While it seemed improbable that a captive like Grace Hastings would have been permitted anything in the nature of freedom at so critical a time, the detective decided to act upon the statement.
“Lead the way, Pierotti; I shall walk behind you; if you try to slip off, or I find you have deceived me, look out!”
CHAPTER XXX.
THE RESCUE.
Harvey Hamilton was anything but pleased over the actions of Detective Pendar in dashing off as he did without a word of explanation. He expected to accompany him, and would have followed but through fear of offending his friend. The youth could not forget that he possessed nothing in the nature of a weapon and was more likely to prove a hindrance rather than a help to the officer.
“He is a brave man,—a reckless one,” he reflected, “thus to rush upon a desperate gang who are armed and will stop at no crime. Hello! what does that mean?”
He had stepped down from his seat and glanced over his machine, when chancing to look up in the sky he recognized the monoplane of Professor Morgan, already near the spot where the young aviator had seen the ruined shanty not long before, with the little girl playing in front of it.
The discovery that the odd character had not wrecked his first machine, but had been the means of his securing a second with remarkable promptness, changed the resentment of the youth to the kindliest feelings toward the man. He watched the actions with fascinated interest, for the distance was so slight that everything was visible. It has been said that one of the achievements of Professor Morgan was the knack of running his monoplane with scarcely any perceptible noise. A misty, whirring object under his perch showed that the “uplifter” was doing its effective work and holding the machine motionless over the place desired.
It was far enough for the intervening forest to muffle the voices of the airman and the detective, who tried desperately to prevent his dropping the bomb which wrought such frightful havoc. In the flurry of the occasion, Harvey had not recovered his field glass from his friend, an oversight which he regretted, for it would have helped greatly in learning precisely what the Professor was doing. But his unaided eyes told him enough to suggest a shrewd guess.
“He is going to launch a bomb, and if he does, it won’t be a giant cracker, which gave those young men such a big scare the other day.”
A minute later came the tremendous report, and Harvey felt the ground tremble. A mass of smoke and flying fragments rose over the spot where the shanty had stood.