There were surprised shouts from the bandits, and some of them started to run. A few however held their ground.
“Shave her nose right into the midst of them!” advised Peltok. “But run slow, and knock them down gently. Since the propellers are aft they will do no damage.”
So Tom, guiding the craft, put her in motion toward a knot of the scowling Chinese bandits, some of whom seemed about to fire with their antiquated guns.
But when the bandits saw the powerful craft headed straight for them and when the foremost in the line were gently but effectively bowled over, rolling out of the way of the wheels just in time to save their lives, it was too much for the spirit of the rascals.
With cackling, shrill cries they turned and fled, and in a little while the plain was cleared of them. At this Tom Swift was well pleased, for he did not wish to take life, even of a bandit, if he could avoid it.
“Might just as well keep right on with the land motor,” advised Ned when the way was clear before them. “We can get to some place better fitted to stand off an attack than we were back there. And we’ll be delayed a bit yet, sha'n’t we?”
“I’m afraid we can’t get that carburetor tuned up before to-morrow morning,” Hartman reported. He was an expert on this particular part of a gasoline motor. “It wouldn’t be a bad idea to get to some place where we’d have a hill at our backs,” he added.
“All right,” agreed Tom Swift, so he guided the craft for several miles across the treeless plain until they reached a plateau which they thought would be a good place to stop.
“Now, boys, make the best time you can on that carburetor,” begged Tom of his mechanics when they were again at rest. It was decided that it would be wiser to lay to until the repairs were completed, rather than to try to make distance by traveling on land. The Air Monarch was not at her best climbing hills.
Though the delay fretted Tom, there was no help for it, and as the afternoon wore away and nothing further occurred to disturb the party, they had visions of taking off early in the morning and heading once more through the air on their course.