CHAPTER V
Down into the Den
Joan shook her glossy hair as Epworth sat up and looked around, andtwisted her eyebrows in a puzzled way.
“It came out of that round black tube buried in earth at the far sideof the valley; or, perhaps, it was one of the mysterious flyingmachines that the newspapers talked about—like the one that capturedthe Greyhound. You can readily see that this is the lair of the skybandits. There is the Greyhound.”
Epworth drew out his powerful field glasses. He never failed to carrythem with him. In fact, he had become so accustomed to searching theearth for miles around as he flew over it that it had become as muchof a habit to carry binoculars as it was to wear his nose. Hisobservations corroborated Joan’s statement concerning the Greyhound.In addition to that plane he saw a number of other machines thatbelonged to the Atlantic-Pacific Airlines, Inc., and bags of saltpeterpiled indiscriminately around a large warehouse made of corrugatediron.
But there were no indications of idleness in the camp. Even the womenand children were doing some kind of work, and the men—more than athousand of them—were rushing pell mell hither and yon, gathering uplarge quantities of stuff, pushing it into containers, and piling thecontainers systematically into cylinders at least two thousand feetlong.
“No, it was not an airship. It was one of those long aluminumcylinders that are being loaded by the men at work. It was shot upinto the air by some kind of machinery. But why do they do it, andwhere is the machinery?”
“In that hole in the ground,” Joan explained, as she glanced throughthe binoculars. “There seems to be a round pit over there.”
“Well, we are going down there and find out what it all means. Verylikely the crews of all the airships stolen are down there. I am quitesure that Billy Sand is there.”
“Going to walk right in, turn right around, and walk right out withall the airships and the rescued crews?”
Her tone was quite sarcastic.
“I hardly think that we will work that fast but if we are not able tosneak into that place and get the Greyhound there is very little hopeof ever returning to dear old Uncle Sam.”
“There are forty of the new-style airships,” she pointed out, “and itwould be easy for them to overtake the Greyhound.”
“We will have to risk something. We will never——”
He was stopped by a giant cylinder being catapulted out of one of thedark tubes, and flashing away into space. They stood staring forfifteen minutes, and another cylinder followed. Then the hum of themachinery quieted down. Epworth drew out his watch. “It has been justninety minutes since the first cylinder was fired,” he asserted. “Thesecond the cylinder goes into space the men below get awful busyloading another. They are—yes, I really believe that they aresystematically shooting something into space.”
“Are they crazy?” Joan looked around apprehensively. “I would ratherrun into a nest of robbers than a camp of crazy people.”
“We will try to get down there, and get away without being seen.Around the side of the cliff I see a place where it will be possibleto slip down without hurting ourselves, although it is steep.”
“I don’t like the looks of things down there,” his sister objected.“Look at that ugly giant!”
She gave Epworth the field glasses, and pointed to a certain man. Hewas a great giant, long-bearded, hairy, and powerful. He was viciouslywhipping a smaller man while four men held the small man a prisonerwith his face to the wall of a big corrugated iron building.
“Slave drivers,” Epworth observed sharply, his mouth twitchingangrily. “I wonder if the little fellow can be Billy?”
Joan shuddered. She was thinking of the gallant young aviator flyingaway into the night to give himself voluntarily into captivity for thesake of the men who employed him—a captivity that at present looked asif it was the most vicious of all tyranny.
“We’ve got to get away, and send help,” she whispered fiercely. “Thisracket must be cleaned out if it takes the entire United States army.”
“The United States army cannot come into this country. It is foreignsoil. The easiest thing to do is to steal the plane.”
“I’ll venture there are a thousand eyes watching it.”
“You’d throw cold water on a fish,” Epworth grumbled. “But just thesame we shall make the attempt.”
At this moment a door in one of the large corrugated iron buildingsopened, an enormous cylinder was rolled out, twenty men got aboard,and it shot up into the air with incredible rapidity.
“How would the Greyhound get away from an airship like that?”
Joan’s eyes fastened on the disappearing ship with intensefascination.
“I do not see any propellers,” she added thoughtfully.
“It is a rocket plane, I previously described, the latest improvementon the German idea of shooting an airship forward with liquid rockets.However, let’s be moving.”
