The discussion of details, quickly though the latter had been arranged, had consumed several minutes. Dusk was deepening. Jumping into the leading taxi, Captain Cornell seated himself beside the driver, a position which fortunately would put him next to the car ahead. The boys were in the rear compartment, Jack crouching by the door and ready to throw it open and leap out at the crucial moment.
In such tense moments, it is emotion, not reason, which sways one. Certainly, Jack was in the grip of strong emotion. Certainly, the others were, too, as they bore down upon the car ahead. But how different in every case! Jack was filled with rage bordering upon despair as he thought of the possibility that Rafaela might have come to harm through the machinations of Ramirez. His whole idea was to lay hands on Ramirez at the earliest possible moment and to choke the truth out of him, to force him to confess where he had hidden Rafaela, if he or his lieutenants had stolen her from her home during her father’s absence. To none of the others, except Rafaela’s father, no, not even to Jack’s two comrades, did the affair appear in the same light as to him. They likewise were stirred by emotions, but only such as are incident to men hunting a criminal, in whose evil-doing their own personal fortunes or the fortunes of dear ones are not involved.
Only a very brief space of time was required to cover the ground intervening between the last halting place and the field of action, and, before the two taxis closed on the car ahead, the big car from the aviation field, under command of Jack Hannaford, swung into the intervening cross street. Mr. Hampton, who was among its occupants, shook his head as he lost sight of his son. He knew, if nobody else did, how Jack was shaken emotionally.
Hannaford pointed and, at his accompanying word of command, the young aviator at the wheel swung the car to the curb. Then the grizzled old Texan and the aviator—it was young Harincourt who had been detailed to this task—leaped out. Quickly he outlined his plan.
They were at the mouth of an alley running along the rear of Doctor Garfield’s house. Hannaford and young Harincourt would enter the house from the rear. Mr. Hampton, Mr. Temple and Don Ferdinand were to keep guard at the alley’s mouth. If Ramirez escaped Hannaford and came down the alley, it would be their job to pot him. Don Ferdinand, raging, protested. He wanted to be in the forefront.
“Two’s enough,” said Hannaford brusquely. “More would git in their own way. You stay here. Come on, lad.”
And with Harincourt at his heels, the old ex-Ranger darted up the deserted narrow alley, in which the shadows were deepening at the near approach of night, as briskly as a boy.
Mr. Hampton shook his head in admiration, a little smile on his lips.
“A tough breed,” he commented.
In the meantime, up the shadowy street in front of the house, with its air of Sabbath calm, sped the two taxis, while peal on peal of bells from the tower of a nearby church floated down on the still air. What irony, thought Jack, church bells and he and his comrades speeding on such a mission! Yet their mission was of the best, he comforted himself.