The Project Gutenberg eBook, Bill Bolton and Hidden Danger, by Noel Sainsbury

BILL BOLTON
and
Hidden Danger

BY
Lieutenant Noel Sainsbury, Jr.

Author of
Bill Bolton and Winged Cartwheels
Bill Bolton, Flying Midshipman
Bill Bolton and the Flying Fish

★

THE GOLDSMITH PUBLISHING CO.
CHICAGO

Copyright, 1933
The Goldsmith Publishing Company
MADE IN U. S. A.

To “Bo” King, christened Eric Ture—who I hope, after reading this story, will continue to sing Bill Bolton’s praises.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE I [Through the Window] 15 II [The Getaway] 29 III [Into the Air] 41 IV [Gaining an Ally] 53 V [Strange Doings at Turner’s] 67 VI [Watchers in the Trees] 81 VII [The Mysterious Trio] 95 VIII [The Man with the Nervous Affliction] 111 IX [The Offer and the Threat] 129 X [Another Intruder] 143 XI [From Bad to Worse] 153 XII [On the Way] 167 XIII [Pig Island Again] 179 XIV [Bill Blows Up] 193 XV [The Laundry Hamper] 205 XVI [Through the Skylight] 219 XVII [Bill’s Way] 237

Bill Bolton and the Hidden Danger

Chapter I
THROUGH THE WINDOW

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Bill Bolton, startled from a sound sleep, sat up in bed.

His room was pitch dark. For a moment or two he listened to wind whistling through trees and the swishing pound of a heavy downpour. Lightning flashed in the bright flare of a summer electrical storm, and through open windows he saw rain in steel rods lashing the darker night.

Crash! Bang! Bang!

“Thunder, that’s all,” said young Bolton and lay down again.

Crack!

Bill was out of bed in a jiffy. He heard the unmistakable ping of a bullet as it struck the rainpipe by his farther window.

Crash! Bang!

This time he dropped to the floor and lay still. The second shot smashed a pane in the upper window sash and knocked over a copper water jar that stood on the mantel, sending it rattling to the floor.

“That lad,” said Bill to himself, “is perched in a maple. Wild shooting, too—even in the dark. I wonder what in blazes he’s aiming at!”

He crept on all fours to the window and knelt before it, bringing his eyes level with the sill.

Crash! Crack! Bill winced. With the thunderclap came a ball of red fire. It struck a large northern maple, shot down the trunk and vanished into the turf below the spreading foliage. For an instant trees, shrubbery and lawn were illuminated with red light. Bill caught a glimpse of the flower garden beyond broad lawns, and a group of figures standing on the drive near the stone wall that separated the Bolton estate from the highway. He plainly saw a man drop from the big maple to the ground. Then as he sprang to his feet and leaned out of the window, the glare was gone and black night shut down on the world again.

“Reach down and give me a hand, Bill!”

The muffled voice came from just below.

“Who is it?” Bill spoke in the same cautious tone.

“It’s me. Charlie Evans. I’m hangin’ on by the ivy and this leader—but I can’t find anything above me to get a grip on.”

“Okay, boy. Let me get hold of your wrist—that’s it. Mind you don’t slip! The ivy has been cut away from the windows.”

Bill pulled, caught Charlie beneath his shoulders and lifted him over the sill.

“Get out of their line of fire,” he ordered.

As quickly as possible he closed both windows and pulled down the green shades. A moment later he found the wall-switch and flooded the room with light. Charlie, a round-faced, red-headed boy of twelve, still sat on the floor. He was soaked to the skin and breathing heavily.

Bill gave him one look and disappeared into the bathroom. When he returned, he brought a glass of water with him. Charlie grabbed the tumbler and drained it in a few gulps.

“That’s the berries!” he wheezed. “Got another?”

“Soon—too much in a hurry will make you sick. Are you hurt? I mean, did those guys wing you? I take it that you were the target they aimed at.”

“I sure was, Bill, but they’re rotten shots. Gee, I’ve had a time of it, I tell you. Can’t I have another drink now? I’ve been running ever since they punctured the tires and I’m dry as an empty well.”

“All right, but take your time drinking it.”

Bill followed Charlie into the bathroom. “You may be dry inside, but those clothes of yours are soaking wet. Get out of them and take a good rub down. And put on that bathrobe on the door. If I’m not in the bedroom when you’re through, wait for me there—I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

He went into the bedroom, and from there into the hall. A night light was burning at the foot of the staircase. Thunder still rumbled in the distance but the storm was passing over. Bill ran lightly down to the lower floor. For a second he hesitated, then went into the library on his right and shut the door behind him.

