Kitobni o'qish: «Dave Dashaway and His Giant Airship: or, A Marvellous Trip Across the Atlantic», sahifa 2

CHAPTER III
A NARROW ESCAPE

The Gossamer had struck “a hole in the air!” “We are lost!” thought Dave Dashaway.

The young aviator was not prone to arrive at senseless conclusions. He had made a practical study of aeronautics, in a way; from the first time the pioneer airman harnessed a gasoline engine to a kite and called it a flying machine, down to the loop-the-loop somersault trick in aviation.

A “hole in the air” to the sky traveler is what a yawning chasm is to a speeding automobile or an unexpected cataract to a hydroplane. It is worse than a “killed” motor or even a threatened “turn turtle.” Every part of the machine suddenly goes useless. The heavy mechanism simply drops. In a word, the Gossamer had been caught in a dead void caused by two opposing air currents colliding, and shutting the machine into an absolute pocket, or vacuum.

If Dave had remained inert, or had hesitated for a single instant of time, the Gossamer would have been doomed. A slender thread of hope presented itself and he was quick to utilize it to the limit. “Feeling” the air with one cheek, he noticed the tail of the machine give a quick switch. This he at once understood indicated that the master air current was from the north. Dave hoped there was power enough left in the propellers to make a sharp, quick turn. He set the apparatus for the speediest whirl he had ever attempted.

The machine was tipping, dropping steadily. Dave banked to the left at a most critical angle. There was a dizzying spin and then a dive. A great breath of relief swept from Dave’s lips as the Gossamer righted. The wings caught the violent blast of the gust, and the machine fairly bored its way ahead, true as an arrow, into the teeth of the storm.

A drenching shower shut the aerial wayfarers into a blinding deluge of rain drops. Then their course lightened, and Dave knew that the thinning veil of moisture indicated sunlight beyond it. He shut down speed slightly. The air pressure was fast decreasing as the Gossamer emerged from the clouds. Dave gradually worked the head of the machine due southwest once more. The former head wind was regained, and sunny progress offered beyond.

“A close shave,” said Dave, to himself, and turned to see how his passenger had taken it.

“I suppose that scared you somewhat, Miss Winston?” he remarked.

Amy’s face was pale, and she showed the strain of her startling experience, but she replied:

“I could not be frightened with you. Anybody as kind and thoughtful as you are to a poor girl in distress like myself, could not be anything but brave.”

Dave’s heart warmed at the compliment. He admired the girl, too. As he thought back, he realized that his nerves had been at a tension where any outcry or movement on the part of his passenger might have upset his self-control, and have prevented the prompt action which had saved the day.

He felt proud and pleased at his success in turning a hard corner. His passenger, too, became more light-hearted as the prospect of soon reaching the side of her invalid mother became more assured. Once or twice as they flew over chicken coops in farm yards there was great excitement beneath them, and she could not help but smile.

“That is Easton,” she leaned over finally to say to Dave, as the steeples and factory chimneys of a little town came into view.

The girl pointed out her home a few minutes later, and Dave prepared to make a landing. The Gossamer came to earth in the middle of a field a few hundred yards distant from the house the girl had designated.

Long before Dave had released the ropes that had held his passenger in her seat, people who had viewed the novelty of a real airship came flocking to the spot from all directions. Amy seized the hands of the young aviator, bubbling over with gratitude. She tried to thank him as she wished to, but the words would not come.

“Don’t delay, Miss Winston,” said Dave. “I know they must be very anxious about you at home.”

Dave led his little charge to the fence surrounding the field and helped her over it. Then he returned to the Gossamer. He found that the propellers had gone through some strain during his adventure in the storm, and he had some little work to do with chisel, hammer and wrench. While he was thus occupied almost a mob surrounded the airship, curious, gaping and delighted.

A man wearing a big star, and evidently the policeman of the town, made himself very officious keeping the crowd back. He had seen an airship once at a county fair and paraded his knowledge now. He tried industriously to make himself very agreeable to the young aviator. Dave had to laugh secretly to himself as the man pinched his fingers describing to a local newspaper man that this was the “magenta” – meaning magneto; and that the “carbutter” – meaning the carburetor.

“You must have been reading up on airships,” spoke the newspaper man to the policeman, as the latter walked importantly about the craft, now and then sternly calling on some small lad to “git back out th’ way.”

“I have,” came the confident answer. “I know a lot about ’em. Of course I haven’t ever sailed in one, but my brother, he’s a policeman in Long Island, and once, when I was on a visit to him, he was detailed to go out to a place where they was havin’ one of these airyplane contests, and keep order. I went with him, and he swore me in as his deputy assistant. I seen a lot of them foreign fellers fly, and I picked up a lot of information.”

