JUST IN TIME
JUST IN TIME
JUST IN TIME
“Who is that man, Hiram?”
It was two days after the stirring adventure among the burning haystacks. They were now under a new and changed environment. Outside of a roomy hangar on the training grounds near Chicago, they seemed to have passed from a zone of peril and trickery into an atmosphere of order and security.
The chums had been oiling theScout, which had been shipped to them from the Midlothian grounds the day previous. Dave had noticed a thin wiry man standing outside of their hangar and studiously regarding theAriel. Then the stranger had moved nearer to them, and transferred a steady, almost insolent gaze to the young aviator. Hiram had been so absorbed in his task that he had not noted what the keen observation of Dave, always on the alert, had taken in. Now he straightened up and shot a glance at the stranger, just turning away.
“Hello!” he exclaimed, “he’s familiar. Why it’s Valdec!”
“You don’t mean the crack cloud-climber, as they call him, the Syndicate champion?” questioned his companion.
“That’s him,” went on Hiram. “Yes, that’s ‘the great and only.’ I saw him down at the clubhouse last evening. Humph! I don’t like him any better than I do his backer, and that’s Worthington.”
Dave viewed the rival airman from head to foot. He was not only curious, but interested. The chums had met a variety of amateurs and professionals since their arrival at the present centre of attraction in the aviation world. A portion of them were a motley group. They ranged from expert balloon trapezists to acrobatic notables. They were essentially “stunt” men. The real professionals were a widely different crowd. There were men who had earned fame in their particular line of activity. Some were inventors, and there was a sprinkling of scientists. The name, Valdec, however, Dave had heard a great many more times than that of any professional on the grounds.
Valdec was an importation. He claimed some wonderful records made in France and England. His specialty was the handling of a machine in speed, gyration and novelty effects. He had been a public demonstrator and exhibitor at big fairs inEurope. His daring was notorious. He was a grim, unsocial specimen of humanity, and talked but little. His backers talked for him, however. These comprised the Syndicate, a group of old-time racehorse and baseball promoters and the like. They had taken to the aviation field as the newest and likeliest sport where their peculiar abilities would count.
A great many standard airmen besides Dave did not like this feature of the great International meet. It was not to be helped, however. The manager, Worthington, paid for his special entrants, who were able to qualify. It was his business to finance them, and he claimed that such a connection was legitimate. The Syndicate group formed quite a camp of their own at one end of the grounds. There were over half a dozen airmen in the combination, covering various phases of flying, all out for prizes, and selected by the promoter as likely to win.
“Yes, that’s Valdec,” resumed Hiram. “I don’t like him, nor his crowd, nor their hangers-on, but I will say the fellow can do things. When you were away yesterday he had half an hour’s practice on spiral work. It was not only pretty, but it took away your breath. I heard one of the bystanders say that before Valdec makes one of his sensational dives, he works himself up to such a point that he is perfectly reckless. That’s his crowd—running things just as they would for a track race.”
“Well, the steady nerve and the clear head counts in the wind up,” observed Dave philosophically. “This job is done. Now for some real work.”
It was not Dave’s habit to “show off” nor to advise his rivals of his prospective programme. The location of the practice grounds was ideal. The country about was level, and there was a lake area over which long distance flights would be unhampered. The day before, however, and on the present occasion, as soon as both aviators were in their places in the machine, its pilot started a course for a barren uninhabited reach among the sand dunes twenty miles south of the grounds. Here they were unnoticed and had free scope.
“No danger of collisions here,” observed the cheerful Hiram, as they landed and Dave sailed off alone. Then he sat down on a heap of brush and chucklingly announced himself as “an audience of one,” prepared to enjoy the spectacle of the occasion.
“Bravo!” voted the loyal and enthusiastic lad, as Dave made a superb sweep that vied with a sailing pigeon, fleeing in terror from this unfamiliar monarch of the air.
Then Hiram clapped his hands loudly, and kicked with his feet, as though in some auditorium, and bound to applaud, as Dave made a volplane that seemed destined to land the machine nose deep in the flickering sands. Suddenly, twenty feet from the ground, he balanced, even tipped, and went up, up, up—until machine and pilot were a mere speck.
