“Safe,” he cried, “but great heavens what a battle! That plane’s sides are bullet proof, and it rides the sky as if it owned it.”
He looked upward. All he could see above his head were the stars. These were blotted out by the rapid approach of the earth, and the peak of the high mountain passing by him.
He landed safely but what would the president of the Air Company say when he returned with this terrible and unexpected disaster to report?
CHAPTER II
The Stowaway
They were seated in the living room of President Epworth’s palatial residence in Hollywood. While the conversation was in a low tone and seemingly calm there was an air of tenseness that got on the nerves of the speakers.
“So you suggest——”
President Epworth paused, and looked interrogatingly at his nephew, Julian Epworth.
“That we send out a dummy on an alleged trip to Japan, start it secretly but with sufficient tips to permit the knowledge of its departure to circulate. With it send a small shipment of money. Let Billy Sand pilot the dummy, and I will follow in a swift scout plane equipped to cross the Pacific. If the sky bandits attack, Billy is to be instructed to offer no resistance, and I will lag behind and follow the robbers to their lair. When I return we will fall on that bunch with the entire United States army. Believe me I do not speak loosely when I say that the army will be necessary. Those bandits have the best fighting air vessel invented. They are far ahead of anything I have ever heard of in the way of air pirates.”
“And that dummy should carry——”
“Enough gold to relieve it of the suspicion that it is a plant.”