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

“Count on me, Frank, if this thing gets ‘pied’ it won’t be my fault.”

“Or ours either, I can promise you that,” returned Frank earnestly.

“Now,” he went on, to Billy, who had been vigorously chafing his numbed ankles all this time, varying the performance by rubbing his wrists alternately; “if you’ve got some of the stiffness out the sooner we are on the move the better.”

“All right, Frank,” bravely whispered Billy. “It feels like every step I took somebody was jabbing a knife into me,” he went on in a rueful tone, “but I guess I can do my part of this job.”

“Bully for you,” whispered Frank in reply. “Now then,” as the sentry’s footsteps died away, “it’s now or never.”

As he spoke he slipped under the tent-flap closely followed by Billy who, plucky as he was, couldn’t suppress a slight groan at the pain his wounded head and rope-grazed joints gave him as he moved.

A second later both boys were in the dark shadows of the clump of trees and in comparative safety. That is they were safe till the sentry looked in the tent again and discovered that his prisoner had vanished, a fact they both fully realized.

“We’ll have to sacrifice caution to speed,” counseled Frank, gliding swiftly along with wonderful speed and making very little noise. Poor Billy with his hurts and stiffness did not make such good progress.

“Come on, Billy,” whispered Frank grabbing him by the arm, and half dragging him along, “it won’t be long now.”

“I don’t think I can last much longer, Frank,” groaned Billy. “You’d better get out and leave me here. I don’t suppose they’ll dare to do anything much to me.”

“They won’t, eh?” returned Frank, “well you don’t know as much of these people as I do. No, Billy, we’ll stand or fall together. Come on, buck up, and in a few minutes we’ll be safe in the good old Golden Eagle.”

Frank’s words and his bold determined manner had the effect he intended. Billy put on a stiff upper lip and a few minutes later they emerged into the moonlight at the edge of the clearing. Frank fumbled in the bosom of his shirt for the signal light as they cautiously crept across the brilliantly moonlit patch in which Frank and Billy both felt that they must be as conspicuous objects as a pair of bull elephants.

When he found the tiny flash-light with which he was to give the signal to Harry in the Golden Eagle, that both boys could now see hovering above them, Frank pressed the button twice. Harry, scanning the ground below him anxiously, saw the tiny flashes instantly and with a feeling of relief, that, so far, the enterprise was going well. The boy set the downward planes of the Golden Eagle and muffled down the engine for the peril-filled descent.

Crouching in the brush Frank and Billy, one of them at least with a queer, sinking sensation at the pit of his stomach – watched the great aeroplane swoop down on them like a bird of prey. It was small wonder that they felt apprehensive. What they had to do was to grasp the end of a swinging rope-ladder as, for but the fraction of a minute, it brushed by them – yet neither of them dared entertain the thought of missing it. To do so would have been to unnerve them when they most needed every ounce of presence of mind and cool calculation they could muster.

“Now!” cried Frank suddenly as the air-craft’s black shadow enveloped them.

Bracing every muscle till they were tense as steel springs Frank made a leap for the lashing end of the ladder as it tore by him at what seemed to be terrific speed. It was about three feet above the earth. As he jumped and caught it, bracing his foot on the lowest rung, he felt the aeroplane sag down with the sudden weight.

“Open up!” he yelled to Harry, fearing that if she sagged any more the Golden Eagle might lose her equilibrium altogether. At the same instant he realized that Billy was making a desperate effort to haul himself onto the ladder also. The reporter had caught it all right but his fingers, – weakened under the tightness of his recent bonds – refused to grip it firmly. Already he had let go with one hand and was gazing with a piteous white face up at Frank.

As the welcome roar of the powerful engine came to his ears and Frank felt the good ship respond nobly to its impetus the youthful aviator reached down and seized the reporter just as Billy’s grasp was about to relax altogether. He managed with a desperate effort to haul him up till Billy’s foot rested on the lower round.

“You’ll have to let me drop, Frank, I can’t hold on any longer,” he gasped.

“Put your leg through the lower round,” commanded Frank sharply. With a last effort, that almost cost him his place on the ladder, the reporter obeyed the order and found that he had at least a chance of holding on with his leg hooked firmly over in this position.

At this moment, – and as the Golden Eagle gave a sickening leap upward that made Billy’s head swim and would undoubtedly have been the last of the reporter but for the firm grip Frank had of his arm – a shot flashed out from the camp. Instantly there was a turmoil in the place that reached the boys’ ears even above the roar of the laboring engine’s exhaust.

Lights could be seen moving rapidly about below, and shouted commands rang sharply out on the night. With the additional weight she was carrying, at an angle to which she was not accustomed, – and for which she had not been designed, – the Golden Eagle behaved erratically. Despite Harry’s most skilful handling and jockeying she refused to rise at her usual rapid pace. In fact she seemed as sluggish as a snail and yawed and lurched in a manner that swung Frank and the reporter about as if they had been suspended at the end of a pendulum.

