CHAPTER IX
A TRAGEDY IN THE AIR
"Then we'd better be gettin' up in the air, so we can see what'sgoing on," Jimmie replied. "I'd like to see where the motor cargoes."
"We can satisfy our curiosity on that point without going up in theair," Ned answered. "The Vixen was left just over that cliff.There is a valley--a dent in the slope of the mountain--on each sideof that elevation, and the Vixen and the motor car are in one ofthem and the Nelson in the other."
Jimmie started away on a run almost before Ned had finishedspeaking. In a few moments he was seen on the shelf, then he dartedaround the shoulder of rock and was lost to view. The popping ofthe motors continued.
Ned hesitated a moment, uncertain as to the advisability of leavingthe machine in the sole care of the Indian, and then followed. Whenhe gained the shelf on the opposite side he saw the Vixen slowlylifting in the air. The automobile stood above her, on the levelyet treacherous spot where Ned had landed. In it were Thomas Q.Collins and the man he had seen in the automobile cap and goggles!
The Vixen did not look to be in good repair, just as Ned hadsupposed, for the newcomer had had only a short time to work overher, but for all that she was slowly leaving the narrow pit intowhich she had tumbled. Her motors were working, but did not appearto be doing any lifting.
Then Ned saw that a rope attached to the machine was doing the work.The motor car, moving very slowly forward, was pulling her up thesteep acclivity, her rubber-tired wheels drawing and boundingagainst the rocks.
"If they get her up on that level space," Jimmie predicted, "they'llget her up in the air. You can see where they've been patching theplanes, and the motors are workin' all right."
"What I'm interested in, just now," Ned said, "is that automobile.I'd like to find the highway through which she entered that valley.It must be through some tunnel, for there's no path over theslopes."
"Then we'll keep out of sight an' watch," Jimmie observed. "Seethere!" he cried, as the wheels of the Vixen struck the level area."She'll be in the air directly. One of the niggers is gettin' in!"
"What's that he's loading on?" asked Ned.
"Stones, as I'm a living boy!" he went on, excitedly. "Jump for theNelson, kid, and get her into the air! You see what they are goingto do?"
It was quite evident what the intentions of the others were. TheIndians were loading the Vixen down with sharp-pointed stones andlong wisps of dry grass; out from the nooks of the valley byCollins, who had now left the automobile.
"We've just got to get the Nelson up in the air!" Jimmie cried."They're gettin' ready to drop stones an' blazin' grass down on herplanes. We've just got to get there before the Vixen sails overher!"
Stopping no longer to observe the motor car, or watch her course outof the valley, both boys dashed around the shoulder of rock andbegan working their way down into the place where the Nelson lay,with Pedro, all unconscious of the approaching danger, sitting inthe driver's seat and wondering if he was ever going to eat again!
The whirr of the motors in the air soon told the sweating lads thatthe Vixen was rising from the ground. Just how they had managed torepair her so quickly was a wonder to Ned, but he had no time toconsider that side of the case then.
"Do you see her yet?" panted Jimmie, as the two paused a moment ontheir toilsome way downwards.
"Not yet," was the reply, and Ned almost dropped a dozen feet andcaught on the point of a rock which jutted out from the wall.
"Gee!" cried Jimmie. "That was a tumble! Got a good hold, there?Then catch me!"
Before Ned could remonstrate the reckless little fellow had dropped.The impact of his body forced Ned from the crevice in which heclung, and together they rolled down a score of feet, bringing up inan angle from which a fall would have been fatal.
Ned came out of the tumble unharmed, but Jimmie lay like a rag inhis arms as he straightened out and looked upward. The Vixen wasrising over the cliff!
Ned drew his automatic and fired three quick shots in the air, butthe aeroplane sailed on, apparently unharmed. In a moment she wasdirectly above the Nelson, and Pedro was fleeing for his life.
Standing there helpless, with the unconscious boy in his arms, Nedsaw the driver of the Vixen rain great stones down on the frailplanes of the Nelson. Then a puff of smoke came from the driver'sseat, and Ned saw that the wisps of straw were being ignited tofinish the work begun by the rocks.
He fired volley after volley at the man who was doing the mischief,but he was so unnerved and excited that his bullets went wild. Thecrash of stones on the breaking planes sounded louder to him thandid the explosions of his own revolver.
In a moment a blazing wisp of dry grass, or straw, dropped from theVixen and sifted through the still air, the individual pieces of thebundle falling apart. Some of the little swirls of flame died outas the material passed downward, but others held, and dropped on thewounded planes!
Ned shouted to Pedro, ordering him to smother else incipient blazewith his coat, or anything the he could find, but the Peruvian wasnowhere to be seen. Terrified at the movements of the aeroplane, hehad hidden in the rocks.
Again and again the man on the Vixen lighted wisps of dry grass andhurled them down. Directly the planes were in a blaze. Ned laidJimmie down on a narrow ledge and finished emptying his revolver,but to no purpose. He had never done such bad shooting in his life.
But Fate was abroad in the Andes that morning!
Presently the driver of the Vixen dropped his last wisp and shotupward, apparently not caring to engage in combat with the boy whohad used him for a target so unsuccessfully.
As the aeroplane passed across the top of the valley, Ned saw alittle tongue of flame on the under plane. The driver evidently didnot understand his peril, for he mounted higher and drove straightto the north.
Ned watched the finger of flame grow as it bit into the fine fabricof the plane with something like awe in his heart. If the driverdid not see his danger instantly and hasten down, nothing could savehim.
While the boy watched, almost breathlessly, Jimmie stirred andopened his eyes. He had a bad cut on his forehead, but otherwiseseemed to have suffered little from his terrible fall.