This room was on the same side of the house as his bedroom. He went at once to a side window, and pulling up the shade a couple of inches, peered into the night. For a time he could see nothing. Then as his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, he made out the shadowy forms of six men in a group on the driveway near the house. While he watched, they separated, and one walked back to the entrance, the others took up positions behind the trees that lined the drive.

“Queer,” muttered Bill. “They evidently think he’s coming out again.”

He pulled down the shade and went upstairs. Charlie was curled up in an armchair, wrapped in the bathrobe, that was at least six sizes too big for him.

“Well, what’s up?” he asked, as his tall, broad-shouldered young friend came into the room.

“They’re posted along the drive.”

“Gee, we’ll never get out of here tonight,” grumbled the youngster.

“Suppose,” said Bill, “you start at the beginning and tell me why we have to leave here tonight. What you’re doing here in Connecticut—all about it, in fact.”

“Well, let’s see—” Charlie yawned prodigiously. “I don’t know where to start.”

“You don’t have to start so very far back,” prompted Bill. “We came up to New York from Washington together a little over two weeks ago.”

“We sure did! After you got that medal pinned on you by the President—gosh!—I never thought I’d shake hands with the President of the United States—and have him tell me I was a hero—before all those people, too! It was swell!”

“Maybe you thought so,” Bill smiled wryly. “I didn’t.”

“Aw!—Say, what’s become of Osceola and the two Heinies?”

“I’ll tell you the dope later. Never mind that now. I want to know how you happened to land in New Canaan at this time of night—and chased by a gang of thugs who don’t mind trying to pot you! What’s the big idea?”

“Oh, all right, all right. Keep your shirt on!” Charlie yawned again. “After the big doings in Washington, Mother and I went up to our summer place at Marblehead. Dad didn’t come with us. He stayed in Boston. Let’s see—today is Tuesday—”

“Wednesday morning,” interrupted Bill, with a glance at his wristwatch. “It’s after two.”

“K-rect. Well, last Friday night Mother got a telegram from Dad, telling her to send me up to Clayton, Maine.”

“Why, that’s the burg near Twin Heads Harbor where we got the Flying Fish and the Amtonia!” exclaimed Bill in surprise.

“Yep, that’s the dump. Well, Mother didn’t want to let me go alone—but I went, just the same. Dad said in his wire that nobody should come with me. Of course, Mother had a fit, but Dad had said it was important. Anyhow, I got to Clayton Saturday night, and Dad met me with a car at the station. He told me he had bought a house near the shore, so we drove over there.”

“Is the house anywhere near Twin Heads?”

“Yes, it stands back from a small cove about a mile south of the Heads. Baron von Hiemskirk’s old quarters at the other end of Twin Head Harbor are about three miles away through the woods, I guess. And say, Bill, that sure is some queer house!”

“Why, what’s wrong with it?”

“Oh, the house is all right—a big barn of a place. But Dad has it locked up like a prison. There are solid wooden shutters to all the ground floor windows, and he keeps them barred day and night. We got in through an underground passage from the garage.”

“That does sound queer. Who else was there?”

“Nobody. Dad’s camping out in that house alone. Naturally, I wanted to know all about it.”

“What did your father tell you?”

“Not a darn thing! He told me not to ask questions. Said the less I knew, the better off I’d be. Sunday night somebody tried to break into the place. Dad fired at him through an upper window, but the man got away, I think.”

“It looks as if Mr. Evans were hiding from something or somebody,” Bill said thoughtfully.

“It certainly does,” acquiesced Charlie. “But I couldn’t find out a thing. He wouldn’t let me go out of the house alone the whole time I was there.”

“Funny business. When did you leave?”

“Monday night. That noon after lunch, Dad told me to turn in and go to sleep—said he had a job for me that night. He woke me up for supper, and afterwards he told me he wanted me to fetch you up there. He said ‘Tell Bolton I need him—need him badly. Say that I know he will be going back to Annapolis in about a month, and I hate taking time from his holidays. But tell him that this job won’t take long and that I believe it will be even more exciting than that Shell Island business, or the affair of the Flying Fish.’”

Bill slapped his knee. “I’ll go! This is my lucky day.”

“What do you mean, your lucky day?”

“My birthday, kid. That’s what.”

“Many happy returns,” grinned Charlie, and yawned. “How old does that make you?”

“Seventeen,” replied Bill, and he too, yawned.

“That’s the nerts,” sighed Charlie. “I won’t have one for four years!”

“What? Born on February twenty-ninth?”

“Yep—ain’t it the limit?”

Bill laughed. “Too bad. But did your father say anything else?”

“Heaps. About how I should drive to get here. I was to drive all night, go to the Copley-Plaza in Boston and sleep there Tuesday. Tuesday night—that’s tonight, I was to leave there at eight and take the Post Road to Darien. From there on, he told me exactly how to find your house. Lucky he did. I’d never have reached here after those bozos held up the car, otherwise.”

