Bracing every muscle till they were tense as steel springs Frank made a leap for the lashing end of the ladder as it tore by him at what seemed to be terrific speed. It was about three feet above the earth. As he jumped and caught it, bracing his foot on the lowest rung, he felt the aeroplane sag down with the sudden weight.
“Open up!” he yelled to Harry, fearing that if she sagged any more the Golden Eagle might lose her equilibrium altogether. At the same instant he realized that Billy was making a desperate effort to haul himself onto the ladder also. The reporter had caught it all right but his fingers,—weakened under the tightness of his recent bonds—refused to grip it firmly. Already he had let go with one hand and was gazing with a piteous white face up at Frank.
As the welcome roar of the powerful engine came to his ears and Frank felt the good ship respond nobly to its impetus the youthful aviator reached down and seized the reporter just as Billy’s grasp was about to relax altogether. He managed with a desperate effort to haul him up till Billy’s foot rested on the lower round.
“You’ll have to let me drop, Frank, I can’t hold on any longer,” he gasped.
“Put your leg through the lower round,” commanded Frank sharply. With a last effort, that almost cost him his place on the ladder, the reporter obeyed the order and found that he had at least a chance of holding on with his leg hooked firmly over in this position.
At this moment,—and as the Golden Eagle gave a sickening leap upward that made Billy’s head swim and would undoubtedly have been the last of the reporter but for the firm grip Frank had of his arm—a shot flashed out from the camp. Instantly there was a turmoil in the place that reached the boys’ ears even above the roar of the laboring engine’s exhaust.
Lights could be seen moving rapidly about below, and shouted commands rang sharply out on the night. With the additional weight she was carrying, at an angle to which she was not accustomed,—and for which she had not been designed,—the Golden Eagle behaved erratically. Despite Harry’s most skilful handling and jockeying she refused to rise at her usual rapid pace. In fact she seemed as sluggish as a snail and yawed and lurched in a manner that swung Frank and the reporter about as if they had been suspended at the end of a pendulum.
In this urgent crisis the men in the camp perceived the unaccustomed sight of the struggling aeroplane and, shouting in Spanish, made a dash through the grove of trees into the open space above which the Boy Aviators’ craft was struggling bravely to attain the upper air.
Frank, as if in a dream, saw from his perilous perch a dozen rifles leveled at them and, in the glare of a kerosene torch, perceived Rogero hurrying about giving orders and striking men with the flat of his sword in his fury at losing his prisoner.
It seemed as if it was all over when suddenly from the car above them Harry’s clear voice rang out.