Jimmy glanced at the advancing islanders and played for time.
“What’s the big idea?” he asked, trying to appear calm, though his heart was beating a tattoo against his ribs.
“I just put a connecting-rod through my crankcase,” growled the man.
“Then you want to be ferried ashore,” said Jimmy. “Just as soon as I speak to these men I’ll take you. I’ve got a package for them.”
The man raised his pistol. His face was black as a thunder cloud. “If you know when you’re well off, kid,” he snarled, “you’ll do what I tell you. Hop off and hop off quick, or I’ll drill you full of holes and fly your old crate myself.” Jimmy saw that he was in a tight place. He swung about and hopped off. He headed straight back for Smithville.
“Turn her in the opposite direction,” growled the man, “and just keep going.”
CHAPTER XIV
Taking Help to Marooned Islanders
Jimmy obeyed the command with alacrity. There was nothing else to do. In a moment he was flying on precisely the same course he had followed in coming to the island from Smithville. Soon he was beyond Duck Island and heading for Prince Edward, that great, bold Canadian peninsula that thrusts out far into the lake. A long point of land reached straight out toward Duck Island. Jimmy could see this point easily, for it was hardly more than a dozen miles in an air-line. At some distance from the end of this point were small islands, and they were almost in Jimmy’s line of flight. Five or eight minutes of flying would take him to land again, so he had no apprehensions about the short flight over this reach of open lake.
But Jimmy wasn’t at all comfortable in his mind about other aspects of the situation. If the bootlegger wanted simply to be carried across to Canada because his own plane had gone bad, that was one thing. Jimmy didn’t in the least object to ferrying a man over a dozen miles of lake—even a bootlegger—if the man was in trouble. But would that be the end of the matter?