CHAPTER VI

A Lively Fight

“If you do get there,” remarked Mr. Denby as he rose to go, “I can see that there isn’t going to be much monotony in your lives for the next few months. You boys certainly have a knack for finding adventure, and what is more important still a knack of coming through it somehow with a whole skin. Let’s hope that this won’t prove an exception to the rule. At any rate I’m glad that you are going to have a chance to ferret out and capture that rascal Murray. Now,” he added with a smile, “you see that I was right when I denied that you were relying on a forlorn hope in trusting to radio. It showed you tonight what it could do.”

“I should say it did,” agreed Phil warmly as he accompanied him to the door. “It’s the most wonderful thing in the world.”

He bade the professor good night and returned to his companions. They were all too wrought up to think of sleep, and they sat up late discussing the possibilities that had opened up so suddenly before them.

The next day was spent chiefly in argument with their respective families. As they had feared, they met at first with the stiffest sort of opposition. Their parents took a much more sober view of the enterprise than did the boys themselves and conjured up all kinds of harrowing things that might happen to them. But the boys urged their case with such fervor and persistence that Phil and Dick finally carried the day.

Tom’s task was the more difficult, as his parents lived in Chicago, and he had to communicate with them by radio. His father had a powerful set and was almost as much of a radio “fan” as his son himself, and both were kept busy the greater part of the day in transmitting and receiving messages arguing the case pro and con. But from Tom’s point of view the day was well spent, for he was able at the end of it to come to his chums with the joyous news that his father had yielded a final, albeit a reluctant consent.

So that it was in a jubilant mood that they called up Steve that night and told him that the preliminary battle had been won and that he might expect them at some time within the next week or ten days.

“Bully,” was Steve’s reply. “Best news I’ve heard since Sitting Bull sat down. Come a runnin’. And say, fellows, if you can, bring the _Arrow_ along with you. It’s a dandy machine and you’re so used to it that you can probably get better results with it than you could with any plane we could furnish you. It’ll be a nice cross country trip for you, and beat traveling in stuffy railroad cars, to say nothing of making better time. I’ll tend to everything on this end of the line, see that your quarters are prepared for you and every other little thing. Believe me, fellows, you’re going to have the time of your young lives.”

There was a host of questions to be asked and answered, but by the time that the interchange of messages had ceased, the boys had the fullest information they needed to form their plans and map out their journey.

It goes without saying that they had informed the authorities of all that they had learned as to the possible whereabouts of Muggs Murray. The Texas police authorities were communicated with and were asked to give all the assistance in their power. Mr. Eldridge further stated that the bank would send on a special detective at its own expense to run down the clue.

“Now,” remarked Phil, when they had thus disburdened their mind of all the information they had in the matter, “we’ve done our duty by the bank and the police, and it’s up to them to do what they think best. But we’ll play our own little game our own way and we’ll see who comes out best. I don’t mind saying that I think we have the inside track.”

“I feel the same way,” agreed Dick.

“At any rate if we fail it won’t be for lack of trying,” concluded Tom.

The next few days were busy ones, for a host of preparations had to be made for the journey. The boys had hailed with delight the suggestion of Steve that they make the journey by plane, and the first thing they did was to equip it with a complete radio apparatus. Great stress had been laid upon this by Mr. Denby, who rendered them valuable aid in the installation of the set, the making of the counterpoise that served in place of a ground connection and a variety of other details in which he was past master.

“Nobody ought to go aloft these days whether in a balloon or an airplane without a complete radio equipment,” he counseled. “All Uncle Sam’s Air Mail planes have them, and by that means are able to keep in constant touch with the earth beneath them. If a storm is coming, the Government broadcasting station can send out storm warnings to the air pilots so that they can descend until the storm is past. If they are in doubt as to where they can find a safe landing field, all they have to do is to radio and find out. In that way they can avoid the danger of wreck that is always present when they have to make forced landings. In storm or fog the radio is like an invisible thread guiding the plane to safety.

“Especially will you find it indispensable in the work you are planning to do in Texas,” he continued. “Your plane might be disabled and you be forced to descend in a desert, where, if left alone, you might perish of hunger and thirst. The radio will tell your troop where you are and bring them to your rescue. Or if you are flying on reconnoitering service, you can tell the men on the ground below just what you are seeing without having to return to the ground. On the other hand, if your commanding officer wants to give you additional orders, he can radio the message to you up there in the sky just as easily as he could give it to you if you were seated at his desk. In a hundred ways you will find it a vast convenience, and in many cases an absolute necessity.”

