The Avenger 12 - The Flame Breathers Read Online Free PDF Page B

face so that only his eyes could be seen.
    “That’s enough,” he said.
    At the words, a man near him, sitting at a small table on which was what appeared to be a telegraph key, pressed that key. It was a radio-control button.
    And eleven miles off, the incredible plane suddenly was no more!
    A blinding flash of light appeared where the plane had been. Seconds later the sound of an explosion was heard in the dirigible.
    And that was all!

CHAPTER V

The Girl and the Gun
    The police weren’t looking for Xisco. The Avenger was. And he found news of him at a private airport.
    The little man with the big ears had taken off in a private plane for the Newark airport and New York City. But before that he had scanned all weather reports and copied one down. The traces of his words were on the sheet of paper under the top of the telegraph-blank pad he had used. Graphite dust brought out the words.
    And the report could be of only one district: Salt Lake City. Not Newark.
    In the middle of the night The Avenger had taken off in his fast plane with Mac and Smitty and headed south and west. But there was destined to be a delay before Salt Lake City was reached.
    During the morning, when they were within a hundred miles of the spot mentioned, they received the news flashes on Benson’s radio.
    A plane, ownership and identity of pilot unknown, had apparently burst into bits yesterday afternoon over Utah. At least, it was thought to have been a plane, though such was the force of the explosion that it might have been a small meteor exploding on contact with the earth’s heavy atmosphere.
    A rancher, however, had testified that he had seen a plane near the place of the explosion just previously. He said the plane had been going faster than he had ever seen one travel before.
    Benson headed for the spot mentioned in the report and started cruising in wide circles.
    “What are ye lookin’ for, Muster Benson?” asked Mac.
    “Evidence of the plane wreck,” said The Avenger.
    “The news flash said no one had been able to locate a wrecked plane—”
    “Perhaps,” said Benson quietly, “the searchers were looking for pieces larger than there are to find.”
    The barren land turned a thousand shades as the sun climbed. The flats were like giant saucers set in the earth. Far off, to the west, the rim of the largest flat of all could barely be seen.
    “There’s a funny looking spot,” said Smitty suddenly, china-blue eyes widening as he stared down.
    There was a section almost half a mile in extent that, at first, looked like the rest of the earth beneath. Then, as you stared harder, you saw that it had the curious aspect of having been recently seeded.
    There were scattered black specks all over the circle, as if a great hand had scattered them thinly.
    The Avenger’s plane shot down, lit like a feather in the midst of the black specks.
    Except that down here the specks weren’t specks any more. They were fragments of a plane!
    The fragments were such as to send a chill to your spine. No one of them was larger than a man’s two fists. Most were smaller. And all were fused and torn and ripped in an incredible way.
    “Whoosh!” said Mac somberly. “Explosion, was it? I’ve never seen anything that could explode a plane like this.”
    Benson didn’t seem to hear him. When he spoke, it was as though to himself.
    “In all directions again,” he said softly. “The explosive acted in all directions, like the one at the Montreal police laboratory. Not just in the line of greatest resistance.”
    Smitty was ranging swiftly around, staring at the twisted fragments. To an ordinary man, those pieces would mean nothing at all. But to Smitty they spelled a message that was increasingly curious as it became clearer.
    “Funny,” he said. “I don’t see pieces of anything that looks like a gas tank.”
    Benson nodded, colorless eyes taking on their icy sheen. He had noticed that from the start.
    “Should we gather up a few of