“Halfway from Kinnisten to Morel’s laboratory, on foot, goin’ through the thickest woods ye everrr saw.”
“Go back to Kinnisten. I’ll meet you there. I’ll be there before you will, I think.”
“Wait a minute!” growled Mac’s voice. “Back to Kinnisten is six miles. Through this underbrush, that’s no little hike to take just for the fun of it. Oh, all right! There’s an old mill half a mile north of the town with a wheatfield next to it. Ye can use it for landin’.”
Nellie was there first, all right. But about ten minutes after she had set the plane down with an expertness that would have commanded the respect of an army flier, Mac and Lila came.
Lila was pale and trembling.
“A trap!” she said, when she saw Nellie. “You’re sure? Then — that means Dad
“No,” said Nellie. “We’re going to walk into the trap.”
Lila started to say something. Nellie said swiftly:
“Your dress. Take it off, please.”
“I don’t quite understand—”
“If somebody did all this to get you up to the lab,” Nellie said impatiently, “they probably had a man posted near Bleek Street to see if you actually started. That man would describe the clothes you wore in his report to the rest. So I’ll change dresses with you, also hats.”
Mac turned his back and looked glumly at the stream babbling past the old mill building while the transfer took place.
Nellie had a thought as she moved around. She had said “they probably had a man posted at Bleek Street” to tip off the gang as to what Lila wore. There was another possibility. Packer, the perfect servant with the kindly smile. He could have given that information, too. But that, she decided as she finished the change of clothes, was ridiculous.
The fit wasn’t very good. Nellie’s blue dress on Lila ended appreciably above Lila’s attractive knees. And Lila’s dress on Nellie was too long in spite of the extra high heels and the shoe lifts. Nellie took it up at the shoulders and put on Lila’s hat. In the night, she could pass for Morel’s daughter, all right.
“Wait here,” Nellie told Lila. “Don’t move out of the building. And if anybody comes around — anybody at all — hide instantly.”
Then she was gone, with Mac’s bony height towering over her, through the woods in the direction of that laboratory in which something monstrous had been hatched. A plot which might affect the entire history of the United States if The Avenger and his band failed in their quest.
The two went the miles afoot to the lab a lot more quickly than Lila and Mac had been going.
Nellie was a trained woodsman with muscles, under her dainty skin, like silver springs. She had gone on many an archaeological expedition in jungles with her father, dead now; murdered by crooks who wanted to get from him the secret location of ancient gold. So she made even Mac puff a little to keep up as she slid through night and forest.
With the laboratory less than half a mile ahead of them, Mac said:
“Did Muster Benson have any idea of what this trap would be like?”
Nellie shook her head, so different from its normal blondness because of the dark wig.
“There was no clue to that. He only knew there was a trap. We’ll just have to keep our eyes open, that’s all.”
Then they were in sight of the clearing, through the trees in the moonlight. They began creeping forward like Indians, taking advantage of every bush and tree for cover.
Because the woods’ growth went right up to the gate, they could be morally sure that if anyone were hiding in the building, they couldn’t have seen them.
Lila had told Mac how to open the gate. There was a little lever at ground level next to the portal, hidden in grass and leaves. You pulled that up, then pushed it down again in the opposite direction. That shut off the current in the fence wire and released a massive set of bolts which secured the gate.
Mac’s hand went toward the little lever. Then he looked thoughtfully at Nellie, who looked thoughtfully back. And both shook their heads.
There was no need for words as to what to do next. They started looking through the woods till they had found three young, straight trees, taller than the fence. Then Mac took an odd little contrivance from his vest pocket.
It looked like an atomizer. But in the glass receptacle instead of liquid, were several grayish pellets. And the bulb was not of rubber, but of metal.
Mac moistened the pellets, released some of the contents of the bulb — almost pure oxygen — and had a tiny acetylene flame capable of eating through inch steel.
It ate through the slim trees in a matter of seconds.
Mac trimmed the poles, bound them together at the top and had a slim tripod a foot or so higher than the fence. He climbed it, with Nellie steadying the base, leaped, and was in the clearing.
He went to the gate. And their precaution against lifting that lever was found to be justified.
There was a charge of explosive wired to the lever that would have blown Mac and Nellie sky-high if they had disturbed it.
