He turned to Jack.
“It’s Roy Stone,” he cried. “Remember?”
Did Jack remember? A flood of memory engulfed him. All the details of that fight in the cave a good four years before came sweeping back. Mr. Hampton had been held prisoner by Mexican rebels in a stronghold in Old Sonora, across the border from New Mexico. The rebels also had stolen the airplane which was the pride of Bob and Frank, who were its joint owners. Setting out with Tom Bodine, an ex-cowboy, to rescue Jack’s father, the three boys had put up one night in a mountain cave to which Tom led them.
They found it outfitted as a radio station by the Mexican rebels. Shortly after their arrival, one of the Mexicans named Morales, a German named Von Arnheim, who was stirring up trouble on the border in the hope of embroiling the United States in war, and a young American aviator named Roy Stone, a stormy petrel, a soldier of fortune, who had cast in his lot with the rebels, arrived. More to the point, they arrived in the airplane stolen from the boys.
In the fight which followed in the dark cave, the boys and Tom Bodine had won. The three others had been made prisoners. Learning their story and realizing the Mexican rebels were being employed as pawns by Von Arnheim, to the detriment of his own country, the American Stone had swung his allegiance to the boys and had been of material aid in effecting the subsequent rescue of Mr. Hampton.
All this came back to Jack in a flash, and he wondered if he had heard Frank aright. How in the world could Frank be speaking with Roy Stone? Frank was listening in wrapt attention to whatever message was coming over the radio, and Jack could not bear the suspense. He grasped Frank by an arm.
“Are you dreaming?” he asked. “Tell me what all this is about?”
“Wait a minute, Roy, wait a minute,” Frank again said, speaking into the telephone transmitter. “Jack Hampton is here and he thinks I’m going crazy.” Then he turned to Jack with shining eyes.
“It’s Roy Stone all right enough,” he said. “He’s flying for the Spanish government, which is having one of its numerous wars with the Riff tribesmen of Morocco. At least, he’d been flying for the Spaniards but decided to quit fighting the Moors who had a better right to their own country than the Spaniards. Now he is crossing the desert to Abyssinia, where somebody told him there’s a war he could have a hand in. Anyway that’s what I gather. He was forced to descend at the Oasis Aiz-Or, and there found Amrath who told him of us. He recognized the names and wants to know if he can be of help.”
“Can be of help?” shrieked Jack. Seizing the transmitter he called into it: