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CHAPTER XIX.
THE BATTLE AT THE SCHOOLHOUSE

Air sickness! With the words there flashed through Jack’s mind a recollection of having read somewhere about that strange malady of the upper regions which sometimes seizes airmen, paralyzing temporarily their every faculty.

While the thought was still in his mind he had seized the wheel and awaited the next orders from Lieut. Sancho, who was holding the unconscious form of Lieut. Diaz in the machine.

“Push that lever forward – so! Now a twist of your wheel to the left. Bueno! You are a born airman.”

Jack wished he could think so, too. From sheer nervousness the sweat stood out upon him, his hands shook and his pulses throbbed.

But the consciousness that all their lives depended upon his keeping cool and obeying orders steadied him. By a supreme effort he mastered his jumping nerves and obeyed the lieutenant’s orders implicitly.

To his actual surprise, for he did not think it would have been so easy to handle an air craft, the winged machine righted itself as he manipulated the lever and wheel. Before many seconds it was driving along on an even keel once more. But in its fall it had entered the region of driving sand again. Pitilessly, like needle–pointed hailstones, the sharp grains drove about them, pricking their flesh.

“Up! We must go up higher!” cried Lieut. Sancho. “Pull back that lever. Now your wheel to the right – that sets the rising warping appliances! There! That’s it! Now your foot on the engine accelerator! Good! You are an aviator already.”

As Jack put the lieutenant’s commands into execution one after another the desired effect was procured. The aeroplane began to rise, fighting its way up through that inferno of yellow sand. Jack feared that at any moment his eyes would be rendered useless, but he stuck to his task without flinching.

At last in the upper regions, they winged along free from the ordeal of the whirling sand spouts, but still in the grasp of the furious wind.

“Can we not land?” asked Jack after a time. “Surely it would be safer.”

“Safer, doubtless, once we could get to earth; but it would be madness to attempt a landing in this wind.”

“Then we must stay up here till the wind subsides?”

“Yes, or at least until the sand thins out. We should be blinded if we got into the thick of it, let alone the danger to our engine.”

“What speed are we making?” was Jack’s next question.

“About fifty miles an hour, possibly more.”

“Then we may be driven miles out of our way?”

“I fear that is possible. But see, Lieut. Diaz appears to be reviving. Can you reach me that medical kit?”

Jack, not without being fearful of the consequences of his taking one hand from the controlling devices, did so. Luckily, as we know, the aeroplane was equipped with the latest stability devices, making her comparatively steady compared to the older fashioned craft of the air. Jack’s maneuver, therefore, was not so risky as might have been thought.

While the aeroplane bucked and plunged its way through the storm Lieut. Sancho administered stimulants to Lieut. Diaz, who presently began to recover from his spell of air sickness almost as rapidly as he had been “taken down” with it. It is a peculiarity of such seizures, in fact, that they are not of long duration. Some authorities have held that there are poisoned strata in the air which cause the sickness and on emerging from them the victim becomes well again. However that may be, Lieut. Diaz was soon himself, and Jack was relieved at the wheel by Lieut. Sancho.

“How far do you imagine we have been driven?” he asked as the officer took the wheel.

“That is impossible to say, amigo Jack. I directed you while you were in control of the ship so that as far as possible we should maneuver in circles. Judging by that, we ought not to be much more than fifty miles or so out of our way.”

This was cheering news to Jack, who had begun to imagine that they had been driven half way to the Gulf of Mexico at least. As this would have meant a lot of delay in rejoining his comrades, he was naturally worried. For an hour or so more they swung in circles above the storm, and then the furious gale began to lessen.

As the wind fell the sand “fog” below began to melt away just as if it had actually been mist. Its dissolving brought a view of a stretch of country not unlike that in which the Rangers had been camped when Jack had last seen them.

Below them shone the river between its precipitous banks, and on one side of it Jack could see a small, rough–looking settlement. On the outskirts was a low red building, the shape and form of which at once showed it to be a schoolhouse, even if the Stars and Stripes had not been floating on a pole before the door. The aeroplane was still hovering in the air above the little settlement when the schoolhouse door opened and out rushed teacher and pupils in evident excitement. They gazed upward at the winged man–bird in a state of the greatest wonderment.

Suddenly from across the river came a perfect tempest of shots and yells. Looking down, Jack saw that a body of horsemen was galloping for dear life toward the ford at the river. Close behind them came some more mounted men, although the latter were dressed in uniforms, suggesting that they were regulars. Evidently they were in pursuit of the ragged–looking Mestizos who were making for the ford.

On they came at a furious gallop. Gazing from above, Lieut. Sancho announced that the band being pursued was a band of rebels, while the men in pursuit were part of the regular cavalry of the Mexican government.

