CHAPTER XVIII

IN A BAD FIX

“Keep back!” shouted the young aviator.

He accompanied the words with a spring and a roll that took him through and past the fringe of bushes and brought him directly against Hiram.

“Hold on, I say. The mischief!” blurted out Hiram, tipped clear off his balance.

“Hush!” warned Dave, regaining his feet. “Don’t go ahead, don’t make any disturbance. Stop Mr. King.”

Dave spoke the words in a hurried and urgent tone. Then, cautiously, he crept on all fours through the shrubbery. He took a second more comprehensive look over the plateau. Then he worked his way back to the bewildered Hiram.

“See here, Dave Dashaway,” challenged the latter, “you’re acting mighty strange.”

“What’s the trouble here?” inquired Mr. King, coming up to the boys, pursuant to mysterious gestures from Hiram.

“It is trouble, I am very much afraid,” replied Dave, seriously.

“What do you mean—about the airship?”

“Yes, Mr. King. The _Albatross_ seems to be all right, but about twenty men, all armed with guns, have our entire party cornered near some rocks.”

“You don’t say so!” cried the airman. “Let me have a look.”

“Be careful, then,” advised Dave. “It looks to me as if another band of these wild outlaws probably traced the searchlight, and have managed to catch our friends away from the airship. Anyway, our folks are helpless, and the strangers look fierce and dangerous.”

All three of the adventurers crept through the fringe of underbrush and took a look across the plateau. They found the situation as Dave had described it to be. The strangers held Professor Leblance, Mr. Dale, Grimshaw and the others at bay. A big, rough-looking fellow, evidently the leader of the band, was talking animatedly to the Frenchman. The others of the intruders held their rifles in a way that threatened an attack if the captives showed any resistance.

“They may be the MacGuffins,” whispered Hiram, intensely wrought up with excitement.

“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Dave. “Mr. King, let us try to get nearer to them.”

“Yes, we may learn what is going on and give our friends some help, if they need it,” replied the airman.

They had to cover half a mile in a cautious detour. This finally brought them to a thicket not thirty feet distant from their friends and enemies. Mr. King lay flat on the ground behind some high bushes, and his companions followed his example. Dave bent his ear keenly, to catch what the leader of the invading party was saying.

“That don’t go with me,” the man said. “How do we know that you ain’t here to spy on us? We fine trespassers here and we charge rent for the use of our property.”

“You must own the whole state, you fellows must,” snapped out Grimshaw.

“We run this district, if you want to know it,” retorted the outlaw. “Usually we just string up spies.”

“But we are no spies,” declared the professor, earnestly.

“We don’t take your word for that. Come, you’ve got to pay your reckoning. You scrape us up as much as two hundred dollars among you, or——”

The speaker waved his hand significantly in the direction of the _Albatross_.

“Yes,” growled one of his fellows. “It wouldn’t take us long to make a sieve of that contrivance.”

“I resent this outrage!” cried the Frenchman, hotly. “We are under international protection. Our mission is in the interests of science. If you interfere with us, you will rouse the entire community. It will be the worse for you.”

“Hear him, boys,” rallied the outlaw leader. “Say, stranger, who’s going to tell what we did or didn’t do to you, hey?”

The speaker grinned in a cold-blooded way that made Hiram Dobbs shiver.

“Say, Mr. King,” he whispered hoarsely, “shoot them.”

“One gun against twenty wouldn’t count for much,” responded the airman, with a shake of his head.

“I will pay no ransom, I will give you not one cent of blackmail,” declared the doughty Frenchman, thoroughly indignant.

“All right, then we will ransack your old gas bag and take what we want,” boasted the outlaw.

“I warn you,” cried the professor. “The airship is one mass of devices you do not understand. You may find trouble.”

“What do you bother with him for?” cried the man beside the last speaker. “We’ll cover the rest of the crowd. You make him take you over the machine and get what’s lying around loose.”

“Can’t we do something, Mr. King?” inquired the young aviator, in an anxious tone.

“I fear not, Dashaway,” was the reply. “These are desperate men and bound to have their own way. We can only hope that our being free will help our friends somewhere along the line.”

“You come with me,” ordered the outlaw leader, roughly seizing Professor Leblance by the arm and pulling him along. “Keep your eyes on those others,” he added, to his men.

The Frenchman held back with resolute face and force. The outlaw, however, was a great, bulky fellow of enormous strength.

They had proceeded less than twenty feet towards the airship, when a quick word cut the air, clear and startling as a pistol shot.

“Halt!”