“I suppose so,” murmured the newspaper man, who was new in town, and did not know enough to discount the boasting talk of the officer.

“Yes, indeed!” went on the constable. “Why, once one of them birdmen – they call ’em ‘birdmen’ you know,” he explained as though he knew it all, “once one of ’em run out of gasoline just as he was goin’ to start in a prize flight, and if it hadn’t been for me he’d never won it.”

“How’s that?” asked the reporter.

“Why I hustled over to the hangar – that’s the French word for a balloon shed,” he explained condescendingly, “I rushed over to the hangar and got him a can of gasoline and he went up as slick as anything and won the prize. He said I helped him a lot, and he gave me a dollar. I didn’t want to take it, but he insisted. Oh, I know a lot about airships.”

Dave was so busy tightening some of the guy wires that had come loosened at the turn buckle, by reason of the great strain, that he paid little attention to the reporter and the constable for a few minutes.

The young aviator, however, noticed that the officious officer was becoming more and more familiar with the machine, touching the different parts, often calling them by their wrong names, and totally unconscious of his errors. Nor was the reporter any the wiser.

“I don’t exactly understand what makes the airship move,” confessed the newspaper man to the self-appointed instructor. “Is it – ?”

“It’s these here perpellers,” explained the constable. “They work just like an electric fan, you know.”

“I see, but then the blades of an electric fan go around but the fan doesn’t sail in the air. Why is that?”

“Well – er – it’s because – Oh, here’s something I forgot to explain,” said the constable quickly, finding himself unexpectedly in deep water. “I’ll tell you about the perpellers later. This here’s the radiator,” he went on. “It’s full of water, just like in the radiator of an automobile, and it keeps the gasoline from boiling over – cools it off you know.”

“Indeed,” said the reporter, who knew a little about autos. “But I thought the water was to keep the engine from getting overheated.”

“Not in an airship,” insisted the constable. “In an airyplane the radiator keeps the gasoline cool. I’ll jest show you how it works,” and, before Dave could stop the man, he had opened a small faucet in the radiator, designed to drain out the water.

Now it happened that Dave had been running his engine very fast, and, in consequence, the water in the radiator – which really did cool the motor and not the gasoline – this water was very hot – in fact some steam was present.

No sooner did the meddlesome constable open the stop-cock that a jet of steam shot out, burning his fingers severely. The man jumped back with an exclamation of pain.

“I – I didn’t know it was so hot!” he cried. “This must be a new cooling system he’s using on this affair.”

“I should say it was more like a heating system,” remarked the reporter, with a smile he could not conceal.

“Ha! Ha! Shiner got burned!” yelled a small boy who had been ordered away from the craft. “Shiner got burned! Ha! Ha!”

“Make a cup of tea, Shiner!” yelled another lad, “Shiner” evidently being the constable’s nickname.

“I’ll ‘shiner’ you if I git holt of you!” he threatened, rushing forward with some of his fingers in his mouth to render the pain less. It was not a very dignified attitude for a guardian of the law.

“I wish you’d shut that stop-cock!” cried Dave, who was busy tightening a part that he could not very well leave just then. “Shut that water off, or I’ll lose all there is in the radiator, and have to put in more.”

“It – it’s too hot,” objected the constable, his attention drawn from the annoying lads. “I didn’t know it was so warm. What system do you use?”

Dave was too annoyed to answer, and the constable, not wishing to burn himself again, held back. Meanwhile water and steam were spurting from the stop-cock.

“I’ll shut it off,” volunteered the reporter, feeling that he was partly to blame for the incident, since he had evinced a curiosity that the constable had tried to gratify.

The newspaper man advanced toward the radiator, which was now enveloped in steam. Dave saw that he had on no gloves.

“Look out!” cried the young aviator. “You’ll get a bad burn. That’s very hot. Here,” he added, “take these pliers, and turn that valve. I’d do it myself only if I let go this wire it will slip and I can’t easily get it in place again,” and Dave indicated where a pair of pliers lay on the ground.

“I get you,” said the reporter with a smile. A moment later he had shut the stop-cock and the stream of water and the hissing steam stopped.

“Cricky! but this burns!” exclaimed the constable. “I forgot about the radiator part. Some airships don’t have ’em on.”

“Why not?” asked the reporter.

“Oh, er – well – you see – say, here’s what I was telling you about, the perpellers, they make the ship go. You see you turn them around to start the engine, jest like you crank an auto. I guess I can turn them over, though it’s pretty hard. Down on Long Island, where my brother was that time, I helped one of the birdmen lots. You jest do it this way,” and he advanced toward the big wooden propeller.

