But Bob did not wait to be interviewed. With a swoop, the airplane
left the ground and started upward. His pursuers were so close at hand
they could almost grasp the wheels, as they leaped upward. Yet not
quite. Bullets whistled about him, and several pinged against the
body of the machine with a sharp metallic ring. Bob thanked his stars
that the plane had an all-metal body. Once above pursuit, he was safe
from stray rifle shots.
With a curse the baffled Muller, who had been quick to realize that if
one masquerader was not Morales, then the other was not Von Arnheim,
watched the airplane shoot away at dizzying speed and disappear beyond
the guarding hills to the north.
Then he turned back toward the ranch house, eager to learn how the
pursuit of Jack had ended.
But for young Herr Muller and the Calomares ranch in general the night
alarms were not ended. In fact, they had just begun.
Before Muller on his return trip had reached the belt of trees, while
the search for Jack, who had mysteriously disappeared, went on merrily
within the Calomares palace, and while Bob was yet flying over the
hills to the north, rebel pickets below him were attacked by Mexican
government troops.
It was an attack in force.
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