CHAPTER XX.IN THE NICK OF TIME.
CHAPTER XX.
IN THE NICK OF TIME.
Excitement had reached its topmost pitch on the aviation field. It was but a few minutes to starting time for the great contest, and already four young aviators had their winged craft in line before the judge’s stand.
Engines were belching clouds of acrid blue smoke heavily impregnated with oily, smelling fumes. The roar of motors shook the air. Folks in the grandstand and on the crowded lawns excitedly pointed out to one another the different machines, all of which bore large numbers.
Excited officials, red-faced and perspiring, bustled about importantly, while from the top of the judge’s stand a portly man bellowed occasional announcements through a megaphone.
Suddenly he made an announcement that caused a hum of interest.
“Machine number seven—mach-ine num-ber sev-en! Fanning Harding, owner, has withdrawn from the race,” he announced.
A buzz of comment went through the crowd. Jess, Jimsy and Hal Homer, standing in a group by the empty Prescott hangar, exchanged astonished glances as they heard the news. What did that mean? Fanning had been swaggering about, boasting of his wonderful aeroplane, and now it appeared at the eleventh hour he had decided not to enter it.
“Must have had an accident,” opined Jimsy.
“Maybe he gave it one of those pleasant looks of his,” suggested Jess.
“Wherever can Peggy be,” exclaimed the girl the next minute; “she’s been gone for more than an hour. I do hope nothing has happened to her.”
“Not likely,” rejoined Jimsy, although helooked a little troubled over the non-appearance of the Golden Butterfly.
“The police said they had a dragnet out in every part of the vicinity,” volunteered Hal Homer, who had returned only a few minutes before from the station house.
Bang!
A bomb had been shot skyward and now exploded in a cloud of yellow smoke.
“Three minutes to starting time,” cried Hal Homer anxiously; “where can Miss Prescott be?”
“Look!” cried Jess suddenly, dancing about. “Oh, Glory! Here she comes!”
Far off against the sky a speck was visible. Rushing toward them at tremendous speed it swiftly grew larger. The crowd saw it now and great excitement prevailed. The word flew about that the machine was the missing Number Six. Would it arrive in time to participate in the start and thus qualify? This was the question on every lip.
Hal Homer jumped into the auto and sped over to the judge’s stand.
“Can’t you delay the start for five minutes?” he begged.
“Impossible,” was the reply.
“But that aeroplane, Number Six, has been delayed by some accident. If you start the race on time it may not arrive in time to take part.”
“Can’t be helped. Young Prescott—that’s the name of the owner, isn’t it?—shouldn’t have gone off on a cross country tryout.”
Back to the hangar sped Hal, where Jess and Jimsy, almost beside themselves with excitement, were watching the homing aeroplane.
“She’ll be on time,” cried Jimsy as the graceful ship swept over the distant confines of the course and came thundering down toward the starting point.
A great cheer swept skywards as the aeroplane came on.
“She’ll make it.”
“She won’t.”
“Where has the thing been?”
“Why is it so late?”
These and a hundred other questions and remarks went from mouth to mouth all through the big crowd.
“It’s all off,” groaned Jimsy suddenly.
He had seen the signal corps man, whose duty it was to fire the bombs, outstretching himself on the ground awaiting the signal to touch off the starting sign.
But even as Jimsy spoke, the Golden Butterfly made a swift turn and, amid a roar from the crowd, shot whirring past the grandstand and alighted in front of the stand on the starting line.
Hardly had the wheels touched the ground before the judge in charge of the track raised his hand. A flag fell and the signal corps man jerked his arm back, firing the bomb that announced the start.
B-o-o-o-o-m!
As the detonation died out the aeroplanes shotforward, rising into the still air almost in a body, like a flock of birds. It was a spectacle never to be forgotten, and the crowd appreciated it to the full.
But up in the grandstand, in inconspicuous places, sat three persons who did not look as well pleased as those about them.
“So the girl is going to take a chance,” muttered Fanning Harding; “well, so much the worse for her. If she wins I’ll put in a protest and compel her to unmask.”
“Won’t that Prescott and Bancroft bunch be astonished when they find out that we are on to their little game,” chuckled Jukes Dade; “it’ll be as good as a play.”
“That’s what it will,” grinned Gid.
“They’ll find out that they can’t humiliate me and not suffer for it,” grated out Fanning.
“Wonder where that girl went to on her tryout spin?” inquired Dade.
“It doesn’t make much difference where, butshe certainly came back with a grandstand play,” rejoined Gid.
“Well, if she wins the race it will be our turn,” Fanning assured him.
They then turned their attention to the contest, two laps of which had been made while they were talking.
Number One, a small white Bleriot type of monoplane, seemed to be making the pace for the rest, and word flew about that it had gained half a lap on Number Four, its nearest competitor so far.
