CHAPTER X
A MIDNIGHT ALARM
A MIDNIGHT ALARM
A MIDNIGHT ALARM
“Why, hello, Hiram Dobbs!”
The young sub-pilot of theCometturned quickly at the hail. It was half an hour after the arrival at the Chicago aero grounds. Hiram felt pretty important over the royal reception his comrades and himself had received from the aviation officials. Never too proud to greet a friend of humbler pretensions, however, he turned with his usual broad smile of good nature. Then he shot out his hand heartily.
A pale, thin lad, somewhat poorly dressed, had accosted him. Pleased and eager, he clasped the hand Hiram extended.
“Well,” exclaimed the latter, “if it isn’t Will Mason! How in the world do you come to be here?”
“You,” answered the lad promptly—“you’re to blame for my getting a splendid outdoor job, fine pay and jolly good people to work for,” and the speaker’s eyes twinkled.
“Let’s see,” said Hiram, ruminating. “It was at Columbus I met you; wasn’t it?”
“Yes, too sick to keep drudging my life away in the poison air of the zinc works,” nodded Will. “The doctor said I’d last a month longer, maybe. But there was mother, and I had to stick at my post till you kindly interested yourself in me.”
“And Dave Dashaway did the rest by getting you placed with the Chicago crowd; eh?” added Hiram. “It worked out? Good!”
“It worked out because you started the machinery,” declared the grateful Will. “Oh, it’s fine, Mr. Dobbs.”
“Hey! what? Wow! O-oh, my!” and, forgetting all dignity, Hiram fell against a hangar rope and almost roared. “‘Mister!’” he gasped. “First time in my life I was called that. It will be ‘Professor’ next. Oh, but I’m getting on in the world. I suppose it may come to ‘Sir Hiram Dobbs,’ unless we fall down somewhere along the line. Then it will be back to plain Hiram, or just ‘Hi.’ I’m Hiram to my friends, though, always; so call me that and I’ll think you are really a friend.”
Will Mason was bubbling over with delight at his vastly improved condition and heartfelt gratitude towards the true friends who had helped him attain it. He was full of the subject and Hiram had to listen to the details.
Will told how he had a position clear up to the end of the year and a dozen prospects for the next season.
“It’s only helping around the hangars for the present,” he explained; “but Mr. King sent word that as soon as he gets well he will give me a regular place among his assistants. I’ve been able to send quite a bit of money to mother. This week there are some amateur airmen here who want special care for their machines, and I’m making a heap of extras.”
“Grand!” commended Hiram. “You’ll make it. You’re the kind that will.”
“And I feel so much better in health,” added Will. “I’ve gained ten pounds, and I feel just like a bird let out of its cage. That’s your machine over yonder; isn’t it?” asked Will, indicating theComet, which was surrounded by interested investigating airmen.
“That’s the winner of the international race around the world, yes,” proclaimed Hiram grandly.
“She looks it,” enthused Will. “I wanted to ask you about the biplane. You’re going to stay here till morning, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I guess that is the programme,” replied Hiram.
“Then you want to house the machine. I heard that some one stole theComet. It was talked around here that some wanted to put theCometout of the race because of her good chances.”
“Oh, is that so?” remarked Hiram.
“So, if you want the machine well taken care of,” proceeded Will, “give me the pleasure of doing it. You see that hangar over yonder—the one built of light cement blocks? It’s a remodeled storehouse. Belongs to Mr. Givins, a rich amateur. I take care of his machine when it’s here. He took a run up to Milwaukee this morning, and won’t be back until to-morrow, he said. There isn’t a safer, cleaner, more roomy place on the grounds. You see the windows are barred and there is a great big lock on the doors.”
“Why, say, that’s just famous,” said Hiram. “Dave will be glad to know of such good accommodations as you offer, Will.”
“Besides,” continued the hangar lad, “I’ll sleep in the place all night. Nobody will run away with theCometwhile I am on watch.”
“I believe you,” cried Hiram buoyantly. “Come on, I want you to meet Dave. He will be mighty glad to see you.”
Number eight of the contestant group came in at dusk. Number eleven, a high power machine, reported an hour later. A wire had come from Pittsburgh announcing the smash—up of number five, nobody hurt, but machine totally disabled and permanently out of commission.
The young pilot of theComethad some very pleasant words for Will Mason. The offer of the hangar lad to take charge of theCometfor the night was entirely satisfactory. The local airmen vied in showing attention to their guests, and the eight hours stop was an enlivening break in the long expedition before them.
“What’s that you’ve got in that box, Hiram?” asked our hero, as they left the association building.
“Some of those fine dainties they set before us at that reception lunch,” reported Hiram. “I tipped the waiter to put it up for me. For Will Mason, you see.”
“That’s good,” commended Dave, “Will is a fine-going fellow.”
“Yes, and proud as can be to think you’ll trust him to keep any stragglers away from theComet.”
The boys decided to look in on the machine before returning. A knock at the door of the hangar brought a sharp mandatory challenge from the vigilant guardian inside.
“Who is there?” demanded Will, approaching the portal.
“Midnight lunch for the watchman!” cried Hiram, in a jolly tone.
“Enter midnight lunch,” ordered Will, unlocking and swinging open the door.
“You are pretty fine and cozy here,” remarked Dave.
A lantern burned on a shelf. Will had made a comfortable bed on a tilted board. He smacked his lips as Hiram disclosed the contents of the box.
“Why, it is a regular banquet,” declared the pleased lad. “What with that and my reading there’s no danger of my going to sleep.”
Hiram picked up a book lying on the shelf and read its title.
“H’m,” he remarked, “‘Advanced Aeronautics—1850.’ Say, this must seem queer along with the flying machines of to-day.”
“It’s almost funny in places,” explained Will. “I wonder what those old fellows with their big awkward gas bags would think of the nifty machine here, and a trip around the world in it, easy as a Pullman sleeper.”
“We don’t know that yet,” observed Dave. “There are probably some very unusual experiences ahead of us.”
“Oh, well, we’ll take it as it comes, a section at a time,” said Hiram. “With Dave Dashaway at the helm, we simply can’t fail.”
They were a sanguine, light-hearted group. The crew of theCometchatted in a friendly way with Will for a few minutes. Then the trio repaired to a little hotel just outside the grounds.The association had made arrangements for them there. The young airman left word to be called at daylight and the comrades were shown to a doubled-bedded room.
“This is pretty fine,” observed Hiram, bunking in with Elmer and stretching himself luxuriously. “There won’t be a lot more of it for some time to come, so let’s see who can sleep soundest.”
Our hero was certainly the expert aviator of the group. He did not carry off the laurels in the slumber field, however. His comrades wrapped in profound sleep, Dave awoke and with a shock.
It must have been about three o’clock. It seemed to the young airman as though a cannon had gone off near by. His ears still rang with the echoes. Dave found the window frames of the room were still rattling.
“Wonder what that was?” he mused. He glanced towards the windows, but there was no glare of fire. Perfect stillness reigned outside. About to leave the solution of the question until daybreak, our hero listened intently as he heard someone in the next room spring from bed, cross the room hurriedly and apparently pick up a telephone receiver.
“Hello. This the hotel office?” fell upon Dave’s hearing. “All right. Say, what was that just went off? Wait a minute? All right.”
There was a brief lapse of silence. Then the bell in the next apartment rang out sharply. A message seemed to come over the wire, the young airman could catch its crackling echoes.
“What’s that!” exclaimed the man at the ’phone. “Explosion at the aero grounds? Is that so? Hangar and machine blown to pieces! What was it? Oh, dynamite! Well! well!”
With a start and a thrill the young aviator sprang out of bed.