“But they are fleeing on to American soil!” exclaimed Jack.

“Si, señor Jack. Evidently the rascally rebels think that if they can gain the protection of the Stars and Stripes they will be safe.”

Jack could not help feeling sympathy for the ragged band that was being so remorselessly pursued, even though he knew that the rebels had wrought all sorts of outrages, both on American soil and in their own country. For instance, only a short time before a band of cattle had been driven from an American ranch to feed the starving revolutionary troops.

But such thoughts as these were soon interrupted by the boy’s absorbed interest in the drama taking place far below them. From the town a few men had come running at the sound of the shooting, but as they saw the armed men come sweeping through the ford they beat a hasty retreat. Only the school teacher, a pretty young girl, so far as Jack could see, and her little flock stood their ground.

Having crossed the ford the pursued Mestizos did not draw rein. Instead, they urged their ponies on still more furiously. The clatter of their hoofs even reached to the aeroplane, which was swinging about in the blue ether some thousands of feet above.

All at once Jack, with a quick intake of his breath, divined their purpose. The hounded band of revolutionaries was spurring and lashing for the schoolhouse. Their evident purpose was to seek refuge within it, under the protection of Old Glory.

But what of the children and their young teacher? In case there should be firing, their position would be a terrible one. As the first of the rebel band dashed into the schoolhouse enclosure and the teacher and her pupils fled within in terror, Jack begged Lieut. Sancho to descend.

“In case the Federals open fire on the schoolhouse many of those children will be killed,” he cried anxiously.

Lieut. Sancho nodded.

“I doubt if we can be of much use,” he said, “but at any rate we will drop down and see what can be done.”

The aeroplane instantly began to descend, but before it was half way down the last of the refugees had dashed into the schoolhouse, and the door was slammed to and bolted. The Federals, close on the fugitives’ heels, withdrew to a short distance for a parley when they perceived this. From the schoolhouse windows a few scattering shots followed them, but none of them took effect.

But the men who had done the shooting had perceived the approach of the aeroplane, which was now quite close to the ground. It was probably the first they had ever seen and they gazed at it with awe and some superstitious terror.

“What do you want?” called one of them.

“What shall we tell them?” Lieut. Sancho whispered to Jack.

“Tell them to let the teacher and her scholars out of there at once or we will dynamite the place,” replied Jack without hesitation.

“I’ll tell them that if they don’t, we shall drop a bomb from the aeroplane,” whispered the lieutenant.

“That’s a good idea. Let’s hope it will scare them into releasing the children and their teacher.”

Lieut. Sancho shouted his ultimatum at the men at the schoolhouse windows, at the same time leaning down as if to pick up some sort of weapon. Doubtless the unfamiliarity of such a war machine as an aeroplane had something to do with it; but at any rate, after some anxious deliberation, during which the aeroplane hovered at closer range, the door was opened and the teacher and her little flock emerged.

“Now run to the town. Run for your lives,” cried Jack as they came out, and the pretty girl and her pupils were not slow to obey the injunction.

In the meantime the Federals, withdrawn to a little distance, had viewed the operations with amazement. They had been too much excited by the chase to notice the aeroplane till it was at close range. Now they gazed at it with wonder and then broke into a cheer. At first Jack was astonished at this enthusiasm, but then he suddenly recollected that inscribed on the machine’s upper and lower planes were the arms of the Mexican Republic.

“Viva! Viva, Madero!” yelled the regulars, as the aeroplane swung above them.

“What are you going to do with those rascals in the schoolhouse?” yelled down Lieut. Sancho to the officer in charge of the Federals as the great winged machine sailed majestically by over their heads.

“Assault the place and capture it,” was the reply.

“You forget that it is on American territory and that our government will be liable for any outrages inflicted on this side of the Border,” was the rejoinder. “I will guarantee to get them out of there in far more peaceable fashion.”

“Very well, señor lieutenant, as you will,” was the reply of the officer, given with a shrug of the shoulders.

“Well, I wonder what’s going to happen now?” thought Jack as the aeroplane was headed back at top speed for the schoolhouse.

“Diaz, will you do me the favor to get that round black bottle out of the medicine kit?” said Lieut. Sancho in calm tones as he guided the air craft toward the stronghold and retreat of the rebel force.

CHAPTER XX.
WHERE STRATEGY WON OUT

Their coming was viewed by a dozen swarthy faces thrust out of the schoolhouse windows. As the aeroplane drew near the building Lieut. Sancho raised his voice above the humming of the engine.

In a loud authoritative tone he called for attention.

“If that schoolhouse is not vacated inside of five minutes,” he snapped out, “I shall dynamite it.”

