Kitobni o'qish: «Dave Dashaway and His Giant Airship: or, A Marvellous Trip Across the Atlantic», sahifa 7
CHAPTER XVII
A TRUSTY GUIDE
The young aviator had to do some explaining for the benefit of the outlaw leader before the latter could understand what a searchlight was.
“Reckon there’s no spot safe for a free and easy fellow with all these new-fangled contrivances,” remarked the man.
“I’d like to see that balloon, all the same,” observed one of his band.
“We’d better keep close to the safety line,” advised the leader. “There’s a good deal of hubbub around, and we’d better watch out for the MacGuffins.”
It was an hour later when the two men sent to Forestville came galloping back into camp. They were hot, tired and dusty. Their steeds were reeking, and dropped their heads in an exhausted way as their riders drove up to the campfire and dismounted.
“Did you get the stuff?” inquired the leader.
“That’s what you sent us for, wasn’t it?” queried one of the horsemen. “Well, there it is,” and he handed out a package.
“We had some trouble making the drug clerk understand how badly and quickly we needed it,” remarked the other horseman, with a chuckle. “When we told him that Forestville would be off the map in a few days if he didn’t act lively, he produced results double quick.”
Mr. King examined the package. It contained two large glass tubes filled with quicksilver. He thanked the men heartily. His hand went to his pocket and his purse was half withdrawn to offer a reward, when he noted a warning flash in the eyes of the leader.
“Don’t try to pay for what money wouldn’t get you if you weren’t friends,” said the man, tersely.
“We are anxious to get back to the airship,” suggested the airman.
“Want to start right away?”
“Yes, if possible.”
“That searchlight signal will guide you?”
“Oh, surely. Besides, I think we could find our way without its aid.”
“Maybe. Just the same, I’ll go with you as far as the gap. That’s hard to cross unless you know it pretty well, or hit a trail by accident, as you seem to have done in getting here. Hi, there, saddle up four fresh horses,” ordered the speaker to one of his men.
“This is pretty fine treatment,” declared the young aviator, as his friends and himself found themselves in the saddle and the outlaw leader piloting the way from the camp.
“It will take my wife a long time to forget all we owe you,” the leader remarked more than once.
At the end of two hours’ travel, the latter stages of which were taken through dark and sinuous windings along a densely-verdured ravine, their pilot ascended a long slope.
“There’s your searchlight still going,” he said, pointing to the broad waving flare in the sky. “I dare not go any farther with you for two reasons,” he explained. “In the first place I’m over what we call the safety line. In the next place I want to get back in time to start a daylight hunt after those MacGuffins.”
“I feel sure we can find our way to the Albatross now,” said the young aviator.
“Say, that was a queer adventure, wasn’t it now?” spoke Hiram, as their recent guide waved his hand in a friendly way and disappeared like a flash back the route they had come.
“These rough fellows are true blue when you touch the right spot,” declared the airman. “We seem to be on higher level ground than before. Let us get along as fast as we can, so we can send the horses back.”
The outlaw leader had insisted that they retain the steeds. He had instructed them to simply head them back homewards when they were through with them.
“Don’t fret,” he had said, confidently, “they’ll be sure to find the camp feeding trough before breakfast time.”
“This has been quite an adventure, as you say, Hiram,” remarked Mr. King, as they trotted single file on account of the narrow course.
“With probably a lot more of it waiting us along the line,” added Dave.
“Yes,” assented Hiram, “I can guess it will be pretty lively if we cross the Atlantic. Say, we’re getting near to the Albatross.”
This was apparent from the clearer radiance from the searchlight glow. They rode on about two miles further.
“We can do the rest on foot, I fancy,” said Mr. King.
The party dismounted, arranged the bridles so they would not trail, turned the heads of the horses homewards for them, and, giving each a slap on the flanks, watched them dart away, rapidly.
The searchlight faded out before they had proceeded a mile. In fact, day was breaking. The sun came up as they reached the bottom of a high hill.
“I remember this spot,” said the young aviator.
“Yes, we left the camp this way,” agreed Mr. King, casting a look about and recognizing some landmarks.
