"See?" he barked. "I know a little about trick shooting, myself. Okay. How's this for a bull's-eye? Right between those two. Right on the end of your nose!" The man screamed and writhed about on the floor. "Don't, don't!" he gasped. "Oh, please don't, Colonel! Don't let me have it." "Then what about your brother rat aboard the Carrier Indian?" Colonel Welsh thundered. "Who is he? What name is he using? What's his rank? Speak up, you! I've got an itchy trigger finger, too!" The redhead gasped, and gurgled, and choked, and sobbed in a desperate effort to get the words out of his mouth in a hurry. "I don't know, I don't know!" he cried. "We don't know anything about the Carrier Indian. Honestly, we don't, Colonel. We just got orders to stop you and these two kids from getting to San Diego. We only got orders to stop them from going aboard the Indian. We don't know nothing about her, honest to Pete. We don't even know why our boss didn't want them two kids to go aboard. That's the truth, on my word of honor." "You have no honor!" the Colonel told him coldly. Then he slowly sighted the gun on a point between the pilot's eyes. "Well?" he demanded. "You tell me then!" The pilot turned white as a sheet under his beard, and looked as if he were going to faint. His eyes popped way out, and spittle drooled out the corners of his mouth. "I don't know either!" he cried hoarsely. "So help me, Colonel, I'm willing to spill everything I know. But I don't know a thing about the Indian business. Go on, shoot me right between the eyes if I'm telling you any lie. We just manned this station. And like he said, we got orders to stop those two from going aboard the Indian. So help me! That's the truth!" Colonel Welsh hesitated, then shrugged and stuck the gun in his pocket. "It was too much to hope for, anyway," he muttered more to himself. "Let's get going. You lads get the plane started while I lug these two outside. A mighty big day for America so far. Now, if only you two can--" The senior officer sighed and let the rest hang in the air. Then he bent over, caught each man by the heels, and hauled them out into the brilliant sunshine like a couple of logs. They yelped and babbled with pain, but the Colonel had deaf ears. Twenty minutes later the two fifth column prisoners were stowed aboard the Stinson, and the plane's props were ticking over. Dave and Freddy had refilled the tanks from tins of gas they found in the second shack. The shiny thing that Dave had seen under the trees from the air proved to be a high speed Waco fitted with two machine guns. For a moment they debated whether or not one of them should fly it back. On second thought, though, they decided it was best for them all to stick together in the same ship, and let somebody else pick up the Waco later.