"Gee!" he cried, looking up at Ned with a grin. "I guess I took adrop too much!"
Ned did not answer. He was too busy watching the tragedy which wastaking place in the air. Jimmie followed the direction of his eyesand caught his breath with a gasp of horror.
"He'll burn up!" he cried.
Both planes were now on fire, and the driver knew of his peril. Itseemed to Ned that the fellow's clothes were on fire, too, for hewrithed and twisted about as he turned the aeroplane downward.
"He'll get his'n!" Jimmie declared.
The Vixen came down almost like a shot, leaving a trail of flame andsmoke behind her. Then the end came.
The charred planes gave way and the frame dropped, carrying thedriver with it. They whirled over and over in the air as they camedown. The fall must have been fully five hundred feet, and Ned knewthat it would be useless for him to seek the man who had worked somuch mischief to the Nelson with a view of doing him any service.
Below, the Nelson was sending up sheets of flame. Pedro now ran outof his hiding place and attempted to check the fire, but his effortsavailed nothing.
"It is gone, all right!" Jimmie said, with a sigh. "Now, how are wegoin' to get out of here? That's what I'd like to know."
"We'll have to get out the same way the others do," Ned replied."They have lost their aeroplane too."
"Yes," agreed the little fellow, "but they have a motor car, andwe've only our shanks' horses!"
Ned extinguished the burning woodwork on the Nelson and made a hastyestimate of the damage done.
"The motors are not injured," he reported. "If we can get somethingthat will do for planes, we can get her out."
"Then," said Jimmie, "I reckon it's me for the highway! I'll chasethat automobile into where it came f
rom. I'll bet I'll find clothof some kind there."
"It might be better to send Pedro," said Ned.
"All right!" the little fellow agreed. "Then you and I can sleuthabout this rotten country in search of gold! They say there's goldin these hills!"
The purr of the motor car's engines now came again, and Pedrohastened up the ledge and followed down into the valley where shelay. In a moment she was out of sight, and the Peruvian was movingtoward a rift in the wall of rock to the east.
But Ned, watching from above, saw that there was only one person inthe car. Mr. Thomas Q. Collins had been left behind!
"That's strange!" Ned mused. "Why should he remain here? Whatfurther mischief has the fellow in mind?"
When Ned returned to the machine he found Jimmie busy polishing thescorched steel work.
"All she needs is new planes!" the lad cried.
"Jimmie," Ned asked, "when you came here yesterday, did the Vixenfollow you closely, or did she stand off and on, as seamen say, andtake note of your course indifferently? What I want to know isthis: Did the driver seem anyway excited when you speeded over thisway?
"He followed tight to my heels," replied the little fellow. "Then,when he saw me land, he whirled about and went away."
An idea which seemed almost too good to be true was slowly formingin Ned's brain. Why had the Vixen always followed the Nelson? Whyhad she spied upon her without in any way interfering?
Again, why had Thomas Q. Collins been left there in the wilderness?Surely there were no accommodations in sight in those valleys--nothingto subsist on, no shelter from the weather.
He might, it is true, have remained out of a spirit of revenge,hoping to punish Ned for his treatment of him, but this explanationdid not appeal to the boy. With the Nelson hopelessly out ofrepair, he could well afford to leave the lads to their fate, as thechances that they would be able to get out alive--being strangers tothat country and, supposedly, to mountain work--were about one toten.
And so, Ned reasoned, there must be some other incentive for theaction taken by Collins. He had a subconscious impression that heknew what that incentive was, but hardly dared to whisper it tohimself.
The boy's reverie was interrupted by Jimmie, who had been runningback and forth in the valley in quest of wild berries, or somethingwhich would serve as food.
"I could eat a whale!" the little fellow shouted.
"Catch a hare and cook him," Ned suggested.
"The hares here are not exactly like our rabbits, but they are goodto eat. If you go over into the little jungle below, at the end ofthis bowl, you might find one."
Ned, still wondering if what he hoped might be true, turned to thecliff which separated the two valleys and began a careful inspectionof the rock formation. Away around to the east, under the shelfwhich ran like a terrace around the elevation, he came upon what hewas looking for.
The shelf extended outward from the face of the rock, and under it,setting back into the cliff perhaps a dozen feet, was a cavern whichlooked out on the valley where the Nelson lay, but from which themachine itself was not in sight.
The floor of the cavern showed traces of human habitation. It hadundoubtedly been occupied as a shelter from storms by mountaineersfor centuries.
But the evidences of occupation which Ned saw were not those showingdistant use. There was a tiny fire burning in a crevice whichserved as a chimney, carrying the smoke far up into the sky beforedischarging it.
Scattered about the fire were tin cans, some empty, some containingfood of various kinds. Thrown over a heap of broken boxes in acorner was a coat--a tailor-made coat of fine material.
On a little ledge at the rear were a safety razor, a small mirror,and a shaving mug. Ned picked up the coat and thrust a hand into aninside pocket. That, he thought, would be an easy way to ascertainthe identity of the owner.
In a moment he drew forth a folded paper, covered with figures inpencil. The figures were in columns, as if the maker had beensetting down items of expense and adding them up. The total was inthe millions. The calculations of a cattleman, covering shipmentsand receipts!
Ned continued his search of the coat and presently came upon apacket of letters, all enclosed in envelopes and neatly ticketed onthe back. They were enclosed in a rubber band, and showed carefulhandling.
And the envelopes, every one of them, were addressed to Dr. HoraceM. Lyman, Asuncion, Paraguay!
Boy Scouts in an Airship; Or, The Warning from the Sky Page 9