CHAPTER XVIII
SUCCESS AT LAST
The next day was a blue one for the boys. Apparently all their plans hadbeen knocked sideways. The hunt, for which they had worked and waitedall summer, had been nipped in the bud at the moment of success.
"Let's scout it, anyhow," suggested Fred that evening, as the downcastgroup huddled together on Jerry's veranda.
"What d'ye mean?" asked Dunk, uninterestedly.
"Well, make a trip up into the mountains and see what we can do,"continued the easterner.
"How you going to get across that ravine?" disparaged Fly, who had beenmoping all day. "It's too wide even to throw a rope across."
"I could get across if you could span it with a rope ladder," said Carl.
"Maybe Herb wounded him so badly he's dead up there somewhere," Jerrywent on. "You know he told us over the phone that he and Gray found somefeathers about where he shot the other night."
"Whether it's a bird or not, it's got wings," said Carl. "But if thosefeathers are as long as Herb said they were it can't be an eagle."
"Don't care nohow," responded Fly, shoving his hands deep into hispockets with an air of dejection as he rose to his feet. "Hawke maybecan't be back this summer. Didn't even have a chance to say good-bye tothe B. P. bunch. And mother just won't let me run the plane alone. Aw,I'm going home," he continued thoroughly disgusted. "Good night."
"Wait a minute--here comes your father," said Fred.
"Just got a letter from Hawke," announced Mr. Giles, walking up to theveranda.
"What does he say?" exclaimed Fred eagerly, the faces of all the boysbrightening at once. A faint hope of the aviator's early return spranginto their minds.
"Don't get too excited if I tell you," said Mr. Giles mischievously.
This only served to make the boys more anxious, of course.
"Well, he says he thinks Fly's pretty steady and could handle themachine all right alone. So we've decided to let you continue the hunt.We owe it to Phipps anyhow," he added.
"What!" yelled Fly, scarcely comprehending the good news at first.
"Hurray!" shouted several of the boys.
"Keep cool," laughed Mr. Crawford, but Fly was unable to contain himselffor joy, and singing gayly, began hopping around first on one leg andthen the other.
"I knew it would come out all right," said Dunk, although his attitudeof a half hour before had not betokened very strong optimism.
"We'll go right over to the Phipps ranch in the morning," announced Fly,when he became calmer, "tell Herb and Gray, and start right out. MaybeHerb can go up with me," and he turned another handspring.
"I'd like to see a trial flight first," said the father.
"Just give me the chance," retorted Fly.
The next morning, before a skeptical audience composed of Mr. and Mrs.Giles, Captain Crawford and his wife, Mrs. Windham and LieutenantRivers, Fly practically repeated Hawke's performance of the first day.
"My, it's great!" he exclaimed after the flight, his eyes shining andhis face flushed. "I could do it with Hawke, and I knew I could do italone."
The older ones were satisfied, and Fly was permitted to start out forthe B. P. to get Herb, if his father would allow him to go. It wasplanned that the others should ride, and going as far as they could withtheir horses, climb up to the spot near the tower.
Mr. Phipps was at first reluctant, but a telephone conversation with Mr.Giles and Captain Crawford, strengthened by eager coaxing on the part ofhis son, finally gained his consent. Gray started off to meet the otherboys with his pony.
Fly and Herb remained at the B. P., for a while, to give the plane athorough inspection, and to make a rope ladder they had previouslyplanned to use if possible.
About midway in their way they experienced some difficulty with theengine, and were obliged to make a landing in a pasture and remedy thedifficulty. This took the better part of an hour.
"I feel that we're goin' to get him to-day," said Herb, as Fly once morelifted the plane above the green meadowland. It was one of those rare,quiet, contented summer days, when even the bee's buzzing sounded noisy.The mountains, with all their towering majesty, seemed challenging theyoung aviators, who, calm and confident, rose steadily upward andforward, the fresh air blowing cool and sweet against their faces. Itwas a day such as fills the veins with a joyousness of life, awillingness to undertake anything, and a confidence that bespeakssuccess.
They were soon passing swiftly over the rugged mountain's face, its hugeirregular boulders, tufted here and there with stubborn plant life,rapidly receding. The tall majestic firs, which, as the boys looked downfrom their superior height, dwindled to miniature Christmas trees withthe morning dew still upon them glistening like toy candles, and thefoaming torrents rushing down the time-scarred and waterworn ravines.
Above all they could see, as they mounted higher, the gloomy old towerlifting its dark head to the sunshine, and rising out of a mass of rock,stone and dense growth.
"Look! Look!" panted Herb when they at last circled above the mysteriousdwelling.
Fly looked down through the mica window at his feet and saw, crouchingbetween the four walls of the roof, a monstrous feathered shape,apparently headless, its wings folded. Like some gorged dragon it laythere, contentedly wallowing in a bed of bones, skeletons, sheeps' wooland meat still red, the remains of many an ill-gotten feast.
Startled by the noise of the propellers, it drew out from under its wingits great shining black head, disclosing a vicious hooked beak.
Meanwhile, the rest of the party had arrived on the other side of theravine. They shouted at the boys in the air, but the tremendous noisecaused by the roaring water and the whirring propellers, drowned theirvoices completely. Herb and Fly had seen them, however.
"Scare him out," suggested Fly. "Then they can all see him and have ashot."