“Here, don’t touch that!” cried Dave, but he was too late. The officious constable whirled the wooden blade around. As it happened Dave had turned on the switch in order to make a test, and had forgotten, until that moment, to turn it off. But when he saw what the man was going to do he realized what would happen. “Let that alone!” he cried, being unable to get out, as he was straddling one of the runners to tighten a wire.

The constable gave the apparatus another turn, and with a rattle and bang, like a salvo of musketry, the motor started.

Now there is considerable power to an airship’s propeller – there has to be to make the craft sail. As the blades whirled about they fairly blew the constable back out of the way. His helmet went sailing off, tossed by the terrific wind created and, only that he jumped aside in time he would have been hurt. The airship, too, would have moved off, only Dave had left the drag-brake on. This halted it long enough for the young aviator to leap out and shut off the switch.

“Say!” the lad cried to the constable, “I’ve a good notion to – ”

“I – I didn’t know it would start!” cried the man, finally managing to get on his feet, for he had staggered back so fast that he fell. “I didn’t know it would do that. I – I guess I’ll go up to the drug store and get something for my burned fingers,” and, not stopping to give any more information to the newspaper man, the officer hurried off, amid the laughter of the crowd.

It took Dave half an hour to get the machine as he wanted. He had a pleasant chat with the local reporter, who was immensely interested. Dave got ready to start back for home, when a young fellow about his own age made his way hurriedly through the crowd. Our hero observed his resemblance to his recent passenger. He was excited and eager, and seized Dave’s hand with great warmth.

“You are Mr. Dashaway?” he spoke.

“Yes, I am Dave Dashaway,” replied the young aviator, pleasantly.

“My sister sent me. Oh, how we want to thank you,” and the tears began to fall down the cheeks of the manly young fellow.

“How is your mother?” asked Dave, embarrassed at the growing attention of the listening crowd about them.

“That’s it, that’s it,” exclaimed young Winston, brokenly. “You’ve saved her, oh, think of it; the doctor says she won’t die, now!”

Dave tried to quiet the agitated lad, but the latter would have his say. From his incoherent talk Dave gathered that Mrs. Winston had indeed been near death. The main trouble was that she imagined her daughter Amy had died away from home. The girl’s return had quieted the frantic sufferer. She had received Amy in a wild transport of delight. Then she had gone to sleep in her daughter’s arms, happy and quiet, the fever broken; and the doctor had announced that the crisis was past.

The crowd began to get wind of the pretty little story of Dave’s heroism. The newspaper man was excitedly taking notes. The policeman looked proud at having something of importance happen in the town of which he was the public guardian, and the crowd began to shout handsome things at Dave.

The young aviator was actually blushing as he started the Gossamer again. Cheers of genuine enthusiasm rang out, three times three and many times over, as the machine shot skyward. Then, as Dave caught sight of a little lady waving a handkerchief at him from the front porch of the Winston home, he felt somehow as if a real blessing had been bestowed upon him.

“It’s a good deal to be an airman,” Dave told himself. “It’s a good deal more to be able to do a kind deed and make others happy,” he added, so glad that he had been of service to Amy Winston, that he would have been willing to go through the daring adventure all over again.

The skies had cleared in every direction. The machinery of the Gossamer worked to a charm on the return trip to Lake Linden. The dial showed a trifle over two hundred miles in five hours and a half.

Dave made a run for the turning bar in one corner of the enclosure to get the stiffness out of his limbs. Then he hurried over to the living tent, glad that he had an interesting story to tell to his fellow airmen.

“Nobody here?” he remarked, looking around. “Mr. Grimshaw and Hiram must have gone to town. Probably didn’t expect me home so soon.”

“Hello, there!” spoke an unexpected voice.

Dave turned quickly. Two persons had passed the gates and were approaching him. He recognized them at once. One was the foppishly-dressed man he had seen twice before. The other was the boy who had shaken his fist at Dave when the Gossamer had started on the hasty trip to Easton.

At closer sight than before the young aviator instantly read his visitors as in a book. The elder of the twain was about twenty-five or thirty years of age, and all his elegant attire and rather handsome face did not disguise his resemblance to some shrewd sharper who made his way in the world by living on others.

The boy suggested the spoiled scion of some wealthy family, with plenty of money, and used to spending it foolishly. His face was flushed and excited, and Dave decided that he was under a very baneful influence in the company he kept. He was the first to speak.

“You are Dashaway, I suppose?” he observed in a careless, almost insolent way.

“Yes,” said Dave.

“Well, this is my friend, Vernon. Was here before, to-day.”

“I know he was,” replied Dave.