“Hurrah!” rang out briskly, when the daring operator of theArielbegan a spiral drop. And then as Dave landed, his assistant, half wild with delight, was dancing from foot to foot. “Oh, I say,” he shouted, “it’s up to Valdec! Honest, Dave, it beats him. Yes, sir, it actually does!” and the faithful chum laughed, as though already he saw the capital prize of the meet safe in the hands of his friend.
The chums put in two hours about the flying field afforded by the sand dunes. They started back for the International grounds feeling duly satisfied. Dave was more satisfied with theArielthan ever. The perfect piece of mechanism had never “balked” yet. Hiram professed to see new skill and expertness in his gifted chum with every succeeding flight.
“Let’s take a view of the city before we go home,” he suggested, and Dave was nothing loth.
“Doll houses and pigmies; eh?” submitted Hiram, as they flew over the south end of the city. “A little flat patch of the world, down there. Those vessels on the lake look like play-ships. That big skyscraper doesn’t appear much larger than achicken house. There’s some excitement!” and Hiram leaned over to get a better view of what had attracted his attention. “Dave,” he cried suddenly, “it’s a fire!”
Dave made out smoke and flames about a very high structure located near the river that traversed the heart of the city. He was as much interested as his companion, for a mimic play seemed going on below. Everything appeared in miniature—the hurrying fire engines, the puffing fire-boats on the river, the great crowds, the giant building wreathed with smoke. As they neared this Dave made out more clearly the situation.
“It seems to be a storage warehouse, built solid from the sixth story up,” he said. “The lower stories are all on fire. It will be a bad blaze when it gets up into the closely sealed upper part.”
“Dave,” cried Hiram sharply—“look, look, on the roof!”
“Yes—a girl,” responded Dave. “Why, Hiram, she is alone, and imprisoned up there by the fire!”
It was not difficult to understand the situation. The sixth floor of the building was probably the office of the warehouse. Such concerns hire but little help outside of the men who handle consignments for storage. The girl, probably a stenographer, must have been alone on the floor noted when the fire broke out.
She could not descend, for the five lower floors were all ablaze. Escape was cut off, except upwards. She had probably fled up the spiral staircases without coming to a break in the solid masonry, in the dark, and groping her way, and driven to frenzy by the pursuing smoke.
Now she was plainly visible to the two chums. She stood near the edge of the roof, waving her hands frantically. Below, the hook and ladder service attempted to reach her point of refuge, but they could not get above the eighth floor.
“Dave,” spoke Hiram in a muffled tone that trembled, “can’t we do something?”
Already the pilot of theArielhad received the same mental suggestion. His eye took in all the chances. All that was chivalrous and humane in him came to the surface.
“There’s just one way, Hiram,” he said. “That is to make a volplane and a landing on the roof.”
“Yes, yes,” agreed Hiram eagerly. “It’s a long narrow building, with plenty of room for a stop and a start.”
“You’re willing to risk it?”
“Yes—surely!” cried Hiram. “Don’t delay, Dave. We’re safe to try it, before the flames reach her, or the building collapses.”
A great cry went up from the excited crowds in the streets below, at the sight of what resembled some mighty winged bird coming on a mission of rescue and mercy, where other help seemed vain.
The girl on the roof saw the machine, and comprehended what it meant for her. She ran towards it with a glad cry as Dave dexterously directed it. TheArielstruck the smooth flat roof, and came to a stop, Hiram leaped out.
“This way!” he called, and, taking her outstretched hand he guided her to the seat he had just vacated, and belted her in. “Don’t get scared, nor faint. You’ll be safe on solid land in a jiffy. Go ahead, Dave,” added Hiram. “The machine won’t stand my weight on the narrow margin start we can give it.”
Onward went theAriel. To the spellbound crowd below it seemed to slide off the roof. Dave made a spiral drop. A block away from the fire there was a lumber yard, only half stocked, affording a good landing place.
The girl was out of the machine and safe in charge of two ladies who supported her. She turned to Dave, her lips moving as if in gratitude, and then swooned. Dave got started before the onrushing mob got in his way. It seemed to him as if the voices of thousands joined in a thunderous cheer. There on the roof, as if in response to this mighty tribute to daring heroism, stood Hiram, smiling and unconcerned as though it were all an every day occurrence.
