Title: The Radio Boys with the Border Patrol
Author: Gerald Breckenridge
Release date: March 7, 2018 [eBook #56695]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Stephen Hutcheson and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
The motor was already well tuned, everything was working satisfactorily.
By GERALD BRECKENRIDGE
Author of
“The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border,” “The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards,” “The Radio Boys on Secret Service Duty,” “The Radio Boys Search for the Incas Treasure,” “The Radio Boys Rescue the Lost Alaska Expedition,” “The Radio Boys in Darkest Africa,” “The Radio Boys Seek the Lost Atlantis.”
A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers New York
A SERIES OF STORIES FOR BOYS OF ALL AGES
By GERALD BRECKENRIDGE
Copyright, 1924
By A. L. BURT COMPANY
The tall, sun-browned man whose active sinewy figure belied his fifty years closed the switch, whipped off the headphones and smiling fondly turned to his visitor.
“Let’s go out to the field, Captain Cornell,” he said, “and you’ll see as pretty a landing as any flyer in the Southwest can make. That was my boy Jack. Radioed he’d be here in ten minutes.”
The uniformed army flyer from the Laredo flight of the Border Patrol smiled and nodded. Younger than Mr. Hampton by many years, in fact but half his age, he yet found his host a congenial spirit. Since his forced landing that morning on the terrace which the Hamptons had cleared on their Southwestern ranch, the two men had found much in common to discuss. Already they were fast on the way towards becoming real friends.
Together they stepped from the radio shack into the hot sunshine. After the comparative coolness of the interior with its whirring electric fan, the outdoors was like a furnace. League on league the mesquite covered plains stretched away to the distant needle-like peaks of the westward range, unbroken by building of any sort; by tree or moving object.
Behind them, however, lay the group of ranch buildings. There was the long low main structure, built of timbers and ’dobe, thick-walled, with cool interior and a shaded patio built about a spring. To one side rose a spindling tower at the foot of which crouched the radio shack. On the right was the corrugated-iron hanger, radiating heat like an oven in shimmering heat waves; and towards this the two men made their way.
“You certainly do yourself well here,” said Captain Cornell, looking from the beautifully levelled landing field, with its hanger and piped gas flares for night lighting, to the radio tower and the comfortable ranch house. The stables and corrals were out of sight in a draw, hidden by the dwelling.
Mr. Hampton nodded.
“Why not?” he asked. “I have all the money I need and more. Besides, as I told you, Jack is out here experimenting for the radio people, and they paid for doing over my little station and equipping it anew.”
By now they had reached the landing field, and Mr. Hampton raising his voice shouted: “Ho Tom.”
A figure, followed by another, rounded the corner of the hanger. Tom Bodine and his new assistant had been lounging on the shaded side.
“A great old-timer,” commented Mr. Hampton in a low voice as Tom Bodine approached in response to his beckoning wave of a hand. “Tell you some time about how he saved the lives of Jack and his pals, Bob Temple and Frank Merrick. It was down in old Mexico, when the boys were all several years younger.”
The flyer noted with approval the sinewy muscular figure of the ex-cowpuncher who approached without self-consciousness, alone, his assistant having dropped back. Grizzled, sun-browned, walking with the rolling gait of the man who had spent a lifetime in the saddle, Tom Bodine looked what he was—an outdoor man of the wide open ranges.
Mr. Hampton introduced them, and the two men shook hands. Each noted with a pleasurable thrill the firm grip of the other.
“Jack radioed he’d be landing soon,” said Mr. Hampton.
Through puckered eyelids his sharp blue eyes swept the sky to the south. A haze which had filled the sky for days, telling of sand whipped off of the Mexican desert hundreds of miles away by a wind storm, obscured the air.
“There he comes,” he said suddenly, pointing.
The gaze of the others followed. Heads nodded. They, too, saw the distant speck which betokened the approaching plane.
“Guess I left him plenty of room for landing,” said the army man, casting a glance towards his own De Haviland near the hanger.
“Yes, suh,” said Tom, not withdrawing his gaze from the sky. “I wasn’t here when you come down, but afterwards I wheeled yo’r bus to the south end. See? She won’t be in Jack’s way. Besides, that boy could land on a nickel a’most.”
There was such obvious pride in his voice that again Captain Cornell smiled discreetly. To himself he said that he wished people felt that way about him. But he did not do himself justice. He was one of the best-liked men of the Border Patrol.
