The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards Part 6

Presently Frank, his irritation forgotten now that the city was being left behind, called the attention of his companions to a first page story under flaring headlines which read:

RUM RUNNERS LAND BIG LIQUOR CARGO; ELUDE "DRY NAVY."

"Say, I haven't been reading any of this stuff," said Frank. "But after what the men told us last night about the size of these operations, and with my interest aroused by developments at Starfish Cove, I'm beginning to see that this defiance of the prohibition law is just about the most stirring thing before the Nation to-day. At least, here on the Eastern seaboard, where these smugglers are organized and have a handy base in the West Indies."

The others nodded agreement, and the conversation proceeded in similar vein until they tumbled from the train at Mineola. Speeding to the flying field in a taxi, they were soon aboard the plane. This time Frank took the wheel. And to the friendly farewells of the mechanics, they took off and began the homeward journey.

After forty minutes of speedy flying, Bob, idly scanning the sky through the gla.s.s, focussed upon a tiny speck in the distance. All three had clamped on their radio receivers and hung the transmitters by straps across their shoulders. Speaking into the transmitter now, Bob announced:

"I think that radio-controlled plane is flying away from us, out to sea, off to the right. I'm going to tune up to that 1,375-meter wave length, and we'll see if there's a continuous dash in the receivers."

"All right," answered Jack, "but look out for your eardrums. The interference at that wave length is very sharp and you want to be ready to tune down at once, or your head will feel as if it were ready to burst."

A moment later the high cras.h.i.+ng shriek, with which Jack had become familiar of late, signalled in the receivers, and Bob promptly tuned down.

"Wow," said he. "That's it, all right. That's the continuous dash which is being sent out from the secret radio plant to control that little plane. Let's keep it in sight, Frank, and see where it goes.

Don't close in on it. Keep just about this distance. I can watch it through the gla.s.s, and I'll give you your bearings if you lose sight of it. Probably there is only one man aboard, and he won't have a gla.s.s, and won't know we are following him."

"All right," responded Frank. "Here's where we'd turn toward sh.o.r.e.

But we'll stick to his trail a while."

With that he began edging the plane out to sea.

CHAPTER VI

A FALL INTO THE SEA

Out over the s.h.i.+ning sea flew the glistening all-metal plane, and the spirits of the boys lifted to the chase. The oldest fever of the blood known to man is that of the chase. It comes down to us from our prehistoric ancestors who lived by the chase, got their daily food by it, wooed and won by it, and fought their battles by it in that dim dawn of time when might was right and the law of tooth and claw was the only rede.

Gone was the irritability that had possessed Frank in the noise and din, the crowding walls and swarming hordes of human beings, back in the city. Below him lay the broad Atlantic, from their height seeming smooth as a ball-room floor, with the surface calm and unruffled. No land was in sight ahead. The water stretched to infinity, over the edge of the world. For a wonder, not a sail broke that broad expanse due south, although to the west were several streamers of smoke where s.h.i.+ps stood in for port, hull down on the far horizon, while closer at hand was a little dot which Bob, swinging the gla.s.ses, made out to be a four-masted schooner.

It was a long distance off, ten or fifteen miles, judged Bob. The tiny plane was heading in that direction. Was it bearing away for the schooner? The question leaped into Bob's mind. He put it into spoken words, into the transmitter.

"There's a schooner southwest," he said. "The plane is going in that direction. Bear up a trifle, Frank, and slow her down. Let's see whether the plane is heading for it."

Frank slowed the engine and altered the course sufficiently to keep the plane in view on the new tack, but not to bring them so close to it as to arouse suspicion. In a few moments, all could see the tiny speck coasting down on a long slant and Bob, watching through the gla.s.ses, exclaimed excitedly:

"The little fellow is going to land. There, he's on the water now.

He's taxying close to the s.h.i.+p."

"I'm going to climb," stated Frank, suiting action to word.

"Good idea," said Jack. "Let me have the gla.s.ses a minute, Bob, will you?"

Bob complied.

"I don't believe they know of our presence," Jack presently declared.

"Do you fellows consider the plane was forced to land? Is that how it happened to come down near the schooner? There doesn't seem to be any attempt to put out a boat and get the pilot."

"Forced to land, my eye," said Bob, repossessing himself of the gla.s.ses. "Do you want to know what I think? I believe the pilot is holding a confab with the schooner. By Jiminy, that's right, too. And it's ended. He's taxying again, and starting to rise."

Frank, at Bob's words, had swung away again to the south. After describing a long circle, which carried them so far aloft and so wide of the s.h.i.+p as to lose it from sight, he again turned the plane toward home.

"I expect they never saw us, either from the schooner or the plane,"

Jack said. "There was never any indication of alarm. Of course, we were too far off to tell exactly, even spying through the gla.s.s."

"Somehow, however," replied Frank. "I have the feeling that they didn't."

"Didn't what?" asked Bob.

"Didn't see us," answered Frank.

Frank had accelerated the speed of the engine, and was driving at eighty miles an hour, straight for home. Suddenly, an exclamation from Bob, who again was swinging his gla.s.ses over the sea below, smote the ears of the boys.

"Something's the matter with that little plane. Say"--a breathless pause--"it's falling. Come on, Frank. We'll have to see if we can help. Swoop down. There, to the left."

Rapidly Frank began spiralling and in a very short time was near enough to the small plane for it to be seen clearly with the naked eye. It had been flying at a considerable height. As the boys watched, it went into a dive, with the pilot struggling desperately to flatten out. He succeeded, when not far from the surface of the ocean. As a result, instead of diving nose foremost into the water, the plane fell flat with a resounding smack, there was a breathless moment or two when it seemed as if the little thing would be swamped, then it rode lightly and buoyantly on the little swells.

Descending to the water, Frank taxied up close to the other plane. The figure of the pilot hung motionless over the wheel. Probably, considered the boys, the man had been flung about and buffeted until he lost consciousness.

"I'll close up to him head on," Frank said. "Then, if necessary, one of you can climb into the other plane and see what we can do to help.

Probably the thing to do will be to get him aboard here, and carry him ash.o.r.e."

"Righto," said Bob, climbing out to the fuselage, behind the slowly revolving propeller. "Now take it easy. We don't want to smash. I can drop into the water and swim a stroke or two, and get aboard."

As the boys swung up close, however, the figure at the wheel of the other plane stirred. Then the man lifted his head and looked at them, in dazed fas.h.i.+on.

"Mr. Higginbotham," exclaimed Frank, under his breath. "Well, what do you know about that?"

It was, indeed, the man they had interviewed earlier that day in the McKay realty offices, back in New York.

"How in the world did he get here?" asked Jack, who also had recognized the other.

Frank had brought their plane to a halt. It bobbed up and down slowly on the long ground swell, not far from the smaller machine.

Bob was still astride the fuselage.

"h.e.l.lo," he called. "We saw you fall and came over to see if we could help. Engine gone wrong, or what was it?"

Higginbotham was rapidly recovering his senses. He stared at his interlocutor keenly, then at the others. Recognition dawned, then dismay, in his eyes. But he cloaked the latter quickly.

"Why, aren't you the lads who were in my office to-day?" he asked, ignoring Bob's proffer of help.

"You're Mr. Higginbotham, aren't you?" answered Bob. "Yes, we are the fellows you spoke to."