“Good for you, and quite in time,” he commented briskly, as Dave landed on the roof in safety. “The fire is eating up through the staircases. See, yonder!” and the speaker pointed to wreaths of smoke and cinders shooting out through a roof trap as if forced by an air compressor.
“Something wrong with the control,” said Dave, as they skidded into space again. “The jar of that roof, I guess. It needs fixing,” and the young aviator was compelled to land again in the spot where he had delivered the imperiled girl into friendly hands.
A FRIEND IN DISGUISE
A FRIEND IN DISGUISE
A FRIEND IN DISGUISE
“Dave, I’m famous!”
Hiram Dobbs burst into the little space just beyond the threshold of the hangar, which he had called “the office.” The partitioned-off corner held some chairs and a table. Dave was busy glancing over a catalogue of aeroplane accessories, and he looked up with an inquisitive smile at his excitable assistant.
“Well, what now, Hiram?” he questioned.
“Look—your picture, my picture, the burning building, theAriel. ‘Daring aeronaut’—that’s you. ‘Heroic assistant’—that’s me. See, isn’t it great!”
The impetuous speaker had just come in from breakfast. He spread out a morning newspaper. Its first four columns held a vivid description of the warehouse fire. There had certainly been reporters at the scene, and photographers also, for four excellent pictures illuminated the printed page.
There was one scene of the swoop of theArielto the roof of the building where the stenographer had stood, with clasped hands gazing helplessly down at the awed crowd, fourteen stories below.
Then there was a view of the ruins after the fire, showing a low smouldering heap, all that remained of the skyscraper.
When theArielhad last landed, the photographer had made a close snap shot of pilot and assistant. The aeroplane, Dave, and Hiram were all clearly shown. The final picture was a view of thousands of persons waving hats and handkerchiefs in enthusiastic adieu to the machine disappearing over their heads.
“It’s a smart fellow who did that story,” declared Hiram. “Regular poet, too. ‘Nervy young aviator,’ ‘heroic lone figure of the handsome young fellow who ran the risk of his life to save a poor frenzied girl.’ Hum! I’ll have to look out if I’m in that list. How they learned who we were, and got your whole history, Dave, shows positive genius.”
“We were not interviewed,” responded the young airman, “so I suppose they naturally traced us here, and got their information from the manager. It makes quite a pleasant thrill, to see ourselves pictured as doing some good in the world; doesn’t it?”
“I know some folks who didn’t have any pleasing thrills over the affair,” remarked Hiram.
“Who is that?” questioned his chum.
“The Syndicate crowd. I came past there from the restaurant. One of them had a morning paper. Valdec saw me and scowled. Worthington looked up, and I saw his lips move as if he were wishing us up at Halifax. They don’t wish us any good luck I’m sure. But at headquarters the manager was delighted. He came up to me when I was eating breakfast, clapped me on the shoulder and smiled all over. ‘Tell Dashaway he’s given the meet a capital advertisement,’ he said. You see, it mentions that you will be one of the contestants in the International, Dave.”
Hiram was in good humor over the event. He whistled and sang in his routine work about the hangar. Dave was his friend and he was proud of him, and not for a moment doubted that he would “scoop up every prize in sight,” as he expressed it. When his chum sent him after some frame tape, down to the supply depot on the grounds, Hiram purposely took a detour by way of the Syndicate camp.
“Guess I’ve got a bad streak in me somewhere,” he chuckled, “for it sort of satisfies me to think we’re making that crowd wriggle. Hello—well, never! Oh, say, hello!”
Hiram walked on with sudden activity. He was passing the central hangar of the Syndicate people, when he noticed a man twenty feet ahead of him. This individual chanced to turn his face sideways. In an instant Hiram recognized him, and the youth came to a sudden stop for he ran squarely into the man.
“Mr. Borden!” Hiram cried. “Say, I’m awful glad——”
“Hush!” came the caution.