On came Jack, the thrumming of his motor clearly heard by the watchers below. When almost overhead, the tune of the motor changed, and Captain Cornell’s practised ear could tell that Jack had throttled down to eight or nine hundred revolutions. He was nosing down. His plane was shooting earthward.
When little more than a thousand feet up, the plane was thrown into a tight spiral. Then Jack began circling downward.
“Pretty work,” muttered the army flyer. And Mr. Hampton overhearing could have gripped the other’s hand in his pleasure. The way to his heart lay through praise of his motherless son.
At two hundred feet the plane was seen to straighten out, and then Jack leaned overside and waved a greeting. He dropped down within fifty feet and then, with wide-open motor, roared along above the field towards the north end. There he turned for the landing.
“Always a ticklish task for a young flyer,” commented Captain Cornell, as the three men stood grouped and motionless, watching, while waiting beside the hanger could be seen the figure of the mechanic. “But he certainly handles himself like a veteran. Look at that,” he commented, as Jack shot downward in a shallow glide. “Beautiful.”
Jack levelled off a foot or so above the ground. Then tail-skid and wheels dropped to the hard-packed sand for a three-point landing.
“Beautiful,” the army flyer commented again, as he and Mr. Hampton started forward, with Tom Bodine rolling-leggedly alongside.
Tom and the mechanic who approached from the other side took the wings and guided the idling ship towards the hanger, but Jack waved them away.
“Let her go boys,” he said. “I want to run the motor out of gas.”
Obedient they stepped back. Then in a few moments, Jack snapped her off, and stepped out of the cockpit.
“Hello, Dad,” he called. “Got your message about Captain Cornell having honored us, so here I am. But if I hadn’t been taking Isabella for a ride when you radioed this morning, you wouldn’t have gotten me. Their radio’s out of commission. Tell you about it later. But here I am running on and you haven’t introduced us yet. Captain Cornell, I guess,” he added, turning squarely towards the army man, and holding out his hand.
“And mighty glad to meet you,” asserted the other, as their hands met. “Pretty landing,” he added.
Jack flushed under the praise, but so tanned was he like all the others that it would have been hard to distinguish the mantling blood in his cheeks.
“Oh, that was nothing,” he demurred. “But still it’s mighty nice of you to say so. Excuse me a minute while I talk with Tom. Something I want him to fix up.”
So saying, he strode off to where Tom Bodine and his mechanic were now trundling the plane into the hanger.
Captain Cornell saw a square-shouldered lean youth, hard as nails, almost six feet tall, with an open and ingenuous countenance who bore himself with an air of confident assurance. When Mr. Hampton earlier had been elaborating on Jack’s merits and capabilities and had told him somewhat of the confidence reposed in his son by the great radio trust which had commissioned him to carry out experiments in research and engineering problems, the army flyer had been inclined to discount the tale to a certain extent on the ground of parental partiality. But now he experienced an instinctive liking for Jack, and felt that in all likelihood Mr. Hampton had not been exaggerating.
His thoughts were interrupted by Jack’s quick return.
“Whew,” said Jack, tearing off his helmet and letting his damp hair blow in the light wind. “This heat is terrible. Haven’t had a day like this for ages. Big storm working up from the south, I’m afraid. Certainly was cooler up above. Well come on, let’s get out of the sun. Besides, I want something cool to drink. Then you can tell me how you happened to land here, Captain Cornell. And, I’ll have something that will interest a man of the Border Patrol, or else I’m mighty badly mistaken.”
“Why, Jack, what do you mean?” questioned his father, striding beside him towards the house.
“Sounds mysterious,” commented Captain Cornell, on Jack’s right.
“That’s what it is, too—mysterious,” said Jack. “Something brewing down there in the mountains behind Rafaela’s home that I don’t understand. Neither does her father. But let’s get inside where it’s cool, and I’ll tell you all I know about it, which isn’t much.”
With laughing apology for an ever-present appetite, Jack declared he must have food as well as the cooling limeade set out for him on the table in the shaded patio. So Ramon of the grizzled bushy hair and the drooping mustache and brown-paper cigarette was summoned from the kitchen, and with remarkable celerity he had salads and cold meat for all three on the table.
While he ate, Jack, out of politeness, questioned Captain Cornell regarding the accident which had forced him down, learning it was due to a leak in his gas tank which Tom Bodine already had soldered.
