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THE RACING STAR PASSED TWO OF THE CONTESTANTS (Page 172)
Airship Andy
Or
The Luck of a Brave Boy
BY
Frank V. Webster
AUTHOR OF “ONLY A FARM BOY,” “BOB THE CASTAWAY,”
“COMRADES OF THE SADDLE,” “TOM THE TELEPHONE BOY,” ETC.
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
BOOKS FOR BOYS
By FRANK V. WEBSTER
12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.
ONLY A FARM BOY
TOM, THE TELEPHONE BOY
THE BOY FROM THE RANCH
THE YOUNG TREASURE HUNTER
BOB, THE CASTAWAY
THE YOUNG FIREMEN OF LAKEVILLE
THE NEWSBOY PARTNERS
THE BOY PILOT OF THE LAKES
TWO BOY GOLD MINERS
JACK, THE RUNAWAY
COMRADES OF THE SADDLE
THE BOYS OF BELLWOOD SCHOOL
THE HIGH SCHOOL RIVALS
AIRSHIP ANDY
BOB CHESTER’S GRIT
BEN HARDY’S FLYING MACHINE
***, THE BANK BOY
DARRY, THE LIFE SAVER
Cupples & Leon Co., Publishers, New York
Copyright, 1911, by
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
AIRSHIP ANDY
Printed in U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTERPAGE
IThe Young Chauffeur
IIBreaking Away
IIIRunaway and Rover
IVDown the River
VTramping It
VIThe Sky Rider
VIIJohn Parks, Airship King
VIIIThe Aero Field
IXThe Airship Inventor
XLearning To Fly
XISpying on the Enemy
XIITraced Down
XIIIJiu-jitsu
XIVThe Old Leather Pocketbook
XVBehind the Bars
XVIBail Wanted
XVIIA True Friend
XVIIIOut on Bail
XIXA Disappointment
XXA New Captivity
XXIA Friend in Need
XXII“Go!”
XXIIIThe Great Race
XXIVA Hopeful Clew
XXVGood-by to Airship Andy
AIRSHIP ANDY
CHAPTER I—THE YOUNG CHAUFFEUR
“Hand over that money, Andy Nelson.”
“Not on this occasion.”
“It isn’t yours.”
“Who said it was?”
“It belongs to the business. If my father was
here he’d make you give it up mighty quick. I
represent him during his absence, don’t I? Come,
no fooling; I’ll take charge of that cash.”
“You won’t, Gus Talbot. The man that lost
that money was my customer, and it goes back
to him and no one else.”
Gus Talbot was the son of the owner of Talbot’s
Automobile Garage, at Princeville. He was
a genuine chip off the old block, people said, except
that he loafed while his father really worked.
In respect to shrewd little business tricks, however,
the son stood on a par with the father. He
had just demonstrated this to Andy Nelson, and
was trying his usual tactics of bluff and bluster.
These did not work with Andy, however, who
was the soul of honor, and the insolent scion of
the Talbot family now faced his father’s hired
boy highly offended and decidedly angry.
Andy Nelson was a poor lad. He was worse
off than that, in fact, for he was homeless and
friendless. He could not remember his parents.
He had a faint recollection of knocking about the
country until he was ten years of age with a
man who called himself his half-brother. Then
this same relative placed him in a cheap boarding
school where Andy had to work for a part of his
keep. About a year previous to the opening of
our story, Dexter Nelson appeared at the school
and told Andy he would have to shift entirely
for himself.
He found Andy a place with an old farmer on
the outskirts of Princeville. Andy was not cut
out for hoeing and plowing. He was willing
and energetic, however, and the old farmer liked
him immensely, for Andy saved his oldest boy
from drowning in the creek, and was kind and
lovable to the farmer’s several little children.
But one day the old man told Andy plainly
that he could not reconcile his conscience by spoiling
a bright future for him, and explained why.
“If I was running a wagon-shop, lad,” he said
enthusiastically, “I’d make you head foreman.
Somehow, you’ve got machinery born in your
blood, I think. The way you’ve pottered over
that old rack of mine, shows how you like to
dabble with tools. The way you fixed up that
old washing-machine for marm proves that you
know your business. Tell you, lad, it’s a crying
wrong to waste your time on the farm when
you’ve got that busy head of yours running over
with cogs, and screws, and wheels and such.”
All this had led to Andy looking around for
other employment. The old farmer was quite
right—Andy’s natural field was mechanics. He
felt pretty happy the day he was accepted as the
hired boy in Seth Talbot’s garage.
That position was not secured without a great
deal of fuss and bother on the part of Talbot,
however. The latter was a hard task-master. He
looked his prospective apprentice over as he
would a new tool he was buying. He offered a
mere beggarly pittance of wages, barely enough
to keep body and soul together, and “lodgings,”
as he called it, on a broken-down cot in a dark,
cramped lumber-room. Then he insisted on Andy
getting somebody to “guarantee” him.
“I’ll have no boy taking advantage of me,”
he declared; “learning the secrets of the trade,
and bouncing off and leaving me in the lurch
whenever it suits him. No sir-ree. If you come
with me, it’s a contract for two years’ service, or
I don’t want you. When I was a boy they ’prenticed
a lad, and you knew where you could put
your finger on him. It ought to be the law now.”
Fortunately, Andy’s half-brother happened to
pass through the village about that time. He
“guaranteed” Andy in some manner satisfactory
to the garage proprietor, and Andy went to work
at his new employment.
Talbot had formerly been in the hardware
business. He seemed to think that this entitled
him to know everything that appertained to
iron and steel. When roller skating became a
fad, he had sold out his business, built a big
rink, and in a year was stranded high and dry.
The bicycle fever caught him next, but he went
into it just as everybody else was getting out
of it. The result was another failure.
Now he had been in the automobile business
for about six months. He had bought an old
ramshackly paint-shop on the main street of the
town, and had fixed it up so that it was quite
presentable as a garage.
There were not many resident owners of automobiles
in Princeville. Just at its outskirts, however,
along the shore of a pretty lake, were the
homes of some retired city folks. During the
vacation months a good many people having machines
summered at the town. Some of them
stored their automobiles at the garage. Talbot
claimed to do expert repairing, and as a good
road ran through Princeville he managed to do
some business with transient customers who came
along.
Before he had been in the garage twenty-four
hours, Andy was amazed and disgusted at the
clumsy clap-trap repairing work that Talbot did.
He half-mended breaks and leaks that would not
last till a car reached its destination. He put in
inferior parts, and on one occasion Andy saw
his employer substitute an old tire for one almost
new.
Andy tried to remedy all this. He was at
home with tools, and inside of a week he was
thoroughly familiar with every part of an automobile.
He induced Talbot to send to the city
for many important little adjuncts to ready repairing,
and his employer soon realized that he
had a treasure in his new assistant.
He did not, however, manifest it by any exhibition
of liberality. In fact, as the days wore on
Andy’s tasks were piled up mountain high, and
Talbot became a merciless tyrant in his bearing.
Once when Andy earned a double fee by getting
out of bed at midnight and hauling into town a
car stuck in a mud-hole, he promised Andy a
raise in salary and a new suit the next week. This
promise, however, Talbot at once proceeded to
forget.
It was Andy who was responsible for nearly
doubling the income of his hard task-master. He
heard of a big second-hand tourist car in the city,
holding some thirty people, and told Talbot about
it. The latter bought it for a song, and every
Saturday, and sometimes several days in the week,
the car earned big money taking visitors sight-seeing
around the lake or conveying villagers to
the woods on picnic parties.
Later Andy struck a great bargain in two old
cars that were offered for sale by a resident who
was going to Europe. He influenced Talbot to
advertise these for rent by the day or hour, and
the garage began to thrive as a real money-making
business.