It was the tramp artist. He was now neatly dressed. The frowsiness he had shown at the Midlothian grounds was gone, and he seemed prosperous. As he evidently in turn recognized his friend of the past, a glad gleam came over his face, and then he became flustered. He seized Hiram by the arm, turned his back to the people near the hangar, and whispered quickly:
“Not a word! No names! Act out what I start in on.” And then in a tone of affected ferocity he gave Hiram a vigorous shake. “Who are you running into, clumsy!” he shouted at the top of his voice. “Get away from here, and stay away!”
He gave Hiram a swing and a push. For only a moment was the latter bewildered. Then he was almost stunned. Amid the jeers of the Syndicate crowd near the hangars he went spinning almost twenty feet, stumbled and slid flat on the ground for a yard or two.
“I’ll get even with you!” he yelled at Borden, shaking his fist at him, affecting a boylike rage at his mistreatment, and then setting off on a run as his pretended assailant made a feint of pursuing. “Oh, say,” continued Hiram to himself, “Dave must know about this right away. ‘Acting,’ Borden called it. Good! Great! I see through it now!”
Hiram forgot about his errand for the time being. He was a quiet thinker, and he fancied he had made a big discovery. He rushed in on his chum, flustered, perspiring and gasping for breath.
“Dave,” he almost shouted, “that man—the tramp down at the Midlothian—you know—”
“Yes,” answered his chum, “Mr. Borden—what about him?”
“He’s here! He’s with the Syndicate crowd. I saw him. Listen,” and the words piled over each other recklessly as he recited his recent adventure. “Now what do you think of that? Plain as the nose on your face. ‘Acting,’ see? I took him unawares. He’s playing a part—for our benefit!”
“I believe you’re right,” agreed Dave thoughtfully. “It looks that way, anyhow. I don’t know why he should be so interested in our affairs and go to a lot of trouble to help us——”
“I do,” pronounced Hiram energetically. “I saw more of him than you did. He’s no ordinary tramp. You treated him like a gentleman and he appreciated it. You have a way of making everybody like you, Dave.”
“Thank you,” answered the young aviator, “but how about Valdec and the Syndicate outfit, Hiram?”
“I meant everybody good,” corrected Hiram. “That proves my argument. Borden is good. He shows it, good all over and all the way through. I think he has some track of the fellow whose picture he drew and that the trail led him straight to the meet here. Don’t you see? Vincent is in with Worthington and his crowd and Borden has found it out.”
Dave did not reply to the suggestion, but in his own mind he secretly sided with the views of his imaginative assistant. From the manner in which Borden had just acted, it would seem that his being with the Syndicate crowd was no accidental connection. If its motive lay in a friendly move on behalf of the airship chums, it was certain that the tramp artist had discovered something of value.
“If things are as you say,” spoke Dave, “we will be sure to hear from Borden in some way before long. It is evident that he does not want us to recognize him as a friend. That being so, he will act with caution in getting word to us.”
“You’ll find out I’m guessing right,” asserted Hiram, “you’ll find out that this Vernon, out of revenge, and because he’s paid, is working for Valdec to get us out of the contest.”
Hiram was much excited the rest of that day, expecting word from Borden, which did not come. The episode of the morning had somewhat disturbed Dave. If there was a systematic plot on foot to keep the Ariel out of the lists, extreme vigilance was necessary.
The management had a night patrol, but more to look after things in general than each individual hangar. Dave had known one Dennis Rohan at a former meet he had attended, a man who traveled about selling favors and souvenirs. He was an old man with one limb, crippled, not very active in getting about, but sober and reliable. Until the meet opened he had nothing particular to do. Dave sought him out. He arranged that Rohan was to act as watchman of the hangar, coming on duty at dusk, and remaining until daylight.
The usual practice of the day was gone through that afternoon. Hiram showed a good deal of restlessness, however. Just before supper Dave came up to him where he sat on a bench near the hangar looking in the direction of the Syndicate camp.
“See here, Hiram,” spoke the young aviator, “you’re letting this Borden affair get on your nerves, and it won’t do. I’m looking out for tricks, and things will develop of themselves. Get yourmind in a new rut. What do you say to a flight out over the lake? It will be moonlight shortly after dark and the air spin will make us sleep soundly.”