“But it will be a long contest,” said the wiseacres in the crowd, “and accidents may happen at any time.”
On the fourth lap Number One was seen to descend over by the hangars. Something had gone wrong with its lubricating valve. By the time the difficulty was adjusted it was hopelessly out of the race. Number Three was the next to drop out. This machine was driven by one of the high school lads, and his contingent of rootersin the grandstand set up a woeful noise as he dropped to earth in the middle of the course. A broken stay had made it dangerous for him to remain longer in the air.
This left number Six, the Prescott machine, Numbers Two, Four and Five still in the air.
“Number Six has gained a lap on Number Five!” went up the cry presently as Number Five, so far the leader, was seen to lose speed on the fifteenth lap.
The Golden Butterfly was in truth doing magnificently, but try as her operator would it did not seem possible to shake off Number Five, another high school boy’s machine, which clung persistently to its stern. Number Four alighted for more gasolene on the twentieth lap and lost a round of the course thereby. A few seconds later Number Two was also forced to descend with heated cylinders. This practically left the race between Number Five and the Golden Butterfly. Round and round they tore, neither of them gaining or losing a foot apparently. Thethunder of their engines grew deafeningly monotonous and the crowds watched them as if hypnotized by the whirring aerial monsters.
All at once, though, a mighty roar proclaimed that something was happening, and gazing down toward the further end of the track it could be seen that Number Six, the Golden Butterfly, had made a daring attempt to gain on the other machine, and had succeeded.
So close did the two aeroplanes edge to the end pylon in the effort to secure the inside plane that for an instant it looked as if a crash must result.
A thunder of cheers greeted the Golden Butterfly as she swept by the grandstand on the next lap.
“That girl can drive all right,” grudgingly admitted Fanning Harding.
“Yes, and she’s pretty as a picture, too,” put in Gid Gibbons; “guess you were stuck on her once, weren’t you, Fan?”
“Oh, shut up,” growled Fanning angrily. “It makes no difference to you, does it?”
The aeroplanes had been racing for an hour now, and neither showed any signs of slacking speed. On the contrary, as they “warmed up,” they seemed to go the quicker. All at once an incident occurred which brought the crowd to its feet yelling and cheering as if wild.
The driver of Number Five, as the two machines passed the grandstand, had made a deliberate attempt to prevent the Golden Butterfly overhauling him by jamming his aeroplane over toward a pylon and directly in front of the Butterfly. For an instant it looked as if a crash must be inevitable, but just as the spectators were beginning to turn pale and the more timid to hide their eyes, the Butterfly was seen to make a graceful dip and dive clean under the other aeroplane. It was a magnificent bit of aerial driving, and the crowd appreciated it to the full. A roar and a shout went up, to which the driver ofNumber Six responded with a wave of a gloved hand.
Ten minutes later Number Five, two laps behind, and with a leaking radiator, dropped out of the race, leaving the Golden Butterfly the winner. Fanning Harding was white as a sheet as he saw an official with a black and white checkered flag step out into the field. This was the signal to the Golden Butterfly, which was still in the air, that the race was over.
As the Prescott aeroplane dropped to earth in front of the grandstand amid rapturous plaudits, the son of the Sandy Bay banker deliberately arose and made his way toward the judges’ stand, to which Hal Homer and the Bancrofts, the core of a shouting, yelling mob of enthusiasts, were already conducting the daring driver of Number Six.
Special policemen made a path for the aviator and his friends, while cries of:
“Take off your helmet!”
“We want to see you!”
“What’s the matter with Number Six?” and a hundred other cries arose.
But the driver of Number Six did not respond, and with his helmet still on his head was conducted before the judges to receive their congratulations. The helmet was still in place when Fanning Harding came shoving through the crowd and finally reached the little group.
“As a competitor I demand that Number Six take off his helmet!” he cried.
The judges turned to him in astonishment.
“This is most unseemly, sir,” said one of them; “no doubt in good time Mr. Prescott will take off his helmet.”
“Oh, no, he won’t,” shouted Fanning, at whom all the group was now gazing. “He won’t, I tell you, and for a good reason, too.That’s not Roy Prescott at all, but his sister Peggy.”
But the words had not left his lips before Jimsy, with a quick motion, jerked off the aviator’s helmet and disclosed the handsome, perspiring features of Roy himself.
In the few minutes he had had, Roy had found time briefly to explain how he and his sister had changed garments.
“Well, I guess that settles that question,” cried Jimsy triumphantly, as a mighty shout went up.
“It certainly does,” said one of the officials. “Where is that young scamp? Officer, find the young man who made that accusation and bring him here to explain himself.”
But the disgruntled Fanning had dived off into the crowd the instant he saw into what a tremendous blunder he had fallen. And although a strict search was made for him he was not to be found.