This especial morning Andy had arisen as usual
at five o’clock. He cooked his own meals on a
little oil-stove in the lumber room behind the garage,
and after a cup of coffee and some broiled
ham and bread and butter, went to work cleaning
up three machines that rented space.
It was a few minutes before six o’clock, and
just after the morning train from the city had
steamed into town and out of it again, when a
well-dressed man, carrying a light overcoat over
one arm and a satchel, rushed through the open
door of the garage.
“Hey!” he hailed. “They told me at the depot
I could hire an automobile here.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Andy promptly.
“I want to cut across the country and catch
the Macon train on the Central. There’s just
forty-five minutes to do it in.”
“I can do it in twenty,” announced Andy with
confidence. “Jump in, sir.”
In less than two minutes they were off, and
the young chauffeur proved his agility and handiness
with the machine in so rapid and clever a
way, that his fare nodded and smiled his approval
as they skimmed the smooth country road on a
test run.
Andy made good his promise. It was barely
half-past six when, with a honk-honk! to warn a
clumsy teamster ahead of him, he ran the machine
along the side of the depot platform at Macon.
“How much?” inquired his passenger, leaping
out and reaching into his vest pocket.
“Our regular rate is two dollars an hour,”
explained Andy.
“There’s five—never mind the change,” interrupted
the gentleman. “And here’s a trifle for
yourself for being wide-awake while most people
are asleep.”
“Oh, thank you, sir!” exclaimed Andy, overjoyed,
but the man disappeared with a pleasant
wave of his hand before the boy could protest
against such unusual generosity.
Andy’s eyes glowed with pleasure and his heart
warmed up as he stowed the handsome five-dollar
tip into his little purse containing a few silver
pieces. He had never had so much money all
his own at any time in his life. Once a tourist
in settling a day’s jaunt with Talbot in Andy’s
presence had added a two-dollar bill for his chauffeur,
but this Talbot had immediately shoved into
his money drawer without even a later reference
to it.
Andy got back to the garage before seven
o’clock. He whistled cheerily as he made a notation
on the book of his fare and the collection,
unlocked the desk, put the five dollars in the tin
cash box, and relocked the desk.
Then he busied himself cleaning up the machine
that had just made such a successful spin,
for the roads were pretty dusty. As he pulled
out the carpet of the tonneau to shake, something
fell to the floor.
It was an old worn flat leather pocketbook.
In a flash Andy guessed that his recent passenger
had accidentally dropped it in the car.
He opened it in some excitement. It had a
deep flap on one side. From this protruded the
edges of a dozen crisp new banknotes. Andy
ran them over quickly.
“Two hundred dollars!” he exclaimed.
“What’s that?” spoke a sharp, greedy voice at
his ear.
It was Gus Talbot, his employer’s son, who
had just appeared on the scene. It was pretty
early for him, for Gus paraded as the cashier of
his father’s business and stayed around the garage
on an average of about three hours a day.
Most of his time was spent at a village billiard
room in the company of a *** chum named
Dale Billings.
Andy was somewhat taken off his balance by
the unexpected appearance of his employer’s son.
It was really the shock of recognizing in the face
of the newcomer the manners and avarice that he
shared with his father. Almost instinctively Andy
put the hand holding the pocketbook behind him.
Then he said simply:
“I took a quick fare over to Macon to catch
a train. He paid me five dollars. It’s in the
cash drawer.”
“Oh, it is,” drawled out Gus, “and what about
all the money I just caught you counting over?”
“It’s a pocketbook containing two hundred dollars,”
replied Andy clearly, disdaining the slur
and insult in the tones of his low-spirited challenger.
“It was dropped by the man I just took
over in the machine. I’ve got to return it to him
some way. I might get to the station here in
time to notify him by telegraph before his train
leaves Macon that I’ve found the pocketbook.”
“Hold on,” ordered Gus Talbot. “Hand over
that money, Andy Nelson.”
And then followed the conversation that opens
this chapter, and Andy had barely announced
that the pocketbook would go back to its owner
and to no one else, when Gus made a jump at
him.
“Give up that money, I say!” he yelled, and
his big, eager fist clutched the pocketbook.
CHAPTER II—BREAKING AWAY
“Let go of that pocketbook!” ordered Gus
Talbot angrily.
“When I do, tell me,” retorted Andy.
The young chauffeur knew that once the money
got into the hands of the Talbots, father or son,
its return to its rightful owner would be extremely
dubious. He had proven himself a match for
Gus in more than one encounter in the past, and
that was why Gus hated him. Andy reached out
one hand not at all gently. He gave his opponent
a push under the chin.
Gus Talbot went flat to the floor of the garage
with a howl. He had not, however, let go his
grip on the pocketbook. The result was that it
had torn squarely in two. Andy directed a speedy
glance at the half in his own hand. He was reassured,
for he had retained the part holding the
banknotes.
“You can keep what you have got,” he advised
Gus, with a little triumphant laugh. “I’ll put
this where you won’t get your paws on it.”
With the words Andy ran through the front
open doorway of the garage and down the street
in the direction of the business section of the
village.
Primarily anxiety to bestow the money in a
safe place impelled his flight. Three other reasons,
however, helped to influence him in leaving
the field ingloriously.
In the first place, Gus Talbot was a wicked terror
when he got mad. It was nothing for him
to pick up a hatchet, a wrench or an iron bar and
sail into an enemy when his cowardly fists failed
him. Andy might have remained to give the mean
craven a further lesson, but chancing to glance
through a side window he saw the chosen crony
of Gus approaching. Dale Billings was the bully
of the town. He had left Andy severely alone
after tackling him once. With Gus and Dale
both against him, however, Andy decided that
there would be little show of retaining possession
of the money.
The third reason was more potent and animating
than any of the others. Just crossing lots
from his home and headed for the garage direct
was its proprietor. If Andy had had any confidence
in the sense of justice and rectitude of Talbot
he would have stood his ground. He had
none, and therefore made a rash resolve. It was
open defiance of his harsh employer, and there
would be a frightful row later on, but Andy’s
mind was made up. He had reached the next
corner and flashed around it and out of sight
before Gus Talbot had gained his feet.
Fifteen minutes later Andy Nelson reappeared
at the end of a secluded street near the edge of
the village. He was slightly breathless, and
looked excited, and glanced back of him keenly
before he sat down on a tree stump to rest and
think.
“I’ve done my duty,” he murmured; “but it
will make things so hot at the garage I don’t
think I’ll go back there.”
Andy indulged in a spell of deep reflection.
For some time he had realized that he was giving
his best energies to a man who did not appreciate
them. His work had grown harder and harder.
Whenever a complaint came in about imperfect
work, due to the sloppy methods of Talbot, the
garage owner made Andy shoulder all the blame.
“He talks about a two-years’ contract, and
tries to scare me about what the law will do to
me if I leave him,” soliloquized Andy. “Has he
kept his part of the bargain? Did he give me
the increase in pay and the suit of clothes he
promised? No, he didn’t. I’ve got something
in me, but it will kill it all out to stay in this
place. I’ve got five dollars as a nest-egg, and
I’m going to start out on my own hook.”
Andy was fully determined on his course. Perhaps
if the incident of the morning had not come
up, he might have delayed his decision. He knew
very well, however, that if he went back to the
garage Talbot would raise a big row, and he
would also get hold of the two hundred dollars
if it were possible for him to do so. Some day
Andy feared the Talbots would play one too
many of their uncertain tricks and involve him in
an imputation of dishonesty.
“It’s straight ahead, and never turn back,” declared
Andy decisively, and started down the
road.
“Hold on there, young man!” challenged a
voice that gave Andy a thrill.
Running around the curve in the road Andy
had just traversed, red-faced and flustered, Seth
Talbot came bearing down upon him.
Andy might have halted, but the sight of Gus
Talbot and Dale Billings bringing up the rear
armed with heavy sticks so entirely suggested an
onslaught of force that he changed his mind. He
paid no attention whatever to the furious shouts
and direful threats of Talbot.