“Where was that?”

“Just inside the New Canaan line, near that flying field. I was makin’ that right turn when a guy jumps into the road and holds up his hand.”

“What did you do?”

“Gave her the gun, of course. But I missed him,” Charlie said ruefully. “Then two or three more of them started shooting. When the tire burst I went into the ditch. The car didn’t turn over—so I hopped it. I kept in the shadows of the trees. It was raining, and black as your hat, anyway. Soon a car passed me, going slow. Didn’t see hide nor hair of the bunch again until I climbed your stone wall. Then I ran smack into ’em.”

“You did!”

“Surest thing you know! We played hide and seek round the grounds, then I saw your open window. The storm broke about that time. Kind of upset them, maybe. Anyhow, I made for the ivy—and well—you know the rest.”

“Good boy!” Bill smiled and slapped him on the shoulder. “Any further instructions from your Dad?”

“He said we were to start back at once. Drive to Boston. Sleep there tomorrow and drive up to Maine tomorrow night. He told me to hurry—said that every hour counted, and to bring along Osceola if he was here.”

“The Chief and my father went to New York for a few days. They won’t be home until the end of the week. They may go to Washington, too. Some business connected with Osceola’s Seminoles. I’m alone here with the servants. Well, it’s too bad, but we’ll leave a note for him.”

“Gee, I’m sorry. Osceola would be just the guy for a stunt like this. But how can we make it, Bill? Take one of your old man’s cars? Mine is a wreck, down by the flying field.”

“We’ll do better than a car,” pronounced his friend. “My Loening is stabled in the hangar.”

“Gee! The amphibian!”

“That’s right. Now we’ll hunt you up some clothes, get some chow, leave that note for Osceola—and take off.”

Charlie jumped up from his chair. “But how can we? How about that gang outside?”

“Ask me something easy,” Bill suggested, and started to dress.

Chapter II
THE GETAWAY

“Pretty as a picture!” said Bill and laughed.

“A picture no artist could paint,” declared Charlie rather ruefully, studying his reflection in the mirror.

Arrayed in a jumper and sweater of Bill’s and a pair of linen trousers, converted into shorts by hacking off the legs above the knees, he made a comical picture indeed.

“I reckon,” said Bill, surveying him, “that you’ll have to go barefoot.”

“Okay,” returned Charlie. “Let’s eat.”

They went downstairs together and after raiding pantry and icebox, sat down at the kitchen table to a plentiful meal of bread and butter, cold ham, milk and cookies.

“There’s no sense waking the maids,” Bill was talking with his mouth full, “the chauffeur took Dad and Osceola to the city, and those girls are better off asleep. If there’s a row outside with that bunch when we go for the plane, they’d probably raise the roof and start phoning for the cops. And if Mr. Evans had wanted the police to horn in on this business, he’d have got hold of them long ago.”

Charlie finished his milk and attacked the ham again.

“That’s the way I figure it.”

“I wonder he took the chance of sending you, though,” Bill went on. “Why couldn’t he have telegraphed me or phoned me? It would have been quicker.”

“Dunno. There’s too much hush and rush about this whole biznai to suit me,” grunted young Evans.

“Well, shake a leg,” advised the older lad. “I’m going into the study to write a note to Osceola, and leave one for Dad and the maids as well. When I come back, we’ve got to vamoose. It’ll be light soon.”

“Why not wait for sunup? Those lads can’t very well stick around after daybreak.”

“No, but if they’ve got a plane handy, they can trail us and make it darned disagreeable at the other end.”

“P’raps they will, anyway.”

“Well, we haven’t taken off yet—much less arrived. Come on, eat. You get no more food until we reach Clayton, you know.”

Bill faded away toward the front of the house and Charlie started on the cookies.

Ten minutes later, Bill was back again. On his head was a soft leather helmet, while strapped to his waist, the butt of an automatic protruded from its leather holster. He laid another flying helmet, goggles and a small Winchester repeating rifle on the kitchen table.

“For you! How’s the tummy, full enough?”

“Just about,” grunted Charlie, stuffing the remainder of the cookies into his trousers pockets. “Lead on, MacDuffer!”

He slapped the helmet and goggles onto his thatch of red hair and picked up the gun.

“I left lights burning upstairs and in the study,” said Bill. “We’ll fool those guys yet. It’s the cellar for ours, come along.”

He waited at the foot of the stairs and beckoned to Charlie. “Give me your paw. We daren’t show a glim down here.”

Young Evans caught his hand in the inky darkness, and presently Bill stopped again, released his hand and could be heard fumbling with something above their heads.

“There—she’s open at last.”

Charlie thought he could make out a lightish blur on a level with Bill’s shoulders.

