The Boy Aviators in Nicaragua; or, In League with the Insurgents

by John Henry Goldfrap

  CHAPTER IV.

  THE TWO-FINGERED MAN.

  The _bonga_, urged along by her two peaked sails, ran alongside the_Aztec_, a quarter of an hour later. The boys were leaning over the raillooking very natty in neat, white duck suits and Panama hats, and themeeting after Mr. Chester and Blakely had clambered aboard up a hastilythrown Jacob’s Ladder, can be better imagined than described.

  The first greetings over and the boys having been introduced to Blakely,the conversation naturally turned to the _Golden Eagle_. Led by Frankand Harry, Mr. Chester and the overseer proceeded to the fore deck wherethe crew of the _Aztec_ assigned to that duty were making fast a slingto hoist the first of the blue boxes over into the lighter that layalongside the steamer.

  “You see,” explained Frank to his interested listeners, “that we havetaken good care to cage our _Golden Eagle_ securely. I suppose, father,that you would like to hear a few details of its construction. Well,then, ladies and gentlemen,”—adopting a grandiloquent showman’smanner—“the _Golden Eagle_ is a biplane machine—that is to say, that shehas a double set of planes one above the other. They have a spread offifty-six feet by six and are covered with balloon silk of a specialquality lacquered over with several coats of a specially prepared fireand water composition.

  “She can lift a weight of two hundred pounds in addition to the threepassengers she is capable of carrying. I believe that we will be ablebefore long to stay up in the air for a sustained flight of two hundredmiles or more. Already we have made a flight of a hundred and fiftymiles and with the new twin propellers that we have adjusted I think wecan make the longer distance easily.

  “Our engine is fifty horsepower of what is known as the opposed type andevery bit of it made in an American shop. It ‘turns up’ twelve hundredrevolutions a minute. We rarely run it that speed, however. The gasoleneand the water for cooling the cylinder jackets are suspended in tanksunder the deck-house. A pump circulates the water through the cylinderjackets and into a condenser where it is cooled off and is ready to beforced through the cylinders again. The lubricating oil is fed also by aforce system which is much more reliable than the gravity methodparticularly in an air-ship where there is a tendency to pitch about alot in the upper air currents.

  “The frames upon which the covering of the planes is stretched areformed of an alloy of aluminum and bronze which makes an exceptionallylight and strong material for the purpose. We put a few ideas of our owninto the _Golden Eagle_ when we built her, among them being an improvedbird-like tail which makes her handle very readily even in heavyweather.

  “And—Oh, yes, I almost forgot the wireless plant. That is really themost unique feature of our craft. We carry our _aerials_, as the longreceiving wires are called, stretched across the whole length of theupper plane and the receiving and sending apparatus is right handy tothe operator’s right hand. We have a double steering wheel fittedtandem, so that anyone sitting behind the operator can handle the rudderwhile he is busy at the wireless.

  “In the pilot-house, as we call it, but it is really more a sort ofcockpit in the deck-house, are fitted small watertight mahogany boxeswhich contain our navigating instruments and we have a brass binnacleboxing in a spirit compass which is lighted at night by the current froma miniature dynamo which also supplies power for a small but powerfulsearchlight.

  “Then there is the ration basket. It weighs but fifty pounds full, butit carries enough provisions for three persons for five days. In it alsoare three pairs of thin blankets made of a very light but warm weave ofmaterial and a water-filter. It contains, too, some medicines andbandages and lotions in case we have a smash-up. So you see,” concludedFrank with a laugh, “we have a pretty complete sort of a craft.”

  After good-byes had been said to the _Aztec’s_ captain and a few oftheir fellow-passengers who still remained on board, and the last of thedozen cases containing the _Golden Eagle_ had been lowered into thelighter, the little party descended the Jacob’s Ladder and took theirplaces in the bonga. While they had been on board one of thebrown-skinned fishermen who manned her had rigged up a sort of awningastern with a spare sail, and this gave the voyagers a welcome bit ofshade. With a cheer from the boys her crew shoved off and the bongaheeling to the breeze headed for the palm-fringed shore.

  “About time they put about and ran up to the wharf, isn’t it?” askedHarry as the bonga scudded along so close to the shore that the roar ofthe heavy surf as the big waves broke on the yellow beach could bedistinctly heard.

  “Here’s where you are going to get a new experience,” laughed Mr.Chester, “I want to see whether such bold air sailors as you boys canstand shooting the surf without being scared.”

  “You don’t mean to say that we are going to land on the beach?” gaspedHarry.

  “That’s just what I do,” cheerfully replied his father. “In a fewminutes you’ll see something that will show you that all the wonders ofthe world aren’t monopolized by New York.”

  The men in the bonga were lowering the sails as he spoke and when theyhad them tied in gaskets each took an oar while the captain ran to thestern with a long sweep.

  The men rowed slowly toward the shore till they were almost hurled bowon into the tumbling surf. Suddenly, at a cry from the man in the stern,they stopped work with their oars and the bonga tossed up and down onthe racing crests of the big waves while they “backwatered.”

  All at once the man with the steering oar, who had been watching for alarge wave to come rolling along, gave a loud command. The rowers fellfuriously to work. The boys felt the bonga lifted up and up on the crestof the big combers and a second later they were swept forward, it seemedat a rate of sixty miles an hour. The surf broke all about the bonga,but she hardly shipped a drop.