They felt the force of the reasoning and worked heartily with his assistance in the perfecting of the set. And when one day the installation was complete, Phil and Dick went up on a trial flight to try it out, Tom remaining at the radio station in Phil’s home to send and receive.

To the delight of all three, the set worked to perfection. Phil and Dick were wearing the special helmet constructed for aviators to shut out the roar of the motor so that they could perceive the radio signals, and they had no trouble at all in receiving Tom’s messages. He on his part had equal luck in catching without difficulty the signals of his friends, and all were in high, good humor at the success of the tests.

Phil and Dick, after an hour or more spent in this way, were flying back toward Castleton and were still some miles distant from the town. They were only a few hundred feet above the ground and could see everything beneath them with great distinctness.

Suddenly Dick touched Phil’s arm.

“Something going on down there,” he said.

Phil looked in the direction indicated, and saw what seemed to be an angry conversation going on between a girl and man. Even as he looked, the girl started to run. The man ran after her and caught her by the arm and seemed to be trying to drag her toward an automobile drawn up at the side of the road.

“Here’s where we get busy,” exclaimed Phil.

He grasped a lever and the machine with a great sweep came down in a field only a short distance from the couple.

In a moment the Radio Boys were out of the fuselage and hurrying toward the scene of commotion.

As they neared the two, the girl gave a glad cry, wrenched her wrist from the man who now seemed willing enough to release her and came running toward them.

“Oh, I am so glad you came,” she cried, the tears streaming down her face.

“What’s the trouble?” asked Phil.

“It’s that man,” replied the girl. “I was walking along the road when he stopped his car and asked me for some directions. I gave them to him and then he wanted me to get into the car and take a ride with him. I had never seen him in my life before and I refused and started to run. He ran after me and caught my arm and tried to make me get in the car.”

“That’s enough,” said Phil briefly. “Dick, just look after this young lady for a moment.”

He went up to the man who had been standing in a defiant attitude beside his car, his cap drawn over his eyes. As Phil approached, the man looked up and Phil recognized “Rocks” Gurney.

“So you’re the cur that insulted this girl,” said Phil with cutting scorn.

Gurney flushed purple.

“What’s that you called me?” he cried in a fury. “Take it back or it will be the worse for you.”

For answer Phil’s fist shot out and caught Gurney full on the point of the jaw, and the latter measured his length in the dust of the road.

He was up again in a moment, spluttering with rage, and made a rush at Phil. The latter avoided the rush and met Gurney with a blow that jarred him to his heels. Then for a few minutes they went at it hammer and tongs.

Gurney was a trifle heavier than Phil and two years older. But he was dissipated and self-indulgent, and no match for the trained athlete he was up against. Phil went round him like a cooper round a barrel, avoiding his lunges and getting in his blows where they would do the most good. In a few minutes the fight was over, and Gurney lay in the road, half sobbing with shame and pain.

“I guess that’ll be about all,” remarked Phil. “Now Gurney, get into your car and drive wherever you like. Only get away quick.”

“I’ll get even with you for this,” mumbled Gurney through his swollen lips, as he climbed painfully into the machine.

“I suppose you’ll try to,” answered Phil, “but that isn’t worrying me.”

With an imprecation flung back over his shoulder, Gurney started off. Phil watched him until the car was out of sight and then turned to Dick and the girl. The latter was profuse in her thanks. They learned that she lived only a little ways up the road in the direction opposite to that in which Gurney had gone. They felt safe therefore, in leaving her, and having said goodbye they climbed again into their machine and mounted into the upper air.

“You certainly trimmed him good and proper,” remarked Dick.

“He had it coming to him,” replied Phil. “It was a sin and a shame though,” he added with a grin, “to spoil such a gorgeous suit of clothes. Did you see how he was dressed? Solomon in all his glory hadn’t anything on him.”

“That was a nifty car too,” said Dick. “What’s made him blossom out so suddenly? A little while ago he was looking seedy. Now he seems to have slathers of money. Where does he get it?”

“Search me,” Phil answered carelessly.