“Where is the old fellow who was so saucy to him?”

“What do you want to know for?” demanded Dave, unable to keep from getting a trifle angry.

“Because he’s due for a trimming, that’s why. I don’t allow my friends to be treated that way. See here, I don’t suppose you know who I am,” observed the speaker, with an air of self-assertion that was almost ridiculous.

“I don’t,” answered Dave.

“I thought so. That may enlighten you.”

The boy drew an elegant case from his pocket, selected a card with a tissue paper cover, and handed it to Dave, who took it, somewhat curious to know the personality of so presumptuous an individual. The card read: “Elmer Brackett.”

The name Brackett was suggestive to Dave, but not altogether enlightening. There was a Mr. Brackett who was president of the Interstate Aero Company. Dave read the card over twice, closely and thoughtfully, then he looked his visitor squarely in the face.

“Well?” he demanded, coolly.

“My name is Brackett, as you probably observe,” remarked the boy, smartly.

“I see it is.”

“You don’t seem to understand yet,” proceeded the forward youth. “My father is the owner of the company that hires you.”

“Well?” again challenged Dave.

“You’ve heard of him, I reckon.”

“Many times,” replied Dave.

Young Brackett looked nettled. Apparently he had expected Dave to bow with reverence or quake with fear.

“See here,” he spoke suddenly in a harsh, rasping tone. “I’m Elmer Brackett, my governor owns that airship and everything around here. I’m his son, and I want to give my friend Vernon a spin in the air.”

“Well,” said Dave simply, “you can’t do it.”

CHAPTER IV
IN BAD COMPANY

“What’s that?” shouted young Brackett.

He made a spring forward as if he hoped to intimidate Dave. The young aviator did not budge an inch, and his adversary contented himself with simply glaring at him.

“You heard me,” said Dave, simply.

“Yes,” fired up the fellow named Vernon; “we heard you, and if I was in Brackett’s place you wouldn’t be heard much longer. Say, Elmer, why don’t you wire your father and get some kind of an accommodating crowd around here.”

“I’d soon show who was boss if I was near the old man,” grumbled young Brackett.

“I am boss here, if that is what you want to call it,” said Dave. “This is private property, I am in charge, and you are trespassers. Outside of your not coming at me in the right way, I want to say to you that the Gossamer is here for a specific purpose, and I have my orders and plans.”

“If my father was here, he’d soon order you to give us a spin in the Gossamer,” declared Brackett.

“I know who your father is, and respect him greatly,” replied Dave, “but I would have to have his written order to do any work outside of routine.”

“Oh, is that so!” sneered Brackett. “You seem to make no bones about gallivanting about in the Gossamer as freely as you choose with your own particular lady friends.”

Dave made no reply. He did not consider that his visitors had the fineness of mind to understand the pathetic circumstances of his efforts in behalf of the Winston family.

Vernon gave his companion a wink and a nudge. He whispered some quick words to him that Dave did not catch. Young Brackett drew out a wallet stuffed full of money.

“See here, Dashaway,” he spoke, in a tone meant to be friendly and wheedling; “be a good fellow. There are some girls down at the hotel I promised to show the Gossamer to, and what she could do on the water. I’ll make it a twenty. Come, help us out.”

“I am sorry,” replied Dave, steadily.

“You won’t do it?”

“No.”

Again Vernon whispered to his companion. The latter nodded his head. Vernon shot a quick glance about the enclosure. Then, before Dave could surmise his purpose, the man made a spring at him.

The young aviator was athletic and strong, but he had to cope with a full grown man. Vernon had seized his arms from behind and Dave struggled in vain.

“Fetch those ropes over near the airship,” directed Vernon, with an unpleasant laugh. “I’ll show you how to do this thing.”

Young Brackett looked a trifle frightened.

“See here, Vernon,” he said, “I don’t know about this.”

“Well, I do,” retorted Vernon, securely twisting the rope about Dave’s arms and body. “You said you knew how to run the machine, didn’t you?”

“Why, I’ve been up in a biplane at the works several times,” said Brackett, rather hesitatingly.

“What are you afraid of, then? Just because it’s a bigger machine? Look here, give it a try.”

“What are you going to do with Dashaway?”

“Take him along.”

“What!”

“Certainly, so if we make any blunders he’ll have to take the helm to help himself out of the fix.”

“I want to warn you,” cried Dave. “You are trying a dangerous experiment.”

Vernon only laughed. Brackett put on a braggart air of over-confidence. The former lifted Dave into one of the seats and took his own behind the pilot post.

“All right,” announced Brackett, climbing into the forward seat. “I think I can manage the machine.”

