CHAPTER II
The Stowaway
They were seated in the living room of President Epworth’s palatialresidence in Hollywood. While the conversation was in a low tone andseemingly calm there was an air of tenseness that got on the nerves ofthe speakers.
“So you suggest——”
President Epworth paused, and looked interrogatingly at his nephew,Julian Epworth.
“That we send out a dummy on an alleged trip to Japan, start itsecretly but with sufficient tips to permit the knowledge of itsdeparture to circulate. With it send a small shipment of money. LetBilly Sand pilot the dummy, and I will follow in a swift scout planeequipped to cross the Pacific. If the sky bandits attack, Billy is tobe instructed to offer no resistance, and I will lag behind and followthe robbers to their lair. When I return we will fall on that bunchwith the entire United States army. Believe me I do not speak looselywhen I say that the army will be necessary. Those bandits have thebest fighting air vessel invented. They are far ahead of anything Ihave ever heard of in the way of air pirates.”
“And that dummy should carry——”
“Enough gold to relieve it of the suspicion that it is a plant.”
The president tapped the table with his fingers.
“Our company cannot afford to lose any money.”
“My idea is to make the cargo large enough to pay a profit if it goesacross but not large enough to create a great loss. If the banditscome I have a hunch that they will be connected with the men whorobbed Swift & Co., Ford, Dupont, and others. If I can trace them totheir lair we stand a chance to get all that back.”
“Notwithstanding the fact that you are my nephew, Julian, I placed youat the head of our secret service because I knew that you had abilityin spite of your youthfulness. I am now putting a grave responsibilityon you. We cannot do business while a bunch of hijackers are runningthe air lanes, and stealing everything valuable we send out. We muststop business or catch the thieves. The first thing we know they willbe dropping bombs on our airports. I am going to put this matter up toyou.”
“Just what do you mean by that?”
“I mean that you have the responsibility of catching these men. I amturning the matter entirely over to you for action.”
“Very well, I accept the charge.”
As a result of this conversation Epworth concluded to send out theGreyhound, a large 12-passenger Douglas—old but a good flyer. BillySand was named as the pilot and entire crew. After studying weatherconditions closely it was decided to make the start the followingThursday night.
So secret was Epworth in his method that he planted his small H.B. inan open space near Hines Field, six miles from the airport of theAtlantic-Pacific Company, and the only person he took completely intohis confidence was Billy Sand, his aviation buddy and chum. Billy didnot even let Bert Orme know that Epworth was to follow them. To Ormeit looked as if an honest-to-goodness flight was being made across thePacific Ocean.
Billy was instructed to show constantly by night three red lights, oneon each wing, and one on the tail of the Greyhound. These lights wereto be turned on every night at sundown during the entire trip. Inaddition to this Epworth decided to fly the pursuit by himself.
At eleven forty-five the young man moved his plane from its hidingplace, and mounted into the air. He chuckled as he took the air. Hissister, Joan, was the only living person who knew where this plane hadbeen hidden and he felt certain that it could not have been“doctored,” although he had been late in getting to it.
Unfortunately for his purpose the night was dark and a heavy fog hadcome up from the ocean about ten o’clock, and for ten minutes hefeared that the fog banking against the windows of his cockpits wouldprevent observation. With a snort of dismay he threw open the window,and leaned out. The great City of Los Angeles, with its myriads ofbeautiful lights spread beneath, and he lost three minutes locatingthe five-pointed lights that marked the Atlantic-Pacific airport. Hewas flying low, circling like an eagle, and he lost several secondsmore getting to the airport.
Had he arrived too late?
He anathematized himself, and snarled at the darkness that had causedhim to be late in getting to his plane. Billy, by this time, wasprobably on his way.
He searched the sky with his binoculars. The three red lights theGreyhound was to display were not visible. Was it possible that hissecret plans had already come to naught? Would Billy fly out over theocean and rush into the hands of the pirates without accomplishing anygood?
For a moment he had a spell of very bad humor; then he whirled thenose of his plane out toward the Pacific Ocean. He knew the course theGreyhound would travel. He had been careful with his instructions toBilly about getting into the air and these instructions conveyed toBilly the idea that he was to give no heed to the little plane thatfollowed him. This meant that Billy would take a direct bee line outover the ocean, and expect him to follow as if there was to be anordinary oceanic flight.
Rising two thousand feet, he shot forward with all the speed hiswonderfully fast little bird could travel—three hundred miles an hour.In a brief slip of time he was over San Pedro, and could hear the roarof the ocean sweeping against the rocks north of Point Firmin. BearingN by W he flashed over the extreme end of Catalina Island on thenorth. Still the dense fog rolled against his windows and into thecabin; and the three red Greyhound lights were not visible.
He groaned in an agony of spirit. What would his Uncle William say tothis terrible waste of money and inefficiency?
“And what will Joan say?” he asked himself aloud in a strained hurtway. “She also will think that I’m a slip-up.”
“She will say that you have a very fast little airplane, that you canfly circles around the Greyhound, and that now is the time to flythem.” A soft, mellow voice answered his query from the rear end ofthe cabin. “Fly low, say one thousand feet above the water, and keepyour eyes glued to your field glasses. Joan will watch for you whileyou manipulate the controls.”
A handsome, well-formed and athletic young girl, about eighteen yearsold, crawled out of the tail of the fuselage, and dropped into theaviator’s seat by his side.
