Chapter XIX. In Dire Peril

Upward shot the Falcon. With every revolution of her big propellers she came nearer and nearer to the fleeing craft of the supposed smugglers who were using every endeavor to escape.

"Do you think you can catch them, Tom?" asked Mr. Whitford as he stood at the side of our hero in the pilot house, and looked upward and forward to where, bathed in the light of the great search-lantern, the rival craft was beating the air.

"I'm sure we can--unless something happens."

"Bless my overshoes! What can happen?" asked Mr. Damon, who, after finding that everything in the motor room was running smoothly, had come forward. Ned was attending to the searchlight. "What can happen, Tom?"

"Almost anything, from a broken shaft to a short-circuited motor. Only, I hope nothing does occur to prevent us from catching them."

"You don't mean to say that you're actually going to try to catch them, do you, Tom?" asked the custom officer, "I thought if we could trail them to the place where they have been delivering the goods, before they shipped them to Shopton we'd be doing well. But I never thought of catching them in mid-air."

"I'm going to try it," declared the young inventor. "I've got a grappling anchor on board," he went on, "attached to a meter and windlass. If I can catch that anchor in any part of their ship I can bring them to a stop, just as a fisherman lands a trout. Only I've got to get close enough to make a cast, and I want to be above them when I do it."

"Don't you think you can catch them, Tom?" asked Mr. Damon.

"Well, I'm pretty sure I can, and yet they seem to have a faster biplane than I gave them credit for. I guess I'll have to increase our speed a little," and he shifted a lever which made the Falcon shoot along at nearly doubled speed.

Still the other airship kept ahead, not far, but sufficiently so to prevent the grappling anchor from being tossed at her rail.

"I wonder if they are the smugglers?" questioned Mr. Damon. "It might be possible, Tom, that we're chasing the wrong craft."

"Possible, but not probable," put in Mr. Whitford. "After the clew we got, and what the Indians told us, and then to have a biplane come sailing over our heads at night, it's pretty sure to be the one we want. But, Tom, can't you close up on 'em?"

"I'm going to try. The machinery is warmed up now, and I'll send it to the limit."

Once more he adjusted the wheels and levers, and at his touch the Falcon seemed to gain new strength. She fairly soared through the air.

Eagerly those in the pilot house watched the craft they were pursuing. She could be seen, in the glare of the big searchlight, like some bird of gloom and evil omen, fluttering along ahead