CHAPTER XXII
LOST IN THE AIR
LOST IN THE AIR
LOST IN THE AIR
“This is serious, fellows,” spoke Dave. “Get ready for the worst.”
“What is the worst?” inquired Elmer Brackett.
“A sudden drop. You had better have the breeches buoys ready.”
“Oh, Dave!” cried Hiram Dobbs, in actual distress. “You don’t mean to say that the brave oldCometis going back on us just as it looks as though the home stretch is right ahead of us?”
“It’s the fog, fellows,” explained Dave. “We have beaten around in it for twelve hours, until I feel certain we are all out of our course. In a word, we are lost.”
“Lost in the air!” exclaimed Hiram—“who’d ever have thought of it!”
“Yes, just like a ship in strange waters,” said Dave. “If we were not so far from the mainland we left last week, there might be some hope. According to my calculation, we have missed St. Helena. If that is true, we can count on no land this side of Trinidad.”
“That must be hundreds of miles away,” remarked Hiram.
“Worse than that,” declared Elmer, who was pretty well posted on chart and “log” details. “If the fog would only lift!”
“That is our only hope,” declared Dave. “I do not wish to alarm you, fellows; but we must face the music like men. I don’t believe theCometwill last out six hours.”
“As bad as that?” said Hiram, in a subdued tone.
“Yes,” asserted the young airman. “If we could sight some ship I would not hesitate to descend upon its deck. This fog, of course, shuts out any chance to depend on that. The trouble is with our wires. That strain we had in last night’s wind seems to have played havoc with the entire steering gear.”
“Can’t it be fixed?” inquired Elmer, anxiously.
“Not while we’re flying,” replied Dave. “You know, the post is really a lever and the wheel a handle. The cloche, or bell-like attachment that runs to the warping wires, has got out of kilter. You know, the steering post is made of one-inch, twenty-gauge steel tubing. At the lower end of this is a fork made of pieces ofsmaller tubing, bent and brazed into place. The fork forms part of the universal joint on which the post is mounted. From this run the warping wires through pulleys to the elevators.”
Hiram nodded intelligently at this technical explanation. Elmer, too, understood what their pilot wished to convey to them.
“Some of the tubing is loose,” continued the young airman. “I have felt it vibrate for the past hour. If any part gives way, and a puff of wind should come up, we will lose all control of the steering gear.”
“The mischief!” ejaculated Hiram, who always got excited readily. “We’re in a bad fix; aren’t we?”
“Bad enough to keep on a low level, for fear we may turn turtle at any moment,” declared Dave.
The young aviator had not misstated conditions. The situation was a critical one, and he had known it for some time. Even now, as they made a straight volplane, there was an ominous creak in the tubing joints, and the machine wabbled.
“Fellows, she’s going!” declared our hero. “We’ve got to drop or take a risk of a sudden plunge that may end everything.”
TheComethad no float attachment. Hiram got the breeches buoys and the life preservers ready. The fog was so heavy they could not see the sky above nor the sea beneath them. Dave allowed the machine to drift on a long, inclined dip. Something snapped. TheCometwavered from side to side but did not upset. There was a second sudden jar.
“Get ready. It’s a sure drop, any way we manage it,” shouted Dave.
All hands were ready to leap from the machine when it struck. Suddenly Dave shut off the power at a contact. The machine grated, ran on its wheels, and came to an astonishing but substantial standstill.
“Dave, Dave,” cried the delighted Hiram, springing out. “Land, solid land!”
“It can’t be! Must be a rock!” gasped Elmer, unbelievingly.
“Whoop! hurrah!” yelled Hiram. “Oh, glory!”
Dave’s young assistant acted mad as a March hare. He could not help it. He sang and danced. Then he reached down and grabbed up handfuls of the light sand at his feet, and flung it joyously up in the air as if it were grains of precious gold.
“Sure as you live,” exclaimed the bewildered Elmer. “It’s solid land—oh, what luck!”
