"You'll be hauled over the coals for this!" threatened Ferral.
Carl had been on the point of saying something, but off toward the west and south, over the stern of the sailboat, he beheld an object that amazed him and aroused a faint hope.
The object seemed to hang in the sky like a black cylinder. It was the Hawk, there could be no possible doubt about that, but was the Hawk sailing out over the lake or merely traveling over the City of Chicago? So far away was it that Carl could not tell whether it was coming or going. Could it be possible that Motor Matt was bringing the air ship in the direction of the Christina? It seemed too much of a coincidence to be true, and yet it was hardly stranger than the circumstances which had enveloped Ferral in the net spread by the two Bradys.
Carl, although the discovery of the air ship stretched his nerves to tightest tension and filled him with fluttering hope, kept the news of his discovery to himself. If the Hawk was really heading lakeward, Brady, if he knew it, might realize the possibilities of escape which it would afford the two boys and take measures to keep the Christina away from the air ship.
"No one is going to be hauled over the coals, Ferral," said Brady. "When we put you ashore, it will be in a place from which it will take you a good long while to get back to Chicago. Before you get back, I'll have a man buy the Hawk, and I and my friends will make a quick getaway to parts unknown. The Hawk means liberty for me, for I can't dodge around on the ground and keep clear of the police much longer. Are you going to hand that money over, or have we got to take it away from you?"
Shifting his sheath knife to his left hand, Ferral drew the roll of bills from his pocket and stowed it snugly in the breast of his blue shirt.
"If you get this money you'll have to take it," said he defiantly, "and if that two-faced sea cook you say is your son comes too close to me, I'll get him on the point of this dirk."
Covertly, Carl was watching the round swaying speck in the heavens. That it was round, proved that he was looking toward the end of the gas bag, which, seen lengthwise, would have been of cigar-shaped proportions; and the fact that the object was growing larger by swift degrees, proved that it was coming closer to the sailboat.
"Enough of this foolishness," scowled Brady, drawing a revolver and leveling it at Ferral over the end of the cabin. "Take that money out of your shirt and throw it this way. If you make a miss throw and land it in the lake, I'll plug you for that just as quick as I would for not throwing it at all. It's up to you," he added warningly, "and I'm not going to wait all day."