Paul smiled. “We have laid our plans very carefully,” he answered, “and we hope everything will come off all right.”
“I hope so too.”
Just then an airplane fell out of the sky and dived straight for the ground. Straightening out at about five hundred feet up, the plane circled the field several times. Wallace whispered, “That’s the same plane we told you about. We saw it land here once before. I remember it well.”
Tom Woods barked, “Keep quiet now and don’t move; we may be seen from above.”
“No chance of that, sir,” answered Paul. “From up above they can’t see a thing except the top of the trees. We had better hurry and take our positions before they land.”
With Paul in the lead, the three of them sprinted from cover to cover and took their positions. At the last moment the government agent told the boys to hurry and move away somewhere else—take some other position. If there was any shooting, he didn’t want them to be in line of fire.
The boys moved off. The plane in the meanwhile had glided down to a landing. It was quite a large, powerful ship with a double motor. Two men jumped to the ground. The one in the lead was recognized by the boys as the Chief. Very unconcernedly, the two walked across the clearing and headed directly for the cave. As they came to the edge of the woods, the chief, for no reason and without any provocation as far as it could be determined, whipped a gun out of his pocket and fired across the top of the cave. Tom Woods, who thought that he was firing at one of the boys, sent a bullet whistling past their heads. The trap which the boys had laboriously prepared and set was now a futile gesture. Whereas if they had walked into the trap as set, there would have been no bloodshed; now it seemed inevitable.
The two gangsters now dropped to the ground and sent bullets whistling in a semi-circle. To rise and dash back to their plane was suicide. They would be in the open, a clear and perfect target for Tom Woods’ bullets. On the other hand, dropping to the ground and taking shelter where they did, they forestalled being surrounded by the boys. As for the government agent, there was nothing he could do to obtain a more advantageous position. Of course, he could have one of the boys keep up a withering fire while he crept to their side or their rear. But he was against risking the life of any one of the boys.
For a while only occasional shots were exchanged. Suddenly Tom became aware that the two gangsters had devised a means of escape, if not for both, at least for one of them. The two were separating, moving further apart slowly and gradually. The agent realized that their plan was to separate a certain distance, so that one of them would keep him occupied while the other crept back to the plane. It was a clever and subtle plan and from every indication it appeared that they would succeed. They were also most probably aware that only one man faced them. Under that condition, there was nothing Tom could do that would prevent the one who got back to the plane from returning with help. Or possibly he might bring out of the plane a machine gun, and that would be enough to wipe him out. He became really worried. What could he do to prevent one of them from reaching the plane.
He determined that as long as it was possible for him to do so, he would fire alternately at both racketeers and occupy both of them. He also wondered what the boys were doing. “But,” he thought to himself, “I had better keep from thinking of anything else and concentrate my attention on those two gangsters. I’m positive the boys will be able to take care of themselves.”