The self-starter worked the second time he spun the booster magneto. The ship was already in position for the take-off. With utter recklessness he shoved the throttle full on and the ship hurled itself toward the dense blackness of the trees behind a cold motor. At the last second he zoomed the De Haviland across the menacing wall, and the matchless Liberty did its work. Half a minute later he had spotted the fugitives below, like ghosts slipping through the shadows.
He gave them one chance. The first burst from his guns was close to them, but not aimed exactly at them. Then he swooped so low he was scraping the tops of the trees, and motioned them back toward the field with his arm. They must realize that he held their lives in the palm of his hand!
They did. He saw them ostentatiously drop their guns and, with their hands in the air in token of surrender, start walking back toward the field. Apperson was waiting for them. Hemingwood rode herd on them from the air while he watched the crippled Scotchman supervise while one man tied up his fellows with safety wire from the ship.
They knew that the best they could do would be to kill Apperson—and then all succumb themselves to that withering blast of death from the air.
For the next thirty seconds Hemingwood flew as he never had before. It was a rare feat of airmanship to land his De Haviland in the darkness on that field, but he did it.
He climbed out and looked their captives over. One of them was a gaunt old man, with a gray, tobacco stained beard. Three of them seemed to be middle-aged, and there were two young fellows. One who had fallen seemed little more than a boy. Apperson was binding his wound. The bullet had drilled through his thigh. Another man was wounded in the shoulder. Neither wound was mortal.
Hemingwood was thinking hard as to his next step. Apperson’s wound was practically negligible, although he had to hobble on one foot and it drew a sigh from him every time his other foot touched the ground. Keeping those men prisoners meant a good deal of trouble and red tape. Probably the whole clan would descend on the flyers to revenge themselves if they stayed in the mountains, and very possibly there would be complications of considerable difficulty in even incarcerating them. Besides, his business was to get those pictures.
Apperson was lying on the ground, to relieve his pain. Hemingwood looked down at his captives for a moment in silent appraisal. They darted quick, fearful glances at him, like trapped animals.
“Listen, you Calleys,” he said conversationally. “You’ve tried to kill us twice. Once it was because you were afraid we were after you. That shows you’re up to something. I could have killed you all then; I wounded one of you by accident, in trying to scare you. Then you pull this. I could have killed you all again. You know that.