CHAPTER XVIII—THE AEROPLANE PURSUIT
“But ain’t you a-goin’ to let me ride over and tell the boss what’s happened?” complained Alkali Joe, after Frank had in as few words as possible explained just what he and Andy meant to do; and while this was taking place his cousin had slipped into the house to secure the coveted guns, the value of which they knew only too well after that excitement over the bear hunt.
“You never could make it, Joe,” said Mrs. Ogden decisively, “chances are you’d give that leg a wrench on the way, and just faint from the pain. Besides, it would be a crying shame to let a wounded man gallop all day long nearly, or even for a few hours. I’d sooner ride myself than let you try it.”
“How about you, Charley Woo; can you ride a pony, and follow as plain a trail as the bunch left behind them?” asked Frank, turning to the Chinaman.
Charley Woo nodded his head so violently that his dangling queue looked like an animated rope hanging down his back. He removed his hands with their long fingernails, from the wide sleeves of the jacket he wore.
“Sure tling, Flank!” he exclaimed eagerly, delighted it seemed to have such confidence reposed in him; “him know where Mistah Withasploon camp las’ night; been samee place much many tlimes ’long with him. Go there light away, fast as Joe, he pony run. Tell when, that all.”
Alkali opened his mouth to object to his favorite cayuse being ridden by another than himself, and a miserable “Chink” at that; then he shut his teeth hard together as he remembered what it all meant, and how foolish he would be to throw any obstacle in the way of the rescue of the little sunbeam that had been the idol of the ranch for some years now.
Frank himself hurried off to rope the pony in the corral. He had learned how to do this almost as well as any of the cow punchers themselves; and quickly made his reappearance leading the mount that had played havoc with his master’s limb when he failed to detect the gopher hole in the trail. The little animal was showing all the signs of anger at being caught by anyone other than the master he acknowledged, but Frank had no time to waste, and had handled him without gloves. Charley Woo did not seem to be one whit afraid because the pony snorted and tried to bite him when he approached. Watching his chance, when all was ready, the nimble Chinaman made a flying leap for the saddle that would have done credit to Alkali Joe himself. He had a quirt in his hand, secured by a stout buckskin thong to his wrist; and no sooner did he clutch the bridle than he brought this leather torment down upon the horse’s heaving flank with a vicious smack.
At the same instant Frank released his grip, and away the pony flew, the huddled figure of the Chinaman dressed in his white, flapping garments, on his back, with his long queue flying out behind like a rope.
“He’s headed straight to begin with,” said Andy, with a sigh of relief.
“Charley Woo is all right,” declared Frank, “and sooner or later he’ll get to where Mr. Witherspoon is camped, to carry him the news.”
“He will if that pony don’t play some smart trick on him,” muttered Alkali Joe, frowning. “You orter let me try it, Frank; I’m tough as knots, and I reckon I’d a-stood it.”
“You get back to your bed as fast as you can, Joe,” returned Frank. “Right now, perhaps you’ve put back the knitting of that bone, and it may have to be set all over again when Mr. Witherspoon gets a chance to look at it. Come along, Andy, we’ve got our job laid out for us.”
Joe still leaned against the hitching rail, and looked longingly after the Bird boys. From the gloom on his dark face, and the twitching of the muscles around his mouth, it could be plainly seen that the puncher was taking his misfortune with a bad grace; and that he thought himself the most badly used fellow inside of fifty miles; all because he had not been allowed to make that mad dash of twenty or more miles in a broiling sun, with a broken leg dangling uselessly at his side; and had to suffer the mortification of seeing a “heathen Chinee” gallop away on his pony. It must have been a cruel experience for Alkali Joe, and one that he would not soon forget either.
Meanwhile the two young aviators hurried over to the frame building that Mr. Witherspoon had had erected before their coming, and which was to be used as a hangar for their precious biplane.
“How lucky, Frank that you overhauled the motor only yesterday,” remarked Andy, as they reached the wide doors of the shed which, upon being thrown open would allow of the aeroplane being wheeled out to where they usually started off.
“I was just thinking that myself,” replied the other.
“Just like you seemed to believe we might have a sudden call for service,” went on Andy.
“Hardly that,” Frank sent back over his shoulder, as he dove inside the building, “you know my maxim is to be ready always, for you never know when the emergency is going to jump out at you. These things nearly always drop down like a bolt of lightning from a clear sky.”
“That’s right, Frank. But there’s nothing wrong here, is there?”
“Doesn’t seem to be,” and Frank, who had hurriedly moved about from one side of the aeroplane to the other, sighed with relief, and so loud that Andy heard him.
“But you were afraid there might be, own up now, Frank?” he exclaimed, quickly.