“Hand over the Winchester,” his friend commanded, “and when you get through the window, lie flat on the ground behind the rhododendrons, and I’ll pass it up. Don’t go scouting round by yourself, either. Wait for me.”

Charlie scrambled through the narrow aperture, caught the rifle as it was handed up to him, and crawling a foot or two along the side of the house, lay still. Although it had stopped raining, the ground was soaking wet. Above him, the thick foliage of the rhododendrons dripped moisture with every breath of wind.

“I might just as well have kept my own clothes,” he thought, trying to accustom his eyes to the darkness, but without success. “Hang it all—a little more crawling, and I’ll be sopping again!”

A whisper in his ear startled him. Bill had reached him without a sound. “Follow me. Keep on your hands and knees—and don’t breathe so hard. I could hear you down in the cellar, and I don’t propose to have the show given away just because you ate too much! Come on, and stay right behind me.”

Charlie gulped down a retort and followed Bill’s lead along the house behind the wet shrubbery. They had gone perhaps a hundred yards in this manner, when Bill turned to the left and crawled away through the bushes, on an oblique from the house. Without stopping, they crossed the drive, where the hard gravel left its painful imprints on hands and knees, and kept on through another belt of shrubbery beyond.

“You can stand up now,” Bill whispered and got to his feet. “We’re in the back of the house. Those guys are posted in front and along the sides—No, they aren’t!—not all of them—Down, Charlie! Keep where you are whatever happens!”

Footsteps crunched along the gravel on the drive. Both lads crouched low. They saw a dark figure move out of the shadows and come directly toward them. The man walked slowly, humming a tune. In the hollow of his arm he carried a rifle.

When he was within a couple of paces of them he turned on his heel and started back the way he had come. Bill was up on the instant. He took three crouching steps and even Charlie, who watched with all his eyes and ears, never heard a sound. Then he sprang on his prey. Up went his right arm and down. The man dropped like a poleaxed ox. Bill dragged his body back to the bushes.

“Did you kill him?” Charlie’s voice came in a tense whisper.

Bill snorted. “Nothing like that, kid. I tapped him on the bean with my automatic. He’s out for half an hour or so—but that’s long enough for us. You stop here and go through his pockets. Take any letters or papers he may have about him. I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

“But Bill—I don’t like being left with a dead man! Can’t—”

“Cut it, Charlie! If you don’t obey orders, you can hike back to the house. What’s the matter with you? This is no time for fussing. I told you the man’s only stunned.”

“Oh, all right,” grumbled the boy. “I wasn’t afraid of him—honest I wasn’t, Bill.”

“Good. Carry on, then,” said his friend, as he melted into the bushes.

Charlie bent over the man on the grass and consistently went through his pockets. “I’ll bet Osceola taught Bill how to move that way,” he thought, “and if the chief ever gets up to Maine, I’m going to have him show me how to do it.”

“What are you mumbling about?”

Charlie jumped. “Oh, it’s you, Bill. Gosh, you gave me a scare! What have you been doing?”

“Setting a trap. Got his papers?”

“Two letters, that’s all.”

“Come along, then. We’ll have to hurry. He’ll be missed soon. Here, I’ll tote his gun.”

Their course now led them back from the house through a copse of hemlock. As they came out of the little wood, Charlie saw a blur of wooden buildings to the left. On their right was a field of tall corn, and between the two, a broad stretch of greensward.

“Those are the barns and garage,” Bill explained in answer to the boy’s whispered question. “There’s nobody out here—yet. I reconnoitered while you were frisking that fellow. But we’d better go through the corn, just the same.”

“What do you mean, there’s nobody here yet?”

“The bus is parked in the hangar. Wait till that nice inverted engine gets talking!”

“Think there’ll be a fight?” Charlie was running now. It was hard going in the cornfield between the tall stalks. He stumbled frequently. His long-legged friend seemed to know by instinct just where to plant his feet.

“Well, I don’t know—it all depends on how fast they can run, and which way they come.”

Bill stopped on the edge of the field and waited for Charlie. Before them now lay a broad meadow. Over to the left the dark shape of a building was visible.

“Is that the hangar?” puffed the youngster.

“Yep. It used to be a hay barn, but when I got my pilot’s license, Dad had it fixed up with a concrete floor and a tin roof. The Loening and the Ryan are both in there. Well, I don’t see anybody around. Let’s make a dash for it.”

“Gosh, that’s all I’ve been doing lately!”

“That and eating,” chuckled Bill. “On your toes, fat boy!”

He sprinted across the open space and had the hangar doors open when Charlie arrived, puffing and half-winded by his efforts to make fast time.

“Slow but sure,” teased Bill. “You’re better at tucking away chow than you are at track-work, Charles.”