Andy put ahead at renewed speed. At a second
turn in the highway a man was raking up
hay, and he suspended his work and stared at
the fugitive and his pursuers, as Talbot roared
out:
“Stop him, Jones—he’s a runaway and a
thief!”
Farmer Jones was not spry enough to shorten
the circuit Andy made, but he thrust out the
rake to its full length. Andy’s foot caught in its
tines, dragged, tripped, and the boy went flat to
the ground.
“I’ve got him!” hailed Jones, promptly pouncing
down upon him.
“Hold him!” panted Talbot, rushing to the
spot, and his hard, knotty fingers got an iron
clutch on Andy’s coat collar and *** him to his
feet.
“What’s the trouble, neighbor?” projected the
farmer curiously.
“A thief isn’t the matter!” shot out Andy
hotly, recalling the words of his employer.
“You’ll have to prove that,” blustered Talbot.
“If you’re innocent, what are you running for?”
“I was running away from you,” admitted Andy
boldly, “because I want to be honest and decent.”
“What’s that?” roared the irate Talbot. “Do
you hear him, Jones? He admits he was going to
break his contract with me. Well, the law will
look to that, you ungrateful young cub!”
“Law! contract!” cried Andy scornfully, fully
roused up and fearless now. “Have you kept
your contract with me? You don’t want me,
you want that two hundred dollars——”
“Shut up! Shut up!” yelled Talbot, and he
muzzled Andy with one hand and dragged him
away from the spot. Farmer Jones grinned after
them, and he shrugged his shoulders grimly as
he noticed Gus Talbot and Dale Billings halted
down the road, as if averse to coming any nearer.
“’Pears to me you’re having a good deal of
trouble with your boys, Talbot,” chuckled Jones.
“That son of yours got a few cracks from my
cane last evening when he was helping himself
to some of my honey among the hives.”
Once out of hearing of the farmer, Gus Talbot
edged up to his father.
“Has he got the money?” he inquired eagerly.
“Make him tell, father, search him.”
“I’ll attend to all that,” retorted the elder Talbot
gruffly. “Here, you two fall behind. There’s
no need of attracting attention with a regular procession.”
Talbot did not relax his hold of the prisoner
until they had reached the garage. He roughly
threw Andy into the lumber room. Then, panting
and irritated from his unusual exertions, he
planted himself in the doorway. Gus and Dale
hovered about, anxious to learn the outcome of
the row.
“Now then, Andy Nelson,” commenced the
garage owner, “I’ve just a few questions to ask
you, and you’ll answer them quick and right, or
it will be the worse for you.”
“It has certainly never been the best for me
around here,” declared Andy bitterly, “but I’ll
tell the truth, as I always do.”
“Did you find a pocketbook with some money
in it in one of my cars?”
“I did,” admitted Andy—“two hundred dollars.
It belonged to my fare, who lost it, and
it’s going back to him.”
“Hand it over.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?” demanded Talbot stormily.
“Because I haven’t got it.”
“Who has?”
“Mr. Dawson, the banker. I took it to him
when I left the garage.”
“Oh, you did?” muttered Seth Talbot, looking
baffled and furious.
“Yes, sir. I told him that it was lost money,
explained the circumstances, and that if a certain
Mr. Robert Webb called or telegraphed for it,
to let him have it.”
“Is that the name of the man you took over
to Macon?”
“That is the name written in red ink on the
flap of the pocketbook,” and Andy drew out the
former receptacle of the banknotes. “‘Robert
Webb, Springfield.’ I shall write to him at
Springfield and tell him where the money is.”
Seth Talbot fairly glared at Andy. He got up
and wriggled and hemmed and hawed, and sat
down again.
“Young man,” he observed in as steady tone of
voice as he could command, “you’ve shown a sight
of presumption in taking it on yourself to lay out
my business system. Here you’ve gone and implied
that I was not fit to be trusted.”
Andy was silent.
“I won’t have it; no, I won’t have it!” shouted
the garage-keeper. “It’s an imputation on my
honor! I’ll give you just one chance to redeem
yourself. You go back to the bank and tell Mr.
Dawson that we’ve got on the direct track of the
owner of the money, and bring it back here.”
“That would be a lie,” said Andy.
“Don’t we know where he is?”
“In a general way, but so does the bank. It
would be a cheat, too, for I don’t believe you
want to get the money back to its rightful owner
any more than you wanted to pay me the tip that
passenger left here for me last week.”
Andy had been too bold. Talbot rose up, towering
with rage. He sprang upon Andy, and
threw him upon the cot, holding him there by
sheer brute strength.
“Here, you Gus—Dale!” he shouted. “Off
with his hat and shoes. And his coat—no, let
me look that over first. Aha!”
Gus Talbot considered it high sport to assail
a defenceless and outnumbered adversary. He
and Dale snatched off cap and shoes without gentleness
or ceremony. Talbot had got hold of
Andy’s little purse and had brought to light the
five dollars so carefully folded and stowed away
there.
“Honest? Ha, ha! Decent? Ho, ho!” railed
the old wretch. “Where did you get this five dollars
without stealing it?”
“Bet he got ten dollars for the run to Macon
and held back half of it,” chimed in Gus.
“My fare gave it to me for making good time,”
explained Andy. “If you don’t believe it, write
to him.”
“Yah!” jibed Talbot; “tell that to the marines!”
He kicked Andy’s shoes and cap under a bench
in the outer room and threw his coat up among
a lot of old rubbish on a platform under the
roof.
“Get the strongest padlock and hasp in the
place,” he ordered his son, “and secure that door.
As to you, young man,” he continued to Andy,
“I’ll give you till night to make up your mind to
get back that money.”
“I never will,” declared Andy positively.
“Boy,” said Seth Talbot, fixing his eye on Andy
in a way that made his blood chill, “you’ll do it,
as I say, or I’ll thrash you within an inch of your
life.”
CHAPTER III—RUNAWAY AND ROVER
The door of the lumber room was slammed
shut on Andy and strongly locked, and the lad resigned
himself to the situation. The Talbots,
father and son, aided by brutal Dale Billings, had
handled him pretty roughly, and he was content
to lie on the cot and prepare for what was coming
next.
“They’ve pretty nearly stripped me, and they’ve
got all my money,” reflected Andy. “I wish now
I had dropped a postal card to Mr. Robert Webb
at Springfield. I’ll do it, though, the first thing,
when I get out of this fix.”
Andy was bound to get out of it in some way.
It would be rashness complete to try it right
on the spur of the moment. However, he had
till night to think things over, and the youth felt
pretty positive that long before then he would
hit upon some plan of escape.
In a little while Andy got up and took stock
of his surroundings. The partition that shut in
the lumber room was made of common boards.
With a good-sized sledge, Andy could batter it
to pieces, but he had no tools, and glancing
through a crack he saw Talbot and his son in the
little front office ready to pounce on him at a
minute’s notice.
There was a long narrow box lying up against
the inside surface of the partition boards. Andy
had used this to hold his little kit of kitchen utensils.
He removed these now, and lifted the box
on end under the only outside aperture the lumber
room presented. This was a little window, way
up near the ceiling. When Andy reached this
small, square hole, cut through a board, he discerned
that he could never hope to creep through
it.
Glancing down into the rear yard he made out
Dale Billings, seated on a saw-horse, aimlessly
whittling at a stick, and he decided that the ally
of the Talbots was on guard there to watch out
for any attempted escape in that direction.
However, when Andy had done a little more
looking around in his prison-room, he made quite
an encouraging discovery. Where the box had
stood originally there was a broad, loose board.
Dampness had weakened one end, and a touch
pulled it away from the nails that held it. With
one or two vigorous pulls, Andy saw he might
rip the board out of place its entire length. This,
however, would make a great noise, would arouse
his captors, and he would have to run the gantlet
the whole reach of the garage space.