“I would have been on my way, thanks to your father filling my tank,” explained the army flyer, “but I am merely on my way back to Laredo, with no particular reason for getting there in a hurry, and so I decided to stay and give myself the pleasure of meeting you.”
He paused, regarding Jack curiously. Certainly this unassuming, quiet-mannered young fellow, scarcely out of his ’teens, did not resemble the taker of hair breadth chances whom he had pictured mentally as a result of listening to Mr. Hampton’s descriptions of some of the escapades enjoyed by Jack and his two pals, Bob Temple and Frank Merrick, in South America, Africa, the Far North and at home. Neither did he look like a scientist, yet Mr. Hampton had assured Captain Cornell that his son was out here performing abstruse research experiments in radio for the benefit of the great radio trust.
Jack’s blue eyes twinkled, and looking at his father he shook his head as if in humorous disgust.
“Been boring visitors again, Dad, with your reminiscenses,” he said. “So that’s your idea of hospitality, hey?”
And turning to Captain Cornell, he added:
“You know how it is with fond parents, Captain. Don’t mind him. And don’t hold what he says against me.”
“All right, I won’t,” laughed the other. “But, if I may be pardoned for seeming personal, how is it you happen to be here without your pals? Your father spoke of you three as being inseparable.”
“Well, you see,” explained Jack, “I was a year ahead of the other fellows at Yale. I took my degree in engineering at Sheffield in the Spring. The others are plugging away on their Senior year. They’ll be through in a matter of six weeks or so, and then they’ll be out to spend the Summer with me.”
“I didn’t get a chance to explain all your history, Jack,” interpolated Mr. Hampton with a laugh.
“I see.” Captain Cornell nodded. “And what do you all intend to do then? Get into more adventures? Things are pretty quiet along the border nowadays.”
Jack looked up from his salad, his face grown grave.
“Not so quiet as you might think, Captain,” he said. “That’s what I intended to tell you about.”
His father and the army flyer sat forward alertly, with a sudden scraping of chair legs on the flagstone paving of the patio.
“What do you mean, Jack?” asked Mr. Hampton.
Jack pushed back his plate and slumped down comfortably in his chair, his crossed ankles resting on the curbing of the fountain.
“Something I learned at Don Ferdinand’s today,” he said.
Don Ferdinand was an irascible yet lovable old Spanish aristocrat living in the Sonoran mountains of old Mexico below the border. Several years before Jack and his father had made the old Don’s acquaintance under strange circumstances. Don Ferdinand was immensely wealthy and lived in feudal state in a palace in the wilderness, surrounded by many retainers. At that time he had been in opposition to the Obregon government. Seeking to embroil Mexico and the United States and thus further his plans for unseating Obregon as President, he had made a raid across the border and carried Mr. Hampton away captive. He then had sent word to Mr. Temple, his prisoner’s partner and the father of Jack’s big pal, Bob Temple, to the effect that Mr. Hampton would be held for ransom. Don Ferdinand had figured that Mr. Temple would appeal to the American government and that thus trouble between the Obregon government and the United States would be engendered. But Jack Hampton and his pals undertook to rescue the older man without public appeal, and penetrating the Sonoran wilderness they managed to accomplish their object. Since then Don Ferdinand and Mr. Hampton had become fast friends. As for Jack and the Senorita Rafaela, they had corresponded with each other, and now that Jack was back in the South-west, he had spent more and more time below the border.
After his remark, Jack sat silent an appreciable space of time. Finally, his father becoming impatient broke out with:
“Well, well, Jack, go on. You say something happened down at Don Ferdinand’s today, and you get us all excited. What was it?”
“I don’t know that you could really say something happened,” said Jack, choosing his words carefully. “But Don Ferdinand got pretty warm under the collar. Anyway, I’ll start at the beginning—it wasn’t much, and yet it might mean a lot—and I’ll give it to you as I got it.”
Old Ramon came slithering, across the flagstones in the moccasins which he always wore because of tender feet, and Jack cast a glance at him and then ceased speaking until the Mexican had deposited the coffee cups and departed with the luncheon plates.
“Don Ferdinand told me not to speak of this to anybody whom we couldn’t trust thoroughly,” he said, by way of explanation, and with a nod towards the departing figure of Ramon he added: “The old man is a good hombre so far as we knew. But Don Ferdinand was insistent that I shouldn’t let out a word before any Mexicans.