A derisive chorus of yells greeted this, although a few voices could be heard begging the officer to have mercy.

“Hand me that ‘bomb,’ Diaz,” ordered the officer as the aeroplane came in full view of the schoolhouse.

Seizing this opportunity, Lieut. Sancho manipulated the air craft with one hand while he apparently examined the “bomb” with deep attention. He took good care while doing this to handle it so that it might be plainly seen by the Mestizos.

The aeroplane continued its flight above the schoolhouse roof, and then, swinging round, was driven back again. As they came over for the second time Lieut. Sancho hailed the recalcitrants once more.

“Throw your rifles and weapons out of the windows or I’ll drop the bomb. The five minutes is almost up.”

This time there was no answer but a sullen roar. Apparently the occupants of the schoolhouse were quarreling among each other. The aeroplane was flown a short distance and then turned for another flight toward the schoolhouse.

“Here, take the wheel, Diaz,” ordered Lieut. Sancho. “I’m going to let them see that we mean business.”

With Lieut. Diaz at the wheel, his brother officer manipulated the “bomb” in truly alarming manner. Bending low over it and striking a match, he appeared to light its fuse. Then, holding on to a brace, he half rose out of his seat, and as they neared the schoolhouse he raised his arm as if poising the “bomb” before hurling it.

It was too much for the nerves of the besieged. With wild cries to Lieut. Sancho not to kill them, they began casting their rifles and revolvers out of the windows in a perfect hail. Lieut. Sancho appeared to stay his hand, but was still menacing.

“Todos! Todos!” (“All! All!”)

He shouted this as they thundered close above the schoolhouse roof. As he did so the schoolhouse door was opened and out rushed the terrified, demoralized Mestizos, who were swiftly made prisoners by the Federals without their offering more than a nominal resistance.

By the time the last had been captured, while the aeroplane drew close to the scene, from the town, whence the proceedings had been watched with interest, several citizens came running, now that all the danger of bullets seemed to be past.

“Well, after what I’ve seen,” declared Jack, “never tell me that the aeroplane isn’t any good in warfare. To–day it averted what might have been a bloody fight, and, as it was, not a man was even scratched, except in his feelings. By the way, Lieutenant, what was in that ‘bomb’?”

“A very deadly mixture,” laughed the officer in return, “a solution of Epsom salts!”

“Here I be, the mayor of that thar berg back thar,” said an individual with a bristly straw–colored mustache, hastening up. “What be all these here connipations a–goin’ on out hyar?”

“Why, Mr. Mayor,” rejoined Jack, “these two gentlemen are officers of the Mexican Federal troops detailed to aerial duty.”

“Waal, what be they doin’ this side of ther Border? I’ve a good mind ter put ’em in ther calaboose, the dern long–horns,” declared the mayor angrily.

“Inasmuch as they saved a lot of children and their teacher from rough treatment by a band of rebels, I don’t think that would be very fair,” said Jack.

“Humph!” grunted the mayor, “I was comin’ out hyar to git ther mavericks on ther run myself, but I had an attack of indigestion.”

“I guess that was when you heard the shooting,” thought Jack to himself.

Aloud, though, he continued:

“The Mestizos were captured by as clever a ruse as can be imagined, Mr. Mayor.”

“Eh, how’s that, young feller?”

“By a bottle of Epsom salts.”

“Say, see here, kid, it ain’t healthy ter git funny with yer elders in these hyar parts.”

“It’s the exact truth, I assure you,” declared Jack smilingly, quite ignoring the mayor’s frown. He went on to tell the full details of the fight, or rather the argument, and when he had finished not one of the assembled crowd was there that did not join in the laugh.

“An’ how did you come to be hyar, young feller?” asked the mayor at the conclusion of Jack’s story. “You beant a greaser.”

“No, but I have found that there are a few brave and clever men on the other side of the line, too,” declared Jack.

“Ther kid’s right,” assented one or two in the crowd.

Jack then told as much of his adventures as he thought necessary, and at the conclusion the delighted mayor clapped him on the back so heartily that the breath was almost driven out of his body.

“I’ll give yer all ther liberty of Go ’long,” he said, sweeping his hand back toward his little principality.

But the two Mexican officers were obliged to refuse the mayor’s hospitality. A short time after the Federal troops had departed with their prisoners of war the two airmen winged their way southward to their headquarters.

As for Jack, he had ascertained that San Mercedes was only twenty miles or so off, so he determined to hire a horse and ride over there early in the morning. That night he slept in a bed for the first time in many long hours, and with his anxieties cleared away and his heart light, his slumbers were deep and dreamless. He was awakened by the ubiquitous mayor, who was also the hotel–keeper. Incidentally, the pretty school teacher turned out to be his daughter. Her enthusiastic praises of Jack the night before had made the boy blush hotly, but that was nothing to his embarrassment a few moments later when the town band, consisting of a cornet and a drum, headed a procession to the hotel and he had been compelled to give a speech.

