CHAPTER XX—WHAT ANDY SAW FROM ALOFT
“No false alarm this time, eh, Andy?” asked Frank, quickly.
“I think not,” came the ready response.
“Ponies again?” queried the pilot, as he steadied the quivering biplane by a little movement that had become second nature with both young aviators; just as a boy rider on a bicycle unconsciously bends his body at just the proper angle when about to whirl around a curve in the road.
“Yes,” the other replied.
“And riders too, this time, I hope?” Frank went on.
“I’m dead sure of it, because there are two horses, and they’re running along side by side, Frank.”
“That looks more like it; and I want to say it’s about time we struck some good warm scent about now. That Jose had been going at a mad pace ever since the start, and the poor little girl, how I pity her, Andy.”
“But however in the wide world d’ye suppose she could stick on a pony through it all?” the boy with the glasses asked, wonder in his voice, as he continued to keep watch upon the far distant moving objects which he had discovered, thanks to the magnifying qualities of the powerful lens.
“Oh! there’s only one answer to that, my boy,” answered Frank. “Jose must have tied her to the pony. And even at that I feel mighty sorry for the little thing, for it must have been a terrible run, all these hours.”
“The inhuman scoundrel!” growled Andy, almost savagely. “I’d just like to see him get what’s coming to him, if the boys ever lay hands on him.”
“Well,” observed Frank, “I wouldn’t say that, until we find out how Becky’s stood the long ride. If he’s been cruel to her besides, then I’d be inclined to say what you did; but there’s always the chance that the man really wants to have possession of his own child; for he’s her father, we’ve got to remember.”
“Yes, but think of all we’ve heard from the boys at the ranch about how badly he treated Mr. Witherspoon’s niece, after running away with her, and marrying her. You needn’t tell me, Frank, that such a man is going to care anything for his own child. Like enough he hates Becky, just because she looks like the wife he treated so bad. And I’m ready to believe he’s doing this right now, not to get possession of his own, but to strike a blow at Uncle Jethro, because he hates him so.”
“I’m not saying that it isn’t so, because all things point that way,” Frank continued. “But how are we coming on now, Andy?”
“Drawing up on them by degrees; but I notice that you’ve cut off more’n a little power, Frank, and that we’re not rushing along as fast as we were. Tell me, what have you done that for?”
“Well, you see, now that we’ve sighted our game there’s no need of rushing things at racehorse speed. We’d better go along a little slower, and try to get the lay of things in our minds before we drop down, and surprise Mr. Jose Sandero,” was the way the aeroplane pilot made reply.
There was little of the haphazard about Frank. As a general rule he had a reason for everything he did; and each move was carefully considered beforehand.
Not that he could not do things with lightning-like rapidity when there was actual need for haste, because he had frequently surprised even quick moving Andy on occasions; but the chances were he had thought out all the results of the action before the occasion for it came about.
And the beauty of the relationship between the two Bird boys lay in this fact, that Andy recognized his cousin’s superiority of judgment, and rarely, if ever, questioned his decision.
This did not mean that Andy was merely an “echo,” for that would be a wrong view to take of the case; he had a mind of his own, and often Frank was only too glad to ask his advice when a little in doubt himself. But when two fellows keep company a long time as chums, they gradually come to know each other “from the ground up,” as Andy would express it; and one of them just naturally forges a little to the front as the leader.
In the case of the Bird boys it happened to be Frank, that was all.
As they kept on advancing after the moving figures, Andy would from time to time continue to make some remark, as he looked through the glasses; so that in this way Frank was posted on how things were going.
Even though he cast an occasional glance ahead on his own account, as yet he had not been able to exactly locate the fugitives. This might partly be on account of the smallness of two ponies at such a distance; and then again the glare of the sun, far up in the heavens, in spite of the early hour, was very strong on the desert sand.
There was one thing that Frank was pretty positive about; he believed that the fugitive Mexican could hardly as yet have discovered what was coming after him. To his naked eye the aeroplane would hardly be noticed at all; or if it did accidentally catch his attention, he would believe that it was merely some buzzard, or perhaps a great bald eagle floating in space far up in the blue expanse of sky.
If he looked back at all he would be more apt to confine his anxious gaze to the level horizon, for it would be there an enemy was apt to appear; no sane man could dream of an attack from above, since aeroplanes have not yet become so common as to be recognized by everyone.
And so the pursuit went on.
Andy seemed deeply engrossed in his business of “keeping tab” on the movements of those so far in front.
Presently he began to notice that Frank was doing something to effect a change in their relative positions.
“Are you going down now?” Andy demanded a little fearfully, as though he could not understand why such a move should be in order. “Better now, than later on,” returned the pilot. “We’re too high up to be able to make any sort of landing when we want to. Besides now that you’ve got track of Jose, there’s really no need of keeping to this high elevation.”
“Then after you bring the biplane down to a lower level, we can just rush things, if we think it best, is that it, Frank?”
“My notion to a dot, Andy.”
They were already circling around, so as to descend in the safer “spirals.” Frank would not take the great risk of volplaning when the other way answered just as well, and at one-tenth the chance of accident.
Andy managed to keep his eyes on the distant ponies pretty much all the time the aeroplane was dropping in those immense circles, each one lower in the grand spiral than the preceding one.
“They’re gaining some on us, Frank!” he finally announced, regretfully, as if he just could not bear the thought.
“Oh! that’s a mere nothing,” declared his cousin, cheerfully; “and I wouldn’t bother my head over it, if I were you, Andy. Why, when we get to where I want to go, all I’ve got to do is to put on speed, and we’ll make that up in three shakes of a lamb’s tail. What are two or three miles to a wonder of the air that can, if hard pushed, clip along at the rate of a hundred an hour, and perhaps that is far from the capacity of a reliable biplane with a favorable wind.”
