The 2 occupants peered earthward. The pilot was a tall, stringy man, hard of face. One thing distinguished his features — his eyebrows and small mustache were white as cotton.
The passenger seated in the forward cockpit was stocky. Browned by hot Suns, his skin had also been reddened where his helmet did not protect it by the smashing wash of the propeller. His eyes were bleak behind the goggle glass; a huge jaw strained at his helmet chinstrap. He was extremely bow-legged.
“Whitey!” he yelled at the pilot. “Are you sure there’s room enough down there to land this sky bronc?”
“Plenty of room, Bandy. I told you I used to barnstorm around New York. I set my crate down on that golf course one time when my engine conked.” The pilot with the white eyebrows and mustache leveled the plane, preparatory for a landing.
“Take another circle!” shouted Bandy. “I wanta look the layout over some more. Since that shot at me in Phoenix, I figure somebody don’t want me to get to New York. That’s why we ain’t landin’ at a regular airport.”
He dropped both hands into the cockpit and withdrew them, gripping a pair of businesslike blue six-guns.
At sight of the weapons, Whitey could not suppress a qualm. When he had hidden behind a hangar of the Phoenix airport where they had halted for fuel and food and taken a futile shot at Bandy, it was nothing but luck that he had escaped discovery. He wondered if Bandy suspected the truth.
But Bandy was hanging over the cockpit rim, interested only in the ground. The plane cast a fleeing bat-like moon shadow.
The cottontail rabbit fled in terror from the putting green where it had been browsing. Bunny-fashion, it popped into the handiest depression which happened to be a sand trap which held one of the hiding men.
There, the little animal caught the man scent. Association of the odor with shotguns and dogs brought greater terror, and the rabbit sailed back out of the sand trap the way it had come.
Bandy saw the incident, largely because the rabbit was a flashing gray spot against the luxuriant green of the fairway.
Suspicious, Bandy scowled at the sand trap. He knew the ways of wild things, knew how they reacted to danger. It was plain that something in the sand pit had frightened the cottontail.
“Fly close to them there sand holes comin’ back!” he bellowed over the motor thunder.
The pilot obeyed. He was unaware that his aides were hidden there. He had merely wired them that he would land Bandy on the 6th hole of this golf course — a procedure suggested by Bandy’s desire to avoid the commercial airports.
Bandy slanted one of his sixes at the sand pit. It tongued flame twice.
Neither bullet hit the man concealed below. But the fellow thought he had been discovered.
Leaping erect, he drove a rifle slug up at Bandy! The lead spanked through both wings of the plane.
“Yi-i-py, Powder River!” Bandy bawled the cowboy yell delightedly. He was elated that he had discovered the trap in time. Stretching far over the pit rim, he fanned lead at the rifleman.
In the rear cockpit, the pilot snarled and gave the controls a convulsive movement.
The plane rolled over. In a flash, it was flying upside down! The object of the maneuver was to throw Bandy overboard!
Dropping both his guns, Bandy grabbed madly at the pit rim. His tough fingers gripped successfully. He kept himself aboard, but his weapons were lost.
Both cockpits of the plane held parachutes. Bandy had been using his for a cushion. It fell out and the bow-legged little man dared not loosen his clutch long enough to seize it.
With an effort that made his arms ache, Bandy drew him upward into the inverted pit until he could grasp the safety belt. Hanging to that, he twisted to face the pilot.
The flyer’s face was desperate!
It had faded until it almost matched the white of his mustache and eyebrows. He was wishing mightily that he had his gun. It was he who had hidden the weapon after firing the shot in Phoenix, fearing Bandy might see it on him and become suspicious.
The plane was sagging earthward. But the pilot seemed not to notice.
“Hey! We’re gonna crash!” shrieked Bandy.
The pilot saw their danger. He fought the controls. With only a few feet to spare, the plane rolled level.
Bandy leaned back and shook a horny fist under the airman’s nose.
“So you’re in with them sand lizards down there! And I’ll bet you’re the hombre who took that shot at me in Phoenix!”
A vicious glare was the flyer’s reply. He was getting his nerve back for it had dawned on him that Bandy was now unarmed.
Moreover, the lost parachute gave him an idea!
Recoiling low in the pit as though fearing violence, the pilot wriggled into the harness of his own ‘chute. Then he sprang erect… leaned far back out of Bandy’s reach… and stood poised for a leap.
“Climb out on a wing and stay there or I’ll jump!” he screamed.
Bandy hesitated…
…then he sagged back in the bucket seat. He knew when he was checkmated. He could not fly the ship.
“You win,” he gritted.
“Get out on the wing!” the pilot bellowed through the motor clamor.
Bandy obeyed. The dangerous performance of climbing out and hanging to a brace wire did not bother him much. Bandy had plenty of nerve.
He watched the flyer. The instant the fellow gave his attention to circling the plane back to the golf course, Bandy flicked his fingers inside his shirt and unbuckled the chamois money-belt he wore. A single jerk would now remove the belt.
Bandy turned so that his back was to the pilot. From a coat pocket, he dug an envelope and a stubby pencil. The rushing air threatened to tear the envelope to bits in his fingers. Holding it close to his chest, he managed to scrawl words:
$500 Reward for delivery of Money-Belt to Doc Savage
Bandy glanced slyly over his shoulder. The pilot apparently had not noticed. He was peering downward, engrossed in the ticklish business of making a moonlight landing.
Folding the envelope, Bandy stuffed it under a flap of one of the money-belt pouches.
The motor noise lessened, becoming slow explosions which barely turned the prop over. Less than a hundred feet up, the plane floated down for the golf course.
A paved road — narrow and apparently not much used — bordered the links. Just before the ship passed over this, Bandy dropped his money-belt. He flashed a look at the pilot and heaved a relieved sigh. Bandy was in partial shadow between the wings, and his furtive movements seemed to have escaped detection.
The chamois belt fell a few feet from the road. Bandy bit his lower lip savagely. He had hoped it would land on the pavement. However, it reposed where it could be seen.
The note promising a $500 reward should insure delivery of the belt to the individual Bandy wished to have it — Doc Savage.
Bandy scowled doubtfully. Suppose the finder of the belt should be unable to locate Doc Savage? But that was hardly probable.
Doc Savage — the man whose astounding reputation had penetrated even to the acrid waste land of Arizona — would be widely known here in New York.
II — The Death Trick
The pilot “fish-tailed” the plane — a maneuver effected by treading the rudder — to decrease air speed. The ship grazed a putting green, then 3-pointed wheels and tail skid in a perfect landing. Bouncing a little, the craft coasted along the fairway.
Bandy came to life. He was back on his element — the earth! Briefly, he considered jumping off the plane and taking his chances on a sprint for cover. He dismissed that idea as too risky. The riflemen would pick him off.