“It was mighty warm down there, with that hot wind blowing, and I hadn’t slept well. Too hot for comfort. Pitched and tossed all night. Flew down yesterday afternoon,” he threw out for Captain Cornell’s understanding. “So the old don, Rafaela and I were sitting in the patio this morning, trying to keep cool. He was asleep, I expect, because, he hadn’t said a word for a long time. So was the old duenna in the background somewhere. Rafaela and I were talking in low voices, so as not to disturb the others.
“A man came into the patio, a rough-looking, villainous fellow. I did not remember ever seeing him about the place, but then there is a veritable army of retainers always hanging about, a sort of feudal lot of dependents; so that wasn’t strange. Anyway, Rafaela knew him, for, when he made a low bow and stood there with his high-crowned sombrero in hand, she spoke to him sharply, asking what he wanted. He replied that he wanted to speak to Don Ferdinand, and Rafaela waked her father.
“Don Ferdinand took a good look at the man, then he jumped up out of his chair.
“‘You, Pedro, what are you doing here?’ he demanded. ‘So far from the mine? Has anything gone wrong?’
“Pedro came closer, said something in a low voice. Then Don Ferdinand cast a quick glance toward Rafaela and me.
“‘Ah, Senor Jack,’ he said, ‘a thousand pardons. Permit me— There is a little matter of business to attend to.’ And with a bow to me he made off toward his office, Pedro at his heels.
“Well,” said Jack, leaning back, “I didn’t think much about the incident. These fellows are always so mysterious anyhow, about the merest trifles. I didn’t even ask Rafaela who the fellow was. She herself volunteered the information, saying he was foreman of a silver mine far back in the mountains which Don Ferdinand owns. For a long time, the old don had refrained from working the mine. He had sealed it up during the troubled years following the Madero revolution, although when Diaz had been President it had been a big producer. Now he had resumed operations again.
“‘Some little trouble at the mine brings Pedro,’ said Rafaela. ‘Oh, you men with your business. But look, Jack,’ she added, in a low voice, ‘Donna Ana sleeps.’
“I looked around. The old duenna was snoozing so hard, it would have taken an earthquake to wake her.
“‘The heat’s got her,’ I said, for it certainly was hot, even there in the shaded patio.
“I guess Rafaela thought me pretty dense, by the way she looked at me.
“‘Is that all you can think about?’ she asked. ‘But, you think about the heat—well, wouldn’t it be fine to go flying? So nice and cool?’
“Then I tumbled. ‘Come on,’ I said, ‘let’s go.’
“We tiptoed out of the patio like a couple of conspirators. The old duenna never stirred. Don Ferdinand wasn’t in sight. Neither was anybody else at the front of the house. And out behind, in the quarters, I expect everybody was taking a siesta. Anyway, we couldn’t hear a sound.
“So off we trotted across the lawn and disappeared among the eucalyptus trees—you know, Dad, cutting off the house from the don’s landing field?”
Mr. Hampton nodded, a reminiscent light in his eyes. He was remembering the scene which had become so familiar during his period of captivity several years before.
Captain Cornell opened his eyes. “A landing field?” he demanded, incredulously.
“Oh, yes,” explained Jack. “Several years back, when the old don was an unreconstructed Mexican rebel, he had a couple of airplanes in his pay. Several of his aviators even stole ours—that is Bob’s and Frank’s—airplane. But we got it back. The airplanes are gone, as well as most of the rebel army Don Ferdinand was feeding at that time. But the flying field remains. It’s in pretty good shape too.
“Anyhow,” he continued, “Rafaela and I popped out on the field, and I put her in the plane. Then I stirred up a couple of sleepy Mexicans whom I’ve trained to help me. We got her going, and after I’d warmed her up, we took off for a spin.
“And, say, Dad,” he added, in a burst of enthusiasm, “that girl’s one good sport. She certainly loves to fly. One of these days I’m just going to have to teach her. Trouble is, they never let her go up. This was only her second or third flight. And, my, how tickled she was over stealing away from her duenna.”
Mr. Hampton tried to look reproving but failed lamentably. Nevertheless, he warned: “Just the same, you mustn’t do that again, Jack, without her father’s consent. What if something happened, some accident?”
“Oh, shucks,” said Jack, “I didn’t fly high with her, and I didn’t take off until the old bus was tuned up and running like a watch. Anyhow,” he added, hastening to change the subject, “it was a good thing I went up because it was then I got your radio message, saying Captain Cornell was here and asking me to come home. The don’s station was out of order again. Some Mexican kid is always monkeying with something or other and putting the whole works out of commission. When it’s working, Rafaela says, they get all the big stations. And”—he laughed—“she says it’s a regular thing for all the Mexicans to turn out since I installed that loud speaker for them, and dance on the flying field at night to the band music they pull out of the air.