“Aw, cut it out! How do you expect me to keep pace with the Navy’s star end?”

“Never mind, you did fine. Lend me a hand and we’ll wheel out the Loening.”

Charlie pointed to the monoplane. “Isn’t that a Ryan M-1?”

“Sure is. Come and get busy.”

“But that type is faster that the Loening. Why not take her?”

“Because, my boy, she can’t land on water more than once, that’s why. It may come in mighty handy to have an amphibian up there on the Maine shore. And don’t think for a minute this biplane can’t travel. Wait till you ride in her and see.”

When they had wheeled the plane out on the concrete apron, Bill went back and swung the doors shut and locked them. Charlie was already seated aft when Bill climbed into the fore cockpit and adjusted his helmet, goggles and safety belt.

“Okay?” he asked the youngster.

“Okay!”

“Safety belt fastened?”

“You bet.”

“Fine. Keep that rifle handy. If those lads get too close—let ’er go.”

“I will, Bill, you can trust me.”

Bill snapped on the ignition. The propeller swung into motion as the inertia starter did the trick. The engine sputtered, then roared. He slipped into a heavy flying jacket as the engine warmed up. Charlie, he knew, had already donned his in the rear cockpit.

The engine was roaring smoothly as Bill fitted the phones over his helmet and adjusted the receivers over his earflaps. A mouthpiece hung on his chest and a wire ran back to the headset that Charlie wore. This would allow them to talk in the air, even with the coughing bark of the engine through the exhausts.

Bill stared up at the white fleecy cloud rolling in over the field. Then he twisted his head in the direction of the house, and cut down the throttle speed.

“Here they come, Charlie!” he said evenly. “Better get that rifle ready!”

Chapter III
INTO THE AIR

The lights of a car swung round the hemlocks, then levelled directly on the field as the automobile sped down the stretch of lawn between the stables and the cornfield.

“Better get off, Bill! They’ll get us sure!” Charlie’s treble shrieked into the receivers clamped to Bill’s ears.

“No, they won’t! And for the love of Mike, Charlie, don’t shout like that!”

“Well, what’s to stop them?”

“That!” said Bill briefly.

The speeding motor car bucked like a live thing—described a half circling dive in the air and crashed down sideways to its former course. The headlights snapped out and both lads felt the tremor of a dull explosion.

“Jiminy! Somebody got hurt!” cried young Evans.

“Hope so. That, as the story-books say, was my intention.”

“But what—what made it happen?”

“Remember when I left you by the bushes and you went through the gunman’s pockets?”

“Sure.”

“Well, just about then I was stringing a wire between the old hitching post and the horse trough. Looks to me as if the wire held. Oh, blazes!” he broke off—“here comes another car! Hadn’t counted on a fleet of them! Reckon you were right, Charles. We should have got going sooner.”

While he talked, Bill swung the plane into the wind.

“I thought they might stop at the wreck,” sighed Charlie. “Coldblooded, I call it. Shall I shoot?”

“Their job’s to stop us. Gosh, no, you’d be wasting ammunition—never hit within forty feet of them with all this jouncing.”

The amphibian was gathering speed, rolling lightly over the turf, but, leaping and bouncing, the motor car drew closer. It came alongside the moving plane, not more than five yards off its starboard wing. Two men hung to the running board, their guns spurting fire.

“Duck!” yelled Bill.

He deliberately leaned over the cockpit’s side and fired his automatic at the automobile. He saw the big machine swerve wildly, fall behind and topple over.

“Tit for tat.” Bill lifted his plane prettily off the ground. “That’s one for you, Charlie. I caught ’em in the near tire.”

“Two to one, you mean. And their cars are in a lot worse shape than mine.”

The engine was beating a steady tatoo. Bill opened her up wide and pulled back on the stick. Almost immediately they were in fog. But he was no novice at the gentle art of piloting an airplane. He had his air sense, flying sense, and two instruments on the lighted dial-board to guide him. The level glasses helped a lot. His eyes went to the angle-of-climb indicator, the bank indicator. He held the amphibian in a steady climb for altitude.

The air was rough. White clouds of fog obscured the wing lights at times. At other times it was thinner. The engine was roaring steadily, but Bill knew the danger of taking off and climbing directly into a change of temperature. He sat tight.

For about four minutes they climbed, in a wide circle. And then there came a break in the fog. A slice of the moon showed to the southward. It was smothered by another layer of fog almost instantly. The altimeter showed eighteen hundred feet. Charlie’s voice sounded through the receivers of the phone-set.

“Are you lost, Bill?” His voice sounded scared.

“Not yet,” reassured his friend. “I’m looking for something—had to gain altitude to put those guys off our track, if they happened to have an airbus handy.”