“I suppose Professor Leblance has been mighty anxious about us,” said Hiram. “I’ll have a great story to tell Mr. Grimshaw.”
Despite the arduous rigors of their all-day tramp and all-night adventures, Dave and Hiram felt fresh and ambitious.
“We’re pretty near the top,” spoke the young aviator. “I’ll race you to see who arrives first.”
“All right,” agreed Hiram. “Here we go.”
Dave showed the most endurance. He reached the summit, paused and waved his hand triumphantly at his toiling rival.
“Hold on,” called Hiram. “Wait for Mr. King.”
“I’ll take a look first,” answered Dave.
The young aviator climbed over a low ledge of boulders. Beyond them was a fringe of high bushes. Dave knew that, these passed, the Albatross would be in view.
He pressed his way through the bushes and cleared the last obstruction at a leap. Then the young aviator took one look, uttered a dismayed cry, and fairly dived back in among the undergrowth, startled beyond expression.
CHAPTER XVIII
IN A BAD FIX
“Keep back!” shouted the young aviator.
He accompanied the words with a spring and a roll that took him through and past the fringe of bushes and brought him directly against Hiram.
“Hold on, I say. The mischief!” blurted out Hiram, tipped clear off his balance.
“Hush!” warned Dave, regaining his feet. “Don’t go ahead, don’t make any disturbance. Stop Mr. King.”
Dave spoke the words in a hurried and urgent tone. Then, cautiously, he crept on all fours through the shrubbery. He took a second more comprehensive look over the plateau. Then he worked his way back to the bewildered Hiram.
“See here, Dave Dashaway,” challenged the latter, “you’re acting mighty strange.”
“What’s the trouble here?” inquired Mr. King, coming up to the boys, pursuant to mysterious gestures from Hiram.
“It is trouble, I am very much afraid,” replied Dave, seriously.
“What do you mean – about the airship?”
“Yes, Mr. King. The Albatross seems to be all right, but about twenty men, all armed with guns, have our entire party cornered near some rocks.”
“You don’t say so!” cried the airman. “Let me have a look.”
“Be careful, then,” advised Dave. “It looks to me as if another band of these wild outlaws probably traced the searchlight, and have managed to catch our friends away from the airship. Anyway, our folks are helpless, and the strangers look fierce and dangerous.”
All three of the adventurers crept through the fringe of underbrush and took a look across the plateau. They found the situation as Dave had described it to be. The strangers held Professor Leblance, Mr. Dale, Grimshaw and the others at bay. A big, rough-looking fellow, evidently the leader of the band, was talking animatedly to the Frenchman. The others of the intruders held their rifles in a way that threatened an attack if the captives showed any resistance.
“They may be the MacGuffins,” whispered Hiram, intensely wrought up with excitement.
“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Dave. “Mr. King, let us try to get nearer to them.”
“Yes, we may learn what is going on and give our friends some help, if they need it,” replied the airman.
They had to cover half a mile in a cautious detour. This finally brought them to a thicket not thirty feet distant from their friends and enemies. Mr. King lay flat on the ground behind some high bushes, and his companions followed his example. Dave bent his ear keenly, to catch what the leader of the invading party was saying.
“That don’t go with me,” the man said. “How do we know that you ain’t here to spy on us? We fine trespassers here and we charge rent for the use of our property.”
“You must own the whole state, you fellows must,” snapped out Grimshaw.
“We run this district, if you want to know it,” retorted the outlaw. “Usually we just string up spies.”
“But we are no spies,” declared the professor, earnestly.
“We don’t take your word for that. Come, you’ve got to pay your reckoning. You scrape us up as much as two hundred dollars among you, or – ”
The speaker waved his hand significantly in the direction of the Albatross.
“Yes,” growled one of his fellows. “It wouldn’t take us long to make a sieve of that contrivance.”
“I resent this outrage!” cried the Frenchman, hotly. “We are under international protection. Our mission is in the interests of science. If you interfere with us, you will rouse the entire community. It will be the worse for you.”
“Hear him, boys,” rallied the outlaw leader. “Say, stranger, who’s going to tell what we did or didn’t do to you, hey?”
The speaker grinned in a cold-blooded way that made Hiram Dobbs shiver.
