The sight roused Bill, who dashed forward to intercept it. He had almost reached the machine when it bounded upward and glided beyond his grasp. The delighted Harvey tossed the gun toward him, and in a rage at his slip Bill snatched the weapon from the ground and shouted:
“Stop or I’ll shoot!”
His action and movement of the lips told the young aviator the substance of the threat, and with a tantalizing gesture he called back:
“Shoot and be hanged!”
Bill was in a savage mood and brought the gun to his shoulder. He aimed carefully, and with the brief distance between the two could hardly have missed had the weapon been in order; but we recall that the hammers were broken, to say nothing of the lack of a full charge in the barrels. Either would have been sufficient to save the fleeing aviator, who having set the machine going, looked round to watch his enemy.
He saw him suddenly lower the gun and then fling it angrily to the ground. No doubt his chagrin was intensified by the remembrance of the chance he had let pass when the youth was really at his mercy. He shook his fist at Harvey, who was now a hundred feet above the ground and going at moderate speed.
In that hurried scrutiny, however, the aviator made a disquieting discovery. Two of the remaining young men were invisible. Doubtless they had dived into the wood in pursuit of the panic-stricken Bohunkus, who of necessity was left in a most dangerous situation. Harvey had been compelled to desert him for the time, though he was the last person in the world to abandon a friend in trouble. How to save him from the vengeance of the baffled party was a serious question.
“If there were only one chasing him,” thought Harvey, “I shouldn’t care a fig, for Bunk has already proved himself his master, but he will be helpless against four or even two, and it looks as if he will have three at least to fight.”
The problem was a puzzling one. The flight of the colored lad was so sudden that he and Harvey had not been able to exchange a word. A few sentences would have effected an understanding. His friend would have told him to make his way to the nearest town and there wait until he could hunt him out and take him aboard again. Moreover, among Bunk’s accomplishments was a remarkable fleetness of foot. He could have continued his flight through the wood into the open country and gained enough advantage to offer Harvey the opportunity of picking him up before his enemies interfered.
But it was useless to speculate, since all this was out of the question. Having ascended some three hundred feet, Harvey began slowly circling around, with just enough speed to hold the elevation. He returned so as to hover directly over the head of Bill, who still stood alone on the edge of the wood closely watching him. Thus the situation remained for several minutes, during which Harvey Hamilton met with one of the narrowest escapes of his life.