Читать книгу Radio Boys in the Flying Service; or, Held For Ransom by Mexican Bandits онлайн

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“That gives him an ear-full,” remarked Tom. “Now if he’ll only get a hustle on and tell us what he knows.”

“Perhaps it won’t amount to anything after all,” said Dick pessimistically. “There may be hundreds of men with scars just like Muggs Murray.”

“To be sure that wouldn’t in itself prove anything,” agreed Phil, “but there may be other things to corroborate it. At any rate give the old boy a chance to tell his story before you begin glooming.”

A short time elapsed, although it seemed to the boys like ages, and then Steve’s voice again made itself heard.

“Good stuff,” it said. “’Pon my word, Phil, you ought to be a lawyer. Of course, you left out a good deal I’d have been glad to know about that airplane stunt of yours and Dick’s, but I put that down to your natural modesty. Glad you jugged two of the robbers anyway. Now ‘listen my children and you shall hear’ not ‘of the midnight ride of Paul Revere’ but of something that concerned yours truly a good deal more.

“Two days ago there was an attempt to hold up this station. We’re accustomed to rough stuff of that kind down here, and we usually try to be ready for it. At the time there was only Captain Bradley and myself in the place. Bradley, by the way, is the captain of the troop of Texas Rangers that I’m connected with, and believe me he’s some man. You’d like him if you came to know him. The pay chest of the troop was in my cabin, and though we try to keep that sort of thing quiet somehow or other it must have got abroad. We were going over some papers together, when suddenly a shot came through the window and took off the captain’s hat. Naturally, that peeved him somewhat, he not being a lamb by nature, and he reached for his gun, while at the same time I grabbed mine. The door was locked, but on looking through one of the peepholes with which the place is provided, we saw half a dozen fellows coming full tilt for the cabin while at the same time a volley of bullets whistled their way into the logs. Our guns barked back and one of the fellows went down. We kept our revolvers going, and I guess the gang thought that there were a good many more of us in the cabin than they had counted on, for after doing a little more shooting they picked up their pal and beat it back out of range.