yes, but then what are we going to do?” repeated Billy, “We can’t get off through the forest. They’ll discover that I’ve gone in a short time and Rogero will send his whole army through the woods to find us. It would never do for him to lose me now, you see. I know too much.”

“We are going to get away by aeroplane,” was the startling answer. “Once we get up aloft, I don’t think that even Rogero can get us.” Billy used as he had recently become to the boys’ resourcefulness gasped out:

“What?” in such an amazed tone that, grave as was their position, Frank couldn’t help laughing.

“That’s the idea,” rejoined Frank, then hastily he sketched out to Billy their plan. He also pointed out to him the absolute necessity of keeping a cool head when the crucial moment came.

“There will be no second chance,” he warned impressively, “even to bring the Golden Eagle so near to the earth once, is a desperate measure. If we don’t make the ladder on the first jump it’s goodnight, remember.”

To Billy’s credit, be it said, that he listened to Frank’s amazing proposal without batting an eyelid. Indeed, he had come to have such faith in the younger boy’s ingenuity and ability that he would willingly have jumped over a precipice if Frank had told him it would be all right. All he said was then: