With Osceola he piled into the rear cockpit. Then while, Parker taxied the plane out to mid-harbor, Bill got into his clothes. Parker snapped off the ignition and twisted around in his seat.
“Now let’s have the lowdown on this, Bill.”
Bill climbed down to the deck and gave him a short outline of the events of the day and evening. “Kind of between the devil and the deep sea, aren’t we?” he finished grimly. “Time’s more than money now. So hop in aft with the chief, and let me in the fore cockpit. I’m going to fly the bus. There ought to be a couple of repeating rifles and ammunition in the locker aft. Pass one of them out to me, will you, Osceola? Ezra can use the other. You two, stick on head-phones. While I’m driving, see if you can’t come to some decision about this Stamford business.”
As Parker climbed out of the fore cockpit and went aft, Bill hopped into the vacated pilot’s seat. A rifle and ammunition were passed to him. He made sure that the magazine was full, then pulled forth a helmet and goggles from a small locker. These he put on, cast a hurried glance aft and satisfying himself that his companions were ready for the take-off, he switched on the ignition.
Chapter XIII
PIG ISLAND AGAIN
Bill sent the amphibian roaring into the night wind, pulled her off the rippling waters of the harbor and skimming the twin bluffs at the entrance, sent his bus speeding seaward. A bank to starboard brought Pig Island dead ahead and Bill saw that the moon glare, playing on the islet, threw every detail into bold relief. On the instant he changed his plan.
Counting on the heavy cloud formation which was slowly spreading upward from the east, his first idea had been to land near the shore, and after securing the plane on one of the beaches, to rush the besiegers under cover of darkness. Now that the moonlight doomed such procedure to certain failure, he proceeded to climb.
At six hundred feet, he leveled off and sent the Loening speeding in a circle around the island. The house, a one-story bungalow, built of native stone with hollow tile roof, stood on a craggy knoll near the center of the island. Bill saw that this slight eminence held unusual factors of defense. Not only was it impossible to look down on the house from any other point on the island, but the rocky ground sloped steeply on all sides from the top of the knoll. The one bad feature of the place was the number of large boulders nature had splattered up and down the incline. Behind twelve or fifteen of these big stones and completely ringing the little fortress above them, crouched the party of armed men.
As he circled, Bill saw the flashes from the gangster’s rifles and the answering flashes from the house. He noticed that there was method in the attack, and one that was likely to succeed in the capture of the bungalow. There would come a spurt of firing from one section of the attacking group on the hill, which naturally drew the two in the house to that side in order to repel a possible assault. Immediately the men on the farther side, out of range from the house, would dash ahead to take refuge behind boulders further up the knoll. Once under new cover, they would start a fusillade which gave the men on the opposite side a chance to advance. Three of the gang kept together and every time they moved, they picked up a heavy log and carted it up to the next boulder. It was evident that once Sanders got his crew well up to the house, these men, covered by the fire of their companions, would dash forward and batter in the door with their ram.
Three bodies lying stark on the hillside bespoke the courage and straight shooting of the besieged, but the rush must come soon, and the ultimate capture of the place was inevitable. “Unless we get busy—and get busy pronto!” muttered Bill.