Bill dropped the plane into the heavier fog below. Still flying in wide spirals, he came out of it with the altimeter needle pointing to four hundred feet.

“There she is!”

Almost directly below them the bright beam of a flashing light circled round and round, cutting the night in a broad swath.

“What is it?” asked Charlie.

“The New Canaan airbeacon on Ponus Ridge. We take our bearings from that light.”

“Where do we go from here?”

“Hartford, Worcester, Lowell, Portland and on up the Maine coast.”

“Any idea of the distance?”

“We’re a couple of hundred miles from Lowell, and Portland is a good hundred and twenty-five from that place. From there up to Washington County and Twin Heads Harbor is between a hundred and fifty to a hundred and seventy-five farther. Say about five hundred miles altogether. That’s guess-work. It’s probably farther.”

He banked the plane, swung it around in a semi-circle and levelled off, headed into the northeast.

“How long will it take us?” Bill heard a half-stifled yawn at the end of Charlie’s question.

“Well, it’s going on for three now. If this breeze on our tail stiffens, we ought to make your Dad’s house in less than five hours—say somewhere between seven-thirty and eight o’clock, if we’re lucky.”

“Too bad we have to get there in broad daylight. Dad won’t like that.”

“Maybe not. But he’s lucky we’re getting there at all.”

“I’ll say he is,” yawned Charlie.

“Say, kid, you’d better take a nap. Take down your seat and curl up on the decking. You’ll find a couple of blankets stowed behind the bulkhead aft.”

“I guess that’s the best thing to do,” the youngster said sleepily.

“I know it is,” said Bill. “Keep that phone gear on your head, though. I’ve got to wake you before we get there. You’ll have to point out the house.”

“Sure. Nighty-night.”

“Good night and sweet dreams.”

Bill nosed up to six hundred feet. Above him, the clouds of swirling fog seemed less dense. His course led inland on a slant from the shore. New Canaan lies up in the Ridge Country, five or six miles back from Long Island Sound. With every mile he put between the plane and that body of water, the air, both below and above him became clearer and less bumpy. By the time the amphibian was flying over Hartford, three-quarters of an hour later, all signs of fog and storm had disappeared. Moonlight flooded the earth and the visibility was almost as good as on a clear day.

It was past five o’clock by his wristwatch and broad daylight when the amphibian, speeding at the same altitude, passed over the city of Lowell, Massachusetts, and over Lawrence and Haverhill, a few miles beyond. They were nearing the sea again, and Bill noticed that the closer they came to the coast, the stronger was the wind from the southwest behind them. A new thought came into his head. With the quick decision of the trained heavier-than-air pilot, he acted at once.

Out came his map, which he flattened on his knees. Next, the cockpit light snapped on. For a moment he studied his position. Then the light went off and the map into the pocket of his short leather jacket.

The amphibian was a trifle tail-heavy, so dropping the nose to level he gave her right aileron and simultaneously increased right rudder. Round to the right swung the nose of the speeding plane. When the desired bank was reached, he checked the wings with the ailerons and at the same time eased the pressure on the rudder. Half a moment later he applied left aileron, and left rudder, resuming straight flight, headed toward the coast on a course that would take them fifty miles east of Portland.

With wings level once more, he neutralized the ailerons, gave the bus a normal amount of right rudder and settled back comfortably in his seat.

The little port of Cushing, just beyond where the Merrimac River empties into the sea, faded away behind them. Below now was the blue Atlantic, dotted here and there with the patched sails of fishermen, returning with the night’s catch. Far to the starboard, hugging the horizon, Bill saw a large single-stacker, a freighter, heading so as to clear Cape Ann on her way to Boston.

The day had dawned bright and clear. It was perfect flying weather. With a twenty-mile breeze spanking their tailplane, Bill knew that they must be doing at least one hundred and fifty-five M.P.H. He felt the exhilaration of broad spaces and swift flight. The salt tang of the sea smelled good. He was content.

Half an hour or so went by. A sleepy voice in Bill’s receivers roused him from revery. “Where under the shining sun are we?”

“Just there—or thereabouts.”

“Gee—are we heading for Europe?”

“Nope. For breakfast, I hope.”

“But what are we doing over the ocean, Bill?”

“Taking a short cut, kid. This course will lop off a good hundred and fifty miles from the route via Portland and up the coast.”

“I suppose it was the sea fog that made you figure on the other way when we hopped off?”

Bill laughed, goodnaturedly. “You show almost human intelligence this morning, Charles. You’ll be telling me next that the sun is shining and the prop is turning round!”

Charlie snorted. “Aw, cut it out, Bill. Tell me, is there anything I can eat on board this crate?”

“Not unless you start on a strut. The French have a saying that ‘Who sleeps, dines.’ If that is so you ought to be filled to the brim.”