Dave cast a hopeless look towards the gates of the enclosure. There was no sign of Grimshaw or Hiram. He watched the bungling of Brackett over the delicate mechanism, fearful as to the outcome of the resolution of the reckless fellow.

“Self-starter, eh?” he heard the presumptuous pilot say. “I know how to operate that. What’s this little mirror for? Oh, yes, to index the curves. Pshaw! I can’t go wrong if I watch that.”

“Can’t you? Oh, my!” muttered Dave.

Young Brackett was all right at the wheel. His brief biplane experience counted for enough to enable him to make a very pretty swoop aloft. He was so delighted at this that he chuckled:

“Say, I guess I’ll take a job at running the governor’s machine myself. Hey, what?”

“Good for you – doing finely,” commended Vernon. “Get over the lake, Brackett. If you can manage to sail the machine we’ll take the girls for a ride.”

Dave held his breath. Brackett had split half a circle abruptly, and the Gossamer got ready for a dive. By some accident the frightened pilot banked just in time to save a spill.

“Don’t change your course – don’t dare to!” fairly shouted the excited Dave, as he saw that any further attempt at a head change in novice hands meant sure destruction for the Gossamer.

Young Brackett was terribly frightened. In his fear and dismay he turned on the full power, but let the machine run a perfectly straight course. It was, however, on an angle of about fifty degrees.

“What’s he to do?” chattered Vernon, himself growing pale and nerveless.

“I can’t tell – I can only show him. If the course is not changed, the machine will hit the earth going forty miles an hour,” declared Dave.

“Show him, then! show him!” gasped Vernon.

He reached over with trembling hands and began to loosen the ropes with which he had bound the young aviator. In some way they had become tangled, and in that circumscribed space he dared not move about freely. The Gossamer tipped slightly, and its dismayed pilot let out a yell of fear.

While Vernon was tugging breathlessly at the ropes, Dave noted that the machine was due to land with a terrific shock inside of two minutes. It just grazed the tops of some tall trees. Then it missed a flagpole in the center of some private grounds.

“Shut off the power, or we are lost!” cried Dave.

Brackett had just enough sense left to obey him, but that did not prevent a catastrophe. They were just passing near some glass-covered hothouses. The first one they skidded. At the second one the head of the machine ripped the top row of glasses out of place like a toboggan shoe splintering a stretch of thin ice. Then the under floats tangled in the frame work, and Dave bore company with the others in a dive into a bed of geraniums.

The shock of even that soft landing place was sufficient to half stun our hero for the moment. In a dim blur of vision he seemed to see two figures limping away. He caught sight of the machine lying half-way through a frail trellis. Then he heard these startled words in an unfamiliar voice:

“Hello! I say, what’s this?”

Dave looked up to see a man in gardener’s garb staring in turn at himself, the Gossamer, and the havoc the machine had made.

“If you’ll help me up,” said Dave, rather faintly; “I’ll try to explain.”

“You’ll have to!” cried the gardener. “Who ever heard of such a thing? Get up, but don’t you try to run away from all the mischief you’ve done.”

“Hardly,” promised Dave, as the man cut the ropes securing him. “How badly is the machine damaged?”

“How badly are my greenhouses damaged, you’d better say!” shouted the man. “Say, who’s to pay for all this wreck and ruin?”

“Don’t worry about that,” replied Dave. “The company will settle with you.”

“I don’t know anything about your company,” retorted the man. “If you’re Dashaway – ”

“I am.”

“I’ve heard of you, and you look like a decent, honest fellow. But say, this is an awful fix for me. I’m only in charge here, and I don’t know but the boss will hold me responsible for what’s happened and take the damage out of my small pay.”

“I will see that he doesn’t do that,” pledged Dave.

The man was almost crying in his fright and distress.

“You estimate what it will cost to replace things as they were,” directed Dave, “and I’ll settle it right out of my own pocket before I even leave here.”

“You will?” cried the gardener, joyfully.

“You can depend upon it. Did you see anything of two fellows who were in the machine with me?”

“Yes, I saw two young men running for that back fence yonder. They got out of sight pretty quick.”

“I’m glad they weren’t hurt, anyway,” thought Dave.

The gardener went around, surveying the damage done to the greenhouses, while Dave examined the Gossamer. Our hero was agreeably surprised to find that outside of the warping of one of the wings and a twisted propeller, the machine had suffered very slight injury.

“A lucky escape,” he said to himself. “Those venturesome fellows were never nearer death than fifteen minutes ago.”

“I say, what’s this, Dashaway!”

It was Grimshaw who spoke, pale and out of breath. Equally startled and anxious, Hiram Dobbs, following him, came rushing up to the spot.