"I hate to shoot an enemy in the back," said Herb. "But he deserves it."And he fired down into the roost. But the plane was going at such aspeed that his aim was not true. The bullet struck the side of thestructure, throwing up dust and mortar. The creature fluttered andstirred, moving its head about perplexedly, but remained in its nest.
Herb shot a second time, just grazing his mark, picking off some of thefeathers on the monster's back. At this time the crouching shape sprangupward with a sharp cry of anger, almost completely hiding the top ofthe tower from view, so enormous was the spread of its wings.
"There it is! There it is," exclaimed several of the party on the backof the ravine.
"An eagle," gasped Fred.
"The Thunder Bird," panted Carl.
"But what's the matter with him?" cried Dunk. At the same moment, theboys, staring upward with fascinated eyes, gave a cry of alarm.
The great creature seemed flying about wildly, furiously, without senseof, or regard for direction, beating its immense wings against the air,and, instead of attempting to escape, flew straight for the plane,almost colliding with it.
Fly, who had anticipated a chase, now found himself on the defensive,and was obliged to dodge, circle, swoop and whirl in a manner that madehis head swim. Although almost near enough to touch the bird at times,the motion of the machine and the strange uncertain course of theirantagonist made accurate aim impossible.
Above them it flew, passing like a dark cloud over the machine, thenveering down so suddenly that Fly was obliged to concentrate all hisenergies to get out of its way. It was an equal conflict betweennature's great king of the air, and the supreme handicraft of mechanicalskill which had been made to conquer it in its own element.
"It must be blind," said Herb, remembering that Carl had told them theThunder Bird was sightless in the daylight. "If I could only get a lineon it!"
The boys below dared not shoot, lest their bullets go astray and striketheir friends. The monster seemed possessed by an insane rage, throwingitself about in the air with blind recklessness.
"Now!" exclaimed Fly, as the wily native of the air rushed below th
em.Herb, with the quickness of an experienced hunter, did not waste hischance. There was a loud report, a shrill blood-curdling cry, such asthey had heard on two other occasions, and the creature's inert bulkwhirled to the earth, landing heavily almost in front of Jerry.
It was not yet dead however, and the boys made for a safe distance, asthe monster, in its death struggle, furiously beat the ground with itspowerful wings, springing upward again and again in a desperate effortto recover itself, each time falling back.
"Finish him," implored Fred. "It's a shame to have him suffer."
A second later a shot from Dunk's rifle stilled the great bird'sfluttering form forever. Its frightful beak opened and closed, itsbeastlike talons sought to clutch support, its owl-like eyes becameglazed and fixed. The Thunder Bird had killed his last sheep!
Hushed and silent the boys crowded around the huddled shape. Carl,taking hold of one of its wings, pulled it out to its natural spread.
"About four feet," he said. "Must have a spread of ten. And about fivefeet from the end of its beak to the tip of its tail."
"Wonder how old he is?" speculated Fred.
Just then something fell in their midst. It was a note from Herb,weighted with a heavy memorandum book.
"We've done the deed. Now for the reward," it read. "We can seesomething glistening like gold under a shelf in the roof. Ask Carl toget it. We'll drop the ladder."
Carl waved his hat in assent, while Herb swung the rope ladder down,attempting to hitch it at some point on the side of the gorge near thetower. At the third trial, it lodged over a projecting rock, whichjutted, hooklike, from the wall of the ravine. Carl caught the other endand fastened it. The crossing did not prove as perilous as it looked,for the rope held firm, and it was an easy trick for an Indian.
After some fumbling among the shrubs, Carl disappeared, and the boysknew he must have found an entrance to the dwelling. They were right,for the Indian, through a low door obscured by shrubs, had crawled intothe house of mystery. Though it was dark at first, he soon perceived athin ray of light percolating through an opening in the roof. He wasprovided with matches, and lighting a few of these, he scrutinized thewalls for some possible handhold by which he could mount. Directly underthe aperture through which the feeble light came he struck what seemedto be poles projecting from the sides of the tower.
"A ladder," he thought, and made short work of the climb. With littledifficulty he scrambled through the roof-opening to the outside of thetower. A wall about five feet high ran around the edge of the roof,along the four sides of which was a projecting shelf several feet wide.In the center, cluttered with refuse of all kinds, was the abode of theThunder Bird, to which he would never more return.
Under the shelf in one corner was the shining object the boys hadwritten of. Carl uttered an exclamation of surprise and delight when hefound this to be a beautiful bowl, apparently of beaten gold, measuringabout fifteen inches in diameter, and set with many semi-precious stonesof varied hue.
"The Holy Bowl of the Medicine Men," he said wonderingly, astonished atits seeming newness. Though it must be decades old it appeared to havebeen recently polished. A vague thought of the mysterious Indian flashedthrough Carl's mind. He jumped up on the shelf and held up to theadmiring gaze of his companions below the brilliant trophy, whichglittered with dazzling brightness in the sun.
A shout greeted this sign, and, after looking around without success forfurther relics, he tucked the bowl under his arm and descended. Againpushing through the thick foliage that had obscured the low entrance, hecame out, flushed and excited, holding the prize aloft.
Suddenly the watching boys uttered a warning cry, but before he couldcomprehend it, Carl was seized around the waist by strong arms andthrown to the ground with violent force. The next moment he foundhimself grappling with the strange Indian.