CHAPTER XII
A DESPERATE PASSENGER
“Due west—and no tricks!” the man had ordered who had insisted upon being a free passenger aboard the Scout.
Hiram Dobbs was not frightened. He was simply startled. Most boys would have been unnerved at the leveled weapon of a man who looked so very dangerous. Momentarily taken off his balance, the young airman obeyed the menacing mandate given.
“In case you should think of cutting up any capers,” was spoken next into his ear, “let me tell you I am a desperate man.”
It was humiliating to Hiram, now he had got his second breath, to submit to the dictation of a stranger, and he an intruder, too. Hiram’s natural disposition urged him instantly to drive the machine back to earth. Then common sense assured him that it would be at a risk. He really believed his passenger would shoot. Hiram was a quick thinker. He summed up the situation this way: the fellow aboard the Scout was a criminal, a fugitive pursued by the police. His only way of evading them was by the air route. A spice of reckless love of excitement came into the thoughts of Hiram. His passenger was watching him closely.
“All right, I’ll see the end of the adventure,” resolved Hiram, and the next minute the land mist shut out all further view of the International grounds.
“Those officers will never take me alive again,” spoke his passenger. “If they get the two of us it will be two dead ones, mind you, that.”
“My! but you’re a wicked one, aren’t you now?” observed Hiram in a tone of raillery.
“Don’t you talk too bold, youngster—it mightn’t be healthy for you,” growled the other. “You obey my orders and you shan’t want a reward.”
“I don’t want money for helping a criminal to escape,” retorted Hiram spicily—“which I take you to be.”
“We all have our special business to attend to,” coolly announced the man. “Yours is running an airship. Mine is picking up what careless people don’t watch close enough. We’ll both be in the papers to-morrow. It will make a good story, on your part. That will help, you see?”
Hiram, as he later explained it to his chum, was “mad all over,” but he saw no safe way out of the dilemma. He preserved a stubborn silence, but thought steadily.
“If I know anything about Dave’s ways,” he soliloquized, “he won’t let any grass grow under his feet. He’ll think and act. A man ran up as this fellow aboard here pushed up the machine. I think it was Dennis, the watchman. The police broke in through the fence, too. Oh, yes, Dave will soon be aloft, and looking for me.”
So convinced of this was Hiram, that he immediately put in operation a plan suddenly suggested to his mind. He reached out one hand and began loosening the screws that held in place the plate covering the vibrator. His passenger was alive to every move he made and was watching him intently.
“Hey, what you up to?” he snarled and then, as if through accident, Hiram shifted the plate so that it went whirling down through space, leaving the mechanism of the vibrator entirely exposed.
“I guess I’ve got to see if the cylinders are sparking right; haven’t I?” snapped Hiram.
“I don’t like that game!” growled the man behind him.
“Say,” jeered Hiram impatiently, “if you don’t take to my way of running this machine, suppose we change places?”
“Oh, of course, I’m no sky pilot”—began the other.
“Then allow me to run this biplane in my own fashion. You’ll have to, I guess,” added Hiram, “or drop. You may be desperate, but I’m in no very good humor myself, drifting around to suit your fancy, and you’ll leave me alone, if you’re wise.”
The passenger relapsed into silence now. Probably a realization of the fact that he might unnerve the pilot, or actually drive him to some rash action, caused him to assume a less forceful attitude. They must have gone fully thirty miles before Hiram spoke again.
“See here,” he demanded sharply, “how long is this flight going to keep up?”
“The further the better,” was the indefinite response. “You know what I’m after—to get us far and fast as possible from the people I don’t want to see. Hey—what’s that?”
Hiram uttered a quick cry of joy. Of a sudden a swaying flash of light moved over and beyond them. A radiant, searching pencil of brilliancy wavered and dilated.
“It’s a biplane searchlight,” thought Hiram, holding his nerves as steady as he could, and not daring to look behind him. “It’s the Ariel—it’s Dave!”
“Say, what’s that now?” muttered his passenger, fidgeting about and straining his neck.
“It’s an airship, like our own,” replied Hiram.
“They’re chasing us!” exclaimed the man.
“I can’t help that,” retorted Hiram, coolly.
“Well, aren’t they?” persisted the passenger. “See! they’ve got us in their focus, and they’re keeping us there. You take a look and see if that isn’t so.”
Hiram ventured a glance backwards. It was swift and fleeting. It persuaded him that he was not wrong as to the identity of the biplane.
“There are so many craft around here,” he said, “that one might be a trailer, or setting a pace, or trying to dazzle and play with us, or half-a-dozen such things.”
“Oh, they’re after us—I feel it—I know it!” declared the passenger anxiously. “How far are they from us, do you think?”
“Perhaps a mile, perhaps two,” answered Hiram grudgingly.
He could catch low mutterings, as though the perturbed passenger were communing with himself. Then the latter poked him on the arm.
“They’re getting nearer, and they’re after us,” he spoke quickly, and with a queer thrill of excitement in his voice. “See here, young fellow, I’ve got no money with me, but I’ve got what is worth money. Give me your name, and I promise you, if you help me to get away from whoever may be after me, I’ll send you something, as soon as I realize, that will pretty nearly make you rich.”
“I wouldn’t take it,” declared the young pilot of the Scout. “You must be up to something bad, talking and acting as you do.”
“Land—land!” suddenly shouted the passenger. “Where you see that rise. Do it, don’t you delay, or I’ll knock you over, and risk running the machine myself!”
The urgency of the speaker was caused through the direct play of the headlight of the Ariel upon them. Dave had gained on the Scout materially within a very few minutes’ time. In truth, Hiram, understanding the situation, had been “playing” with the Scout, purposely deferring direct forward progress, bent on giving the Ariel an opportunity to come up with them. His passenger either discovered or suspected this now.
“No fooling, youngster,” he spoke sternly, and Hiram felt against his shoulder the pressure of the weapon with which the man had previously threatened him. He knew that his passenger was watching him as a cat would a mouse. He could think of no subterfuge to delay matters. Hiram chuckled, however, as he noticed the ever increasing nearness of the Ariel.
“Right over on that hill—where the grove of trees is,” directed his passenger. “We can make it first. No delaying, now! I won’t stand it!”
The searchlight of the Ariel was kept directly upon the Scout, except when a curve, or turn, made this impossible. As Hiram started a drift landwards, he realized that the Ariel was not far behind in the race.
His passenger had slipped loose the seat belt, and showed eager suspense.
“Why don’t you land—why don’t you land! those fellows will be right on our heels in a minute,” he shouted.
“I can’t drop into the tree tops, can I?” challenged Hiram—“well!”
The rebound of the biplane told him that it had been lightened of a burden. His environment demanded his strictest attention to the machine. However, he shot one rapid look back and down. It was to see his passenger risking a ten foot drop directly into a nest of tree branches. They bent with him like a rubbery surface. Hiram sent the Scout in a rising circle so as to keep the man in view.
The headlight of the Ariel had kept pace with his sensational movements. The man soon reached the ground, dropping recklessly from branch to branch. The arrow of light revealed him running towards a thick copse. Then it lost sight of him. A minute later, however, the dazzling glare took up the trail again. The fugitive had darted into a thicket, out of it, into another, out of that one, and the last Hiram saw of him he was dashing down the edge of a gully.
The Ariel, fast descending, kept its boring eye of radiance squarely upon the man. Hiram fancied he could guess about where it would land and decided to join its company. Then something happened that thrilled Hiram. The fugitive stumbled and went headlong over the edge of the gulch.