“That suits me,” proclaimed Hiram, his usual animation restored—“you mean in theAriel?”
“Why, just as you choose. If you want to take theScout, it will give you fine practice.”
“That will be fine,” said Hiram, and just at dusk, after their evening meal, he ran theScoutout of the hangar near the high fence surrounding the grounds, and busied himself seeing that the machine was in perfect trim for the flight.
Dave was similarly employed with theAriel, inside the hangar. He was ready to start out, but glancing at his watch and discovering that Rohan would be due on his night duty within a few minutes, he decided to await his arrival to give him some instructions.
“She’s in prime trim,” voiced his young assistant outside, as he climbed into the pilot seat and ran his hand over the various wheels, levers and buttons, to see that everything was in order. “Why doesn’t Dave come?” and he was about to give a customary signal whistle when he exclaimed with a start “Hello! what’s that, now?”
It was a shot, just outside the fence, and it was followed by shouts. Then there was a scraping sound on the surface of the outside of the boards.
“I declare!” cried Hiram, as a human head bobbed into view over the top of the fence. There was another shot. “Hi, you! what’s up?” challenged Hiram.
In a great hurry, the owner of the head pulled himself into view. He dropped to the inside, stumbled, recovered himself and then glared all about him. His glance lit on the machine and then on its pilot.
Whoever he was, whatever his purposes, the sight of the outfit seemed suddenly to infuse him with an idea. He gave the machine a push, sent it spinning ahead, ran around to its side and leaping up began climbing over the planes.
“Here! here!” shouted the astonished Hiram, “get off there. You’ll smash things.”
“Start her up,” ordered the intruder, “do it quick, without a word, or—”
The speaker must have known something about flying machines, for with a dexterous move he landed in the cockpit. As he did so, he completed his menacing words by holding a pistol close to the head of the startled Hiram Dobbs.
A STRANGE RACE
A STRANGE RACE
A STRANGE RACE
Dave, busying himself about theArielinside the hangar, had caught an echo of the shot outside the fence and the shouts accompanying it. There was generally considerable commotion about the grounds, however, and he paid no particular attention to these demonstrations.
Even the sound of the exhaust of theScoutdid not suggest anything out of the ordinary. It was only when a loud cry sounded directly beyond the open doors of the hangar, that the young airman was aroused.
“Oh, Mr. Dashaway!” gasped out a startling voice—“come here! come, quick!”
Dave looked up to discern Rohan, his newly employed watchman. The latter was limping towards the hangar. The light from the inside shone on his face, showing excitement, and a sort of terror.
“Why, Dennis, what is the matter?” inquired Dave, anxiously.
“Your partner, Dobbs—theScout!” stammered the watchman, so excited that he could scarcely speak. “Hear it? See it? And here are the police!”
Dave hurried out. His first swift glance showed that theScoutwas nowhere near. The gathering lake haze formed its usual veil between the ground lights and the upper clear area. A look in that direction told nothing.
A crackling, tearing sound next directed Dave’s glance. It proceeded from the fence. There the uniformed figure of a man was to be seen. He came through a two-foot gap in the barrier. A companion on the outside was just tearing loose a third board. He was pulling it from the bottom, and did not release the top nails. He sprang through after his mate.
“Where is he?” demanded the latter of Dave, and just then Rohan came limping up to the spot.
“Tall man, wearing a buttoned-up frock coat?” he announced in jerks.
“With a fortune in it, yes!” responded the police officer, quickly. “Where is he?” followed the sharp challenge.
“Up there,” answered the watchman promptly, and he pointed aloft.
“Eh, what? Trying to guy us!”
“No, sir,” answered Dennis. “He’s gone, and he’s gone in the little airship. I saw him!”
“Well, I’m flabbergasted!” puffed the officer. “Mate, he’s slipped us. I wish we’d got another shot at him. You mean the fellow has sailed away in one of these balloons around here?”
“I saw him,” continued the watchman rapidly, with a glow of excitement in his eyes. “He dropped to the ground. Mr. Dashaway’s partner here had just got into his machine. The fellow you’re after ran for it. He gave it a shove, jumped onto a side plane, crawled right up to young Dobbs, and put a pistol to his head!”