“Say, Mr. King,” he whispered hoarsely, “shoot them.”
“One gun against twenty wouldn’t count for much,” responded the airman, with a shake of his head.
“I will pay no ransom, I will give you not one cent of blackmail,” declared the doughty Frenchman, thoroughly indignant.
“All right, then we will ransack your old gas bag and take what we want,” boasted the outlaw.
“I warn you,” cried the professor. “The airship is one mass of devices you do not understand. You may find trouble.”
“What do you bother with him for?” cried the man beside the last speaker. “We’ll cover the rest of the crowd. You make him take you over the machine and get what’s lying around loose.”
“Can’t we do something, Mr. King?” inquired the young aviator, in an anxious tone.
“I fear not, Dashaway,” was the reply. “These are desperate men and bound to have their own way. We can only hope that our being free will help our friends somewhere along the line.”
“You come with me,” ordered the outlaw leader, roughly seizing Professor Leblance by the arm and pulling him along. “Keep your eyes on those others,” he added, to his men.
The Frenchman held back with resolute face and force. The outlaw, however, was a great, bulky fellow of enormous strength.
They had proceeded less than twenty feet towards the airship, when a quick word cut the air, clear and startling as a pistol shot.
“Halt!”
CHAPTER XIX
A MYSTERIOUS FRIEND
In an instant of time the whole complexion of affairs had changed. The young aviator and his two companions crouched, staring at the scene before them, which now seemed the stage setting to some intense drama.
“Hello!” gasped the excitable Hiram.
“What does that mean?” echoed Mr. King, in a truly astonished way.
Dave was quite as fully amazed and puzzled. Suddenly and unexpectedly a form had sprung into view just beyond one of the floats of the Albatross. It was that of a lithe person, young and energetic. To all appearance he was a negro, for hands and face at that distance were of seeming ebony hue.
This extraordinary person, a stranger to all who looked upon him, held leveled a short but heavy rifle. At once the watchers from the underbrush recognized it as one of several weapons provided for the arsenal of the giant airship before the Albatross had left Croydon.
“It’s the magazine rifle Mr. Dale showed us!” exclaimed Hiram. “Who’s the fellow holding it, and how did he get it?”
“Who is he, indeed?” murmured the airman, staring hard at the person who had so startlingly pronounced that mandatory word – “Halt!”
The outlaw leader had come to a dead stop. He dropped the arm of the professor, who took in this last strange incident of the moment in a very bewildered way.
“Stand still or I will fire,” rang out now in clear, vibrant tones.
Those of the band guarding the rest of the crew of the Albatross stood mute and staring, taken aback by the determined and threatening attitude of the person near the balloon.
“If one of your men so much as raises a weapon, I will shoot,” came floating distinctly on the still mountain air. “I hold a magazine rifle in my hand loaded for one hundred rounds, that will shoot eighty times in a minute. Order your men to put down their guns.”
The outlaw leader hesitated. Bang! ten times in incredibly rapid succession at a light pressure the formidable magazine rifle rang out, aimed, however, at the boughs of a nearby tree, some of the leaves of which fell in scraps and ribbands under the destructive effect of the powerful fusillade.
“One, two, three – I can pick them off before they can raise a trigger!” shouted the sable champion of the airship crew. “I’ll do it, too, if that order is not given double-quick.”
The outlaw leader quailed. Then he turned and made a sign to his men. The last one of them placed his gun on the ground.
“March,” came the inflexible order. “Down that path to the left, so we can keep you in view. You will find your weapons safe when you return and we are gone. Go!”
The menace of the powerful magazine rifle cowed the outlaw gang. The breathless spectators from the brush saw them join their leader unarmed, take the path as directed, and file away from the plateau.
The person who had so marvellously accomplished all this never lowered his weapon. Still holding it ready for instant use, he walked over to where a ledge of rocks rose like a sentinel tower above the level of the plateau. There posting himself, he held the discomfited retreating foe in constant sight. He swung his hand towards the stupefied crew of the airship. He spoke some order or suggestion to them that Dave did not overhear. The party, however, at once possessed themselves of some of the abandoned rifles of the outlaws and stood ready for attack and defence.