Jack felt glad on waking that all that was over, and that in a short time he would be on his way back to his friends in the camp of the Rangers. The town of Go ’long did not offer much in the way of a menu beyond blackstrap and hot cakes, beans, bacon and black coffee, but Jack made a hearty meal on these frontier delicacies, after which he was informed that his pony was at the door.

His landlord, whose name, by the way, was Jerry Dolittle, refused to take a cent from the boy, and told him that when the Rangers came that way next his old friend, Captain Atkinson, could return him the pony.

The greater part of the population of Go ’long had accompanied Jack about a mile on his way, but soon he was ambling along alone with a straight road in front of him. Naturally his mind was busy with speculations as to what had occurred in the camp during his long absence from it.

“Good old Walt! Dear old Ralph! Won’t they be glad to see me!” he mused as he rode along across the plains; “won’t I be glad to see them, too! Gracious, what a lot we shall have to talk about! I won’t blame them if they don’t believe half of it. I can hardly believe it myself sometimes, and that’s a fact.”

Between San Mercedes and Go ’long the rough road led through one of those peculiarly desolate ranges of hills common in that part of our country. As Jack’s pony began to mount into the recesses of these gloomy, barren hills, the lad knew that he had come a dozen miles or so from the Go ’long hotel.

The road wound along the bottom of the steep, sandy gullies, which were in some places streaked gorgeously with strata of various colors, red, blue and bright orange. Above burned a sky of brilliant blue. It would have made a splendid subject for the canvas of an impressionistic painter.

Jack knew that somewhere within these hills he ought to meet the daily stage that ran between San Mercedes and Go ’long. At least, such had been the information given him before he set out from the latter place. He was quite anxious to see it, as on his lonely ride he had not encountered a human face. The solitary nature of the barren hills through which he was now riding depressed him, too, with a sense of remoteness and lonesomeness.

As Jack rode he commented to himself on the rugged character of the scenery. The road, which would have hardly been dignified with the name of a trail in the east, crawled along the side of the bare hills, in some places overhanging gloomy canyons.

“This must be a dangerous place to drive a stage,” thought Jack as he passed by a big rock and found himself traversing a bit of road which bordered the edge of a mountain spur, with a precipice on one side and a deep canyon on the other.

In fact, had the lad known it, that particular bit of road was reputed to be about the worst even in that wild land. Should the horses make a misstep on the trail, instant death to every occupant of the coach must result.

There were few drivers, even the most reckless, that cared to go at more than a snail’s pace over that stretch of road even with the quietest team. True, the passage had been made on one occasion at night, but that was for a wild and foolish bet and the authorities had put a stop to any more such practices. So that Jack was not far out when he mentally appraised that bit of road as being as dangerous and nasty a track to negotiate as he had ever seen; and Jack had seen a good deal of the wild southwest.

The boy had passed the dangerous bit of road and was jogging along in a deep divide between two ranges, when he was startled by a sudden sound right ahead of him.

It was unmistakably a shot.

A rifle shot, too, the boy judged. He spurred forward rapidly, not knowing well just what to expect when he should round a curve in the road just ahead.

It did flash into his mind that his landlord at Go ’long had spoken of the coach being held up occasionally, but Jack had placed little stock in the stories. In fact, he rather inclined to think that old Jerry was telling them with the idea of getting a rise out of a Tenderfoot.

Still, there were a few mines in that part of the country and occasionally gold was shipped through to Go ’long, which was not far from the main line of the Southern Pacific Railroad.

But Jack had only made a few paces forward on his quickened mount when three other shots rang out in rapid succession.

“Now I am perfectly sure there is trouble on the trail ahead!” exclaimed Jack to himself, urging his pony forward at a yet faster gait.

The idea of personal danger did not enter Jack’s head, although the scene that he beheld as he swept round the curve on his galloping pony might well have alarmed an older hand than he.

Coming toward him at a hard gallop was the Go ’long coach. Its six horses were in a lather of perspiration, and the coach was swaying wildly from side to side.

From the top of the coach a fusilade was being fired at three men in pursuit of the vehicle. These latter appeared to be returning the fire with good will.

At almost the same moment that his eye took in these details Jack became aware that, besides the driver of the stage, there were three other occupants on the roof.

These were Captain Atkinson of the Rangers, Ralph Stetson and Walt Phelps.

As he perceived all this Jack drew his pony back on his haunches and waited whatever might turn up, for it was his determination to aid his friends.