They ate from the lunch boxes that Epworth had hastily snatched upwhen they jumped into the air, and with stealthy steps descended thesteep incline, hiding frequently behind the large boulders on thehillside. Fortunately the men in the valley, or rather huge crater—forit was patent that it had one time been a volcano and the fires wereonly now simmering in spots—were busy and did not see them, and theyfinally got safely behind the large hangar that protected twenty ormore of the big airships. Inside of the building the men at work weretalking in a strange language but when Epworth peeped around thecorner he discovered the coast to the Greyhound seemed clear.
Slipping from behind the hangar they darted across the open space, andgained the protection of another building without being seen.Repeating this maneuver several times they finally came up to severalof the American planes. But they had been purposely battered. A winghad been destroyed, an engine had been put out of running, thepropeller had been broken, or the fuselage and rudders shot to pieces.The Greyhound had not been in camp long, and seemed to be in workingcondition. They centered their attention on it.
First Epworth surveyed the field. The crater pit was swarming withmen, and weaving in between them were hundreds of women and children.Obviously it was some kind of a colony, and Epworth caught himselfwondering what all these people meant by coming this far fromcivilization to live.
Some distance away the young man saw a body of American aviators. Theywere shoveling saltpeter into an enormous vat, and were being herdedaround by heavily armed guards. Frequently a heavy whip was used onthe back of a prisoner to expedite his movements.
When Epworth saw this he realized that it would not be long before theGreyhound would be dismantled. The pirates did not intend to give theprisoners a chance to escape.
Again he gave the Greyhound a careful study. It was guarded by fourmen who were seated on a boulder on the side of the mountain oppositefrom his possible approach. He and Joan would have to get to theGreyhound, get in it, rev up, and get away with a swiftness that wasalmost an impossibility.
Still it was their only chance. He would make a stagger at gaining hisliberty. If they remained in this crater it would be only a matter ofa short time before they would be discovered.
To make the break Joan must go also, and it would be hard to slip intothe plane without one of them being seen.
“Concealment is useless,” he asserted. “We must run for it. When youget there jump in, and if we are attacked I will try to hold them offwhile you start the engine.”
Fleet as swallows the two darted forward. Epworth, an all-roundathlete, timed his speed to keep even with the girl. They got to thedoor, Joan’s hand was on it, when the four guards ran around theplane, gave a shout and closed in on them.
“Jump in!” Epworth urged. “Snap at it. I will hold them.”
He whirled like a lion, dodged, and caught the leading guard a heavyblow in the stomach. The man doubled up with a grunt, and Epworth,foot-working swiftly and dodging with the expertness of a prizefighter, evaded a rush by two men, and caught the fourth a
right handbody blow on the run. His victim toppled over sideways.
Not for a second did he pause. He was fighting for life. These menwere unscrupulous robbers. He knew this by the way in which theydestroyed airplanes. They would not hesitate to slug him, and makeJoan’s future life miserable.
Wheeling fiercely he flung himself on the other two men. This time hemade a football rush, jerked a man’s legs from under him, and crashedhis head against the ground. Before the other man could catch him hebounded to his feet, and struck him a vicious blow under the chin. Theman toppled like a tenpin.
All this time the man he had punched in the stomach was doubled upgroaning. Now he lifted his head, and straightened up. But before hecould advance Epworth bounced forward, leaped into the open door ofthe Greyhound, and dropped into the aviator’s seat, panting from hisviolent exertion.
The next second the Greyhound was spluttering loudly and taxyingacross the rocky ground. If the engine would pick up a little safetywas in sight.
It did. After popping loudly for several seconds it purred down andthe Greyhound lifted its wheels from the ground.
At this moment a huge giant stepped out of the most pretentious housein the place. In his hand he held a light machine gun. Leveling it atthe Greyhound he began to shoot. There were three propellers, and oneby one, with uncanny aim, the giant disabled the blades and just asescape seemed at hand the airship staggered, slumped like a woundedbird, and struck the ground with powerful impact.
Joan, seeing inevitable fall, braced herself with her feet, andescaped with a slight jar.
Epworth, in a vain attempt to lift the nose of the ship upward, washurled against the cowling with a force that knocked him unconscious.