John Goldfrap - The Boy Aviators on Secret Service; Or, Working with Wireless

Frank and Harry stood at the door of the portable house as Schultz and Le Blanc started for the aerodrome and shouted out “good-night” till the echoes rang back from the hills. Then one by one the lights in the two houses went out and all was quiet. That is, all seemed so to two watchers concealed in a thick mass of brush up on the hill, but in reality no sooner had the houses been plunged in darkness than the boys and Ben Stubbs had crept quietly into the aerodrome and sat down to wait for the crisis they felt sure was coming.

Harry and Billy each carried a long thin package that might have contained anything from dynamite to a pistol. Ben Stubbs, with a grim expression on his rugged face, grasped a stout club he had cut that afternoon. It was pitchy dark in the aerodrome and as they waited, in the absolute silence Frank had enjoined, the watchers could hear one another breathing. Upstairs only the rhythmic snores of Schultz and Le Blanc, who were not in the secret, disturbed the silence.

Frank sat with his hand on the switch that would shoot a current of 500 volts through the copper wires surrounding the aerodrome when he connected it. A hole, bored earlier in the afternoon in the wooden wall of the aerodrome gave the boy a command of the view outside in the direction of the woods. So dark was it, however, that even his keen eyes could detect little in the black murk. He saw they would have to judge of their enemies’ whereabouts solely by sound.

They must have sat there in the darkness for an hour or more, with no sound being borne to their ears but the unmelodious snoring of the two mechanics in the loft when, suddenly, and without any further warning there came a sharp “crack” from up on the hillside as a branch snapped under a heavy foot.

“Here they come,” whispered Frank to the boys, whom he knew were there; but couldn’t see any more than if they were in the antipodes.

“Get outside now, you fellows, and when I give the word, let go!”

Silently as cats Billy Barnes, Harry and Ben Stubbs slipped off their shoes and tiptoed out through the door of the aerodrome, which had been left open to allow for the noiseless exit. Frank was left alone in the barn-like aerodrome save for the two sleepers upstairs. The tension in the silence grew painful. When would the persons who had crackled the broken branch on the hillside recover their courage enough to make a further advance?

All at once, close at hand, Frank heard a loud whisper of:

“Well, they are all asleep, evidently.”

“Yes,” replied another hoarse whisper, “that kid you suspected evidently didn’t hear anything.”

“Confound it, it’s dark as a pit,” came from the first speaker.

“It might be lighter,” replied the other, “but the blacker it is the better for us.”

“Hark at those fellows snoring,” was the next thing Frank heard. The remark was accompanied by a smothered laugh.

“Yes, they are sound asleep as run-down tops,” was the reply.

Frank inwardly blessed the stalwart lungs of Schultz and Le Blanc. All unconsciously the sleepers were helping on their plans.

“Do you think that’s the boys snoring?” asked one of the two men who were cautiously creeping nearer to the aerodrome.

“I hope so,” was the response, “I’d like to see them go skywards with their infernal air-ship.”

“Scudder will have reason to thank us for a good night’s work,” was the next remark of the prowlers.

There was silence for a few seconds and then a jangling sound. One of the men who had the destruction of the Golden Eagle II at heart had collided with Frank’s wire fence.

“Confound it, what’s that?” angrily hissed his companion.

“A wire fence,” replied the other.

“Well, it will take more than that to stop us,” was the angry answer, “come on, grab the top wire and over we go.”

“Now!” shouted Frank, as he threw in the switch and 500 volts coursed through the copper wire both men were grasping.

At the same instant Billy and Harry outside pressed the electric buttons that ignited the Coston navy signal lights they both carried and the whole scene was illuminated in a white glare as light as noonday. And what a scene it was!

On the ground by the fence sprawled the marauders yelling till the air rang with their cries of mingled pain and amazement at the surprise of the powerful shock that had knocked them off their feet.

Above them stood the stout figure of Ben Stubbs belaboring them impartially with the heavy club he had cut for that special purpose.

“Take that, you lubbers, you longshore loafers!” he shouted as his blows fell with the rapidity of a drumstick on the two prostrate carcasses.

The two men, however, had laid their plans better than the boys knew. They were prepared for a surprise, but not one of the kind they had run into.

Without a second’s warning there was a sudden flash from the hill behind them, followed by a sharp report. Ben Stubbs threw up his hands and rolled over with a yell more of surprise than of anything else.

“Put out those lights!” shouted Frank, realizing that in the white glare the group outside presented fine targets for the hidden marksman on the hill, whoever he might be.

The boys instantly shoved their glaring torch tips into the ground. Even as they did so they could hear rapidly retreating footsteps.

“Don’t let them get away,” shouted Harry wildly.

Frank, who by this time had switched off the current, and was outside, seized him with a detaining grasp.

“No good, Harry,” he exclaimed. “It would be taking needless chances. Now, let’s look to Ben.”

“Only a hen-peck,” hailed that redoubtable ex-mariner, coming up, “just nicked my starboard ear, but I thought for a minute they had done me.”

“That was no fault of theirs,” answered Billy, “they – ”

He was interrupted by a series of guttural shouts and piercing shrieks.

“Ach Himmel – donnerblitzen vass iss – !”

“Sacre nom de nom! Qu’est-ce que cela! To the aid. Monsieur Chest-e-erre!”

The cries came from the aerodrome and were uttered by the awakened Schultz and Le Blanc, the latter of whom was almost in hysterics. Frank laughingly quieted them and explained what had happened.

“Ve vos only eggcited on your aggount,” remarked Schultz bravely when he learned that all danger was over.

“Comment, vee fight lek ze tiger-r-r n’ c’est pas?” demanded Le Blanc, flourishing a pillow fiercely. “A pitee I deed not see zee ras-cals.”

The incident related in the last chapter determined Frank to abandon his half-arrived at intention to enter the Everglades from the Atlantic side. The appearance of the dark man in Washington – he was now certain their plans had been overheard – the episode of the tramp and the attempt to blow up the aerodrome all combined to convince him that his original scheme of invasion of the little known wastes of Southern Florida was as an open book to the men who had only too evidently their destruction at heart.

A hasty trip to Washington resulted, and a consultation with the Secretary of the Navy. The result was that arrangements were made whereby the boys’ expedition was to gather at Miami as openly as possible, and then under cover of night run down Biscayne Bay and eventually double Cape Sable by the inland passage. Then they were to beat up through the Ten Thousand Island Archipelago to the mouth of either Shark or Harney River and thence into the trackless wastes of unmapped swamp and saw-grass known as the Everglades.

The Tarantula was to cruise off and on around the coast and in case of dire need was to be signaled by wireless. These details completed, Frank and Harry returned to New York and a week later, the Golden Eagle II being completed, and loaded in small cases marked “Glass, Fragile,” and other misleading labels, the Boy Aviators bade farewell to their mother and friends and started by the Southern Limited for Miami. With them they carried in ordinary trunks their mess and camp kit outfits, rifles and medical supplies as well as two of the Government’s field wireless outfits. The rest of the party was to follow a week later in a private car with all the other baggage, including the boxed sections of the Golden Eagle II . The canoes and boats for the trips were to be purchased at Miami or along the coast in the vicinity, as the boys deemed fit. In the meantime the Tarantula had been dispatched from Hampton Roads for Southern waters under sealed orders. Not till her commander opened his instructions at sea did he know the real nature of his errand.