Radio Boys in the Flying Service; or, Held For Ransom by Mexican Bandits

by J. W. Duffield

The next instant a fusillade of shots came whistling over the heads of the boys, who, divining the nature of the command, had thrown themselves flat on the ground. One of the wings of the plane was clipped by a bullet but no other damage was done by the volley.

Again the car leaped forward as though the bandits had determined to take a desperate chance and plough their way through the plane. But when they were a hundred feet away, the driver seemed to lose heart and slowed down.

With a furious exclamation, the man sitting beside him struck the driver and grasped the wheel from him. In the mixup the front wheels of the car slewed violently to one side, and the car ran into a deep ditch at the side of the road where it overturned.

There was a tumult of shouts and oaths as the car went over, and at the same moment the police car came in sight around the turn. Its occupants were quick to grasp the situation, and the boys could see them rising in their seats with their weapons in their hands ready to leap.

Out from the overturned car the bandits came swarming like so many bees. An instant’s glance told them of the trap into which they had fallen. Before them was the plane behind which were at least two men, whether armed or not they could not tell. Behind them were half a dozen officers of the law, fully armed, who were already jumping from their seats and running toward them.

Their only chance lay in reaching a patch of woodland that lay a little ways back of the road. Once in its shadows some of them at least might stand a chance of eluding their pursuers.

At a command from their leader, the bandits fired a volley at the officers and then turned and ran toward the woods. A fusillade from the police revolvers followed them, and one of the robbers was shot in the foot and fell. The rest kept on, the fear of capture lending wings to their feet, and three of them reached the woods. One however, was headed off and ran into the open field where the plane had made its landing. He was fleeter than the two heavily built men who were pursuing him, and would have easily outdistanced them had not Phil taken a hand in the game.

Like a panther he was on the trail of the fugitive. The latter turned and saw him coming and redoubled his speed. There was no shaking Phil off however, and he gained rapidly. The man turned and fired at him but the bullet whizzed by harmlessly. The next instant Phil had launched himself on him and the two went to the ground together.

The fall had knocked all the breath out of the robber, and there was little fight left in him. Phil wrenched the revolver out of his grasp, and as Dick came up just then, they bound the robber’s arms together with Dick’s belt, rendering him powerless. Then they helped him to his feet and marching behind him with an occasional prod of the pistol butt in his back when he showed an inclination to balk they came to the police car, in which the wounded robber had already been placed.

“Two of them anyway,” remarked the officer in charge. “That was mighty quick and plucky work on your part, young fellow. He was getting away surely when you put out after him.”