style="font-size:15px;"> “Certainly,” replied Havens.
“Then you want to hustle along with them,” laughed Carl, “for we’re going to sail right out of the air and light down on top of the two murderers! So we’ll need the stone and the triangular piece of gold for comparison. We’re going to do this up quick!”
“And now, one last word,” the millionaire concluded. “In case I should not reach you before you gain the Pacific coast, my advice is that you approach the mountains from the east during the night time. Then you ought to land on one of the high summits and work out from that point, using your flying machines only for long distance work.”
“Of course,” laughed Ben, “we can’t go sailing over the mountains with our machines in broad daylight, whistling for the outlaws to come out of their hiding-places and be taken back to electric chairs in New York!”
“No, there’ll be quite a lot of mountain climbing,” advised Havens. “And now,” he continued, “that everything is understood and the provisions and tents are snugly packed on the flying machines, you would better be on your way. It is quite possible that the aviator who chased Jimmie up New York bay yesterday afternoon headed for the west immediately after leaving this vicinity.”
“In that case, we’ll have to catch him!” Jimmie grinned.
“If we can!” Carl exclaimed.
“Aw, of course we can!” Jimmie returned.
“How fast ought we to travel?” asked Ben of Mr. Havens.
“I think,” returned the millionaire, “that you ought to travel about fifty miles an hour for sixteen hours a day. That will give you eight hundred or a thousand miles a day, and also eight hours each night for sleep. That ought to be enough.”
The boys all insisted that that would be more than enough, and moved toward their machines.
“Wait a minute!” Ben cried, as he climbed into the seat on the Bertha, “who’s going to ride with me?”
“You’ve got most of the equipage and provisions,” Havens suggested. “You know,” the millionaire continued, “that we couldn’t trust Jimmie with the provisions! He’d be stopping in the top of every tall tree to take a snack, and that would never answer!”
“And you know, too,” Carl put in, “that we never could trust Jimmie alone in a flying machine! That’s why it’s been planned that I ride with him.”
“All right, you fellows,” grinned Jimmie, “I’ll show you who makes the winning in this murder case! Great Scott!” he added with a wrinkling of the nose, “isn’t this a wonder? Who’d ever think of sending us boys off into the mountains to do secret service work?”
Havens took out a pencil and began figuring on the back of a letter taken from a pocket.
“According to this schedule,” he said in a moment, “you boys ought to reach the bay of Monterey in four or five days. This is Monday. By Saturday morning, then, you ought to have your machines stowed away in one of the gorges facing the Pacific ocean. Can you do it?”
“You bet we can do it!” declared Jimmie.
“And when you need provisions,” Havens advised, “get one of the machines out at night and proceed to Monterey, but don’t take the aeroplanes into the town; don’t attract any attention if you can avoid it.”
“Where’re you going to meet us?” asked Ben.
“Probably at St. Louis,” was the reply. “At the post-office. Look for me there when you arrive.”
In a moment the purr of the motors cut the air. The machines ran swiftly, steadily, down the field and swept upward. Havens stood watching them for a long time. The planes glistened like silver in the moonlight, and the song of the motors came to his ears like sweet music. The millionaire loved a flying machine as track-men love a swift and beautiful horse. He finally turned away to find a uniformed messenger boy standing by his side, presenting a yellow envelope.
“What is it, kid?” he asked.
“Message from the hospital,” was the answer.
“Who sent it?” asked the millionaire, taking the envelope into his hands and tearing off the end.
“The night matron,” was the reply. “She said I had to hump myself.”
“That’s wrong!” laughed Havens. “She shouldn’t expect a messenger boy to hump himself! In fact,” he went on, whimsically, “the only time a messenger boy is permitted to make haste is when he is on his way to a baseball game. That’s right, sonny!” he continued.
The boy grinned and made trenches in the smooth earth of the field with the toe of a broken shoe.
Havens glanced casually at the message at first, thinking that perhaps the surgeon might have taken it into his head to report progress in the case of the man so recently placed in his charge. He knew very well that the surgeon would manage to prevent the escape of the prisoner should he regain consciousness, so he had put that phase of the case entirely from his mind. However, his eyes widened and an exclamation of astonishment came from his lips as he read the note which had been written by the night matron, and not by the surgeon at all.
“Mason, the injured man recently sent here on your order,” the note read, “has most mysteriously disappeared from the hospital. Doctor Bolt, the surgeon detailed, at your request, to take charge of the case, decided to watch the man for the night, and so my attendants were withdrawn. The surgeon must have fallen asleep, for in half an hour’s time he came running to my door shouting that Mason had escaped. As soon as possible I visited the room from which the man had disappeared and found the window sash raised.
“There were many footprints in the soft earth under the window—the footprints of men in coarse shoes—and a smear of blood on the window casing disclosed the fact that the injured man had been drawn through the opening. It is quite evident to me, therefore, that the man was carried from the room by some one interested in the case, to which Doctor Bolt only indirectly referred when talking with me. Your presence at the hospital is earnestly requested.”
The note was signed, as stated, by the night matron. Scarcely had Havens finished the reading of it when he heard some one stumbling through the darkness, and the next moment Surgeon Bolt, looking crestfallen and excited, stood before him, like a schoolboy anticipating censure.
“Well?” asked Havens rather angrily.
“It’s the strangest thing I ever saw!” exclaimed the surgeon. “Mindful of your interest in the man, I decided not to trust him to the care of any of the hospital attendants to-night. After doing what I could for him, I sat down by the side of his bed to read and smoke. My mind was never clearer or farther from drowsiness than it was at that time.”
“Yes,” Havens said, in a sarcastic tone, “the result seems to indicate that you were wide awake!”
“I tell you,” almost shouted Bolt, “that I was stupefied by the injection of chloroform or some other anesthetic into the room!”
“How could that be possible?” demanded Havens.
“I don’t know!” wailed Bolt. “I certainly do not know! The window was closed when I looked at it last, just before I became unconscious.
