The little ship skimmed over the station wagon and started to climb in a wide arc.
“You think it’s a scout plane from one of the road stations?” Jerry said anxiously.
“I don’t know,” Sandy replied, trying to keep one eye on the road and the other on the circling plane. “It looks as if he’s coming back again.” Gratefully, he noted that they were approaching a less treacherous section of highway.
Once more they heard the little plane gunning its motor at top speed as it flew up behind them. As it passed over them, a small round hole appeared, as if by magic, at the top of their windshield.
For a moment they were too stunned to react, then Jerry yelled, “They’re shooting at us!”
With an unintelligible oath, Tagish Charley whirled in the seat and reached back through the curtain partition into the rear of the truck. “Stop!” he told Sandy as he pulled out his hunting rifle.
As Sandy brought the lumbering vehicle to a skidding halt at the side of the road, he saw that the station wagon had pulled up also, and the three geologists were piling out frantically.
Tagish Charley motioned to a patch of timber about a hundred yards away. “Go—fast.” The three of them floundered through knee-deep drifts as the engine roar of the plane built up in their ears.
“Down!” Charley bellowed. “Flat!” As the boys flattened out, the Indian turned, dropped to one knee and threw the rifle to his shoulder. He squeezed off two shots, leading the plane as if it were a wild duck. In return, a fusillade of shots from the plane kicked up the snow all around them.
“Those guys really mean business!” Jerry yelled as they scrambled to their feet and ran for the woods again.