Dave started. The thought of his chum in peril set his wits at work in an instant.
“The man made some threat to Dobbs,” went on Dennis. “Anyhow, up went the biplane. Then, as the fellow dropped into the cockpit, I heard him yell, ‘West—straight west.’”
“You did?” spoke Dave, questioningly. “That’s a point,” and he made a dash for the hangar. The officers were, indeed, “flabbergasted.” They stood like dummies, dismayed and at a loss as to further action. Dave ran theArielout into the field.
“Officer,” he called to the policeman who seemed most to direct affairs, “that man—who is he?”
“Reddy Marsh, the slickest diamond thief in America,” came the response.
“And he’s got a load of the sparklers in his coat right now,” added the other officer. “Padded brick, smashed a lighted show-window in a jewelry store and off he was with a case, with stones in it worth fifty thousand dollars. We thought we’d run him down when he made for the fence.”
“Yes,” put in the other policeman, who was staring overhead in a lost, puzzled way, “and it won’t be a question of hundreds, but of thousands to the person who gets him and his booty.”
“I’m not thinking of that,” said Dave in an anxious way, “but of my friend. He’s clear grit, but the man is armed. Officer, I’m going aloft. If theScouthasn’t got too far away, I may catch sight of it. I may need protection; assistance. One of you come with me.”
“Hey!” exclaimed the head officer—“you mean in that airship?”
“It’s the only way, isn’t it?” propounded Dave.
“I’ll go,” spoke up the other officer. “This lad must know his business or he wouldn’t be here. It’s in my line of duty—besides, there may be glory in it, and a reward. Go ahead!”
“Quick, then!” directed the young aviator. “Now then,” as he guided the unusual passenger to the seat behind the pilot post, “buckle on the straps, keep cool and quiet, and I’ll see what can be done.”
He liked the obedient composure of his passenger. If the latter felt that he was taking a risk, and experienced a little natural dread, he masked it by shouting to his comrade:
“Tell the sergeant I’m off on special duty—joined the airship corps—ha! ha!”
His laugh ended, however, and Dave could catch a series of quivers and sharp short gasps as the watchman gave the ground gear an impetus and theArielrose up majestically. The machine pierced the blanket of haze and came up above the lower strata of obscuring ground air. Dave described a slow broad circle. His eye swept in all directions the level they were on.
“If the moon were only up,” he murmured. “Well, the only course is west. Hiram is shrewd and intelligent. If he guesses for a moment that I am after him, soon as he gets his thinking cap on he will find some way to signal, or get the best of his passenger.”
“Don’t see anything,” observed the officer, and, big, brave fellow that he was, there was the tremor of the novice in air evident in his voice.
“They’ve got a start, you must remember,” explained Dave, “and a big field. We can only go on, keeping a sharp lookout. If you should happen to get sight of a black speck against the stars, tell me.”
There was a spell of silence for some minutes after that, Dave paying strict attention to directing the machine, his passenger keeping as keen a lookout as was possible for him under the unfamiliar conditions. Suddenly the officer shouted out:
“There! See, a little way ahead? No, it’s gone. Now, again! Pshaw!—fireflies.”
“Too high for that,” spoke Dave, “I see what you mean. Thanks my friend, this is important!”
Ahead of them, and on a higher level, there was now visible a series of swiftly-vibrating brilliant sparks. They filled a mere tiny spot in space. To the expert young airman they were guiding. Dave set the machine on a swift drift then climbed up several hundred feet. Now the sparks, intermittent but perfectly distinct, were clearer and nearer the faster they went.
“It’s a machine,” soliloquized Dave, “and it must be theScout. If it is—clever Hiram! He doesn’t dare show the lights, for that man aboard wouldn’t let him. I can guess what he has done—the vibrator.”
Dave, with a perfect knowledge of all the parts and possibilities of the natty littleScout, was at home with every detail of the mechanism of the machine, and guessed what was transpiring. Later on his surmises were verified. The young aviation expert decided that his chum counted on his searching for him. He had loosed the top of the vibrator, probably sending it adrift.