  As the long narrow craft raced into the boiling smother of white foamher crew leaped out in water almost up to their necks and fairly rushedthe craft up the beach before the next roller came crashing in.

  “Well, that beats shooting the chutes, for taking your breath away,”remarked Harry as the party strolled along under a palm-bordered avenueon their way to the hotel where they were to lunch. The dripping crew ofthe bonga followed them carrying the boys’ smart, new baggage on theirheads.

  The Hotel Grand Central was a long building with a red-tiled roof andthe invariable patio in the center off which the room opened. The boyswere delighted with the place. In the middle of the patio, in a grove oftropical plants, a cool fountain plashed and several gaudy macaws wereclambering about in the branches of the glistening greenery. The hotdusty street outside with its glaring sun and blazing iron roofs seemedmiles away.

  As they were about to turn into the sala, in which their meal was to beserved, a man bustled out and almost collided with them. It was GeneralRogero.

  “Ah, Señor, we seem fated to encounter each other to-day,” he exclaimedwith a flash of irritation as his eyes met Mr. Chester’s.

  The next moment he had started back with a quick: “peste!” as his darkgaze fell on the boys.

  “Why!” exclaimed Harry, “that’s the fellow who came down on the ship.The man who said he was a diamond salesman and that he had a lot ofstones in that black bag! Do you know him, father?”

  “Know him?” repeated Mr. Chester in a puzzled tone as Rogero whiskedscowling out of sight into an adjoining room.

  “He was a mysterious sort of cuss,” chimed in Frank, “kept to himselfall the way down and had his meals in his cabin.”

  “Perhaps he had a good reason to,” smiled Mr. Chester; “your diamondsalesman is General Rogero of the president’s army.”

  As he spoke and the two boys fairly gasped in astonishment at thissudden revelation of the true character of the man with the black bag,Billy Barnes came hurrying up.

  “Hello, my fellow-passengers,” he exclaimed heartily; “hello, Frank!hello, Harry!”—it was characteristic of Mr. Barnes, that although he hadmet the boys for the first time on the steamer h
e was calling them bytheir first names the second day out—“as I hinted to your father an houror so ago, I’ve run into the biggest story of my career.”

  “You rushed off in such a hurry that I could hardly call it even ahint,” smiled Mr. Chester.

  “You’ll get jolly well laid up, Mr. Barnes, if you go rushing about likethat in this climate—what?” put in Blakely.

  “I beg your pardon, sir, really,” burst out the impulsive Billycontritely, addressing Mr. Chester, “but you know when a newspaper mangets on the track of a good story he sometimes forgets his manners. Butyou will be interested in my morning’s work.”

  “Here’s what I’m digging on and if it isn’t a snorter of a story neverlet me see New York again.”

  “Well, what is it, Billy?” asked Harry, “come on, never mind thefireworks—let’s have it.”

  “Just this;” proudly announced the reporter, “General Rogero has onlytwo fingers on his right hand.”

  “Yes?” from the boys in puzzled tones.

  “Well, what of it?” from Mr. Chester.

  Billy was evidently artist enough to keep his listeners in suspense forhe went on with great deliberation.

  “You remember that when he was ‘a diamond salesman,’ on board the_Aztec_ that we hardly ever saw him?—well, there was a reason, as theadvertising men say. What was that reason? you ask me. Just this; thathe didn’t want any one to get wise that he was minus three of hisprecious digits.

  “Why for?—Because the man who killed Dr. Moneague in New York, was shyon his hands in the same way—now do you see!” triumphantly demanded thereporter.

  “If our amiable friend Rogero isn’t the same man who murdered Moneaguein New York I’ll eat my camera, films and all,” he concluded.

  “It doesn’t seem to me that you have any proof on which you can basesuch a serious accusation,” said Mr. Chester. “Rogero is a desperate manand an unscrupulous one, but I do not believe that even he woulddeliberately commit such a crime.”

  “Don’t you, sir?” contradicted Billy, “well, I do. From what I’veobserved of him, he’d stop at nothing if he had an end to gain. Thething in this case though is, what was his motive for killing Dr.Moneague, except that Moneague, so the police discovered, was an agentof the revolutionists down here?”

  Like a flash the recollection of what Don Pachecho had told him aboutthe bit of parchment on which was traced the secret of the lost Toltecmines crossed Mr. Chester’s mind. He hurriedly gave his interestedauditors an outline of what he knew about the clue to the treasuretrove.

  “Rogero’s the man then for twenty dollars!” excitedly cried Billy. “Hehad the thing in that black bag he guarded so carefully. If I only couldget hold of it we’d have his neck in the halter in a brace of shakes.I’ve a good mind to try. The first thing I’m going to do, though, is toflash a bit of message to New York—to No. 300 Mulberry Street—and tellmy old friend Detective Lieutenant Connolly that I think a run down herewould result in his turning up something interesting. Anyhow——,” thereporter was continuing, when he was cut short by the sound of a shotfrom outside and a loud cry of pain. The startled party hurried throughthe sala and out into the street.

  “A shot means a story;” remarked Billy to his camera as he adjusted itready for action while he hurried along after the others.