Part 2

The green plane seemed to stagger in the air. Its fuel tank had been perforated by the bullets, and the pilot had turned to gesticulate wildly to one of the men back of him.

It was then that, as Bill flew alongside, but a trifle in the rear to keep out of range of the machine gun, that Ruth drew a steady bead and fired again. The pilot threw up his hands.

A second member of the green plane started to reach for the joy-stick. There was another report from Bill’s plane, and the great green De Haviland spiraled down dizzily.

Ten minutes later Bill Barlow, with Ruth and her father, had made a landing and were running toward the crushed green ship, Bill put out his hand and barred Ruth’s progress. He knew that it was not a pretty sight that would meet their eyes, for the ship had caught fire, and even as they ran forward there was an explosion.

The three men of the green plane’s crew were dead, and two of them were badly burned. There was no sign of the bullion. A box of grenades had toppled out from the plane when it careened in the air, and had miraculously not exploded.

Bill gathered them up and handed them to Saxton.

“We’d better keep ’em,” he said. “No telling but that they might come in handy on a day like this. I think these birds must have a cache somewhere up there in the mountains, and I have an idea. We’d better hotfoot it to Valmora and get something out of that injured Mex if we can. He didn’t seem badly hurt, but he might pop off.”

At Valmora, the Mexican, whose name proved to be Pedro Cesar, had made a quick recovery. He was on his feet in the ward, but under guard.

Bill drew him aside.

“There’s one chance for you, Cesar,” he said. “It’s up to you what you want to do. You know your pals abandoned you this morning. They could have taken you, couldn’t they? Now I want to get some information out of you.”

The little Mexican surveyed him out of sullen black eyes.

“Me, I am no traitor,” he replied. “I fly weeth Villa. I am gentleman.”

“Then your friends are traitors,” Bill informed him. “You know what they did? They flew back over that crashed gray plane about an hour ago, and fired into the bodies they found there. You know why? They thought some of their pals might have been alive, and they didn’t want to share that gold. And they probably thought that you were one of the ones stopping their lead. Not very nice treatment, was it? But they have been captured by the State patrol, and by coming clean you can get free. You’d better come through. There was murder done there--and you’re in on it.”

Pedro Cesar seemed to have fallen for the story. He broke into a series of curses in Spanish.

“Por Dios! If they want to doubla cross me, eh? An’ go away weeth de gol’--yes, so soon night come. How many you say they arrest--de men in de green plane? Three? Ah--two more are in de mountains weeth another hair-sheep. They doubla cross them too, eh? They turn what you say State’s evidence?”

“That’s it,” Bill lied cheerfully. “They didn’t have the gold in the green plane--but in another hour the authorities will know where it’s cached in the mountains. Then you all get the works. Say, how did you birds get hold of three airships?”

“Ah! That surprise you, eh?” Pedro Cesar laughed. “You have perhaps heard of Pancho Lopez, eh--de beeg bandit chief of Sonora? Ah, I theenk you have heard so much, yes? Pancho Lopez he have de sheeps from de ol’ Villista army, an’ he hear of de gol’ being transport from Trinidad. He ees poor now, ol’ Pancho, yes. He weesh to make de one haul an’ take to de hills where no one ever find him. But Pancho he be very mad now if he not get gol’.”

“I’m afraid your friend Pancho will have to stick mad and stay mad,” Barlow told the Mexican. “But you show me where that other plane is cached in the hills, and you’ll get out of plenty trouble.”

“You carry me in de hair-sheep,” Pedro promised, “an’ I show you we gat them, ver’ queek.”

“O K,” said Bill. “But I’d like a third man along, with another rifle.”

“What’s the matter with me? Am I a cripple?” Saxton interrupted. “And don’t forget, that’s my plane you’re piloting,” he laughed.

“Maybe,” said Bill, chuckling back. “All right, get the guns, Saxton. And we have the grenades. We’ll see if we can’t rout out those birds. They must have the dough cached there.”

So, after a quick lunch at the sanatorium, Bill Barlow once more hopped off, with Pedro Cesar and Saxton in the cockpit--hopped off to the north, where Cesar claimed that his former confederates were hidden.

Saxton had orders to watch Cesar, whom Bill did not entirely trust, but the Mexican seemed to have been converted and chastened, and as they neared the mountains and Bill increased his altitude, he directed the pilot to veer to the right to avoid a machine gun mounted in the robber camp as an anti-aircraft weapon.