“Huh!” was Charlie’s sole comment. Then he asked: “What are those islands ahead to port?”

“Matinicus Island and Matinicus Rock.”

“How much farther is it to the Heads?”

“About a hundred miles. Our airspeed is 135 M.P.H., and we’re running before a twenty-knot wind. Figure it out for yourself.”

“D’you want the answer in acres?”

“The answer I want,” said Bill slowly, “is how I am going to land and park this bus when we get there, if some more of your cut-throat pals are hanging round the house.”

“I never thought of that,” admitted Charlie.

“I didn’t think you would. Turn your mighty brain on it. If you guess the right answer I’ll ask Mr. Evans to give you a lollipop.”

Bill paid no attention to the forth-coming torrent of sarcasm from Charlie. His headphone set lay on the floor of the cockpit.

Chapter IV
GAINING AN ALLY

“Twin heads, Charlie!” said Bill, resuming his headphones sometime later. The Loening was flying in from the Atlantic. Bill had thought it wiser than trailing up the coast for all eyes to see.

“Our house is over there to the left on the other side of those woods,” returned his companion from the rear cockpit. “Did you find the answer, old groucho?”

“No, I did not, fat boy. As the poet has it, we’ll be guided by circumstances as we find them.”

He banked to port and leveling off, sent the amphibian speeding over the treetops in the direction indicated. He was flying low now, barely a hundred and fifty feet above the ground. His intention was to make a quick landing if things looked propitious, rather than to advertise their presence to these mysterious enemies of Mr. Evans by spiraling down from a higher altitude.

“There’s the house!” called Charlie.

In a clearing Bill caught sight of a large red brick mansion, with jutting wings and high gables. All the windows were closely shuttered. The house stood back, quite close to the woods, amid unkempt lawns and shrubbery. A broad avenue lined with maples led across the clearing into the forest. He caught a glimpse as they shot over, of stables and a smaller building, also of red brick, two or three hundred yards to the left of the house.

“And there’s Dad—see him?” shouted Charlie.

A man walked from the front of the house across the drive and stood watching them.

“Yes, I see him,” retorted Bill, “but stop your shouting or I’ll be deaf for a week. When we come back, strip your headgear and stand up, so he can recognize you. Hold on tight, though—it will be rough going.”

Pulling back the stick, he climbed to five hundred feet. Then, leveling off, he made a quick flipper turn over the farther woods and headed back toward the house, nosing downward, throttle wide open. Just before reaching the garage, he zoomed, missing the roof by inches. As he banked again to circle back, Charlie’s excited voice spoke through his receivers.

“He saw me—he saw me! Look at him now! Has he gone crazy, or what? Did you ever see anything so silly—waving his arms around his head like a windmill!”

“Shut up! He’s wigwagging!”

Banked to an angle of 45 degrees, Bill kept the plane describing a tight circle directly above the garage, spelling out Mr. Evans’ signals the while. Presently he waved his understanding of the message, leveled his wings and neutralizing his ailerons, headed the plane out to sea.

“What’s the matter? What did he say?” piped Charlie.

“His exact words,” returned Bill patiently, “were ‘Park plane Clayton. Walk back after dark. Enter through garage.’”

“Then why on earth are we shooting off in the opposite direction?”

“Because, young Master Mind, it’s a lead-pipe cinch we’re being watched—from the woods, probably. Maybe they’ll think we’re out for a transatlantic record—I hope so. The last place we want them to think of at the present time in connection with this plane is Clayton!”

Bill kept the amphibian headed out to sea for the next half hour. Convinced at last that they were well beyond the ken of Mr. Evans’ enemies, he banked to starboard and headed his airbus on a course at right angles to the last leg. He continued to fly in this direction for some twenty miles, then turned back toward the coast again.

When at last they passed over the shore line once more, it was at a point thirty miles along the coast from Twin Heads and the Evans house. Bill steered his craft inland, turned right again and came in sight of their destination as the hands of his wristwatch marked ten o’clock.

“Clayton has a small airport,” said Charlie tentatively.

“Thanks for that! If you’d told me before, you’d have saved me some worry. The last thing we want to do is to advertise the Loening in this neck of the woods. If we’d had to come down in a farmer’s meadow, it would have been all over town in half an hour.”

They were over the landing field now, and as Bill circled the plane, preparatory to their descent, he saw that it was little more than a meadow, a mile out of town, with hangar capable of housing three or four planes. The flat roof of this building was painted black. Large block letters in white paint proclaimed the legend

PARKER’S AIRDROME
CLAYTON ME.

Near the highway that led into the town, and separated from the landing field by a white picket fence, stood a small farmhouse. As Bill swung his bus into the wind and nosed over, he saw a man open the gate in the fence and walk toward the hangar.