Mr. King arose and hurried over to where Professor Leblance stood, and Dave and Hiram followed him.
“Professor!” cried the airman. “Here are some strange happenings. Who is that person – not one of the crew?”
“I never saw him before,” replied the dazed Frenchman. “He has saved us.”
“And the Albatross. We have the quicksilver. This is a dangerous ruffian-infested district. Let us leave as soon as possible.”
“Yes, yes,” said the Frenchman, in a hurried tone. “After what has happened we cannot be too quickly nor fast on our way.”
The animated engineer of the Albatross bustled about into immediate action. He ordered two of his men to join their rescuer on the rocks. All the others were impressed into service in assisting to get the giant airship ready for a new and longer flight.
It did not take fifteen minutes to accomplish this. One by one Professor Leblance told off his expert assistants to their duties. Dave and Hiram had been kept busy, but more than once the young aviator had glanced in the direction of the heroic figure on the rocks.
He saw the Frenchman say some quick words to Mr. King, and the latter then approach the stranger. Some conversation took place between them. As a signal for starting was sounded from the engine room, Mr. King turned towards the airship. He was accompanied by the person with the magazine rifle.
All hands got quickly aboard. When the young aviator reached the cabin he found their mysterious friend seated in a shaded corner of the place. Then the activity and excitement of the ascent engrossed all minds.
The magnificent Albatross arose in the air like a bird. It attained a high altitude. All the recent troubles of its crew faded away like light feather down.
Mr. King came into the cabin inside of half an hour, quickly followed by Professor Leblance. Both looked intensely curious. The Albatross safely started on a steady course, they had evidently hastened to explore the mystery of the strange friend who had aided them in their sorest need.
The airman approached the silent, timid-appearing figure in the corner of the cabin. He extended his hand warmly, grasping that of the shrinking stranger.
“My friend,” he said, “come up to the table. We want to have a talk with you. You asked to be taken aboard, and said you would then explain your being here.”
The stranger somewhat reluctantly took a chair at the cabin table. For all his recent heroic attitude, he acted rather embarrassed and frightened now.
He looked down. Then he trembled visibly. And then he made the remarkable statement:
“I am a stowaway.”
CHAPTER XX
THE STOWAWAY
The young aviator took a long, earnest stare at the mysterious person who had just stated that he was a stowaway. In a flash Dave seemed to get hold of one end of a long chain of circumstances and mysteries.
“A stowaway?” repeated Professor Leblance, incredulously. “You mean aboard the Albatross?”
“Yes, sir.”
“From the time when she first started?”
“And before.”
“You amaze me!”
“I am amazed at myself,” came the words, in rather a depressed way. The speaker dropped his head, and both of his interlocutors looked troubled and more puzzled than ever. “I’ll tell you, gentlemen, I’d rather not say much till I am sure your airship is out of the country. You know you promised I should stay aboard if I wanted to,” he added to Mr. King.
“I surely did,” assented the airman, heartily.
Dave had been studying the profile of the stowaway. He had noticed that his ebony hue was due entirely to soot or greased lampblack smeared over face and hands. Further, the keen glance of the young aviator had scanned closely the clothing, even down to the necktie of the stranger, and then – he was a stranger no longer to Dave.
“Mr. King, may I speak to you for a moment,” said Dave, moving out of the cabin into a passageway. In some surprise the airman followed him there.
“What is it, Dashaway?” he asked.
“The stowaway. I know him, Mr. King,” declared Dave, hurriedly. “There is a certain mystery about him he dares not explain just now, and you are embarrassing him dreadfully. Don’t ask him any more questions. Tell him to come to my stateroom. Later, I will explain everything to you about him.”
“Well, well,” commented the airman; “you seem to have the faculty for preparing surprises for your friends, I must say. I’ll do what you suggest, but I’m curious to understand what it all means.”
“You shall soon know,” promised the young aviator, and he went to the little partitioned-off space where he and Hiram slept. He sat down on one of the berths, placing a stool in the middle of the room for his expected guest.
“You will find a friend in there,” reached Dave’s ear, a little later, in the tones of the airman.
“Did – did you want to speak to me?” rather falteringly asked the stowaway, entering the stateroom. Mr. King retired and closed the door after him.