“It’s my only show, though,” decided Andy,
“and I’ll keep it in mind for later on.”
Towards noon Andy made a meal of some
scraps of food he found in his little larder. It
was not a very satisfying meal, for his stock of
provisions had run low that morning and he had
intended replenishing it during the day.
About two o’clock in the afternoon Andy fancied
he saw his chance for making a break for
liberty. Talbot was in the office. There was
only one automobile in the garage. This was a
car that the proprietor’s son had just backed in.
Andy could figure it out that Gus had just returned
from a trip. He leaped out of the machine,
simply throwing out the power clutch, with
the engine still in motion, as if intending to at
once start off again.
Gus ran to the office, and through the crack
in the partition Andy saw him scan the open page
of the daily order book. Our hero determined
on a bold move. He leaned down in the corner
of the lumber room and seized the end of the
loose plank at the bottom of the partition with
both hands, and gave it a pull with all his strength.
R—r—rip—***!
Andy went backwards with a slam. The board
had broken off at the nail-heads of the first rafter
with a deafening crack. He dropped the fragment
and dove through the aperture disclosed to
him. He could hear startled conversation in the
office, but it was no time to stop for obstacles now.
Andy came to his feet in the garage room, made
a superb spring, cleared the hood of the automobile,
and, after a scramble, landed in the driver’s
seat.
With a swoop of his right hand, Andy grasped
the lever, his left clutching the wheel. The car
shot for the door in a flash. Gus Talbot had run
out of the office. He saw the machine coming,
and who manned it. Andy noticed him poising
for a spring, snatched up the dust robe in the seat
by his side, gave it a whirl, and forged ahead.
The robe wound around the face and shoulders
of Gus, sending him staggering back, discomfited.
Andy circled into the street away from
town, turned down the south turnpike, and
breathed the air of freedom with rapture.
“All I want is a safe start. I can’t afford to
leave the record behind me that I stole a machine,”
he reflected. “It’s bad enough as it is
now, with all the lies Talbot will tell. She’s gone
stale!”
The automobile wheezed down to an abrupt
halt. It was just as it came to a curve near the
Jones farm, and almost at the identical spot where
Andy had been captured that morning. He cast
a quick glance behind. No one was as yet visible
in pursuit, and there was no other machine in the
garage. One was handy not a square away from
it, however. Andy had noticed a physician’s car
there as he sped along. The Talbots would not
hesitate to impress it into service. At any rate,
they would start some pursuit at once.
Andy guessed that some of Gus Talbot’s careless
tactics had put the magneto or carburetor
out of commission. It would take fully five minutes
to adjust things in running order. No one
was in view ahead. There were all kinds of
opportunities to hide before an enemy came upon
the scene.
Right at the side of the road was the hayfield
of the Jones farm. Andy leaped a ditch and
started to get to the thin line of scrub oak beyond
which lay the creek. He passed three haystacks
and they now pretty well shut him out from the
road. As he was passing the fourth one, he
stumbled, hopped about on one foot with a sharp
cry of pain, and dropped down in the stubble.
Andy had tripped over a scythe blade which
the stubble had hidden from his view. His ankle
had struck the back of the blade, then his foot
had turned and met the edge of the scythe. A
long, jagged gash, which began to bleed profusely,
was the result. Andy struggled to his feet and
leaned up against the side of the haystack in
some dismay. He measured the distance to the
brush with his eye.
“I’ve got to make it if I want to be safe,” the
boy decided, wincing with the pain of his injured
foot, but resolute to grin and bear it till he had
the leisure to attend to it.
A shout halted Andy. It came from the direction
of the barn, and he fancied it was Farmer
Jones giving orders to some of his men. Half
decided to make a run of it anyway, he made a
sudden plunge into the haystack and nestled there.
A clatter had come from the direction of the
roadway he had just left. Glancing in that direction,
through a break in the trees, Andy had
caught a flashing view of Gus Talbot, bareheaded
and excited, in a light wagon, and lashing the
horse attached to it furiously.
Andy drew farther back in among the hay, nesting
himself out a comfortable burrow. He ventured
to part the hay as he heard a great commotion
in the direction of the road. He could trace
the arrival of Gus, his discovery of the stalled
automobile, and the flocking of Farmer Jones and
his men to the spot.
Then in a little while the garage-keeper and
Dale Billings arrived in another machine. Some
arrangement was made to take the various vehicles
back to the village. Then Seth Talbot, his
son, and two of the farm hands scattered over the
field, making for the brush. They went in every
direction. A vigorous hunt was on, and Andy
realized that it would be wise for him to keep
close to his present cover for some time to come.
His foot was bleeding badly, and he paid what
attention to it he could. He removed his stockings,
bound up the wound with a handkerchief,
and drew both stockings over the injured member.
It was pretty irksome passing the time in his
enforced prison, and finally Andy went to sleep.
It was late dusk when he woke up. He parted
the hay, and took as good a look around as he
could. No one was in sight, apparently, but he
had no idea of venturing forth for some hours
to come.
“I’m going to leave Princeville,” he ruminated,
“but I can’t go around the world hatless, coatless
and barefooted. I don’t dare venture back
to the garage for any of my belongings. That
place will probably be watched all the time for
my return. Talbot, too, has probably telephoned
his ‘stop thief’ description of me everywhere. It’s
the river route or nothing, if I expect to get safely
away from this district. Before I go, though, I’m
going to see Mr. Dawson.”
This was the gentleman to whom Andy had entrusted
the two hundred dollars. Andy had a
very favorable opinion of him. The village
banker was a great friend of the boys of the town.
He had started them in a club, had donated a
library, and Andy had attended two of his moving-picture
lectures. After the last one, Mr. Dawson
had taken occasion to pass a pleasant word
with Andy, commending his attention to the lecture.
When Andy had taken the two hundred
dollars to him that morning, the banker had
placed his hand on his shoulder, with the remark:
“You are a good, honest boy, Nelson, and I want
to see you later.”
“I’ll wait until about nine o’clock,” planned
Andy, “when most of the town is asleep, and go
to Mr. Dawson’s house. There’s a lecture at the
club to-night, I know, and he won’t get home till
after ten. I’ll hide in the garden and catch him
before he goes into the house. I’ll tell him my
story, and ask him to lend me enough to get some
shoes and the other things I need. I know he’ll
do it, for he’s an honest, good-hearted man.”
This prospect made Andy light of heart as
time wore on. It must have been fully half-past
eight when he began to stir about, preparatory
to leaving his hiding-place. He moved his injured
foot carefully. It was quite sore and stiff, but he
planned how he would line the timber townwards
and stop at a spring and bathe and dress it again.
He mapped out a long and obscure circuit of the
village to reach the home of the banker unobserved.
Andy was just about to emerge from the haystack
when the disjointed murmur of conversation
was borne to his ears. He drew back, but peered
through the hay as best he could. It was bright
moonlight. Just dodging from one haystack to
another at a little distance, Andy made out Gus
Talbot and Dale Billings.
“Come on,” he heard the latter say—“now’s
our chance.”
“They must be still looking for me,” he told
himself.
There was no further view nor indication of
the proximity of the twain during the next hour,
but caution caused Andy to defer his intended
visit to the banker.
“The coast seems all clear now,” he told himself
at last, and Andy crept out of the haystack,
but promptly crept back again.
Of a sudden a great echoing shout disturbed
the silence of the night. Some one in the vicinity
of the farmhouse yelled out wildly:
“Fire!”
CHAPTER IV—DOWN THE RIVER
“Fire—fire!”
The cry that had rung out so startlingly was
repeated many times. Andy could trace a growing
commotion. His burrow in the haystack
faced away from the buildings of the Jones farm,
but in a minute or two a great glare was visible
even through his hay shield.
