“Jim, you’ll be killed!”
“I’ll not. Besides, what of it? You can’t let the defenseless be murdered. In a country like this dogs are your best friends. They’re chained. Can’t you see?”
Feeling the grip on his arm loosen, he sprang away into the dark.
Standing there erect, motionless, she tried to look away into the blackness of the night. At the same time a warm feeling crept in about the portals of her heart as she whispered to herself:
“It can’t be Jim! Oh, no! It can’t be Jim!” She was thinking of the thief, the one who had stolen those priceless films.
An instant later she, too, seized an axe and raced away to the defense of her four-footed friends.
* * * * * * * *
The mysterious gray plane which Curlie Carson, with characteristic promptness of decision, had resolved to follow, sailed straight away into the east.
Jerry, the one who sat beside him, was, Curlie thought, a strange fellow in many ways. He was a mechanic, and a good one. Self educated, he thought all day long of bolts and nuts, pliers, wrenches, spark plugs, valves and all else that goes to make up an airplane motor. He was, apparently, quite fond of his youthful pilot. His answer to any suggested course of action was always the same, “Absolutely.”
“Will he stick in a pinch?” the boy asked himself. “If need be, will he fight?” He believed so.