“Believe me, these birds have a modern organization,” said Bill. “And look, Saxton over to the right there. See that sky-blue monoplane? By golly, they’re getting ready to take off. And with the dough, I’ll bet.”

It seemed true enough. Here in a natural bowl made by a circular plain and the rimming hills was a speedy-looking monoplane with its engine already warming up. On the ground three men were gesticulating to each other, and one of them pointed up toward Bill’s ship, whereupon all of them ran for cover.

Bill swung over the plane and, taking precise aim, let go two of the bombs he had taken from the wrecked gray ship. The second one seemed to hit the monoplane squarely and tip it over on one wing.

Then Bill spiraled down in an effort to destroy the machine gun back of the bowlder before it could be manned. Cesar pointed it out, and just as he did so there came the quick rat-a-tat-a-tat of machine gun bullets.

Bill throttled his motor and swung to the right, then circled and made a landing at the far end of the field.

“That other plane’s out of commission,” he said. “We want to have one left to get away in. Down on your bellies, men, and keep to shelter. We’ll fight this action out right down here.”

He taxied his ship behind a spur of hill out of range of the machine gun. Then, rifle in hand, he held a quick conference with Saxton and Cesar.

“You folks keep in shelter behind these rocks here, and draw that bozo’s fire,” he said. “They’ve got bad medicine there, but we may be able to outmaneuver them.”

His plan was to creep up the side trail with his rifle, and try to get the machine gunner from the rear. Cesar had said that the gun was rigged on a swivel, but if one of the other three men turned it back in his direction there were plenty of rocks and bowlders behind which to take shelter, and Saxton and Cesar could then charge from the front.

Bill made his way cautiously up the mountain trail, circled to the right and picked his way down the slope. He found a friendly bowlder halfway down the slope, and to his delight could make out the hat of one of the men about the machine gun. He took careful aim and fired.

The hat disappeared, and he believed he had got his man, for one of the others took to his heels, running up the slope which led past the bowlder at a distance of about a hundred yards. Evidently he had not guessed that an enemy was behind the bowlder.

Bill drew a bead on the running man’s legs, and toppled him to the ground. But the rat-a-tat-a-tat of the machine gun broke out occasionally, proving that the machine gunner was alive and was trying to get the men in front of him.

Bill himself had not been discovered. He crept farther back and over to the right. Things were going nicely. Saxton and Cesar had a good chance if they did not show themselves too clearly, and all he had to do now was to get that gunner.

He took to his hands and knees and had topped a little rise that he thought would give him command of the machine gun position, when far to the right in the rear of the gun he saw another man creeping along. He raised his rifle and was about to fire, but then the man raised his head, and from the cap he wore Bill could see that it was Saxton.

He stood up and waved his hat at Saxton, so that the latter might not make the same mistake that he had almost made--fire on a friend. Saxton waved back, and hastened toward him.

The two of them crept back of a screen of rocks, and to their delight saw the hunched figure of the machine gunner back of the bowlder in front of them.

“We’ll fire together,” Bill suggested. “This is too easy. Then we’ll never know which bullet killed him.”

They fired. The man at the gun slumped forward. They waited a moment, but he did not move again.

“Well, that’s that,” said Bill. “I think we’ve won the field.”

He had hardly finished the sentence when a bullet spatted against a rock back of them, and another kicked up the dust at their feet. Both men threw themselves flat on the ground.

“I guess I spoke too soon,” said Bill. “I toppled a fellow a few minutes ago. He was running back up the trail, and I think I got him in the leg. He must have beat it back to some retreat for a rifle, and this is the result. Don’t show yourself, Saxton. We’ll outwait him.”

They lay there on their stomachs back of the bowlder, their rifles ready for the first sign of the remaining bandit.

But it seemed that it was always the unexpected that was happening on this eventful day. There was the roar of a motor below in the field. Bill unconsciously made himself an attractive target as he sat up and looked at Saxton sharply.

“Holy sufferin’ Moses!” he said. “That must be my ship. Maybe the third stick-up guy, or--”

He raced down straight toward the field, Saxton on his heels. As they passed the machine gun and its dead gunner they were just in time to see Barlow’s machine take to the air. At the joy-stick was Pedro Cesar.