If he awakened the suspicion of the passenger, he could readily make a pretence of watching the sparks jumping from one coil to the other, to see that all the cylinders were working right. Correct or not in his guess, those distant electric points of light were now a direct guide to the eager pilot of theAriel.
“We’re getting nearer,” breathed the man behind him. “You think it’s the airship we’re after?”
“I am pretty sure of it,” responded Dave. “It’s a race, now, officer. This machine can overtake theScoutand outdistance it within the next half hour. Then the case is up to you.”
“Just get me in reach of Reddy Marsh,” spoke the policeman, “and I’ll do the rest.”
A DESPERATE PASSENGER
A DESPERATE PASSENGER
A DESPERATE PASSENGER
“Due west—and no tricks!” the man had ordered who had insisted upon being a free passenger aboard theScout.
Hiram Dobbs was not frightened. He was simply startled. Most boys would have been unnerved at the leveled weapon of a man who looked so very dangerous. Momentarily taken off his balance, the young airman obeyed the menacing mandate given.
“In case you should think of cutting up any capers,” was spoken next into his ear, “let me tell you I am a desperate man.”
It was humiliating to Hiram, now he had got his second breath, to submit to the dictation of a stranger, and he an intruder, too. Hiram’s natural disposition urged him instantly to drive the machine back to earth. Then common sense assured him that it would be at a risk. He really believed his passenger would shoot. Hiram was a quick thinker. He summed up the situation this way: the fellowaboard theScoutwas a criminal, a fugitive pursued by the police. His only way of evading them was by the air route. A spice of reckless love of excitement came into the thoughts of Hiram. His passenger was watching him closely.
“All right, I’ll see the end of the adventure,” resolved Hiram, and the next minute the land mist shut out all further view of the International grounds.
“Those officers will never take me alive again,” spoke his passenger. “If they get the two of us it will be two dead ones, mind you, that.”
“My! but you’re a wicked one, aren’t you now?” observed Hiram in a tone of raillery.
“Don’t you talk too bold, youngster—it mightn’t be healthy for you,” growled the other. “You obey my orders and you shan’t want a reward.”
“I don’t want money for helping a criminal to escape,” retorted Hiram spicily—“which I take you to be.”
“We all have our special business to attend to,” coolly announced the man. “Yours is running an airship. Mine is picking up what careless people don’t watch close enough. We’ll both be in the papers to-morrow. It will make a good story, on your part. That will help, you see?”
Hiram, as he later explained it to his chum, was “mad all over,” but he saw no safe way out of the dilemma. He preserved a stubborn silence, but thought steadily.
“If I know anything about Dave’s ways,” he soliloquized, “he won’t let any grass grow under his feet. He’ll think and act. A man ran up as this fellow aboard here pushed up the machine. I think it was Dennis, the watchman. The police broke in through the fence, too. Oh, yes, Dave will soon be aloft, and looking for me.”
So convinced of this was Hiram, that he immediately put in operation a plan suddenly suggested to his mind. He reached out one hand and began loosening the screws that held in place the plate covering the vibrator. His passenger was alive to every move he made and was watching him intently.
“Hey, what you up to?” he snarled and then, as if through accident, Hiram shifted the plate so that it went whirling down through space, leaving the mechanism of the vibrator entirely exposed.
“I guess I’ve got to see if the cylinders are sparking right; haven’t I?” snapped Hiram.
“I don’t like that game!” growled the man behind him.
“Say,” jeered Hiram impatiently, “if you don’t take to my way of running this machine, suppose we change places?”
“Oh, of course, I’m no sky pilot”—began the other.
“Then allow me to run this biplane in my own fashion. You’ll have to, I guess,” added Hiram, “or drop. You may be desperate, but I’m in no very good humor myself, drifting around to suit your fancy, and you’ll leave me alone, if you’re wise.”
The passenger relapsed into silence now. Probably a realization of the fact that he might unnerve the pilot, or actually drive him to some rash action, caused him to assume a less forceful attitude. They must have gone fully thirty miles before Hiram spoke again.
“See here,” he demanded sharply, “how long is this flight going to keep up?”
