The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing Part 12

"No question about it, Andy. Like the government official on the wharf at Barranquila, they realize that the game didn't work, and if they want to get us they'll have to lay some new plans when we come back again. But we're not bothering our heads about that, you know."

"Never even cut a chip off our boat!" declared Andy.

"Well, I'm going back and get the rest of my nap. Wake me up at four, remember. I want the last watch," and Frank dove within his stateroom with as much seeming indifference as though this thing of being fired upon with fieldpieces might be an everyday occurrence in his experience.

Morning dawned upon the Magdalena. Frank was on duty at the time and drank in the lovely picture. Birds flew overhead, cranes arose from along the shallows in near the sh.o.r.e, where they had been fis.h.i.+ng for their breakfast, and there were many strange feathered creatures to be seen, such as the boy had never up to now set eyes upon.

Some of the crew were trailing fish lines astern and every now and then a prize would be hauled aboard, which later on might afford a meal for pa.s.sengers and workers.

Andy soon made his appearance, the rising sun having sent a few slant rays into his sleeping quarters and aroused him by falling on his face.

"This is something like, eh, Frank?" he remarked, as he drew in a big breath of the bracing morning air.

"I should remark, yes," was the other's reply.

"We've apparently left all our dangers behind," Andy ventured. "That is, I mean there's little likelihood of our being robbed of our precious machine now, with both government officials and envious revolutionists left in the lurch."

"I was just asking Felipe and he says we shall have another day and night of bucking up against this nasty current. You see, Andy, it's on an unusually big bender right now, which makes it doubly hard to fight it."

"Oh, well, what can't be cured must be endured, I guess. So I'll try to take it as easy as I may and be thankful it's no worse," Andy replied.

The morning pa.s.sed without any event worth mentioning. And all the while they kept steadily at the business of eating up some of the two hundred miles that Felipe a.s.sured them lay between Magangue and the city at the mouth of the big river.

Another thing was worrying Andy, however. He finally broached the subject to his comrade knowing that in this way he would get relief.

"That blessed old engine has been doing bully for a long time now, Frank, but judging from past experiences, she's due for another sulky fit soon. Whatever would we do if she let down all of a sudden, while we were right in the worst kind of a swift current? My! we'd be carried miles downstream before we could do anything."

"Oh, no we wouldn't!" remarked the other, smiling.

"Then you've been thinking it all over and made ready to offset a balk, I bet anything," declared Andy, with vehemence.

"Do you see that anchor forward?" asked Frank, pointing from where they stood on the raised deck aft. "Well, that's got a good long stout chain attached and is placed where a kick will send it over. Notice old Quita squatting close by? Think he's taking a snooze, he seems so quiet? But all the time the old chap's on the alert, and he has his orders, too."

"To upset the anchor over the bow, you mean?" asked Andy.

"Just that," came Frank's reply. "If anything happens to the machinery you'll hear a series of quick whistles from Felipe. The boat won't even have a chance to lose headway before over plumps the big mudhook, and we'll just take a rest out in the river until repairs can be made again by Engineer McClintock and his a.s.sistants."

Andy looked at his chum admiringly.

"Blessed if you don't just think of everything!" he said; "and get ready long before it happens. However do you do it, Frank?"

"Oh, it's easy, once you make up your mind," laughed the other. "I took to it long before this new Boy Scout movement started. You know they've got as their leading motto the words: 'Be prepared.' And there never was a better slogan ever given to boys. Think how many things might be avoided if we were always prepared."

"Yes, I've given the subject much thought," grumbled Andy; "but somehow I seem to slip up when it comes to the critical time. I stay awake eleven hours, and just when I doze off in the twelfth watch the blamed thing happens! It's always that way, seems to me. How can a fellow stay awake all the time, tell me that?"

"Oh, rats! There's no need of that. Just fix things so you'll be aroused when it comes along, and be ready to turn the tables."

