Читать книгу Radio Boys in the Flying Service; or, Held For Ransom by Mexican Bandits - J. W. Duffield - Страница 4

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Both of the racing cars kept on at full speed, but a steadily widening gap showed between them as the first continued to draw away from its pursuer.

Soon the Arrow was directly above the second of the two cars. Phil kept moving steadily earthward and was now flying at a height of about two hundred feet. It was plainly to be seen that Phil’s supposition had been correct, for the car held half a dozen policemen heavily armed. It seemed probable too, that Tom in his radio message had told the police of the starting out of the airplane, for the officers seemed to realize that they had an ally in the plane and gesticulated vigorously, shouting and pointing to the road ahead.

Phil waved one hand at them, as a signal that he understood, and darted ahead until he had overtaken the fleeing car. The top of this was up, so that at first the robbers did not see the plane. But they heard the roaring of the motor, and first one head and then another was thrust out at the side of the machine looking upward. At first they did not seem especially alarmed, thinking probably that it was out on a practice flight and just happened to be in their vicinity. But as it continued to keep pace with them and in the same direction, suspicion seized them, and the car leaped frantically forward as the last ounce of speed was extracted from its motor.

Phil’s eyes kept scanning the landscape ahead and at last saw the chance for which he was looking. About a mile in advance was a level field with no bars between it and the road. He quickened speed, swooped down in a graceful curve, landed in the field with scarcely a jar and at just the spot where the wheels under the momentum of the flight carried the plane into the middle of the road blocking it completely.

Quick as a flash the Radio Boys clambered out on the further side of the plane.

“Guess that will stop them,” exclaimed Phil triumphantly.

“It sure will,” agreed Dick admiringly, “but at the same time it will smash the plane.”

“If it does, it will have to,” replied Phil. “But I don’t think they’ll drive into it. They’d wreck their own car or overturn it or at any rate get all tangled up in the gear of the plane. They’ll stop all right. The police car is less than a minute behind them, and I figure it will be right on top of the bandits before they get over their confusion. We’ll soon know, for here they come.”

Around a curve in the road three hundred yards away came the robbers’ car and bore straight down on the plane which seemed doomed to destruction.

And while Phil and Dick stand there with every pulse athrill waiting for the outcome, it may be well for the benefit of those who have not read the preceding volume of this series to tell who the Radio Boys were and what had been their fortunes and adventures up to the time this story opens.

Phil Strong had been born and brought up in the town of Castleton, where his father was a physician with a large practice. From his early years, Phil had been a natural leader among the boys of his own age, and had been foremost in the athletic sports that appeal to all healthy, red-blooded boys. He had been the crack pitcher of his school nine and a speedy full back on the school eleven. His freedom from conceit or meanness of any kind had made him exceedingly popular. His brain was keen and worked quickly, and he was seldom at a loss in extricating himself from any trying situation into which chance might have brought him. He never looked for trouble, but he never sidestepped it when it came, and his coolness and courage made him a valuable friend and a formidable enemy. At the time the incidents here narrated took place, he was eighteen years old, tall, athletic, of fair complexion, with keen blue eyes and brown hair. He had a sister, Phyllis, a pretty girl of sixteen.

His special chum among the Castleton boys was Dick Weston, who, as we have seen, was the son of the cashier of the Castleton bank. Dick was about the same age as Phil, but differed from him in appearance, having brown eyes and swarthy complexion. The two had been friends since their earliest recollections and were almost inseparable. Where one of them was found the other was quite sure not to be far away. Dick lacked the initiative of Phil, but was always ready to follow where the latter led. Where Phil was captain, Dick made an admirable first mate, backing Phil up to the limit and standing by him through thick and thin. He had two brothers, Harry, fifteen, and Joe, thirteen years of age.

Closely linked in friendship with Dick and Phil were Steve Elwood and Tom Hadley, who had become acquainted with them through a curious combination of circumstances told in the first book of this series.

Steve Elwood was the son of a prosperous business man living in New York. He was a fine upstanding fellow, generous in the extreme, but hot tempered and impulsive and ready to fight at the drop of a hat. He had a stubby nose, freckled face and red hair, which explained perhaps the fiery disposition that usually goes with that kind of head covering. Phil’s coolness had more than once got Steve out of scrapes into which his headlong nature had carried him.

Tom Hadley was of another type, good-natured, jolly, always ready for a joke or a laugh, and perfectly certain that the world was a good place to live in. His father was an electrical engineer of Chicago. Tom had a firm idea that Chicago was the only town on earth, and as Steve had a similar idea about New York, there were many wordy arguments between the two that afforded immense enjoyment to Phil and Dick, who took an impish delight in egging them on when there was a lull in the battle.

At the time this story opens, Steve was in Texas, while Tom had dropped in on a visit to Phil and Dick in Castleton.

What perils and adventures the four friends had faced in common; how many times they had been within a hairsbreadth of death; how they had served their government in tracking and delivering up to justice a band of cunning and desperate criminals is fully told in the first book of this series, entitled: “Radio Boys In the Secret Service; Or, Running Down the Counterfeiters.”