“Well, anyhow, back we flew, and I landed her safely and left the motor idling while we walked up to the house. I intended to see her home, say good-bye to the don, and come back.
“The old duenna was still asleep. But just as we stepped back in the patio Don Ferdinand appeared in a state of pretty high excitement. I thought for a minute he was going to comb me for taking Rafaela up in the plane without permission. But, no; he wasn’t even aware that we had been flying.
“‘What’s the matter, father?’ asked Rafaela, anxiously. ‘Has anything happened? Did Pedro bring bad news?’
“The old don walked up and down a few steps, clasping and unclasping his hands behind his back. ‘Just when the mine was beginning to pay again,’ he mourned.
“‘Tell me what is the matter, father,’ demanded Rafaela.
“He halted and faced us. ‘Matter? Matter?’ said he. ‘Matter enough. That devil Ramirez has lured all my men away. They laugh when Pedro begs them to stay and say they will follow Ramirez who will make them rich. Pedro cannot get anybody to work.’
“‘But you can send other men,’ said Rafaela.
“‘Bah,’ said Don Ferdinand. ‘You are just a girl. What do you know about such matters? If Ramirez takes some men, will he not take others?’
“Rafaela shrugged and spread out her hands. ‘But you are rich, father. You need not worry about the mine.’
“‘Foolish child,’ said Don Ferdinand, and he appealed to me. ‘Women do not know,’ said he. ‘Why does Ramirez lure my men away, if not to make revolution? And revolution will upset everything again. Bah, we have had enough of revolutions.’”
Mr. Hampton interrupted with an abrupt but hearty laugh.
“Isn’t that just like him? He wants no revolutions unless he makes them himself. When I think of several years ago—” And he laughed again.
Jack smiled, too. “That’s what I thought, Dad,” he said. And then, becoming serious, he added: “Anyhow, there is another revolution brewing, Captain Cornell, it is liable to make trouble for you fellows of the Border Patrol.”
The army flyer nodded. His face wore a puzzled frown.
“Ramirez?” he said. “Ramirez? Never heard of him. And I know most of the trouble-makers by name, besides. Your friend Don Ferdinand referred to him as ‘that devil Ramirez,’ hey? Did he explain further?”
“No,” said Jack. “He just cautioned me not to speak of this to any of our Mexicans, and said he would have more news for me later. Then I came away. I don’t know,” he added thoughtfully; “I don’t know but what he contemplates lighting out after Ramirez himself. He’s quite an intrepid old fellow, you know.”
The conversation thereupon became more general, Captain Cornell questioning Jack regarding his radio experiments. They walked out to the radio shack. And there Jack launched into an enthusiastic description of his work. He was seeking, he said, to work out some of the fundamental problems demanding solution as a result of the tremendous increase in both broadcasting stations and receivers.
“There are six or seven such problems,” he said. “First, we must have a radio receiver which will provide super-selectivity—a receiver which will enable the Operator to select any station he wants to hear, whether or not local stations are operating. Such selectivity must go to the theoretical limits of the science. Here”—pointing to a litter on a work bench which was only a meaningless jumble to the flyer—“is a pretty close approach, or it soon will be,” he corrected himself, “to what I want. It will be a super-sensitive receiver, giving volume from distant stations as well as selectivity.”
Here and there he went about the shack, taking up or lying down pieces of apparatus, and keeping up a running fire of comment which made the flyer’s head swim.
He was working, he said, on the problem of achieving a “non-radiating” receiver—one, which, no matter how handled, wouldn’t interfere with a neighbor’s enjoyment. He was trying to improve the complicated Super-Heterodyne in sensitiveness and selectivity, so that anybody could have access to its wonders, regardless of whether he possessed any engineering skill.
And at that point, Captain Cornell groaning humorously clapped his hand to his head and staggered toward the door.
“Great Scott, Mr. Hampton,” he appealed, “call him off, will you? I didn’t know there was so much to radio. I’m willing to believe your son’s the greatest radio engineer in the world, but tell him to have a heart. Understanding about airplanes is as far as my feeble intelligence will carry me. I can’t cram radio into it, too.”