The young aviator was filled with surprise and satisfaction. Such rare good fortune seemed incredible. He stood still, not caring if it was a sand bank or a desert island. They had escaped a fearful peril—and theCometwas safe.
“Who cares for the fog. Why, if it’s only a ten foot mud bank we’re so glad nothing else matters much just now,” declared the overwrought Hiram.
“It’s something better than that,” responded our hero brightly, all buoyed up now after the recent heavy strain on nerve and mind. “We must have landed on some island not down on the chart.”
“Let us explore,” suggested the impetuous Hiram.
“Let us eat first,” added the hungry Elmer. “It’s brought back my appetite, after that big scare.”
Dave went all over the machine, more with the sense of touch than actual eyesight inspection in that enveloping fog. He came back to his comrades not a whit discouraged.
“How is it, Dave?” asked Hiram.
“I can’t tell exactly,” was the reply. “Some of the tubing is loose and the gear is out of center. With what tools we have and duplicate parts, we may be able to fix things up good enough to carry on to the South American coast.”
“Let’s do it, then,” suggested the eager Elmer. “Those other fellows may get the biggest kind of a lead on us while we are delaying here.”
“They are probably having troubles of their own,” remarked Dave. “It would be impossible to do anything in this fog. Besides, it will take us at least a day to repair theComet. We might just as well take a resting spell and a bite to eat.”
The food supply aboard the biplane was abundant, but no attempt was made to cook a meal. The airship boys indulged in a lunch composed of crackers, cheese and some lemonade, in the manufacture of which beverage Hiram had become something of an expert.
“I say,” he suddenly exclaimed, ten minutes later, as he bolted a mouthful of cracker—“look there!”
The speaker pointed, and all hands arose to their feet. In the far distance a growing yellow glow began to diffuse itself over the western sky. As suddenly and completely as the dense fog had come down upon them earlier in the day, a grand clearing up transpired.
“Why, it’s just like the rolling up of a curtain,” cried Elmer.
The airship boys stood viewing a swift panorama. Vague shapes and outlines began to stand out before their vision. The blue sky showed to their left, the ocean at quite some distance. The sinking sun sent up its radiant beams and they made out that they were on an island.
Its rounding end was disclosed as they swept the scene with interested glances. Little patches of forest and grassy plain showed.
“Why, a famous camping spot,” spoke the elated Hiram.
“How lucky we didn’t miss it,” added Elmer.
The young pilot could now inspect theCometmore clearly. He reported his conclusions after going over every part of the machine.
“I think time and patience will fix things up,” he announced.
“How much time?” inquired Hiram.
“I hope not a great lot of patience,” said Elmer, with a longing thought of the home mainland.
“There will be some brazing and hammering to do,” explained Dave. “We will have to build a fire. It will soon be dark and we must wait for daylight. Now then, fellows, don’t waste any nerve force worrying. What we lose to-day we’ll try to make up for when we get started again. We will find a good camping spot, have a pleasant evening, and a full night’s sleep. That will put us in fine trim for real business in the morning.”
“Begone dull care,” sang Hiram, in a jolly tone. “We’ll forget that we’re circling the globe for one ten hours, and be common, everyday boys out on a picnic lark, and report for duty in the morning.”
“There’s an inviting spot,” observed Dave, pointing to a copse on a little rise in the near distance.
Before dusk the airship boys had gotten theCometsafely placed, blankets out, a campfire built, and were settled down comfortably for the evening. There was nothing to indicate that the island was inhabited with wild beasts. It seemed to be a little emerald patch set down in the ocean, a sort of lost Crusoe reef, too small to have a name or a place on the marine charts.
One by one the boys drifted into slumberland. It must have been nearly midnight when Hiram and Elmer awakened to find Dave shaking them vigorously.
“Get up, fellows,” directed the young airman. “Something’s going on that we have got to investigate.”