Dorothy Dixon and the Mystery Plane

“What do you take me for? Get out that gun of yours and use your wits. I’m goin’ to loop that craft and bear down on them from abeam. If they beat it, O. K. If they don’t, we’ll take a chance on crashing them!”

“You tell ’em, boy!” Dorothy had caught his excitement. “If they shoot, I’ll fire at the flashes!”

Bill was working out his plan in detail and did not reply. He felt sure his scheme was sound. The Mary Jane was heavily built, broad of beam, with bluff bows and low freeboard. The motor sailor was a staunch craft, too, but she was not decked and with a load of but two men aboard she would have no great stability. He was certain that if he could work out and make his turn so as to bear down upon her from a little forward of the beam, striking her amidships with the swell of his starboard bow, she would crack like an egg.

Bill did not dare risk a head-on ram. That might capsize them both. To cut into her broadside at the speed she was making would possibly tear off or open up his own bows. The Mary Jane must strike her a heavy but a glancing blow at an angle of about forty-five degrees. Such a collision meant taking a big chance with their own boat. But the Mary Jane was half-decked forward and the flare of her run would take the shock on the level of her sheer strake.

Quickly he explained his project.

“I’m taking a chance, of course, if I don’t hit her right,” he finished.

“Go ahead – ” she flung back. “I’m all for it!”

Bill grinned at her enthusiasm, and with the engine running full, he started to edge off and work ahead. But he could not help being impatient at the thought that the contraband might be dropped at any minute and hooked up by the others. He took too close a turn. As the Mary Jane hauled abreast about two hundred yards ahead, the smugglers sighted them. Their motor sailor swerved sharply to port, and with a sudden acceleration, it dived into the gloom and was lost to sight.

“Bluffed off!” he shouted triumphantly.

He turned the wheel and was swinging back into the liner’s wake when Dorothy gave a cry and pointed to the water off their port quarter.

“Look! There! There!” she screamed.

Staring in the same direction, Bill saw what at first he took to be a number of small puffs of spume. Then he saw that they were rectangular. The Mary Jane had already passed them and a second later they disappeared from view.

Bill nearly twisted off the wheel in an effort to put about immediately. The result was to slow down and nearly stop their heavy boat. Gradually the Mary Jane answered her helm and presently they were headed back in the ship’s path.

And then as the Mary Jane was again gathering speed, the motor sailor came slipping out of the smother headed straight for the contraband, her broadside presented toward her pursuers.

“Stand by for a ram!” yelled Bill and pulled out his automatic.

Not fifty yards separated the two boats. Bows to the gale, the Mary Jane bore down on the motor sailor. If those aboard her realized their danger, they had no time to dodge, to shoot ahead, or avoid the ram by going hard astern. They swerved and the Mary Jane struck full amidships with a fearful grinding crash.

Bill caught a glimpse of two figures and saw the flame streak out from their barking guns. He felt a violent tug at his life preserver. Then a yell rang out and the two boats ground together in the heave of the angry sea.

Steadying himself with a hand on the wheel, he reversed and his boat hauled away. As she backed off he heard the choking cough of the other craft which had now been blotted out by the darkness and driving sleet.

Bill turned about with a triumphant cry on his lips, then checked it suddenly as he saw that Dorothy had fallen across the coaming and was lying halfway out of the boat.

Chapter X

WRECKED

The engine gave a grunt and stopped. But Bill scarcely noticed it. Hauling desperately to get Dorothy inboard, he thought his heart would burst. Suddenly he heard her cry:

“Don’t pull! Just hold me by my legs.”

She squirmed farther across the coaming and he gripped her by the knees.

“That’s it,” she panted. “There – I’ve got it! Now haul me in.”

Bill gave a heave and just then the boat, caught by a huge wave, rolled far over and landed Bill on his back with Dorothy sprawled across him. As they struggled to their feet he saw that she was laughing.

“Aren’t you hurt at all?” he asked, rubbing a bruised elbow.

“Only – out of – breath,” she gasped. “They – are all – fastened together. Haul them in.”

Glancing down, he saw that she was holding one of the white boxes toward him. He made no motion to take it, but stared to windward, listening.

Dorothy could hear nothing but the wind and the waves and the swirling sleet.

“What is it?” she jerked out, striving to regain her breath.

“Wait a minute.” Suddenly Bill snatched up his electric torch and dove into the cabin.

Dorothy dropped down on a thwart with the box in her hand. After a short rest, she renewed her endeavors to get the remainder of her haul overside. When Bill clambered out of the cabin she was tugging at the strong line to which the boxes were tied.

“It’s jammed, or caught, or something,” she announced.

Bill looked overside.

“Yes, dash it all!” he growled. “We fouled the line and wound it round the tail shaft when I backed off just now. That’s what stopped the motor, of course. Let me see what I can do. You’re blown.”

He picked up another box bobbing alongside and started to haul in the line. One end of this he found was jammed under the stern, while on the other length a box appeared every thirty or forty feet.

“Ten, in all,” he told her and drew the last aboard.

“Hooray! We’ve done it!” cried Dorothy exultantly.

“We sure have. You just said it all – ” His tone was sarcastic. “The boat is leaking like a sieve. That lateral wrench started it. The propeller’s jammed. It’s beginning to blow a gale and there isn’t enough gas to run us out of it. Three cheers and a tiger! Also, hooray!”

Dorothy’s enthusiasm evaporated. “Gee, I’m sorry. I’m always such a blooming optimist – I didn’t think about our real difficulties.”

“O. K. kid. I apologize for being cross. That water in the cabin kind of got me for the moment. Let’s see what it looks like here.”

He wrenched up the flooring and flashed his torch.

Dorothy gave a gasp of dismay. The boat was filling rapidly.

“I’ll get that bucket from the cabin,” she said at once.

“Good girl! I’ve just got to get this coffee mill grinding again, or we’ll be out of luck good and plenty.”

Dorothy fetched the bucket and began to bail. She saw that Bill was trying to start the engine.

“The shaft wound up that line while we were going astern,” he explained. “It ought to unreel if I can send the old tub ahead.”

Switching on the current, he managed to get a revolution or two. Then the motor stopped firing.

“No go?” inquired Dorothy.