Andy did not dare to venture out from his
hiding-place. From increasing shouts and an uproar,
he could understand that the Jones household,
and then the families of neighbors were
thronging to the fire. Some of these latter, making
a short cut from the road, passed directly by
the haystack in which he was hiding.
“It’s the barn,” spoke a voice.
“That’s what it is, and blazing for good,” was
responded excitedly, and the breathless runners
hurried on.
Andy made up his mind that he would have to
stay where he was for some time to come, if he
expected to avoid capture. Very soon people
from the village came trooping to the scene. He
could trace the shouts of the bucket brigade. He
heard one or two automobiles come down the
road. The glare grew brighter and the crowd
bigger. Soon, however, the stubble-field began to
get shadowed again, he noticed.
It must have taken the barn an hour to burn
up. People began to repass the haystacks on
their return trips. Andy caught many fragments
of conversation. He heard a man remark:
“They managed to save the livestock.”
“Yes,” was responded; “but Jones says a couple
of thousand dollars won’t cover his loss.”
“What caused it, anyhow?”
“It was a mystery to Jones, he says, until Talbot
came along. They seemed to fix up a theory
betwixt them.”
“What was that?”
“Why, Jones was sort of hot and bitter about
some boys who have bothered him a lot of late.
He walloped one or two of them. Young Gus
Talbot was among them. Jones was hinting
around about the fire being set for revenge, when
Talbot spoke up and reminded him that he had
headed off that runaway apprentice of Talbot’s
this morning.”
“Oh, the boy they’re looking for—Andy?”
“Yes, Andy Nelson. He’s the one that set the
fire, Talbot declares, and Jones believes it, and
they’re going to start a big hunt for him. Talbot
says he’s beat him out of some money, and Jones
says he’s just hung around before leaving for
good to get even with him for stopping him from
getting away from Talbot.” And, so speaking,
the men passed on.
“Well, this is a pretty kettle of fish!” ruminated
Andy. “What next, I wonder?”
The refugee felt pretty serious as he realized
the awkward and even perilous situation he was
in. As he recalled the fact that Gus and Dale
Billings had crossed over the field an hour before
the fire broke out, he was pretty clear in his
own mind as to the identity of the firebugs.
“It’s no use of thinking about seeing Mr. Dawson
now,” decided Andy. “It’s too late in the
evening, and too many people will be looking for
me. There’s so much piling up against me, that
maybe Mr. Dawson wouldn’t believe a word I
say. No, it’s a plain case. They haven’t any
use for me in Princeville, and the sooner I get
out of the town and stay out of it, the better
for me.”
Andy’s foot was in no condition for a long
***. He realized this as he stretched it out
and tested his weight upon it. He was not seriously
crippled, but he was in no shape to run a
race or kick a football.
“It’s going to be no easy trick getting safely
away from Princeville and out of the district,”
the boy told himself. “I’ll wait until about midnight,
then I’ll make for the river. There’s boats
going and coming as far as the lake, and I may
get a lift as far as the city. I can lose myself
there, or branch out for new territory.”
Everything was still, and not a sign of life
visible anywhere on the landscape, when Andy
at length ventured to leave his hiding-place.
There was a smell of burned wood in the air,
and some smoke showed at the spot where the
barn had stood, but the town and the farmer’s
household seemed to have gone to bed.
No one appeared to see or follow him while
crossing the stubble field, but Andy felt a good
deal easier in mind as he gained the cover of
the brush.
The boy was entirely at home here—along
the river as well. He had found little time for
recreation while working for Talbot, but whenever
a spare hour had come along he had made
for the woods and the creek as a natural playground.
Now he went from thicket to thicket
with a sense of freedom. He knew a score of
good hiding-places, if he should be suddenly surprised.
Andy looked up and down the creek when he
reached it. He hoped to locate some barge ready
to go down the river with some piles of tan bark,
or a freight boat returning from the summer
camps along the lake. Nothing was moving on
the stream, however, and no water craft in view.
“I’ll get below the bridge. Then I’ll be safe
to wait until daylight. Something is bound to
come along by that time,” he reflected.
Andy reached and passed the bridge about a
mile below Princeville. There was no other
bridge for ten miles, and if he had to foot it on
his journey to the city, he would be out of the
way of traversed roads. He walked on for about
half a mile and was selecting a sheltered spot to
rest in, directly on the stream, when, a few yards
distant, he noticed a light scow near shore.
Andy proceeded towards this. It resembled
many craft of its class used by farmers to carry
grain and livestock to market. Andy noticed that
it was unloaded and poles stowed amidships. He
stepped aboard. No one was in charge of it.
“I might find some of the abandoned old skiffs
or rafts the boys play with, if I search pretty
hard,” soliloquized Andy, stepping ashore again.
“Hey!”
Andy was startled. Tracing the source of the
short, quick hail, he discovered a man seated on a
boulder near a big hazel bush. Andy was startled
a little, and slowly approached his challenger.
The man who had spoken to him sat like a
statue. He was a pale-faced individual, with very
large bright eyes, and his face was covered with
a heavy black beard. A cape that almost covered
him hung from his shoulders, completely
hiding his hands. He looked Andy over keenly.
“Did you call me, mister?” inquired Andy.
“Yes, I did,” responded the man. “I was wondering
what you were doing, lurking around here
at this unearthly hour of the night.”
Andy mentally decided that it was quite as
much a puzzle to him what the stranger was doing,
sitting muffled up at two o’clock in the morning
in this lonely place.
“I was looking for a boat to take me down
stream,” explained Andy.
“Are you willing to work for a lift?” inquired
the man.
“I should say so,” replied Andy emphatically.
“Do you know how to manage a craft like this
one here?”
“Oh, that’s no trick at all,” said Andy. “The
river is clear, and there’s nothing to run into,
and all you have to do is to pole along in midstream.”
“Where do you want to get to?”
“The city.”
“I’m not going that far. I’ll tell you what I’ll
do, though,” said the stranger—“you pole me
down to Swan Cove——”
“That’s about fifteen miles.”
“Yes. You take me that far, and I’ll make it
worth your while.”
“It’s a bargain, and I’m delighted!” exclaimed
Andy with spirit.
“All right,” said the man; “get to work.”
He never got up from his seat while Andy
cast free the shore hawser. When everything was
ready he stepped aboard rather clumsily. Andy
thought it very strange that the man never offered
to help him the least bit. His passenger seated
himself in the stern of the barge, the cloak still
closely enveloping his form, his hands never coming
into sight.
It was welcome work for Andy, propelling the
boat. It took his mind off his troubles, and every
push of the pole and the current took him away
from the people who had injured his good reputation
and were bent on robbing him of his liberty.
The grim, silent man at the stern of the craft
was a puzzle to Andy. He never spoke nor
stirred. Our hero wondered why he kept so
closely covered up and in what line of transportation
he used the barge.
They had proceeded about two miles with
smooth sailing when there was a sudden bump.
The boat had struck a snag.
“Gracious!” *** Andy, sent sprawling
flat on the deck.
The contact had lifted the stranger from his
seat. He was knocked to one side. Andy, scrambling
to his feet, was tremendously startled as his
glance swept his passenger.
The man struggled to his feet with clumsiness.
He was hasty, almost suspicious in his movements.
The cloak had flown wide open, and now he was
swaying his arms around in a strange way, trying
to cover them up.
“Why!” said the youth to himself, with a sharp
gasp, “the man is handcuffed!”
CHAPTER V—TRAMPING IT
“Gracious!” said Andy, and made a jump
clear into the water.
The pole had swung out of his hands when
the barge struck the snag. He got wet through
recovering it, but that did not matter much, for
he had little clothing on.
By the time he had got back on deck his mysterious
passenger had resumed his old position.
The cloak again completely enveloped the upper
portion of his body and his hands were out of
sight. Andy acted as though his momentary
glance had not taken in the sight of the handcuffs.