“Well, I didn’t know but that Jose might have made his way in here last night and damaged the biplane. He sure would if he’d known how we could use it to chase after him, five times as fast as he could go on his pony. You know how easy it is to put such a thing out of commission, Andy. And Jose must have been prowling about here while we were asleep.”
“Wonder how it was Tige didn’t scent him, and give him a chase?” remarked Andy, referring to the faithful watch dog that as a usual thing, played the part of sentinel over the ranch house, when the night grew old, and every inmate slept.
“Which reminds me that we haven’t seen the old fellow this morning, Andy.”
“Great governor! that’s a fact!” exclaimed the other, excitedly. “Say, I wouldn’t put it past that yellow-faced Mexican kidnapper to poison poor old Tige. When they come to look, chances are they’ll find him lying stiff in his kennel.”
“But we’ve got no time to talk that over now, Andy,” said the other. “Lend a hand and we’ll trundle the thing out to the starting place. Plenty of gasolene aboard, you know, because I filled the reserve tank yesterday, thank goodness. Here comes Mrs. Ogden with a package in her hand.”
“Bet you I know what she’s got!” exclaimed Andy; “thinks we might get lost somewhere out on the desert, and she’s made us up a lot of grub to carry along. Wait till I look and see if there’s plenty of water in that jug I fixed to the back of the seat. Yes, brimful, I’ll tie the guns here. Wait for me just three minutes, won’t you, Frank? I’m going back to the house.”
“What notion have you got in your head now, Andy?” demanded the other a little impatiently.
“We ought to have the glasses, you know,” came back to him.
“You’re right, and it was a good thing you thought of them,” called Frank, only too well pleased to commend his chum for a thing of this kind.
Andy fairly ran at top speed toward the house, and plunged in through the open door, not wanting to waste a second more than could be helped. He was back again at the hangar before the time allowance he had given himself had expired; and so on arriving found that Frank had made all other preparation necessary, so that there was now nothing to prevent their immediate start.
“Oh! how I will pray that you get back our little darling safe and unharmed!” the housekeeper called out to them, as they were taking their places.
“Tell Mr. Witherspoon when you see him that we mean to do everything we can to bring little Becky back home,” Frank said, as his last words.
“And look up poor old Tige,” called Andy, “just as like as not you’ll have to bury him, because he must be dead; or else chased after the boys last night.”
Frank gave the word; each of them had a part to do in the successful starting of the aeroplane; as the little motor burst into a merry song they found themselves commencing to move slowly along the level ground. Faster and faster grew the pace until Frank, deeming that the time had come to mount upward, changed the planes, and immediately the clever flier left the ground, rising gradually until he felt able to increase the speed, and climb upward in spirals.
The first thing that seemed advisable in Frank’s mind was to get some sort of bird’s-eye view of the surrounding country.
Of course he and Andy had done considerable moving about in all directions since first coming to Arizona, so that Frank already had a pretty fair knowledge of the vicinity. But with the glasses to help out, he hoped to be in a position to discover several things.
“Get busy, Andy, and see what you can glimpse,” he remarked, after they had succeeded in mounting upward to a considerable distance.
“I’ve already sighted Charley Woo,” replied the other.
“I hope then he’s going right along,” remarked Frank, anxiously, for his attention had to be confined almost exclusively to the working of the aeroplane, and on this account he must depend on his chum to tell him what was happening.
“Oh!” Andy hastened to reply, “he’s still hanging to Joe’s cayuse like a flea, and as far as I can see, whooping it up at the liveliest pace ever. But I’m looking away beyond him to find out if I can see the boys.”
“Well, how about it?” asked the other.
“Wait till we swing around again, and I’ll tell you.”
They were by now high enough to afford quite an extended view in every direction. Frank’s eyes had sought the south whenever he had a chance to take them for a second or two from his work; but Andy was leveling the glasses in almost an opposite quarter.
“There! I’ve just glimpsed a lot of small objects moving this way and that,” he announced suddenly, “which I take it are cattle, with the punchers rushing them wherever they want. But they’re a whole heap of miles away, Frank. Guess they see us by now, and expect we’re going to sail up that way. Perhaps they’ll wonder to watch us turn right around and go off to the south. Is it really necessary, Frank? Couldn’t we run up there and let them know?”
“What would be the use?” returned his cousin. “They could never catch Jose, mounted on their ponies, and him with all that start. Why, I’m only afraid he’ll be able to cross over into Mexico before we get up with him, for all our swiftness with our humming motor. And minutes are apt to count big in this game, Andy, so I say we’d better not lose any time running over there, and then going down to let them know what’s happened. Charley Woo is on the job, and he’ll get there sooner or later with the news.”
And so Andy said nothing more along those lines.