Frank Reade Jr.'s Air Wonder, The "Kite"; Or, A Six Weeks' Flight Over the Andes

Issued Weekly—By Subscription $2.50 per year. Entered as Second Class Matter at New York, N. Y., Post Office. Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1902, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, Washington D. C., by Frank Tousey, 24 Union Square, New York.

=No. 7.= NEW YORK, DECEMBER 12, 1902. =Price 5 Cents.=

Frank Reade, Jr.’s Air Wonder, The “Kite”; OR, A SIX WEEKS’ FLIGHT OVER THE ANDES.

By “NONAME.”

CHAPTER I. A VILLAIN’S GREED.

It was near the close of a beautiful day in June, and the declining sun shed its radiance softly over the crags and heights of the Andes Mountains in the heart of Peru.

High up in the heart of the hills was a flat shelf of rock projecting from the cliff, and far out over an enormous descent of a thousand feet to depths below.

Upon the verge of this shelf of rock a fearful scene was being enacted.

Two men were there engaged in a fearful death struggle. Locked in each other’s embrace, they fought and panted like veritable fiends.

They were both Americans. On their way over the great Southern Cardilleros they had a falling out, and a battle to the death was the result.

One was tall and supple, with powerful limbs and deep chest. The other was thin and slender, and rather sickly-looking, yet he fought with consummate skill and absolute fearlessness.

“Confound you, Royal Harding! You shall never live to reap the benefit of our discovery of the treasure cave of the Incas. It is mine—all mine—and I shall return to New York and claim the heart and hand of beautiful Mabel Dane—not you.”

“Never, Lester Vane! Your plans shall never win success. A great and just God will never permit it.”

“Worm! I can crush you as I would a reed!”

“I shall fight to the last.”

“Over the precipice with you!”

Fiercely they fought. The larger man, who was the first speaker, made a tremendous effort, and suddenly lifted the other like a feather.

One moment he hovered in mid-air, and then over the precipice he went.

A wild, awful cry of anguish and despair went up from the slight man. Down over the edge he went.

Out of sight he flashed. A yell of fiendish delight escaped the victor.

He rushed to the edge and looked over.

He had expected to see the mangled form of his victim at the bottom of the cliff.

But to his surprise he saw him suspended in mid-air fully a hundred feet below.

In his sliding descent he had managed to grasp a scrub of spruce which projected from the wall of the cliff.

To this he clung.

It was certainly a close call. His life was spared for the moment. But what more awful than his present position.

The white, awe-struck, upturned countenance met the gaze of Lester Vane.

“For mercy’s sake, Lester, do not let me die. Save me!”

A mocking laugh pealed from the villain’s lips.

In his hand there was a huge stone with which he had intended to dash his victim from his slender perch.

But second thought restrained him.

“I was about to dash you from that hold!” he hissed, “but that would be only a merciful ending of your agonies. I shall leave you to hang there until your strength gives out and you are obliged to fall of your own accord. May your thoughts be pleasant and your end a happy one.”

“Villain!” groaned Harding with awful terror. “You do not mean that!”

“Don’t I?”

“You cannot be so inhuman!”

“Ha! you do not know me. Stay there and think of me with the Incas’ treasure on my way to New York to claim Mabel Dane. Ha, ha, ha!”

“Wretch! Monster!” screamed Harding in an insane manner. “You will never do that. No, no, no! I appeal to your sense of right and humanity. Be just!”

But his words were wasted, spent upon empty air.

Vane had disappeared, gliding away noiselessly among the mountain crags.

The stillness of death was upon the defile. Far above a solitary vulture wheeled in airy echelon as if waiting to feast upon a certain victim.