“Sorry, mister, we struck that snag, but the
moon’s going down and a fog coming up, and I
couldn’t help it.”
“Don’t mind that,” was all that the man at
the stern vouchsafed in reply.
The moon had gone down as Andy had said,
but enough of its radiance had fallen on the
squirming figure of the stranger a few minutes
previous to show the cold, bright glint of the pair
of manacles. Andy was sure that the man’s
wrists were tightly handcuffed. A sort of a chill
shudder ran over him as he thought of it.
“An escaped convict?” Andy asked himself.
“Maybe. That’s bad. I don’t want to be caught
in such company, the fix I’m in.”
The thought made the passenger suddenly repellant
to Andy. He had an idea of running close
to the shore and making off.
“No, I won’t do it,” he decided, after a moment’s
reflection, “I’m only guessing about all
this. He’s not got a bad face. It’s rather a
wild and worried one. I’m a runaway myself,
and I’ve got a good reason for being so. Maybe
this man has, too.”
Andy applied himself to his work with renewed
vigor. It must have been about five o’clock in the
morning when the stranger directed him to navigate
up a feeder to the stream, which, a few rods
beyond, ran into a swamp pond, which Andy
knew to be Swan Cove.
A few pushes of the pole drove the craft up on
a muddy slant. It was getting light in the east
now. Andy came up to the man with the question:
“Is this where you land, mister?”
“Yes,” nodded his passenger. “Come here.”
Andy drew closer to the speaker.
“I told you I’d make it worth your while to
pole me down the river,” he said.
“Oh, that’s all right.”
“I haven’t got any money, but I want to pay
you as I promised you. Take that.”
“What, mister?” and then Andy learned what
the man meant. The latter hunched one shoulder
towards the timber on which he sat, and there
lay a small open-faced silver watch.
Andy wondered how he had managed to get it
out of his pocket, but he had, and there it lay.
“It’s worth about eight dollars,” explained the
man. “You can probably get four for it. Anyhow,
you can trade it off for some shoes and
clothes, which you seem to need pretty badly.”
“Yes, I do, for a fact,” admitted Andy, with a
slight laugh. “But see here, mister, I don’t want
your watch. I couldn’t ask any pay, for I wanted
to come down the creek myself, and I was just
waiting to find the chance to work my way when
you came along.”
“You’ll take the watch,” insisted the stranger
in a decided tone, “so say no more about it, and
put it in your pocket. There’s only one thing,
youngster—I want to ask a favor of you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Forget you ever saw me.”
“That will be hard to do, but I will try.”
“What’s your name?”
“Andy Nelson.”
“I’ll remember that,” said the man, repeating
it over twice to himself. “You’ll see me again
some time, Andy Nelson, even if I have to hunt
you up. You’ve done me a big favor. You said
you were headed for the city?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, if you’ll follow back to the river, and
cut south a mile, you’ll come to a road running
in that direction.”
“Aren’t you going to use the barge any farther,
mister?” inquired Andy.
“No, and perhaps you had better not, either,”
answered the man, with a short nervous laugh.
“Well, this is a *** go!” ruminated Andy, as
the man started inland and was soon lost to view.
“I wonder who he is? Probably on his way to
some friends where he can get rid of those handcuffs.
Now, what for myself?”
Andy thought things out in a rational way, and
was soon started on the ***. His prospective
destination was the city. It was a large place,
with many opportunities for work, he concluded.
He would be lost from his pursuers in a big city
like that, he theorized.
Andy soon located the road his late passenger
had indicated. He looked at the watch a good
many times. It was a plain but substantial timepiece.
It was the first watch Andy had ever
owned, and he took great pleasure in its possession.
“I don’t think I’ll part with it,” he said, as he
tramped along. “I feel certain I can pick up
enough odd jobs on my way to the city to earn
what clothing I need and enough to eat.”
It was about seven o’clock when Andy, after a
steep hill climb, neared a fence and lay down to
rest in the shade and shelter of a big straw stack.
He was asleep before he knew it.
“What in the world is that!” he shouted,
springing up, wide awake, as a hissing, flapping,
cackling hubbub filled the air, mingled with shouts
of impatience, excitement and despair.
“Head ’em off—drive ’em in! Shoo—shoo!”
bellowed out somebody in the direction of the
road.
“Geese!” *** Andy—“geese, till you
can’t rest or count them! Where did they ever
come from? Hi, get away!”
As Andy stepped out of range of the straw
stack, he faced a remarkable situation. The field
he was in covered about two acres. It was enclosed
with a woven-wire fence, and had a gate.
Through this, from the road, a perspiring man
was driving geese, aided by a boy armed with a
long switch.
Andy had never seen such a flock of geese before.
He estimated them by the hundreds. Nor
had he ever viewed such a battered up, dust-covered,
crippled flock. Many, after getting beyond
the gate, squatted down as if exhausted. Others
fell over on their sides, as if they were dying.
Many of them had torn and bleeding feet, and
limped and hobbled in evident distress.
The man and the boy had to head off stupid
and wayward groups of the fowls to get them
within the enclosure. Then when they had closed
the gate, they went back down the road. Andy
gazed wonderingly after them. For half a mile
down the hill there were specks of fluttering and
lifeless white. He made them out to be fowls
fallen by the wayside.
The man and boy began to collect these, two
at a time, bringing them to the enclosure, and
dropping them over the fence. It was a tiresome,
and seemed an endless task. Andy climbed the
fence and joined them.
“Hello!” hailed the man, looking a little flustered;
“do you belong around here?”
“No; I don’t,” replied Andy.
“I don’t suppose any one will object to my penning
in those fowls until I find some way of getting
them in trim to go on.”
“They can’t do much harm,” suggested Andy.
“I say, I’ll help you gather up the stray ones.”
“I wish you would,” responded the man, with
a sound half-way between a sigh and a groan.
“I am nigh distracted with the antics of those
fowls. We had eight hundred and fifty when we
started. We’ve lost nigh on to a hundred in
two days.”
“What’s the trouble? Do they stray off?” inquired
Andy, getting quite interested.
“No; not many of them. The trouble is traveling.
I was foolish to ever dream I could drive up
to nearly one thousand geese across country sixty
miles. The worst thing has been where we have
hit the hill roads and the highways they’re ballasting
with crushed stone. The geese get their feet
so cut they can’t walk. If we try the side of the
roads, then we run into ditches, or the fowls get
under farm fences, and then it’s trouble and a
chase. I say, lad,” continued the man, with a
glance at Andy’s bandaged foot, “you don’t look
any too able to get about yourself.”
“Oh, that isn’t worth thinking of,” declared
Andy. “I’ll be glad to help.”
He quite cheered up the owner of the geese by
his willingness and activity. In half an hour’s
time they had all the disabled stray fowls in the
enclosure. Some dead ones were left where they
had fallen by the wayside.
“I reckon the old nag is rested enough to climb
up the rest of the hill now,” spoke the man to
his companion, who was his son. “Fetch Dobbin
along, Silas, and we’ll feed the fowls and get a
snack ourselves.”
Andy curiously regarded the poor crowbait of
a horse soon driven into view attached to a ramshackly
wagon. The horse was put to the grass
near the enclosure, and two bags of grain unearthed
from a box under the seat of the wagon
and fed to the penned-in geese.
Next Silas produced a small oil-stove, a coffee-pot
and some packages, and, seated on the grass,
Andy partook of a coarse but substantial breakfast
with his new friends.
“There’s a town a little ahead, I understand,”
spoke the man.
“Yes,” nodded Andy; “Afton.”
“Then we’ve got twenty miles to go yet,” sighed
the man. “I don’t know how we’ll ever make it.”
