“Then we’ve got to fight!” said Tom. “All right, if they want that they can have it! Get out the guns, Ned!” he cried. “Peltok, you man the ammonia tubes. Hartman, you——”
“Wait a minute!” advised Peltok. “I think if we drive the machine on her wheels in the direction of these bandits they may scatter. They are not as intelligent as the Yellow Gypsies. We can run on land with only one motor. It will be better than starting a fight, for it will take only a few bullets to damage the machine beyond repair.”
“That’s right,” agreed Tom. “But do you think we can bluff ’em?”
“It’s worth trying,” Peltok answered. “I’ll give them a word of warning!”
He leaned out of the pilot house window and shouted something which, as Ned said later, sounded like the back fire of an auto. The oncoming Chinese, none of whom were mounted, halted and talked among themselves.
“I told them,” said Peltok to Tom, “that you would mow them down as a typhoon mows down a rice field if they did not scatter.”
“What did they say?”
“They expressed some doubts, but I have them frightened. If you’ll start the machine and open the cut-out so the muffler isn’t working, I think they’ll run.”
“Better that than shooting them,” declared Tom.
It did not take long to start the land motor, and when the engine was warmed up Tom opened the cut-out, and such a staccato, rapid series of explosions resulted as to make it sound like a battery of machine guns in action.