“By consenting, if you feel strong enough, to take a ride with us in our aeroplane. What you told us about Alvarez makes me anxious to be off as soon as possible. If he is still in that valley we can capture him, and that will be a crushing blow to the revolutionaries.”
Jack had seen aeroplanes before, but never at as close range as this military one. It was painted a dark olive, with wings of a dull gray color, the object being to make it as inconspicuous as possible. It had a powerful six–cylinder motor and was driven by twin propellers. It was built to carry two, but there was room on a folding seat for a third passenger. Jack was told to occupy this extra seat and then Lieut. Sancho and his comrade climbed on board.
“Hold tight!” cried Lieut. Sancho as he started his engine.
Steady as Jack’s nerves usually were, he felt rather alarmed at the uproar that ensued. From the exhaust pipes of the motor smoke and flame shot viciously. The slender fabric of the aeroplane shook tremulously as the pulsations of the mighty engine racked its frame.
But suddenly another sound broke in—a sound that Jack had heard too often before not to recognize it instantly.
It was the song of a bullet—the long drawn ze–e–e–ee of a rifle projectile.
The two officers were as swift to hear the sound as Jack. Glancing up, the three beheld simultaneously a body of horsemen sweeping down on them from a range of barren–looking hills in the distance. As they rode they fired till a perfect fusilade of bullets was whistling around the aeroplane.
They were a wild–looking body of men. Most of them wore the sugar loaf or cone–peaked hat of the Mestizo, and their serapes streamed out in the breeze behind them. Dust and sweat covered their ponies, and a great cloud of gray dust enveloped them.
“Viva Alvarez!” they cried as they swept on.