BIGGLES FLIES NORTH

by Captain W. E. Johns

XVII. A NEW PERIL (Pages 182 – 196)

Meanwhile, Biggles, Algy and Wilks are marched by Delaney back towards Fort Beaver. McBain has hurried on ahead and is rousing the locals, no doubt telling them that Mose’s killers have been arrested. Soon a hostile crowd gathers and Delaney is worried about keeping order. McBain eggs the crowd on to take the law into their own hands. “Yells, and not a few curses, reached the prisoners’ ears. Presently a stone was thrown”. Cries of “string ‘em up” “fetch a rope” and “hang ‘em” ring out and things turn decidedly ugly as a lynch mob forms. Another stone is thrown and it catches Delaney on the temple, drawing blood. Delaney tries to defend the three airmen but McBain asks, “If they didn’t do it, why did you arrest ‘em?” and Delaney struggles to answer that. Delaney realises that things are touch and go and his prisoners could easily be murdered by the angry crowd. He takes them to the Three Stars so the crowd can hear what they have to say. Delaney gets up on the bar and threatens McBain with arrest for inciting a crowd to riot. Biggles climbs up on the bar to speak and says he doesn’t blame any of the crowd for feeling the way they do. He says he would feel the same if another man was in his place. “But I should be wrong”. There seems to be a change in the mood of the crowd but McBain shouts “Don’t take any notice of him. He reckons we’re a lot of suckers. Let him talk and he’ll put one over. Come on, boys, we’re wasting time. We know he killed Mose, and he ain’t goin’ to get away with it”. This starts a fresh uproar and the mob wants to lynch the three airmen. The proprietor of the Three Stars happens to be a retired sergeant of the mounties himself and he comes to Delaney’s aid, but shots are fired and the bar-keeper falls into the crowd. Delaney and the three prisoners run to a heavily built log cabin that serves as the local jail. (They dashed down the rear of some frame buildings - is the illustration on page 193). They just make it inside in time, chased by the crowd. Biggles now has a gun, having picked up the bar-keeper’s fallen one. Trapped in the jail, Biggles thinks that their one chance is Ginger. Biggles wonders what has become of Smyth, who had been sent to the village to do shopping. He guesses he must have seen what was happening and found some place to hide but Biggles is more worried about Ginger and wonders what he is doing at that moment.