The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings Part 31

"Yes, mum--miss, I mean. He allowed he was going ter git them papers filed or bust."

The blow had fallen. Peggy sat numb and limp in the cha.s.sis. But presently the necessity of attending to Roy aroused her from her lethargy. Under her directions the boy was removed to a bed in the hotel and a doctor sent for. The physician lived in the hotel, so no time was lost before he was at Roy's bedside. He had finished his examination and had p.r.o.nounced the injury painful, but not dangerous, when, without ceremony, Wandering William burst into the room.

"We can make it yet! We can make it yet!" he was shouting.

The doctor looked up as if he thought he had another patient and a maniac to deal with.

"I--I beg your pardon," stammered Wandering William, "but this is a vital matter to this young lady and gentleman."

"Yes--yes, what is it?" asked Peggy eagerly. Her eyes burned with eagerness and suppressed excitement. Something in Wandering William's manner seemed to say that he had found a way out of their difficulties.

"I've made inquiries," he repeated, "and I've found out that the train to Monument Rocks makes several stops. There's just a chance that we can beat it in the aeroplane."

"You can!"

Roy raised himself up in bed despite the pain.

"I think so. But we must hurry."

"Sis, do you mean you are going to try it?"

"Of course. We must."

"Then go in and win," cried the boy; "you can follow the tracks by the lights and once you overtake the train the rest will be easy."

The amazed doctor fairly dropped his case of instruments at this whirlwind dialogue.

"But--what--why--bless my soul," he gasped, but only the first part of his remarks was heard by Peggy. Followed by Wandering William she dashed from the room and into the street. In front of the hotel Cash was having a hard time keeping souvenir hunters from the aeroplane. But a pair of blue revolvers, like miniature Gatling guns, acted as powerful dissuaders of curiosity.

CHAPTER XXV

A RACE THROUGH THE NIGHT

"All right. Stand clear, please!"

The aeroplane had been tuned up, and now, panting like an impatient horse, it was ready to be off on its dash for Monument Rocks. But the crowd stupidly cl.u.s.tered about it like bees round a rose bush.

The delay was maddening, but Peggy dared not start for fear of injuring someone.

"Won't you please stand aside?" she begged for the twentieth time, but the crowd just as obstinately lingered.

Suddenly an idea came to her. She cut out the m.u.f.flers and instantly a deafening series of reports, like a battery of Gatling guns going into action, filled the air. Tense as the situation was, neither Peggy nor Wandering William on the rear seat could keep from laughing as they saw the effect the bombardment of noise had.

The inhabitants of Blue Creek literally tumbled all over each other in their haste to get out of the way. Five seconds after the deafening uproar commenced a clear path was presented, and, before the crowd could get used to the sound and come surging around again, Peggy started the aeroplane up. Amid a mighty shout it took the air and vanished like a flash in the gathering dusk. The race against time was on.

Fortunately the telegraph poles along the right of way acted as guides, for, in the gathering darkness, the tracks were hardly visible. Peggy did not dare to fly too low, however, for it was only in the upper air currents that the monoplane could develop its best speed.

But even with all her care she pressed the machine too hard, for half an hour after their departure from Blue Creek they had to alight to allow the cylinders to cool. Bud's makeshift stop for the leak, however, was acting splendidly, and Peggy mentally stored it away as a good idea for future use.

The delay was annoying to the point of being maddening, but there was no help for it. To have taken the air with heated cylinders would have been to court disaster. While they waited out in the lonely Nevada hills beside the single-track railroad, Peggy's mind held a lively vision of the train speeding toward Monument Rocks and the a.s.say Office, bearing with it the stolen papers carried by Red Bill's agent.

At last, after what seemed an eternity, they were ready to start once more. Peggy lost no time in taking to the air. With her every cylinder developing its full horse power, the aeroplane sky-rocketed upward at a rate that made Wandering William hold on for dear life.

"W-w-w-what speed are we making?"

The question was jolted out of the pa.s.senger.

"About sixty," Peggy flung back at him.

"Then we ought to overtake the train. I understand it only makes forty-five even on the most favorable bits of road, and the tracks are pretty rough out in this part of the country."

On through the night they roared. It was quite dark now, and Peggy had switched on the search light with which the aeroplane was provided. It cast a white pencil of light downward, showing the parallel bands of steel. Somewhere ahead of them, on those tracks, was the train. But how far ahead? As yet no gleam of its tail lights had come through the darkness.

All at once Peggy gave a triumphant cry.

"Look!" she cried. "It's the train!"

Far ahead gleamed two tiny red lights. They glowed through the darkness like the eyes of some wild animal. But the occupants of the aeroplane knew they were the tail lights of the train that was carrying the stolen papers to Monument Rocks.

Peggy tried to put on still more speed, but the aeroplane was doing its best. But fast as it was going, it seemed to crawl up on the train at a snail pace. The tail lights still kept far ahead.

But although the gain was slow, it was, steady. Before another dozen miles had been pa.s.sed Peggy was flying above the train.

In the glare of the furnaces as the fireman jerked the doors open, Peggy could see the engineer and his mate gazing up at them with something of awe in their expressions. Aeroplanes were not as common in the far West as in the East.

Suddenly the girl noticed a figure emerge from the forward door of the front coach and clamber over the tender and drop lightly into the cab. A sudden gleam from the fire door served to light his features. Peggy recognized him instantly as the tall "romantic bandit," the one with the red sash.

The girl saw him lean toward the engineer and thrust something into his hand. It looked like a roll of bills. The next instant the train's speed perceptibly increased. It was all the aeroplane could do to keep up with it.

"He's given the engineer money, to go faster," exclaimed Wandering William.

The tall figure now crawled back on the tender and gazed upward.

His hand glided back to his hip. The next moment there was a flash, and a bullet zipped wickedly through the air past Peggy's ear.

"The coyote, he's firing at us!" cried Wandering William.

Z-i-n-g!

Another bullet sang by the speeding aeroplane. Apparently the fireman and the engineer could not hear the shooting above the noise of the flying engine, for they did not turn their heads. Presently the fireman began shoveling on coal at a terrific rate. Sparks and flame shot from the smokestack of the locomotive. They streaked the night with fire.

"Is he trying to kill us?" exclaimed Peggy as another shot winged past.

"I hardly think he'd risk that," rejoined Wandering William, "but what he's up to is almost as bad. He's trying to disable the aeroplane."

But before another could be fired the train began to slacken speed.