“H-how did you get here?” Epworth blustered. “What do you mean bybutting in on a dangerous mission like this? How did you find out thatI was going to make this trip? Now I will have to turn around and takeyou back. If you were not my sister I’d slam you overboard.”
“Oh, no, you wouldn’t throw me overboard. If you did that you wouldn’thave a little sister to fuss about. As to all those otherquestions—come at me easy. Put them one at a time. But before youbegin to propound them get into some kind of action. Go down athousand feet. You are too high in the air.”
This was good sense, and Epworth nose-dived immediately. When hestraightened out on the thousand foot line he leveled his nosenorthward into a vast encircling movement.
“You needn’t go any further north,” Joan remarked casually. “I seeyour three little old red lights out toward the west.”
Epworth heaved a sigh of relief; and then turned angrily on hissister.
“Now talk up. You have balled things up terribly. When daylight comesI will have to signal Billy to go back so that I can take you backhome. You are set for college, young lady, and it is nearing theopening of the year.”
“I am not going back. My brother is out here on a life and deathmission, my uncle stands to go broke if this mission fails, and I’mgoing to help. Get that, Mister Bossy.”
“But you can’t go, Joan. This task may take me to the North Pole, orto some island in the South Pacific, or to Siam.”
“I am going with you or I am going to jump over the side of this planeinto the ocean.”
There was a finality about her words that carried conviction. That wasJoan all over. She was very quiet, very self-possessed, very polite,but she was like the Rock of Gibraltar when she made up her mind.
Epworth did not reply. Now that he was actually following theGreyhound he did not want to dese
rt his task. He pushed nearer to thethree red lights. Billy was purposely running with his cut-outs open,and he could hear the roar of the Greyhound’s engines. This wasanother evidence that he was trailing the right airplane. At this timeall other planes that sailed the air were as silent as birds.
“Now let me hear how you got on to this job?”
“You talk too much,” Joan rebuked severely. “I heard you talking toBilly last night when he came up to the house.”
“Then if you know about it I guess the bandits know something about italso,” he chuckled.
Joan did not answer, and for an hour Epworth ran to the starboard ofthe Greyhound, and several hundred feet higher.
“There is a shadow hanging over the Greyhound,” Joan observedpresently. “Is it a cloud?”
“So soon!” Epworth exclaimed in astonishment. “Those robbers arecertainly wise ones, and the leak out of the Atlantic-Pacific Airlinesmust be as big as a river.”
“I do not seem to get you,” Joan replied slangily. She had beenassociating so much with aviators and air men that she had become one.“Spring a little larger leak in your gas line.”
“You are now going to view the methods of the sky bandits,” he saidslowly, handing her his binoculars. “Keep your eyes fixed on thatshadow, and I will manipulate the plane nearer so that you will becertain.”
Within three minutes they were close enough to see a sky hold-up. Along cylinder, tremendously long it seemed to her as she viewed itthrough the fog, swung gracefully and easily into position over theGreyhound, and for several moments ran along smoothly as if it were apart of the lower airship. Then a trap door opened in the bottom ofthe cylinder, a rope fell into the aviator’s seat of the Greyhound,and ten men descended quickly. For several seconds the ladder swung toand fro over the Greyhound but when a signal whistle, sharp and clear,rang out from the aviator’s seat of the Greyhound, the great cylinderwhirled with lightning speed and darted away directly north. It wasswallowed up so quickly in the fog that Joan could only stare at itwith open-mouthed surprise.
When she thought to look back at the Greyhound the captured vessel hadswung into the course of the cylinder.
“It is impossible to follow that thing,” she whispered in awe. “Why itflies—it flies—like—like——”
“A ball out of a cannon,” Epworth finished. “But fortunately I did notcontemplate following it. We will follow the Greyhound. I knew beforewe started out on this trip that those cylinders could gain a speed ofsix hundred miles an hour, and my plot was to get them to capture theGreyhound, and follow it. They have fallen into the plot, and now asky bandit, and not Billy, is piloting the plane.”
With a careful movement he dropped in behind the Greyhound, andclimbed up over it. But presently he discovered that he would have togo higher. The Greyhound was gradually seeking altitude in a longupward nose sweep. This movement was continued until an altitude offive thousand feet had been attained. At this altitude the Greyhoundleveled out, put on more speed, and darted courageously toward thefrozen North. Epworth followed, easily keeping the three red lights inview although the cut-out of the Greyhound was now closed.
“Six hundred miles an hour!” Joan’s voice contained an element ofdoubt. “How could they attain such a speed? There is no known forcethat will pull them that fast.”
“Goddard’s liquid rockets,” Epworth answered briefly. “I was studyingtheir explosion when the hold-up was taking place. They have a soft,low, whirling explosion but these men have gone the scientist onebetter. They have found a method of silencing the explosions and stillretaining all the force.”
“My, I wonder where they are taking the Greyhound?”
“We are following them to find out.”
“I am still wondering how the cylinders can give such speed.”
“The rockets are propelled by the steady combustion of carbon inliquid oxygen.”
“I have an idea that they must be taking the Greyhound a long distancefrom home.”
They were.
Four days later Epworth and his sister, Joan, were still following thestolen airship—and were flying over an unknown portion of the ArcticOcean. Below them there was a vast sea of ice.
The Moon Colony Page 2