by Van Powell
CHAPTER XXVI
A "FLYING FILM"
Up to the dark room Don hurried with Garry.
At their knock a muffled voice came through the panels, hardly to beunderstood because of the weather-stripping used to make the joining ofdoor and frame light-tight.
"He says he can't let us in," Don caught the faint murmur andinterpreted it.
"Taking the film from the tank, I guess," Garry responded. "We'll haveto wait."
Five minutes passed. Then the door was opened.
Chick, with hands stained by contact with pyro and other chemicals,showed a disappointed face.
"No go!" he greeted his chums. "The hangar light fogged the film. Itwas light-struck, all right."
"How about another test, from the inner end of the roll?" Garrysuggested.
"We can try that," agreed Chick.
Into the intense blackness of the room they crowded, and, by sense oftouch Don extracted from the inner spool of the roll, an inch or so offilm, while Garry washed out the developing tank used for the filmsthey took of new craft for making half-tone engravings, pictures forcirculars, catalogues and "trade paper" illustrations.
Chick, mixing a fresh charge of pyro, with sodium sulphite and theright amount of carbonate, from ready-prepared packets, enclosed thefilm in a roll of rubber-edged material that let the developer seep inbut keep the fabric from touching the delicate film surface.
"Get the tank lid tight," he warned Garry after the solution had beenmixed and poured in, the film container being swished up and down toget the film full impregnated. "I have to light the bulb to time it andget the temperature of the mixture by the thermometer you just had inthe tank."
"Go ahead--it's tight."
They allowed twenty minutes for development; then the light wasextinguished and the door, opened for ventilation, was closed.
In darkness Chick removed the film, handling its container gingerly ashe immersed it in the hypo fixing bath to "set" the image. They gave itabout half a minute of darkness in the fixing bath.
"Now we can see it," he decided. "Switch on the----"
The door swung sharply outward.
There came a blinding flash, and with it the dense smoke of somepungent, gas-reeking chemical. Eyes smarted and watered. Staggeringback from the surprise attack, totally unexpected, Don, Garry and Chicktook an instant to cower back against the wall, shielding their faces.
There was the play of a flashlamp about the room.
Then, before either of them could recover from astonishment and fromthe choking smudge enough to move, there came the clank of some metal,and the slam of the door.
"Oh!" Chick gasped, and then said no more, choking in the smoke of thebomb or whatever poured its dense, stifling smoke up, filling thesmall, almost airtight compartment.
It took Garry, nearest the door, half a minute of choked, almostsuffocated effort, fumbling in the dark, to get the handle of the doorand twist it. The door was not locked; but, as he dragged Chick out andDon leaped over the fuming, pungent smoke-flare that had been ignitedand dropped in the dark room, Garry saw that the rubber catch-all maton the floor was burning.
The designing room, with its unreplaceable, valuable files, wasadjacent to the dark room. Below, in the workshops, "dope" and otherdreadfully inflammable materials lay stored. In the hangar next it wereairplanes worth thousands of dollars, including a fourteen-ton,double-bodied seaplane that had been ordered by the Mexican Government.
"One go one way, the other to the bank stairway--or the fire escape!"he screamed to Don and Chick.
Himself, ignoring the lost film--knowing well that was what hadvanished in the hands of their adversary--Garry raced for a fireextinguisher.
Choked, blinded, staggering, Don and Chick heard, but had difficultygetting their bearings.
Garry ran, full speed, back, to upset the chemical fire extinguisher sothat its contents, mixing, would generate a gas to drown out the small,but menacing fire that had already touched the matting running from thedesigning room corridor across that side of the space.
Don staggered to the window, drawing in great lungfuls of fresh air.
Gasping, choked, he strained his eyes toward the grounds outside.Chick, at the corridor door, looked up and down, bracing against thedizziness that swung him on his unsteady legs.
Garry drenched the matting, the smoking flare, the floor and walls indanger.
The fire out, he dropped the extinguisher, and turning, raced, with Donand Chick, recovering rapidly, at his heels. He, too, was choked; butat the first opening of the door Garry had, fortunately, thrown asleeve protectingly across his face, so that he had breathed less ofthe fumes than his companions.
Up to the control tower balcony raced Garry. Don went down to thehangars. Chick took the midway corridor, searching each office.
"There he goes," shouted a voice.
Garry, rushing to the balcony, saw a fleet figure running across thegrounds, out of the good light, but discernible. Into the searchlightGarry ran, while Don and Chick, hearing his shouts of response to thevoice from below, went, careless of risk to limb, down the stairways atfront and back of the big building. Garry, struggling to get thesearchlight turned in the proper direction to pick out the fleeingfigure, to identify it in a flare of vivid light, explained swiftly tothe control chief on duty.
By the time the light was in position, on the roof, and its mechanismadjusted, the beam probing the velvety dark night picked up a scene ofswift action.
Don and Chick, close to the hangars, were running, full tilt, out ofthe grounds, along the roadway.
A hundred feet beyond them were two heavier figures, pounding along ata slower pace, so that Don and Chick soon met, passed and out-strippedthem.
Just beside the cottages that were boarding places and providers offurnished rooms for airport mechanicians, shop workers, pilots andothers, a fleetly running, light form swerved out of the light just asGarry got to the balcony again.
Behind a house the figure vanished.
It had some round object clutched in the crook of an arm, Garry thought.
Standing there he watched until Don and Chick reached the spot.
In the bright rays of the light they soon returned, waving arms indismay. While they stood, undecided, a window of the nearer cottageflew up.
Garry could not hear the voice, but he recognized Scott.
He watched as Don and Chick, calling upward, waited, received ananswer, turned and raced back toward the hangars.
The upswung arm of Don, the upward pointing finger of Chick, told Garrywhat was wanted.
Down the stairways he plunged.
"Quick! Henry--help me!" he shouted, running toward the Dragonfly.
Don appeared at the door.
"That's right!" He saw Don pushing at the tail of the aircraft.
"What's it all about?" demanded the mechanician, to whom all thisin-and-out pushing of the "busses" was mystifying.
"Scott called down to us. He was dozing when the light woke him. He gota glimpse of the man running away," Don informed him.
"It was the Indian--John Ti!" contributed Chick, putting his weightbehind the wing of the ship as he helped get it through the doors.
"Well--then he went into the swamps!" the man said. "That's the onlyplace he could get to from back of that house."
"I know it!" puffed Garry.
"What do you want this crate for, then? You don't expect to see asingle, Indian kid, hiding in a pitch-dark swamp!"
"No!" gasped Don, "we don't. But--Henry--we left the Dart tied there!"
"Get all the flares you can find!" Garry urged Chick, himself busylooking over the fuel gauges and oil supply.
Chick raced away, fully recovered.
They got the Dragonfly into the air in short order.
Three determined youths, each tightly strapped in place, each with asupply of signal flares, of rockets, of flash bombs, of white, red,blue and green
Verey lights, went forth into the sky lanes, determinedthat their clue, considered important by Scott, should be recovered.
In the swamp a lithe figure, watching, seeing the ship coming over,muttered.
"He shan't get away!" Don whispered, half aloud, to himself, in theDragonfly.
"He shan't get away!" muttered the lithe figure swiftly untying theDart beside the boathouse wharf.
To which an older, more deeply copper-colored form grunted agreement,whirling the fight propeller to "contact!"
Then began a most peculiar sky chase!