In this urgent crisis the men in the camp perceived the unaccustomed sight of the struggling aeroplane and, shouting in Spanish, made a dash through the grove of trees into the open space above which the Boy Aviators’ craft was struggling bravely to attain the upper air.

Frank, as if in a dream, saw from his perilous perch a dozen rifles leveled at them and, in the glare of a kerosene torch, perceived Rogero hurrying about giving orders and striking men with the flat of his sword in his fury at losing his prisoner.

It seemed as if it was all over when suddenly from the car above them Harry’s clear voice rang out.

“Stand clear; or I’ll throw the bomb!”

The effect of his words was instantaneous. The boys, clinging to the swaying ladder, saw the soldiers dash back as if terror-stricken and Rogero himself – crazed with fury – seemed to have ordered the men not to fire for they dropped their rifles.

Like a flash Frank saw his opportunity. If they could reach the top of the ladder the lurching aeroplane would answer her helm.

“Climb, Billy. Climb! It’s your last chance!” he cried. “Climb with every drop of strength in your body! – Quick Harry – the picric acid!”

As though galvanized into a last spurt of life by Frank’s emphatic words, Billy’s tired muscles came into play and slowly, with what difficulty he never knew, for to this day the young reporter says he doesn’t know how he did it – he managed to follow Frank up the ladder. As they did so Harry emptied the acid into the gasolene tank and urged by the tremendous impetus this gave her engines, the ship began to rise.

As they climbed desperately higher, the Golden Eagle gradually regained her equilibrium and began to respond to her riding planes as Harry frantically manipulated them. Frank crawled after what seemed an hour through the trap in the pilot-house floor. Instantly stretching himself out – he reached down to Billy. He seized the reporter by the wrists and fairly lifted him into safety beside him.

Of this brave struggle, however, Billy knew nothing; for as he was pulled through the trap his overwrought nerves gave way and, as the Golden Eagle shot into safety at thirty miles an hour, the young reporter lay in a dead faint on her pilot-house floor.

“Bravely done, Harry,” cried Frank, grasping his younger brother’s hand in a firm grip which you may be sure was heartily returned.

“That’s all right. All’s well that ends well” – replied Harry, – with a grin, “it was just a bit of bluff, Frank, but it worked.”

“What did you do?” demanded Frank.

For reply Harry pointed to the brightly-polished cylinder of the searchlight that, detached from its socket lay on the floor.

“You heard me call, ‘Lookout for the bomb!’ or words to that effect?” he inquired.

“Yes,” replied Frank, puzzled, “but those fellows don’t understand English.”

“Well, they understood what it meant when they saw me raise that searchlight over my head as if I was going to chuck it down and blow them all to Kingdom Come,” replied Harry, cheerfully.

CHAPTER XV.

THE BOYS DISCOVER THE TOLTEC’S “SESAME.”

They arrived at camp as day was breaking and found everything just as they had left it. The first thing to be done was to get out the medicine chest and bandage Billy’s wounded head after antiseptics had been applied to it. It was only a flesh wound but the weapon, – most probably the butt-end of a rifle, – with which he had been struck, had inflicted a glancing cut that was painful. After a hasty breakfast the boys turned in and slept like tops till late afternoon.

The remainder of the day was spent in describing to the astonished Billy, who soon recovered his usual cheerful attitude toward life, the queer incident of the bell-ringer and the carved quesal on what the boys had already termed Treasure Cliff.

“Yes, but,” objected Billy, “any one might have amused themselves by carving it there, – cave-dwellers or something, – of course,” – he hurried on – “I don’t know much about these things, but it looks to me like a waste of time to go digging round there on a chance.”

“I guess you don’t know much about it, Billy,” smiled Frank, “the quesal was a sacred symbol of the Toltec priests and it would have been as much as an ordinary citizen’s life was worth to have carried it or drawn it anywhere, at any time.”

“That’s so,” agreed Billy, “as you say, Frank, I don’t know much about these things. I’m better at digging up stories than treasure. What do you propose to do?”

“Well,” said Frank, “my idea was this. We will overhaul an outfit to-night, and to-morrow morning we will start out for the foot of the cliff. We will mark out a space there extending in a semi-circle of which the center will be a point directly below the quesal’s beak and see what we can turn up. We three should be able to do a good bit of earth turning in a day, and if we find nothing we can take a fly back to La Merced. We are due there to-morrow night anyway, and if we don’t show up father will be worried.”

“A bully program,” cried Billy.

“With a bully lot of hard work involved,” retorted Frank.

Before they turned in that night the boys had selected the outfit they would take. Frank and Harry, of course, carried their pocket electric torches, rifles, revolvers and canteens. The blankets and such provisions as they thought it necessary to take along were done up in neat rolls. Billy was nominated the axe-man of the party, and Frank and Harry took the spade and the pick. Altogether when they set out as soon as it was light enough to see they were a formidable-looking party of pioneers.