CHAPTER XIX.
ARRESTED BY AEROPLANE.
What had happened soon transpired as the men in the auto hastily jumpedout and started to rip off the shoe of a rear tire.
"I guess a cactus thorn punctured them," commented Harry.
"That's just about what happened," rejoined Frank.
"I see Wild Bill Jenkins," suddenly shouted the sheriff. He bent overand picked up one of the rifles with which the side of the chassis wasfurnished.
A hasty exclamation from Frank checked him.
"Don't shoot!" cried the boy
"Wall, stranger, if you don't beat all. The reward holds good for himalive or dead."
"Well, we can just as easily capture him alive," said Frank coolly, "andI don't want to see human life taken in that wanton manner."
The sheriff regarded him amazedly, but nevertheless put down the weapon.
"Wall, if we lose him it will be your fault," he remarked grimly.
But they were not to lose the desperado. As the aeroplane swooped toearth the sheriff hailed the auto party which comprised Luther Barr, thered-bearded man, Wild Bill Jenkins, and Fred Reade. They looked up fromtheir frenzied efforts at adjusting the tire and, surmising from theauthoritative tones of the sheriff who he must be, old Barr hailed himin a piping voice:
"We have done nothing against the law, sheriff. What do you want?"
By this time the aeroplane had come to a standstill, and the boys andtheir companion were on the ground.
"I ain't so sure about that frum what these boys told me of yer doingslast night," said the sheriff dryly; "but as they ain't got no proof onyou, I suppose we can't arrest yer. But we want one of your party--WildBill Jenkins yonder."
As he spoke there was the vicious crack of a pistol, and the sheriff'shat flew off. The man they were in search of had hidden himself behindthe tonneau of the machine, and it was he who fired the shot. Therewould have been further shooting but for the fact that at that momentold man Barr, much alarmed lest he should be implicated in theproceedings, called out:
"You had better give yourself up, Bill Jenkins. I won't protect you."
"That's because I didn't kidnap the right man for you, you oldscalliwag, I suppose, and you got my plan of the mine, too," angrilymuttered Wild Bill. "Well, I'll get even with you yet. All right,sheriff, I'll go along with you."
"Just stick up those hands of yours first, Bill, and throw that gun onthe ground," ordered the sheriff.
The bad man, realizing that there would be no use in putting up a fight,meekly surrendered, and a few seconds later he was handcuffed.
"Now, then," demanded Frank, stepping up to Luther Barr, "where is ourauto that you stole last night and where is Mr. Joyce?"
"Your auto that _we_ stole, my dear young man?" meekly inquired Barr.
"Ha! ha! ha! that's a good one," laughed Reade.
"Yes, that you stole--you or the ruffians you have chosen to make yourassociates."
"I don't know anything about that," resumed old Barr; "but I will tellyou this: two bad men, named Hank Higgins and Noggy Wilkes, _did_ bringan auto in White Willow this morning. I suspected they'd stolen itsomewhere."
"Ha!" cried the sheriff, "I want those fellows, too. Where are they?"
"How do I know, my good man?" asked Luther Barr.
"Well, if you won't tell, I've got no means of making you," rejoined thesheriff, "although I'm pretty sure you do know. By the way the boys toldme your party had two autos. Where's the other?"
"Why--why, it's gone on ahead," said old Barr, who seemed somewhat takenaback.
"Gone on ahead? Then, that's where Hank Higgins and Noggy Wilkes are,for sure," exclaimed the sheriff. "Well, it's no good chasing after themnow, besides, there's no reward for them, anyhow."
"At least, you will not be so hard-hearted as not to tell us what hasbecome of Mr. Joyce?" said Frank, seeing that it was no use to threatenold Barr, who seemed to have the upper hand just then.
"Joyce--Joyce," repeated Barr, professing to be very much puzzled. "Oh,yes, I do remember an old man of that name--one of your friends, wasn'the? Why, my dear boys, if you don't know where he is how should I?"
"Base as you have shown yourself to be, I didn't think you would carryyour wickedness to this pitch," exclaimed Frank, his fingers itching tostrike Reade, who sat by with a sneering smile on his face while hisaged companion mocked the boys.
"Come, Harry, there is no good waiting here," he went on. "We must getback to White Willow. Mr. Joyce must be there. But, mind," he exclaimed,"if any harm has come to Mr. Joyce I shall hold you responsible beforethe law for it."
Still sneering, Barr and his companions drove off.
The sheriff accepted the boys' offer to carry them through the air backto White Willow, and in a few minutes' time they were there, Wild BillJenkins, it is safe to say, being thus the first prisoner to be carriedto jail in an aeroplane. The first man they sought out in the town wasthe old inventor to whom they had sent the wireless message. They foundhim a dreamy, white-haired man, more interested in his inventions andtheir aeroplane than in the questions with which they plied him. Heinsisted, in fact, on taking them up the hillside, in which scores ofabandoned mine shafts still remained, to show them an invention he hadfor washing gold. He was in the middle of exhibiting the workings of hisdevice when the boys were startled to hear a low groan which seemed tocome from near at hand.