So they talked away into the afternoon. The engine seemed to be on its best behavior. McClintock, the Scotch engineer, who was the only foreigner aboard besides the boys, reported that he was beginning to have more faith in the machinery. The work of the last twenty odd hours had certainly been a pretty heavy tax on it and everything seemed to be going like clockwork.

"I only hope it'll keep up, then," said Andy. "One more night is all I ask. Then Felipe promises to have us at our journey's end, when I can see and talk to the very man who picked up that wonderful little parachute, with its message from the unknown valley among the cliffs. I wish the time was here right now."

"Felipe, by the way, is taking his rest now," said Frank, after a little time; "for he expects another night on duty. We still meet many tree trunks sweeping down on the current. The man at the wheel has to keep on guard constantly. Look at that tremendous one, will you, Andy? And just notice how dense the forest is ash.o.r.e around here. How any one can get around at all beats me. I should think they'd have to keep their machetes busy all the time cutting the matted vines away."

"I understand they do," the other went on. "And I rather guess that there's hardly a country under the sun where an aeroplane would be of more real benefit than right here in the tropics. Think of avoiding all that tangle--of floating along, a mile a minute if you wanted, far above the tree tops and away from all such a muss."

"You're right," agreed Frank, fervently. "And it's the only way any one could ever hope to discover this strange prison of your father. From a distance of a thousand feet we can have a big range of vision. With our good gla.s.s it will not be hard to discover the cliffs, if only we figure out in which direction we can have the best chance. And I think I've got a scheme ready to manage that."

"I depend on you to do it," said Andy. "Alone by myself I would simply despair of ever learning anything worth while. But while you are along I just feel that we're going to succeed."

"I ought to thank you for saying that, but I won't," Frank declared. "Because it makes me tremble for my reputation as a prophet."

"But you have seen nothing to make you less confident, I hope?" cried the other.

"To be sure I haven't," replied Frank, readily enough. "On the other hand, I ought to feel better satisfied than ever, because we've managed to outwit every cause for trouble that has cropped up this far. We'll get through this coming night without accident, because we're ready for anything. Then, when another day dawns, we'll haul in at Magangua, to hunt Jose Mendoza up and hear what he can tell us about the parachute that fell among his cocoa trees."

"Hark! what ails the men forward?" exclaimed Andy just then.

They sprang to their feet and rushed to where they could see what was going on.

"Perhaps a mutiny!" exclaimed Frank, who could not tell what queer thing was ever going to happen down in this land, the people of which were so different from all whom he had ever known before.

Andy uttered a low cry of alarm and began to fumble for the revolver Colonel Josiah had made him promise to always carry on his person, once they reached the country of revolutions.

The first sight they obtained told them that something unusual had indeed happened. A number of the native crew were in range of their vision, but every man had fallen flat on his face and seemed to be cowering there as if afraid.

"What in the d.i.c.kens is it?" gasped Andy.

"I don't know. They are a scared lot, that's sure! Perhaps they saw a sea serpent alongside! It couldn't be that a jaguar has boarded us. No, look at old Quito, how he lifts his head and takes a terrified look!

Why, he seems to be observing something up above in the heavens as sure as you live!"

As Frank shot out these words he, too, bent his head back to scan the brazen sky above. A cry broke from his lips.

"Why, what under the sun does it mean?" exclaimed Andy, who had also turned his eyes heavenward to discover a strange thing speeding over the tops of the trees, one, two thousand feet high, and at the same time there came to his ears a familiar throbbing that could have but one meaning.

"An aeroplane!" he burst forth in thrilling tones; "and the sillies down there think it's just a frightfully big bird about to carry them off. Hey, Frank, perhaps the government has got one of the new contraptions after all!"

"Go slow," said Frank. "Suppose you look a bit closer, my boy. Isn't there something familiar about that same craft up yonder?"

"It's--it's a biplane, Frank!" gurgled Andy.

"Yes, and one you've set eyes on before, too, old fellow. It belongs to--"

"Puss Carberry!" burst from Andy's quivering lips, as he continued to stare, as if almost unable to believe his own eyes.

CHAPTER XIII.