"Now you boys have got the bearings I gave you. You can easy enough find the landing field, even in the darkness. It's a big meadow as flat as a table, with the ranch house and outbuildings in a clump at one end, an' the radio station with its big tower supporting the antenna at t'other. Both places will be all lighted up, for Calomares lives like one o' them old-time barons an' he's always got so many men around the place he needn't fear nobody, so why put out lights? He likes light. He's a bug on it, in fact."
"Suits me," said Bob. "That gives me some beacons to go by."
From the foregoing it will be seen that the boys had changed materially their original plan of riding in as adventure-seeking American youths to enlist in the rebel forces, and wait their chance to effect the rescue of Mr. Hampton. As matters now stood. Bob and Jack were to land in the airplane, and while Bob stayed by it, Jack was to make his way to the room where his father was held prisoner, free him, and guide him back to the airplane, when they would fly for the border.
Of course, the plan would not be so easy of execution as it sounded. To find the ranch and make a safe landing would be a fairly easy task. The ranch was not more than fifty miles distant by air line, and in that sparsely habited country there would be no other similar group of lights to puzzle Bob. Once they had alighted, however, the difficulties would be encountered.
At first the boys had considered the advisability of waiting until a late hour to make their attempt. Rebel headquarters then would have retired for the night, and they would run less danger of encountering anybody on landing. In that event, however, they soon realized, ranch and radio station alike would be dark and Bob would have no beacons to guide him to a landing.
No, there was only one thing to do, and that was to arrive at an early hour. Moreover, there would be this advantage attached, namely, that sentries would be lax and that, with many persons coming and going in and about the ranch, the passage of a familiar figure, such as they would take Jack to be, would arouse no comment. Jack might be halted, of course, by some one desirous of conversation. But he could make some excuse to pass on. As a matter of fact he planned to wrap a handkerchief about his jaw and pretend to be suffering from toothache. This would serve the double purpose of partially hiding his features, and of excusing him from indulging in extended speech.
"All right," said Jack, finally, as he finished donning his disguise by clapping Morales' hat on his head. "Let's go."
"Ya, ya," said Bob, doing a goosestep. Once more they all had a good laugh. Then Bob and Jack walked into the outer room of the cave, followed by Frank and Roy Stone. Stone had thrown caution to the winds, and had decided not to try any longer to hide his defection from Morales and Von Arnheim.
"I'll soon be riding away from here with you, anyhow," he told Frank. "And they'll find out then, if they haven't already suspected. I'm going down to the airplane to see the kids off."
Frank had demanded this privilege of going down to the valley and seeing Bob and Jack get away, and the others had no thought of denying him. So all four, bearing the oil torches kept in the cave by Stone for the purpose of lighting the landing field at night, descended from the cave. Tom Bodine was left to guard the two prisoners.