The Hamptons both laughed, and followed him outside. There, with a look at the sky, Captain Cornell gave a sudden startled exclamation.
“I’ll have to be getting along,” he said. “Just enough daylight going to be left for me to get to Laredo. Besides, I don’t like that look in the South. One of these desert siroccos playing away off there somewhere. And who knows when it may take a notion to come wandering up here? Will you folks help me get away?”
Tom Bodine had seen them start across the field, and by the time they reached the side of the big De Haviland used by the Border Patrol flyer, the motors were gently idling. Tom, clambering out of the cockpit announced proudly that everything was ship-shape.
Captain Cornell’s face beamed as he took his place in the front cockpit. This was real service. He liked Tom, good man. He liked these Hamptons, too. His practiced eye ran over the dials in front of him, noting that air pressure, temperature, and oil pressure were correct. The big bomber breathing fire from its exhaust pipes as it strained against the wheel blocks was like a great bird eager to take the air.
A sudden thought came to Captain Cornell, and leaning out he shouted through cupped hands in order to make himself heard above the roar of the warming motor:
“I’ll look up Ramirez’s record in Laredo and give you a call on the radio if I learn anything.”
Jack shook his head. He couldn’t hear. Captain Cornell throttled down and repeated his words.
“All right,” shouted Jack. “And if I can be of any help, call on me. And, say, Captain,” he added as an afterthought, “I’ll be dropping in on you at Laredo one of these days. Dad and I want to see a bull fight. Maybe you’ll take us over into the Mexican town.”
“Surest thing you know,” the flyer called. “Come on a Sunday.”
Then with the battery charging and the motor firing sweetly, he threw off one switch of the double-ignition system in order to listen for breaks in the twelve-cylinder Liberty. The same operation on the other. Both running true. A wave of the hand, in farewell, and he eased the throttle on. Slowly the tachometer climbed up the scale, showing increasing revolutions.
The flyer nodded to Tom and Jack at the wings. They disappeared and then popped out, dragging the wheel blocks. Tom’s assistant stepped away from the tail. Then the big ship started forward easily, smoothly, and within thirty yards the tail-skid left the ground. Motor roaring without a break, the De Haviland ran a bit farther, then took the air. Driving along a little above the ground, it shot upward. Then a right bank and the flyer circled the field, making sure his great plane was running true before letting her out for Laredo. Twice around the field, and then away shot the ship.
“Some bus,” said Jack.
None of the little group had said a word up to then.
“Lot more trouble to work her than your little racer, Jack,” said Tom Bodine with the freedom born of years of friendship.
Jack nodded. “Some day I’m going to ask Captain Cornell to let me handle her. If I ever see him again,” he added, as he and Mr. Hampton returned toward the house.
But Jack was to see Captain Cornell again, and that right soon.
In the meantime, he spent the next several days engaged on his radio experimentation. Mr. Hampton saw little of him, except at meals. But the older man was himself engaged, being deep in the writing of a technical engineering paper. So the time did not hang heavy on his hands.
Jack reported one night enthusiastically that his research had definitely established that the complicated Super-Heterodyne could be simplified to the point where anybody, “even a child,” he said with such a tone of scorn as to make his father smile, could work it. Then he plunged again into his experiments.
Four or five days after the unexpected visit of the army flyer, Tom Bodine returning from a ride into Red Butte, ten miles away, brought a bundle of mail. Mail at the ranch was always an event, so Jack was summoned from his radio shack to the house, and he and his father abandoned their various pursuits for the time being.
“Oh, I say, Dad, here’s a letter from Frank,” cried Jack, pouncing on a bulky missive, and slitting it open. “Now to hear the news from home.” And with the stiff sheets crinkling, he threw himself down in a deep leather chair while his eyes started to devour the page.
The next moment he bounded to his feet with a whoop.
“Hurray, Dad,” he shouted, “Guess what! The fellows have both passed their exams. Now they have nothing to do for six weeks, when they’ll have to show up for Commencement. They’re coming out to spend the intervening time with us.” His eyes skimmed the pages. “Been planning on this for a long time but kept it a secret. Bob wasn’t sure he could pass, but he crammed. Got a creditable rating. And Mr. Temple’s coming, too. What do you know about that, Dad?”
And tossing the letter upon the table, Jack grabbed his father by the shoulders and began whirling him around the room. Not until he had kicked over several chairs and bumped into the table with a crash that brought a howl of pain did he come to a halt. Then Mr. Hampton looked at his flushed face and shining eyes and shook his head.