Now Phil and Dick were facing a peril of another kind, of which no one could predict the result. They had no weapons with them, and they knew that the bandits in the onrushing automobile were desperate criminals and would not hesitate a second in taking life if that would aid their escape. But they had known this when they took the chance, and although their hearts beat furiously, they awaited the result without flinching.

For the first hundred yards the car came on with unabated speed. Then it perceptibly slackened, while the inmates could be seen with their heads together in an excited colloquy. The man in the seat beside the driver leaned far out and motioned furiously to the boys to wheel the plane out of the road. As they stood motionless, he shook his clenched fist at them and shouted out an order to the men behind him.

The next instant a fusillade of shots came whistling over the heads of the boys, who, divining the nature of the command, had thrown themselves flat on the ground. One of the wings of the plane was clipped by a bullet but no other damage was done by the volley.

Again the car leaped forward as though the bandits had determined to take a desperate chance and plough their way through the plane. But when they were a hundred feet away, the driver seemed to lose heart and slowed down.

With a furious exclamation, the man sitting beside him struck the driver and grasped the wheel from him. In the mixup the front wheels of the car slewed violently to one side, and the car ran into a deep ditch at the side of the road where it overturned.

There was a tumult of shouts and oaths as the car went over, and at the same moment the police car came in sight around the turn. Its occupants were quick to grasp the situation, and the boys could see them rising in their seats with their weapons in their hands ready to leap.

Out from the overturned car the bandits came swarming like so many bees. An instant’s glance told them of the trap into which they had fallen. Before them was the plane behind which were at least two men, whether armed or not they could not tell. Behind them were half a dozen officers of the law, fully armed, who were already jumping from their seats and running toward them.

Their only chance lay in reaching a patch of woodland that lay a little ways back of the road. Once in its shadows some of them at least might stand a chance of eluding their pursuers.

At a command from their leader, the bandits fired a volley at the officers and then turned and ran toward the woods. A fusillade from the police revolvers followed them, and one of the robbers was shot in the foot and fell. The rest kept on, the fear of capture lending wings to their feet, and three of them reached the woods. One however, was headed off and ran into the open field where the plane had made its landing. He was fleeter than the two heavily built men who were pursuing him, and would have easily outdistanced them had not Phil taken a hand in the game.

Like a panther he was on the trail of the fugitive. The latter turned and saw him coming and redoubled his speed. There was no shaking Phil off however, and he gained rapidly. The man turned and fired at him but the bullet whizzed by harmlessly. The next instant Phil had launched himself on him and the two went to the ground together.

The fall had knocked all the breath out of the robber, and there was little fight left in him. Phil wrenched the revolver out of his grasp, and as Dick came up just then, they bound the robber’s arms together with Dick’s belt, rendering him powerless. Then they helped him to his feet and marching behind him with an occasional prod of the pistol butt in his back when he showed an inclination to balk they came to the police car, in which the wounded robber had already been placed.

“Two of them anyway,” remarked the officer in charge. “That was mighty quick and plucky work on your part, young fellow. He was getting away surely when you put out after him.”

“Do you think there’s any chance of nabbing the rest of them?” inquired Phil.

The officer shook his head dubiously.

“If we could have winged them before they got to the woods as we did this fellow,” he said, indicating the wounded thief, “it would have been all right, but once in those thick woods it’s an easy thing to lose sight of them. You can hear that there isn’t much shooting going on just now. That means that our fellows can’t find any targets to shoot at.”

His prediction was verified when half an hour later his comrades came straggling back without additional prisoners.

“Don’t believe they’ll get far though,” the chief comforted himself. “They’re on foot and their description has been sent broadcast by radio, so that at this minute there are at least a thousand people looking for them. Every road in this county will be patrolled night and day and their chances of getting away are mighty slim.”

The boys were not at all so sure of this, but they repressed their doubts.

“How about the stolen money?” asked Dick eagerly. “Have you recovered any of that?”

“Quite a heap I imagine,” answered the chief, lifting up the seat of the car and displaying several large packages of bills. “Of course I don’t know just how much the thieves grabbed, and I guess the bank don’t know yet either. These were found in the car that turned over. Probably they dropped out of the leader’s pockets in the mixup. We’ll make another search of the car before we leave, but I guess we’ve got all that was there.”

The search was made but yielded no further results. “I’ll have to take charge of this money and turn it over to the authorities in Castleton,” remarked the chief, “but just for my own protection I’d like to have you boys count it now before us all, so that there can’t be any question of the amount.”

The Radio Boys did this willingly, and were relieved to find that the total footed up to a trifle over ten thousand dollars.

“That’s a lot of money,” said Phil hopefully. “Maybe that’s all they were able to grab.”

Here there was a snicker from one of the captured thieves.

The chief whirled about like a flash.

“What are you laughing at?” he demanded angrily.