Part 13 (1/2)
THE ”DEVIL-BIRD.”
”Yes, Puss Carberry and his crony, Sandy Hollingshead!” declared Frank, positively.
”But, it seems impossible! All these hundreds and hundreds of miles away from old Bloomsbury and Puss Carberry floating over us! Sure I must be dreaming, Frank!” stammered the other, still gaping up at the rapidly pa.s.sing aircraft.
”No, you're just as wideawake as ever you were in all your sweet life,”
said Frank. ”Take a better look, Andy; don't you see now that it's the same biplane we raced with the day Sandy dropped that bag of sand, hoping to break our winning streak in the dash for Old Thunder Top?”
”Anyhow it's a ringer for it, I give you my word!” muttered the stunned boy.
Frank, with an exclamation of impatience, sprang forward and s.n.a.t.c.hed something up that had just caught his attention. This proved to be the fine field gla.s.ses that had been brought along on the adventure.
These he clapped to his eye, and as they were already fitted and adapted to his sight, he lost not a second in covering the pa.s.sing aeroplane.
”Look for yourself, my boy!” he cried, handing the binoculars over to Andy, who hastily raised them.
”Well, I declare, that settles it!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed that individual immediately.
”You recognize them, then?” asked Frank.
”It's Puss as sure as thunder. I can see him plain. The other is just out of line, but there's something about his figure that makes me ready to say it's our old friend, Sandy,” Andy replied, amazement still gripping him tightly.
”Well,” Frank observed, ”after all, the only queer thing about it is our glimpsing them so soon. We knew they were headed down this way somewhere, but they made quicker time than our best. And just to think that they're the first to fly an aeroplane along the region of the Magdalena.”
”Huh! they beat us up in the air that other time, yet when it came to a showdown, we left 'em at the stake!”
Andy was beginning to recover his breath, and with it came renewed confidence.
”Do you see anything in the actions of Puss that would indicate he had recognized us aboard this boat?” asked Frank, for the other still kept the gla.s.ses glued to his eyes.
”No, I don't,” replied Andy, presently. ”You see they're awful high right now, and without gla.s.ses they could never make us out down here.”
”I guess you're right,” was Frank's decision. ”Perhaps it's just as well, for there's never any telling what mean trick those fellows have got up their sleeve.”
Andy suddenly removed the gla.s.ses and a sudden pallor seemed to cross his face.
”Oh, Frank!” he cried, ”you don't believe they'd ever be so wicked as to try and stop us from searching for my father, do you? Bad as Puss Carberry is, I can't just believe he'd ever do that.”
”Well, I hope not,” returned the other, but there was a trifling vein of doubt in his voice, for he had long ago ceased trying to figure to what depth of depravity those two schemers might descend.
”But where do you suppose they came from right now, Frank?”
”That would be hard to tell,” Frank replied. ”The first you saw of them they were sailing up over yonder. Then the chances are they have quartered themselves at some town, perhaps on the river, and that this is just their first flight--a sort of look over the country.”
”Yes,” said Andy, ”they're circling right now as though they mean to head back again.”
”Well, you can't blame them much,” Frank ventured, watching the actions of the aviators above with keenest interest. ”Night isn't so very far away, and I should think a fellow would hardly feel like being caught out after dark down here in an airs.h.i.+p.”
”Well, hardly,” Andy smiled. ”Curfew must ring for us every time. Fancy dropping plump in the middle of such a jumble of forest as that is yonder, and I bet you it's just cram full of snakes, jaguars and everything else that would want to snuggle up to a poor birdboy dropped out of the clouds. Me for daylight when I go sailing down in this blessed region.”