“Yes, Temple told me the same thing here,” he said, extending the letter he himself had been reading. He shook his head. “Poor Temple and I. We’ll have our hands full.”
“They’ll be here— Let’s see.” Jack retrieved the letter from the table, turning to the date. “Why, they’ll be at San Antone the twentieth. And this is the seventeenth, isn’t it? I lose track of time out here. Stay in San Antone a day, and then come on to Red Butte. Golly, Dad, they’ll be here in five days.”
The next day Jack announced he was going to carry the news to their friends in Mexico. They would be glad to hear it, he said, especially Don Ferdinand who had taken a great liking to big Bob Temple because of the way in which the young athlete had performed prodigies of strength in the rescue of Mr. Hampton, several years before. Don Ferdinand had been the victim, but he was a game loser. And because of the warm friendliness which had developed between the two parties since that bygone time, he could afford to smile at all that had happened now.
“Why don’t you go along with me, Dad?” Jack suddenly suggested. “Do you good to get away from your poky old writing. Come on. Blow the cobwebs out of your brain.”
“Believe I will,” said Mr. Hampton, after a moment or two of thought. “Wait till I tell Ramon we won’t be home for dinner. He’d feel hurt if we didn’t let him know. Besides, I’ll need my helmet and goggles.”
While he was absent, Jack and Tom Bodine tuned up the motor of Jack’s two-seater, of which Tom stood in considerable awe, yet which he teasingly referred to as “Jack’s air flivver.”
Mr. Hampton returned wearing a puzzled expression. He explained that he had been unable to find Ramon. This was strange, as the old fellow seldom stirred from his kitchen. He inquired of Tom whether the latter had seen him since breakfast. Tom shook his head in denial, but his tow-headed assistant, a youngster from Red Butte, who approached in time to overhear the question, spoke up.
“Yes sir, Mr. Hampton, I seen him light out toward Red Butte ’bout an hour or two ago. He come out o’ the back o’ the house soon after breakfast. I was out here where I sleep”—nodding toward the hanger. “He was hobblin’ right fast on them bad feet o’ hisn. Stops by the road an’ along comes that Mexican feller in town what runs the flivver at the station, just like he had a date t’ meet Ramon. So the old feller gets in an’ away they go toward Red Butte.”
Mr. Hampton’s face cleared.
“Oh, I suppose he wanted to go to Red Butte to order supplies,” he said. “But it’s queer he didn’t say something about it at breakfast. Well, come on, Jack. Let’s get going. You fellows will have to feed yourselves, Tom. I think there’s plenty of food in the storehouse, and I know how well you can cook flapjacks. So I guess you won’t starve before Ramon gets back. We’ll be back tomorrow. Don Ferdinand wouldn’t let us come back tonight, I know.”
Thereupon, at a nod from Jack, Tom and his assistant who was known as “Whitey,” withdrew the wheel blocks. The motor was already well tuned, everything was working satisfactorily. Jack glanced up at the wind-indicator, noting that the take-off would be south, just as he was headed. Then he advanced the throttle smoothly, being careful not to over-feed the motor, and the graceful light plane instantly started forward in response.
A quick shoot forward, then up. When his altimeter showed he was up twelve hundred feet, and with everything running smoothly, Jack dropped the flying field behind and headed away for the distant mountains within which lay Don Ferdinand’s feudal estate.
Before starting he had suggested that his father should endeavor to call Don Ferdinand on the radio from the plane. The German who once, in the don’s belligerent days, had operated the radio outfit, long since had taken his departure. But Jack had instructed Manuel Sanchez, an intelligent young fellow of Don Ferdinand’s retainers, in the operation of the radio station. He had even overhauled the two-way station himself recently. If Manuel had succeeded in restoring the outfit to working condition since Jack’s last visit, Mr. Hampton might be able to get a response.
However, no response was received. And at the end of an hour and a half of flying over bare untrodden desert country giving way to foothills, Jack finally crossed the top of a low range and their destination appeared in the valley below.
Jack swooped downward and leveled off a foot above the ground of the flying field. Nobody came running, but that was nothing unusual. Since Don Ferdinand had dispensed with his airplanes, the field was deserted. Only when Jack departed after a visit could the men whom he had trained to help in the take-off be found at hand. His hand dragged back on the stick, and he dropped to the hard-packed sand for a perfect three-point landing, wheels and tail-skid hitting together.