The wheels of the Loening’s retractable landing gear touched the ground. The plane rolled forward, and came to a stop on the concrete apron of the hangar, before its open doors.

“Very pretty, very pretty indeed!” remarked the individual who had come through the gate. He was a tall, rangy man of about thirty, wearing overalls much the worse for grease and hard usage.

Bill and Charlie climbed down and walked over to him. “Good morning, and thanks,” smiled Bill. “My name is Bolton. Mr. Parker, isn’t it?”

“It pays to advertise,” grinned the lanky individual, and he gripped Bill’s extended hand with a horny fist. “Parker’s the name. I guess, by the way you brought that Loening down, it isn’t flight instruction you’re after!”

“No,” said Bill, “not this time. What I need is gas and oil and a place to park the bus for a few days. Can you fix me up?”

“Sure can, Mister. Business round here this summer is deader than a doornail. Specially in my line. Want the bus filled up, looked over and put shipshape, I take it?”

“That’s it. One of her plugs is carbonized a bit. I’d attend to it myself, only I’m too sleepy. We’ve been in the air most of the night. Anywhere we can turn in for a few hours? Our friends don’t expect us till this evening.”

“Well, I can rent you the spare room over to the house for as long as you want it. And how about something to eat before you turn in?”

“Lead me to it,” Charlie spoke up for the first time.

“Good enough!” Parker chuckled. “Come on, Mrs. P. will be glad to dish up something tasty for you fellows.”

The Parker homestead proved to be as neat and clean as a new pin. Mrs. Parker, a buxom young woman with dimples and a jolly smile, served the hungry lads with wheatcakes and coffee until they couldn’t eat another mouthful. Then she led them upstairs to the low-ceiled bedroom, where two white beds invited them to rest. She promised to call them at seven that evening and left them. Five minutes later, Bill and Charlie were sound asleep.

“Seven o’clock—time to get up!” called a cheery voice which Bill sleepily realized was Mrs. Parker’s.

“All right, thanks,” he called back. “Be down in a jiffy. And would it be too much trouble to fix us a couple of sandwiches before we start?”

“Ezra and I,” said Mrs. Parker from the other side of the closed door, “figured as how you’d be wanting something. We’re waitin’ supper for you. And there’s a showerbath at the end of the hall—plenty of hot water if you want it.”

“We certainly do,” called Bill, “thanks a lot, Mrs. Parker. We’ll make it snappy.”

He leaned over and picked up a rubber sneaker. A moment later it bounced off of Charlie’s red head, effectually bringing that young man back from dreamland.

Supper with the Parkers was a pleasant affair. When it was over Bill had some little trouble to make Mrs. Parker accept payment for their entertainment. He guessed, however, that their financial condition was none of the best, so when she asked him if a dollar would be too much, he pressed a five-spot on the astonished young matron and refused to take change. While he went out to assist Parker in an inspection of the Loening, Charlie, not to be outdone in gallantry, insisted on helping wash the dishes.

Out in the hangar, Bill came to a decision on a question he had been considering throughout the meal. Ezra Parker and his pretty wife were an honest, wholesome pair. He needed someone in Clayton whom he could trust and so he came at once to the point.

“Mr. Parker, I need a friend,” he said quietly. “I dare say you aren’t averse to making some extra money?”

Ezra smiled and laid a hand on his shoulder. “I liked you the minute I set eyes on you this morning, Bill,” he declared. “I guess there need be no mention of money in our friendship.”

“Perhaps not. But this friendship has a job attached to it, and you told me when I landed, that business was none too good.”

“Well, that’s a fact, boy. Mrs. P. and I have had a hard time to make both ends meet this summer. Anything short of robbery or murder with a dollar or two tacked onto it will be a godsend. Our savings are tied up in this little property and we hate to give up. But there’s been mighty little joy-flying or anything else in this line of business since the depression. It’s beginning to look as if we’d have to let the place go unless something turns up soon. So I can’t say I’m not anxious to make some ready money.”

“This job,” said Bill, “is worth five hundred a month, but you’d be expected to keep a closed head about anything that might come up.”

Ezra stared at him in amazement. “You a millionaire in disguise?”

“No—only a midshipman on summer vacation. But Mr. Evans has plenty, and he is going to pay your salary.”

“Gosh! you’re the guy that put the lid on von Hiemskirk and his pirates over to Twin Heads harbor?”

“I helped some,” Bill admitted.

“I’ll say you did! What’s this job—more pirates?”

“No, I don’t think so. To be truthful, the whole thing is much of a mystery to me so far.”

“Well,” Ezra affirmed, “I never earned five hundred a month in my life. One month’s work will put Mrs. P. and me on velvet.”

“Then listen!” Bill gave him a sketch of affairs to date.