As usual Frank managed to cheer his chum up immediately.
“Sure, you’re about right, Frank, and I was silly to let it bother me. But seems as if we ought to be down nearly far enough. If there were any trees here we’d be only a couple of hundred feet or so above their tops. And whew! Frank, I can feel the heat of that desert easy enough now, even while we’re moving along like we are.”
“It’s all over now, and I don’t mean to go down any further. Tell me if you can still see Jose and the little girl, Andy?”
“Yes, I can see the ponies moving like crabs away off there; and I’m taking it for granted that the ones we’re chasing after are mounted on the same, Frank. Oh! wouldn’t it be a terrible disappointment now, if after we got up close we found we’d been bamboozled, and that these were only a couple of Indians, or Mexicans going back home after trading in some American town?”
“There’s always a little chance that way,” Frank admitted, “but all the same I don’t believe we’re going to be disappointed. Traders would hardly strike across this desert, you understand. It’s a bad place to get lost in, and mighty unpleasant traveling at the best. Few people cross it, they said at the ranch. Once in a while some Indians wander down here from their reservation in the northern end of the State. You know the Navajos used to be in this region, and the Comanches too, I was told, before the Government rounded them up, and gave them lands up there, besides paying them a big sum every year in money and supplies.”
“I wonder——” began Andy, and then stopped, while he screwed his eyes still closer to the ends of the twin tubes of the marine glasses.
“What’s the matter now?” asked Frank, realizing that in all probability Andy had made some fresh discovery.
“Frank, there’s sure something moving over beyond where Jose and Becky are plodding along. I can see several dots, and they have life to them, too! It looks for all the world to me as if a pack of wolves might be lying in wait for the ponies—half starved wolves maybe, crazy for a chance to pull them down, and make a meal.” “Wolves,” repeated the other, thoughtfully; “it would be hard for me to believe such animals would ever be found in the middle of this sandy desert, where they’d never find a bite of food in a year, and not a drop of water. You must be mistaken, Andy; look again, won’t you, please?”
Nevertheless the suggestion appeared to influence Frank so that he again sent the aeroplane ahead at full speed; and Andy had a little difficulty in keeping his glasses steady when leveling them, such was the constant vibration of the uprights, under the full force of the powerful little Kinkaid engine.
But it was so much in sympathy with his own desire to get ahead that Andy was willing to put up with almost any trouble. He knew instinctively from the feel of the biplane that they were now speeding.
A minute later, and he gave another exclamation.
“Frank, I saw something flash just then; and as sure as you live I believe it must have been the sunlight glistening on steel, just like it might be a gun barrel or a knife!”
“Do you mean that you saw it ahead of Jose, and among the crawling objects you thought were wolves?” demanded the other. “Yes, yes, there it is again, Frank!”
“Well, that settles one thing then—they’re hardly wolves, Andy; for I never yet heard of such animals carrying either guns or knives, did you?”
“They’re spreading out, Frank, just like they were lying in wait for Jose. And while it looks queer from up here why doesn’t he discover them, I suppose that’s because they’re hiding behind some sand hills,” Andy went on to say.
“But you don’t think any longer that they can be wolves, do you, Andy?”
“Not much,” the other replied. “We’re getting closer all the time, and now I can see that they must be walking on two legs; though for that matter they seem to be sprawled out pretty much all of the time, like great toads, hopping this way and that. And Jose, he don’t know what’s waiting for him, not one little bit.”
“Then he’s still going on, is he?” asked Frank.
“Yes, and now I can see that each pony has a rider; why, Frank, we’re bearing down on them so fast that I can tell Jose from little Becky. It’s her, all right, Frank. Don’t I see her hair flying out behind as she rides. Oh! the meanness of that skunk making that little child gallop across this red-hot desert, just to save himself from being caught by our boys.”
“Well, you could hardly blame him for that,” Frank went on to say, with a touch of humor in his voice, “because what a bunch of furious cow punchers wouldn’t do to him you could say in one breath. But tell me, how does it look now?”
“They’re getting mighty close to where the men are waiting, Frank. Whoever do you suppose they can be?”
“We’ve heard a lot about that Mexican cattle rustler, Carlos, since we’ve come to the ranch; perhaps, now, these may be some of his crowd. They’ve got no love for the Double X Ranch boys, you remember; and if they think Jose and the child belong there, it’s going to go hard with them. But you see we don’t know all about it yet. Take a closer look, Andy.”
“Yes, I’ve got the lot in focus,” muttered the other.
“Do you see any feathers about them—examine their heads, and tell me,” Frank went on to say.
“Feathers!” ejaculated Andy, in astonishment, “why what in the wide world would—say, Frank, do you have an idea that they may be Indians?” “Well, I heard your uncle say that once in a while they’ve seen a squad of the reds down this way, sort of escaped from their reservation, and trying to see how it feels to be wild again. How about those feathers, Andy?”
“Why, there does seem to be something queer about the heads of those chaps, I give you my word there is, Frank. Honest now, I believe you’ve struck it right, and that they are Indians, but Frank, would they hold Jose up, and perhaps take his scalp, just like in the old days?”
“If so be they’ve been indulging in too much firewater. I wouldn’t put even that past them,” the other boy answered, soberly.
“Well,” added Andy, with a shutting of his teeth; “I’m glad of one thing, then.”
“What’s that?” questioned the other.
“That we brought our bully old Marlins along, Frank!” was the quick response Andy made.