Bill stopped and sent a rifle bullet at the plane, but the ship sailed calmly through the air, and Cesar playfully tossed a grenade over the side. It exploded a few yards away from the bewildered men on the ground.

“I’ll bet ten to one he’s loaded the loot from that sky-blue one,” shouted Bill.

He streaked over to the sagging monoplane, and found that his prediction was only too true. Pedro had also taken the box of grenades.

“My fault!” Saxton admitted. “What a dumb-bell! I should have stayed and watched him. Now the little rat’s got away with everything.”

Saxton’s crestfallen penitence touched Bill rather humorously, despite the circumstances.

“I guess it’s Pedro Cesar’s,” answered Saxton. “Cesar’s gold, Cesar’s plane, and Cesar’s bank, for all I care. But believe me, if I could get my hands on that little greaser it would be a case of ‘I’ve come to bury Cesar,’ believe you me! What’s the matter, Bill? Something else wrong?”

Bill Barlow was looking at the sky-blue monoplane as if it was bewitched, and as if he himself was bewitched along with it.

“Why--why--” he started. “By golly, man,” he almost shouted, “there’s not a thing wrong with this sky-blue ship except that this control wire is snapped. Pedro didn’t stop to examine it, the boob!” Already he was taking out his pliers. “We’ll be up in the air in less than fifteen minutes.”

He fixed the wire in record time, he and Saxton straightened up the plane, pushed it back toward the machine gun bowlder for a longer take-off, and a few seconds later the motor was whirring.

“Just a minute,” called back Bill, as he disappeared behind the bowlder. He returned with the machine gun and started to lift it into the cockpit.

“It won’t be rigged up as snug as my old Browning,” he explained; “but it can shoot, and there’s a drum in it already. And this ship looks like a lulu. If I don’t overtake that grease ball before he gets to the border my name isn’t Lucky Bill Barlow. This toy comet ought to be able to do a hundred and a half going backward.”

At Valmora, on the way to the border, Bill throttled his motor and began to volplane.

“What’s the idea?” asked Saxton.

“Wait!” Bill commanded. He made the landing.

“Get out, old pal,” he told the banker. “I’m alone this time, boy. Cesar is alone, and this is my ship, and the war is solo from this minute, until I come back with the dough.”

He stuck out his hand and patted Saxton on the shoulder.

“So long, old pal,” he said. Then he gave ’er the gun and the sky-blue monoplane went roaring down the field.

IV

Beneath the cottonwoods in front of the sanatorium at Valmora, Frank C. Saxton and his daughter waited nervously. An hour elapsed. Two hours.

Saxton was shaking his head. There was concern in the gray eyes of Ruth. Three hours. And a half.

The sun was setting behind the ridge to the west when Ruth sprang to her feet, her gray eyes alight.

“I hear it!” she yelled. “Oh, daddy! Daddy! It must be--be Billy!”

Out of the sky to the south skimmed a sky-blue monoplane. It roared overhead; then the plane, with a throttled motor, came into the wind and made a quick bank to the right, and a few seconds later was bouncing gently along the broad exercise field of the sanatorium.

As it taxied to a stop, out jumped William C. Barlow. He hailed his friends and pointed to the cockpit.

“The bullion!” he announced proudly. “Better leave it here and set a guard till morning. We’ll take it to Pampa in time to open the bank.”

Saxton put up the back of his hand and wiped his forehead.

“I’m getting to believe whatever you say, Bill Barlow,” he announced. “If you say it, it must be so. But where’s the other plane--my plane?”

“Oh, yes--your plane,” mimicked Bill, grinning. “I brought it back for you. Here it is--about the biggest part of it.” He handed Saxton a fragment which looked like a piece of charcoal.

“That’s why it took me so long,” he explained. “I had to wait until the darned thing burned before I could get at the bullion. But I’ve got a ship now that makes yours look like just what it is--a pile of junk!”

“You win!” said Saxton, throwing his hands in the air in a burlesque sign of surrender. “You could win--all the stakes--any game you play.”

“I just might take you up on that,” Bill replied, and he looked meaningly at Ruth Saxton.

She did not drop her eyes this time. She was looking right back at him with that straight gray gaze of hers, and her eyes said more than words could ever express.

[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the March 17, 1928 issue of Argosy-Allstory Weekly magazine.]