This surprised Jim, for he thought that neither of the brothers was an air man, and then he realized that the scheme to get him to carry them was more like something a flyer would concoct than a layman. He grinned to himself as he thought of the simplicity of the plan, and then he sobered. It had brought him into a dickens of a mess, to be sure, but he thought that he was mighty lucky it was the Gonzalas who had come after him. Any member of the gang might have sprung the same story and he would have been taken in just as quickly.
“Reckon I’m not such a Jumbo of intellect,” he remarked to himself.
“Oh,” the woman clutched his hand, “look!” At that moment the plane was bathed in a flood-light from another machine shooting directly above them. “God have mercy!”
CHAPTER VII
THROUGH SPACE
The sudden appearance of the plane flying directly over their heads with its flood light pouring on them made Jim’s heart skip a beat. So much time had lapsed since the four had taken off, in spite of the activity of Joe and Carp, that the Flying Buddy had begun to feel confident that the danger of pursuit was passed, but now he knew that he had reckoned prematurely and his greatest anxiety was for the woman who was crouching in terror beside him. Mechanically he put out his hand to assure himself that her safety strap held her firmly and he knew that her parachute was properly adjusted. Without moving in his own seat he pressed the button that signaled for the attention of the two men in the rear cock-pit, and in a moment he heard Arto’s voice in his ear.
“We are here,” the man said tensely.
“Strapped tight?”
“Si, senor.”
“Good. Chutes on?”