Andy gathered from what the man said that he
and his family had gone into the speculation of
raising geese that season. The nearest railroad
to his farm was twenty miles distant. His market
was Wade, sixty miles away. He had decided to
drive the geese to destination. Two-thirds of the
journey accomplished, a long list of disasters
spread out behind, and a dubious prospect ahead.
“It would cost me fifty dollars to wagon what’s
left to the nearest railroad station, and as much
more for freight,” said the man gloomily.
Andy looked speculative. In his mechanical
work his inventive turn of mind always caused
him to put on his thinking-cap when he faced an
obstacle.
“I’ve got an idea,” declared Andy brightly.
“Say, mister, suppose I figure out a way to get
your geese the rest of the way to market quite
safely and comfortably, and help drive them the
balance of the distance, what will you do for
me?”
“Eh?” *** the man eagerly. “Why, I’d—I’d
do almost anything you ask, youngster.”
“Is it worth a pair of shoes, and a new cap
and coat?” asked Andy.
“Yes; a whole suit,” said the man emphatically,
“and two good dollars a day on top of it.”
“It’s a bargain!” declared Andy spiritedly. “I
think I have guessed a way to get you out of your
difficulties.”
“How?”
“I’ll show you when you are ready to start.”
Andy set to work with vigor. He went to the
back of the wagon and fitted two boards into a
kind of a runway. Then he poured corn into the
trough, and hitched up the old horse.
“Now, drive the horse, and I’ll attend to the
corn,” he said. “I won’t give them as much as
you think,” he added, fearing the farmer would
object to the use of so much of his feed.
It was not long before they were on the way.
As the corn dropped along the road, the geese
ran to pick the kernels up. Andy scattered some
by hand. Soon he had the whole line of geese
following the wagon.
“Now drive in the best spots,” he said.
“I’ll take to the fields,” answered Mr. Pierce.
He was as good as his word, and traveling became
easy for the geese, so that they made rapid
progress. They kept on until nightfall, passing
through Afton, where Andy bought a postal card
and mailed it to Mr. Webb, stating his money
had been left with Mr. Dawson. By eight o’clock
the next morning they reached Wade, and there,
at a place called the Collins’ farm, Andy was paid
off and given the clothing and shoes promised.
He changed his suit in a shed on the farm, and
then the youth bid his new friends good-by and
went on his way.
CHAPTER VI—THE SKY RIDER
“Hold on, there!”
“Don’t stop me—out of the way!”
“Why, whatever is the matter with you?”
“The comet has fallen——”
“What?”
“On our barn.”
“See here——”
“Run for your life. Let me go, let me go, let
me—go!”
The speaker, giving the astonished Andy Nelson
a shove, had darted past him down the hill
with a wild shriek, eyes bulging and hair flying
in the breeze.
It was the afternoon of the day Andy had said
good-by to Mr. Pierce and his friends. He was
making across country on foot to strike a little
railroad town, having now money enough to
afford a ride to Springfield.
Ascending a hilly rise, topped with a great
grove of nut trees, Andy got a glimpse of a
farmhouse. He was anticipating a fine cool draught of
well water, when a terrific din sounded out beyond
the grove. There were the violent snortings
of cattle, the sound of smashing boards, a mixed
cackle of all kinds of fowls, and thrilling human
yells.
Suddenly rounding the road there dashed
straight into Andy’s arms a terror-faced, tow-headed
youth, the one who had now put down
the hill as if horned demons were after him.
Andy divined that the center of commotion and
its cause must focus at the farmhouse. He ran
ahead to come in view of the structure.
“I declare!” gasped Andy.
Wherever there was a cow, a horse, or a
chicken, the creature was in action. They seemed
putting for shelter in a mad flight. Rushing along
the path leading to the farmhouse, a gaunt, rawboned
farmer was sprinting as for a prize. He
cast fearsome glances over his shoulder, and
bawled out something to his wife, standing spellbound
in the open doorway, bounded past her,
sweeping her off her feet, and slammed the door
shut with a yell.
And then Andy’s wondering eyes became fixed
on an object that quite awed and startled him for
the moment. Resting over the roof of the great
barn at the rear of the house was a fantastic creation
of sea-gull aspect, flapping great wings of
snowy whiteness. *** and span, with graceful
outlines, it suggested some great mechanical bird.
“Why,” breathed Andy, lost in wondering yet
enchanting amazement, “it’s an airship!”
Andy had never seen a perfect aeroplane before.
Small models had been exhibited at the
county fair near Princeville, however, and he had
studied all kinds of pictures of these remarkable
sky-riders. The one on the barn fascinated him.
It balanced and fluttered—a dainty creation—so
frail and delicately adjusted that his mechanical
admiration was aroused to a degree that was almost
thrilling.
Blind to jeopardy, it seemed, a man was seated
about the middle of the tilting air craft. The
barn roof was about twenty-five feet high, but
Andy could plainly make out the venturesome
pilot, and his mechanical eye ran over the strange
machine with interest and delight.
A hand lever seemed to propel the flyer, and
this the man aloft grasped while his eyes roved
over the scene below.
How the airship had got on the roof of the
barn, Andy could only surmise. Either it had
made a whimsical dive, or the motive power
had failed. The trouble now was, Andy plainly
saw, that one set of wings had caught across a
tin ornament at the front gable of the barn.
This represented a rooster, and had been bent
in two by the tugging airship.
“Hey, you!” sang out the man in charge of
the airship. “Can you get up here any way?”
“There’s a cleat ladder at the side.”
“All right, come up and bring a rope with
you.”
Andy was only too glad to be of service in a
new field that fascinated him. The doors of the
barn were open. He ran in and looked about
busily. At last he discovered a long rope hanging
over a harness hook. He took possession of it,
hurried again to the outside, and nimbly ascended
the cleats.
“Look sharp, now, and follow closely,” spoke
the aeronaut. “Creep along the edge, there, and
loop the rope under the end of those side wings.”
“I can do that,” declared Andy. He saw what
the man wanted, and it was not much of a task
to balance on the spout running along the edge
of the shingles and then climb to the ridge-pole.
Andy looped the end of the rope over an extending
bar running out from the remote end of the
last paddle.
“Now, then,” called out the aeronaut in a
highly-satisfied tone, “if you can get to the seat
just behind me, fetching the rope with you, we’ll
soon be out of this tangle.”
“All right,” said Andy.
“And I’ll give you the ride of your life.”
“Will you, mister?” cried Andy, with bated
breath and sparkling eyes.
The boy began creeping along the slant of
the barn roof. It was slow progress, for he
saw that he must keep the rope from getting
tangled. Another hindrance to rapid progress
was the fact that he had to be careful not to
graze or disturb the delicate wings of the machine.
About half the directed progress covered, Andy
paused and looked down. The door of the farmhouse
was in his range of vision, and the farmer
had just opened it cautiously.
He stuck out his head, and bobbed it in again.
The next minute he ventured out a little farther.
Now he came out on the stoop of the house.
“Hey, you!” he yelled, waving his hands up at
the aeronaut.
“Well, neighbor?” interrogated the latter.
“What kind of a new-fangled thing is that
you’ve stuck on my barn?”
“It’s an airship.”
“Like we read about in the papers?”
“Yes.”
“Sho! and I thought——Who’s afraid?” and
he darted back again into the house. Immediately
he reappeared. He carried an old-fashioned fowling-piece,
and he ran out directly in front of the
barn.
“IT’S AN AIRSHIP!”
Andy read his purpose. He readily guessed
that the farmer was one of those miserly individuals
who make the most out of a mishap—the
kind who think it smart to put a dead calf in
the road and make an automobilist think he had
killed it. At all events, the farmer looked bold
enough now, as he posed in the middle of the
road, with the ominous announcement:
“I’ve got a word for you up there.”
“What is it?” inquired the aeronaut.
“Who’s going to settle for this damage?”
“What damage?”