“The further the better,” was the indefinite response. “You know what I’m after—to get us far and fast as possible from the people I don’t want to see. Hey—what’s that?”
Hiram uttered a quick cry of joy. Of a sudden a swaying flash of light moved over and beyond them. A radiant, searching pencil of brilliancy wavered and dilated.
“It’s a biplane searchlight,” thought Hiram, holding his nerves as steady as he could, and not daring to look behind him. “It’s theAriel—it’s Dave!”
“Say, what’s that now?” muttered his passenger, fidgeting about and straining his neck.
“It’s an airship, like our own,” replied Hiram.
“They’re chasing us!” exclaimed the man.
“I can’t help that,” retorted Hiram, coolly.
“Well, aren’t they?” persisted the passenger. “See! they’ve got us in their focus, and they’re keeping us there. You take a look and see if that isn’t so.”
Hiram ventured a glance backwards. It was swift and fleeting. It persuaded him that he was not wrong as to the identity of the biplane.
“There are so many craft around here,” he said, “that one might be a trailer, or setting a pace, or trying to dazzle and play with us, or half-a-dozen such things.”
“Oh, they’re after us—I feel it—I know it!” declared the passenger anxiously. “How far are they from us, do you think?”
“Perhaps a mile, perhaps two,” answered Hiram grudgingly.
He could catch low mutterings, as though the perturbed passenger were communing with himself. Then the latter poked him on the arm.
“They’re getting nearer, and they’re after us,” he spoke quickly, and with a queer thrill of excitement in his voice. “See here, young fellow, I’ve got no money with me, but I’ve got what is worth money. Give me your name, and I promise you, if you help me to get away from whoever may be afterme, I’ll send you something, as soon as I realize, that will pretty nearly make you rich.”
“I wouldn’t take it,” declared the young pilot of theScout. “You must be up to something bad, talking and acting as you do.”
“Land—land!” suddenly shouted the passenger. “Where you see that rise. Do it, don’t you delay, or I’ll knock you over, and risk running the machine myself!”
The urgency of the speaker was caused through the direct play of the headlight of theArielupon them. Dave had gained on theScoutmaterially within a very few minutes’ time. In truth, Hiram, understanding the situation, had been “playing” with the Scout, purposely deferring direct forward progress, bent on giving theArielan opportunity to come up with them. His passenger either discovered or suspected this now.
“No fooling, youngster,” he spoke sternly, and Hiram felt against his shoulder the pressure of the weapon with which the man had previously threatened him. He knew that his passenger was watching him as a cat would a mouse. He could think of no subterfuge to delay matters. Hiram chuckled, however, as he noticed the ever increasing nearness of theAriel.
“Right over on that hill—where the grove of trees is,” directed his passenger. “We can make it first. No delaying, now! I won’t stand it!”
The searchlight of theArielwas kept directly upon the Scout, except when a curve, or turn, made this impossible. As Hiram started a drift landwards, he realized that theArielwas not far behind in the race.
His passenger had slipped loose the seat belt, and showed eager suspense.
“Why don’t you land—why don’t you land! those fellows will be right on our heels in a minute,” he shouted.
“I can’t drop into the tree tops, can I?” challenged Hiram—“well!”
The rebound of the biplane told him that it had been lightened of a burden. His environment demanded his strictest attention to the machine. However, he shot one rapid look back and down. It was to see his passenger risking a ten foot drop directly into a nest of tree branches. They bent with him like a rubbery surface. Hiram sent theScoutin a rising circle so as to keep the man in view.
The headlight of theArielhad kept pace with his sensational movements. The man soon reached the ground, dropping recklessly from branch to branch. The arrow of light revealed him running towards a thick copse. Then it lost sight of him. A minutelater, however, the dazzling glare took up the trail again. The fugitive had darted into a thicket, out of it, into another, out of that one, and the last Hiram saw of him he was dashing down the edge of a gully.
TheAriel, fast descending, kept its boring eye of radiance squarely upon the man. Hiram fancied he could guess about where it would land and decided to join its company. Then something happened that thrilled Hiram. The fugitive stumbled and went headlong over the edge of the gulch.