At first they had some difficulty in tracing it, but they finallylocated the sound as proceeding from the mouth of one of the emptyshafts.
"Who is there?" they shouted, while the old inventor stood in amazement.
"It must be the ghost of Bud Stone who fell down that shaft and waskilled," he exclaimed and started to run away.
"Who is there?" cried Frank again, leaning over the deep pit whichseemed to be of considerable depth.
"I am Eben Joyce--help me!" came a feeble cry from the regions below.
"Hold on!" shouted Frank. "Be brave, and we'll soon have you out. Areyou hurt?"
"No; but I am most dead from thirst," came the answer.
"Have you strength enough to attach a rope beneath your shoulders if welower one to you?"
"Yes--oh, yes. Oh, boys, please get me out of this terrible place."
It did not take long to get a rope and followed by half the populationof the little town, the boys made their way back to the mouth of theshaft. But here a fresh difficulty presented itself. It seemed that oldMr. Joyce had swooned. At all events he did not answer their shouts tohim.
Frank began making a noose in the rope which he slipped under his ownarmpits.
"What are you going to do?" asked Harry.
"Going down there to get the old man out," was the cool reply.
Despite Harry's protestations Frank was finally lowered over the lip ofthe black pit. It had been agreed that after he reached the bottom thattwo tugs was to be the signal that he wished to be hauled up. Prettysoon the men lowering him felt the rope slacken and knew that he hadreached the bottom of the pit. It seemed a long time before thereassuring two tugs gave them word that all was well.
But when they started to haul the boy and his unconscious burden up afresh difficulty presented itself. The rope which was already badlychafed would certainly break under the uneven hauling of the men, andalso the rough edge of the pit mouth would undoubtedly wear it throughbefore the boy and the old man had been hauled to the surface.
"Get another rope," cried Harry.
"There ain't another long enough in the camp, stranger," replied one ofthe army of rescuers.
"Here, I hev it," suddenly exclaimed the sheriff, who, by this time, hadplaced his prisoner in the town lockup and had joined the onlookers,"let's git a log of wood and use it as a roller."
"That's a good idee," was the consensus of opinion, and soon two menwere lying one at each end of a round log, over which the rope had beenrun. Then the crowd began to heave again, but although their in
tentionswere good their manner of hauling was so jerky that every tug strainedthe rope almost to breaking point.
"Ef only we had a windlass," groaned the sheriff, "we could git a good,even pull and soon hev 'em on terrible firma."
"I know what we can do!" suddenly exclaimed Harry, "we can hitch therope to the automobile and get them out."
In his excitement he had forgotten that they had not yet located theauto.
"But where is yer buzz wagon?" objected the sheriff.
"That's so," said Harry in a chagrined tone. "Where can they have hiddenit? It must be here somewhere."
"What's that, young feller?" asked a tall man in blue overalls.
"Why, our auto. Some men stole it last night and drove it here. Theystole the poor old man who is down in the pit, and brought him here init," exclaimed the excited lad. "So far as we know, it's here yet, butwe don't know whereabouts."
"Maybe I kin help yer, thin. There's a buzz wagon down back of my housebehind a haystack. Looks like some one tried to hide it there."
"That's it," cried Harry, racing off and in a few minutes he was backwith the auto which, to his great joy, was found to be unharmed.
To attach the rope to it was the work of a second, and then as Harrystarted up the engine the half-suffocated man and boy were hauled out ofthe pit. It took quite a little time for old man Joyce to recover, butFrank was soon himself again. As soon as he could talk Mr. Joyce toldthe boys that in their rage and fury at finding that he was the wrongman and not Bart Witherbee whom they had intended to kidnap, Barr andhis associates had lowered him into the mine shaft, and then on thethreat of shooting down it and killing him, had made him undo the rope,which they then hauled up.
"I wonder what became of Barr's other auto?" queried Frank as the boysand their friend, the sheriff, surrounded by an admiring crowd, walkedback toward the town.
"Why, Barr said it had gone on ahead," replied Frank. "Maybe he wasn'ttelling the truth, though, and it's still here."
But the other auto had gone on ahead, as the boys found out later, andin it had also gone the Slade aeroplane, repairs on which had not beenfinished. But White Willow, having suddenly come to be regarded byLuther Barr, for obvious reasons, as unhealthy, it had been decided tohustle the machine out of town on the motor car.
"But," exclaimed Harry, when the boys heard of this from some men in thetown who had seen the aeroplane loaded onto the automobile, "that is aninfraction of the rules of the race. The contestants must proceed undertheir own power."
"Well, we'd have a hard time proving they did such a thing," rejoinedFrank, "so the best thing for us to do is to buckle down and make up forlost time. We'd better get right over to Gitalong in the auto, pick upthe others, and start on our way. You can drive over with Mr. Joyce, andI'll fly the _Golden Eagle_ over."
The rejoicings in Gitalong on the part of the young adventurers may beimagined when they saw the auto coming, speeding over the level rollingplain with the aeroplane flying high above it. The sheriff and hisprisoner followed on horseback. With warm handshakings and amid atornado of cheers and revolver shots, the boys started off once more ontheir way half an hour later, more determined than ever to win the greatprize.