There she was, a hull, narrow, scow-bowed, like a hydroplane, with a long pointed stern and a cockpit for two men, near the bow. There were two wide, winglike planes, on a light latticework of wood covered with silk, trussed and wired like a kite frame, the upper plane about five feet above the lower, which was level with the boat deck. We could see the eight-cylindered engine which drove a two-bladed wooden propeller, and over the stern were the air rudder and the horizontal planes. There she was, the hobbled steed now of the phantom bandit who had accomplished the seemingly impossible.
In spite of everything, however, the flying boat reached the shore a trifle ahead of us. As she did so both figures in her jumped, and one disappeared quickly up the bank, leaving the other alone.
“Verplanck, McNeill—get him,” cried Kennedy, as our own boat grated on the beach. “Come, Walter, we’ll take the other one.”
The man had seen that there was no safety in flight. Down the shore he stood, without a hat, his hair blown pompadour by the wind.
As we approached Carter turned superciliously, unbuttoning his bulky khaki life preserver jacket.
“Well?” he asked coolly.
Not for a moment did Kennedy allow the assumed coolness to take him back, knowing that Carter’s delay did not cover the retreat of the other man.
“So,” Craig exclaimed, “you are the—the air pirate?”
Carter disdained to reply.
“It was you who suggested the millionaire households, full of jewels, silver and gold, only half guarded; you, who knew the habits of the people; you, who traded that information in return for another piece of thievery by your partner, Australia Mac—Wickham he called himself here in Bluffwood. It was you—-”