“Why, yes,” replied Dave pleasantly. “Say,” and he grasped the hand of his guest in a hearty way, “I am glad to see you, and doubly glad because you have made good, just as I knew you would. I once told a friend you were of the right kind. You’ve proved it, Elmer Brackett, and I’m proud of you.”
“Yes, I see you know me. Made good! Proud of me?” repeated the boy in a dazed, half-stunned way.
“Why, you saved the Albatross, didn’t you?” cried the young aviator, in a spirited tone, bound to rouse and buoy up his guest. “The lives, too, probably, of every person aboard. What are you crying for – joy?”
Sure enough, young Brackett was crying. He acted like a boy in such a tangle of circumstances that he was fairly crushed. Finally he blurted out:
“Joy? None of that for me, ever again, I guess.”
“Why not?” challenged Dave.
“Oh, you don’t know, you don’t know!” cried the young man. “It seems as I sit here, in the strangest position a fellow ever was in, I reckon, that I’m in some terrific dream. There’s only one clear idea I can cling to – to get out of the country, away – away – ”
“Away from that villain, Vernon? Am I right?” spoke Dave, quickly.
“Yes, that’s it,” assented Brackett, in a lost tone of voice.
“I thought so. Now then, see here, you are among the best friends any fellow ever had. You have just been the best kind of a hero ever was. Forget everything else for the present. Make up your mind that whatever your troubles may be, there’s a combination aboard the Albatross strong enough to help you fight your way clear out of the last one of them, and – tell me all about it.”
There followed the most interesting hour of Dave Dashaway’s life. The friend of everybody, he had been the confidant and helper of many a lad in difficulties. As bit by bit the strange history of Elmer Brackett came out, however, Dave conceded that it was the most remarkable case he had ever handled.
Briefly, the reckless, impetuous son of the big man in the Interstate Aero Company had become the helpless victim of the schemes of Vernon. Young Brackett did not tell Dave everything. He hinted that while in a muddled condition he had been induced by Vernon to forge a number of notes.
Once completely in the power of the schemer, the latter showed no mercy. He appalled Brackett by claiming that he could send him to the penitentiary, disgrace his family, and almost ruin his father’s business. These claims were, in a measure, exaggerations.
Elmer Brackett then lost his head completely. His one thought was to escape from Vernon. He disguised himself, after sending a letter to his father, warning him against the forgeries, and saying he was going to seek some foreign country where he could lose himself and be forgotten.
“I had no money, I dared not appeal to friends, for Vernon was seeking for me everywhere to tighten the chains of his power around me,” related the youth, bitterly. “I thought of you, and while tracing down the Albatross I ran across Davidson and young Dawson and their Dictator. Maybe it was a wild idea, but I thought how it would just suit me to get away from this country by airship, for Vernon had claimed that if I left him he would have the detectives looking out for me everywhere. Well, I hung around Senca. Then, as I didn’t think much of the way the Dictator showed up, I went to Croydon.”
“It was you, then, who asked my friend, Hiram Dobbs, about me, and wore a false mustache?”
“Yes, I was disguised,” admitted Brackett.
“And you were, too, the ghost who scared the watchman at the Albatross aerodrome nearly into fits!”
“That was me, too,” admitted Brackett. “The night before you started I sneaked aboard the airship. I stowed myself away behind the big boxes of provisions near the cabin here. I heard and saw what was going on. Then that crowd of outlaws came, I got the magazine gun from the arsenal, and – here I am.”
“And here you wish to stay till we get across the Atlantic?” said the young aviator. “Good! Now, then, take my advice; forget all this wretched fear and trouble that is part of your past. Help us win the great prize, and when this trip is over trust to it that Mr. King and Mr. Dale will find time and money to squelch this miserable Vernon, straighten out your affairs, and start you on a new career.”
Elmer Brackett, minus the lampblack and encouraged by Dave, was soon quite another person in appearance and spirits to the refugee stowaway. Dave imparted to his friends only as much of Brackett’s story as was necessary.
The following morning the boys awoke to find the Albatross out of all sight of land, fairly started on the great trip across the broad Atlantic.
