CHAPTER XTHE HAUNTED AERODROME
The excitable Leblance was on his feet in an instant. Dave reached the side of Mr. King and glanced quickly at the paper he had opened out.
“Impossible—so poorly equipped! Incredible—so quickly!” almost shouted the Frenchman.
“TheDictatorhas sailed, just the same,” announced the veteran airman, conclusively. “I’ll read it to you.”
Every word of the article in the newspaper was taken in absorbedly by the persons in the room. According to it, theDictatorhad made a splendid ascent from Senca at two o’clock that afternoon. The red, white and blue appearance of the great gas bag had evoked the most patriotic enthusiasm, and cheers and flag-waving had accompanied the flight.
TheDictator, according to the report, would float southward overland till a point near Baltimore was reached. Here a descent would bemade to learn its condition, the machinery carefully scanned, and the ocean course begun. Then followed an interview given out by Davidson on the superiority of his double monoplane apparatus. There was, too, a portrait of Davidson and one of Jerry Dawson. The article wound up with a reference to theAlbatross, which it stated, would soon be hot on the heels of theDictator.
“They have got the lead,” observed Mr. Dale, in an anxious tone, the one of the group most disquieted by the newspaper article.
Professor Leblance shrugged his shoulders. He waved his hand to express ridicule. His long, waxed mustache curled up in disdain.
“It is absurd,” he said. “Do I not know? An egg shell like that—no science, no reserve force. Bah! I laugh at it.”
All the same the volatile Frenchman beckoned Mr. King to the next room. In low, serious tones they held quite an extended conversation. At its end Leblance hurried from the house. Mr. King returned to his friends with a serious face.
“The ball has been set rolling,” he spoke, “there is no doubt of that. No matter what we think or guess about theDictator, it seems certain that the craft has made a start. Leblance has gone to set his men at night work. TheAlbatrossmust be gotten in trim for its flight within forty-eight hours.”
“As quickly as that!” exclaimed Dave.
“Leblance assures me he will have theAlbatrossall ready for its flight by day after to-morrow,” said the airman. “Make preparations, my friends. There must be no delay.”
“Hurrah!” whispered Hiram, into the ear of his young friend.
The guests of Mr. King saw that his mind was seriously on his business, and arose to depart.
“Some of our crowd will be here to give theAlbatrossthe right send-off,” one of them declared.
The airman saw the visitors to the door. When he returned he snatched up his hat quickly.
“Come with me, Dashaway; you too, Hiram,” he directed.
“Where are you going?” inquired Mr. Dale.
“To the aerodrome. There is going to be a lot of rush work to do, and perhaps we can help.”
“Count me in,” said the old man, cheerily, “although I haven’t been very useful so far outside of gaping at the wonderful work of our gifted friend, Leblance.”
“Day after to-morrow is the twenty-first,” spoke up Grimshaw. “Two days’ start for theDictatorcrowd.”
The group left the boarding house. They crossed the street and walked along the fence of the aerodrome enclosure. Dave and Hiram werein the lead. They were chatting animatedly as they turned the corner of the building, when Dave was thrust violently to the side and Hiram was knocked head over heels to the street.
A frenzied yell accompanied the collision with them of a wild, scurrying form, which recoiled at the unexpected impact, a hat bobbing from its head.
“Hi! what’s all this?” challenged the astonished Mr. King.
“Why, it’s the night watchman!” declared Grimshaw.
“Oh, Mr. King!” panted the man, and then, pale, shaking, and gasping for breath, he fell against the wall of the building from sheer weakness.
“Here, brace up,” ordered the aviator, seizing the arms of the fellow and shaking him. “What’s the trouble?”
“Ghost!” choked out the watchman, in thrilling accents.
“Where—what do you mean?”
“Aerodrome.”
“A ghost in the aerodrome?” questioned Mr. King, derisively. “Is that what you’re trying to say?”
“Yes.”
“Nonsense! Here, Grimshaw, help me get this fellow back to his post of duty.”
Between them they forced the man along the walk. He gurgled, quaked, and held back as they neared the gates of the enclosure. They found these locked, as also the door to the old factory, when they reached it.
“I locked it in,” quavered the frightened watchman. “Don’t—don’t let it out!”
“You’re a fine guardian of property, you are,” censured the airman, severely. “Here we are,” and as he opened the door, Mr. King snapped on the electric lights. The watchman sank to a chair and crouched as he directed a scared glance around the place.
“Where’s your ghost?” derided the aviator quickly.
“I—I don’t see him now,” grunted the watchman.
“I guess you don’t,” scoffed Grimshaw. “You must be a weak one to fly into a tantrum like this over nothing.”
“Nothing!” fairly bellowed the watchman. “I saw it plain as the nose on my face. See here, I had the door ajar about a foot to let in a little of the cool evening air. Here I sat in my chair right near it. I must have half snoozed and woke up suddenly. Not five feet away, right near that oil tank yonder, was a horrible shape. It was all white and unearthly. As I started up it let out an unearthly scream and waved its arms. Say, it was curdling! I bolted for the door, locked it, and scooted.”
“Yes, you scooted all right,” grumbled Hiram, rubbing a bump on his head.
Mr. King, with a glance of impatience at the great booby of a watchman, proceeded briskly the length of the building, peering into every odd nook and corner. When he came back he held in his hand a long cotton sheet that had been used to cover some of the machinery.
“That is what you saw,” he declared. “Somebody has been playing a trick on you.”
“Why, how could that be,” chattered the watchman, “seeing nobody was in the building but me?”
“How do you know that?” demanded the aviator; “when you say you had the door open? I tell you some one slipped in, wrapped in the sheet, and half scared the life out of you.”
“Then he must be here now,” insisted the watchman, “for when I bolted I locked the door after me.”
“It all looks rather queer,” remarked Mr. Dale.
“Hi!” suddenly shouted the watchman.
“What’s the matter now?” asked Mr. King.
“My dinner pail—that I bring my night lunch in.”
“What about it?”
“Gone! It was right here near my chair. It’s been taken.”
Dave had followed the progress of the incident of the hour with curiosity, ending in positive interest.
“Come on, Hiram,” he said.
“What for?” inquired his comrade.
“To do some investigating. Don’t you see that if the watchman’s story is straight some one really was here?”
“And if the door was locked when the watchman ran away he couldn’t very well get out.”
“Exactly.”
The two lads made more than one tour of the length and breadth of the place. Their quest proved a vain one. There was no one hiding about the aerodrome, as far as they could discover.
“We’ll have to give it up,” said Hiram at last, “although it’s something of a mystery.”
It was, indeed, but a mystery soon to be explained in a startling way to the young aviators.