“What damage!” howled the farmer, feigning
great rage and indignation; “hosses jumped the
fence and smashed down the gate; chickens so
scared they won’t lay for a month; wife in a
spasm, and that there ornament up there—why, I
brought that clear from the city.”
“All right, neighbor; what’s your bill?”
“Two hundred dollars.”
The aeronaut laughed.
“You’re not modest or anything!” he observed.
“See here; I’ll toss you a five-dollar bill, and that
covers ten times the entire trouble I’ve made you.”
The farmer lifted his gun. He squinted across
the long, awkward barrel, and he pointed it
straight up at the sky-rider and his craft.
“Mister,” he said fiercely, “my bill is two hundred
dollars, just as I said. You pay it, right
here, right now, or I’ll blow that giddy-fangled
contraption of yours into a thousand pieces!”
CHAPTER VII—JOHN PARKS, AIRSHIP KING
“Keep right on,” ordered the aeronaut to Andy
in a low tone.
Andy squeezed under a bulge of muslin and
wood and reached what looked like a low, flat-topped
stool.
“Do you hear me?” yelled the farmer, brandishing
his weapon and trying to look very fierce
and dangerous.
The aeronaut, Andy noticed, was reaching in
his pocket. He drew out two small bills and some
silver. He made a *** of this. Poising it, he
gave it a fling.
“There’s five dollars,” he spoke to the farmer.
The *** hit the farmer on the shoulder,
opened, and the silver scattered at his feet. He
hopped aside.
“I won’t take it; I’ll have my price, or I’ll have
the law on you, and I’ll take the law in my own
hands!” he shouted.
Snap!—the fowling-piece made a sound, and
quick-witted Andy noticed that it was not a click.
“See here,” he whispered quickly to the aeronaut;
“that man just snapped the trigger to scare
us, and I don’t believe the old blunderbuss is
loaded.”
“All ready,” spoke the aeronaut to Andy, as
the latter reached the seat.
“Yes, sir,” reported Andy.
“When I back, give the rope a pull and hold
taut till we clear the barn.”
“I’ll do it,” said Andy.
“Go!”
There was a whir, a delicious tremulous lifting
movement that now made Andy thrill all over,
and the biplane backed as the aeronaut pulled a
lever.
Andy gave the rope a pull and lifted the entangled
wing entirely clear of the weather-vane.
“Now, hold tight and enjoy yourself,” spoke
the aeronaut, reversing the machine.
“Oh, my!” breathed Andy rapturously the next
moment, and he forgot all about the farmer and
nearly everything else mundane in the delight and
novelty of a brand-new experience.
Andy had once shot the chutes, and had
dreamed about it for a month afterwards. He
recalled his first spin in an automobile with a thrill
even now. That was nothing to the present sensation.
He could not analyze it. He simply sat
spellbound. One moment his breath seemed taken
away; the next he seemed drawing in an atmosphere
that set his nerves tingling and seemed to
intoxicate mind and body.
The aeronaut sat grim and watchful in the pilot
seat of the glider, never speaking a word. He
had skimmed the landscape for quite a reach.
Then, where the ground began to slant, he said
quickly:
“Notice my left foot?”
“I do,” said Andy.
“Put yours on the stabilizing shaft when I take
mine off.”
“Stabilizing shaft,” repeated Andy, memorizing,
“and the name of the airship painted on that
big paddle is the Eagle. Oh, hurrah for the
Eagle!”
“When I whistle once, press down with your
foot. Twice, you take your foot off. When I
whistle twice, pull over the handle right at your
side on the center-drop.”
“‘Center-drop’?” said Andy. “I’m getting it
fast.”
Z—zip! Andy fancied that something was
wrong, for the machine contorted like a horse
raising on his rear feet. Toot! Andy did not lose
his nerve. Toot—toot! he grasped the handle at
his side and pulled it back.
“Good for you!” commended the aeronaut
heartily. “Now, then, for a spin.”
Andy simply looked and felt for the next ten
minutes. The pretty, dainty machine made him
think of a skylark, an arrow, a rocket. He had
a bouyant sensation like a person taking laughing
gas.
The lifting planes moved readily under the manipulation
of an expert hand. There was one
level flight where the airship exceeded any railroad
speed Andy had ever noted. Farms, villages,
streams, hills, faded behind them in an endless
panorama.
Toot!—Andy followed instructions. They
slowed up over a town that seemed to be some
railroad center. Beyond it the machine skimmed
a broad prairie and then gracefully settled down
in the center of a fenced-in space.
Its wheels struck the ground. They rolled
along for about fifty yards, and halted by the side
of a big tent with an open flap at one side.
“This is the stable,” said the aeronaut, showing
Andy how to get from his seat on the delicate
and complicated apparatus of the flyer. “Dizzy-headed?”
“Why, no,” replied Andy.
“Wasn’t frightened a bit?”
“Not with you at the helm,” declared Andy.
“Mister, if I could do that, I’d live up in the air
all the time.”
“You only think so,” said the aeronaut, the
smile of experience upon his practical but good-humored
face. “When you’ve been at it as long
as I have, you’ll feel different. What’s your
name?”
“Andy Nelson.”
“Out of a job?”
“Yes, sir.”
The aeronaut looked Andy over critically,
“That little frame building at the end of the
tent is where we keep house,” he explained. “The
big rambling barracks, once a coal-shed, is my
shop. I’m John Parks. Ever hear of me?”
“No, sir,” said Andy.
“I’m known all over the country as the Airship
King.”
“I can believe that,” said Andy, “but, you see,
I have never traveled far.”
“I’ve made it a business giving exhibitions at
fairs and aero meets with this glider and with a
dirigible balloon. Just now I’m drilling for a
prize race—five thousand dollars.”
“That’s some money,” observed Andy, “and
I guess you’ll win it.”
“I see you like me, and I like you,” said John
Parks. “Suppose you help me win that prize?
I need good loyal help around me, and the way
you obey orders pleases me. I’ll make you an
offer—your keep and ten dollars.”
“And I’ll be near the airship?” asked Andy
eagerly. “And learn to run it?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, my!” cried the boy, almost lifted off his
feet. “Mr. Parks, I can’t realize such good
luck.”
“It’s yours for the choosing,” said the aeronaut.
“Ten dollars a month and my board for helping
run an airship!” said Andy breathlessly. “Oh,
of course I’ll take it—gladly.”
“No,” corrected John Parks, “ten dollars a
week.”
CHAPTER VIII—THE AERO FIELD
“That’s settled,” said the Airship King.
“Come, Andy, and I’ll introduce you to our living
quarters.”
Andy felt as if he was treading on air. He
was too overcome to speak intelligently. Clear
of the spiteful Talbot brood, the proud possessor
of a new suit, a watch, five dollars, and the prospect
of a princely salary, he felt that life had
indeed begun all over for him in golden numbers.
He caught at the sleeve of his generous employer.
“Mr. Parks,” he said with emotion, “it’s like
a dream.”
“That’s all right, Andy,” laughed the aeronaut.
“I’m pretty liberal, they say—that is, when I’ve
got the money. I’ve seen my hard times, though.
All I ask is to have a man stick to me through
thick and thin and I’ll bring him out all right.”
“I’ll stick to you as long as you’ll let me,”
declared Andy.
“Yes, you’re true blue, Andy, I honestly believe.
I’ve staked a good deal on the aero meet
next month. I’ve just got to get that five-thousand-dollar
prize to make good, for I’ve invested
a good deal here.”
“I hope I can help you do it,” said Andy fervently.
“The Eagle is only a trial craft. Over in the
workshop yonder, I’ve got a genius of a fellow,
named Morse, working for me, who is turning
out the latest thing in airships. Here’s our living
quarters.”
Mr. Parks led Andy into the shed-like structure
that formed the back of the tent which sheltered
the aeroplane and also a dirigible balloon.
They passed through several partitioned-off spaces
holding cots. Then there was a comfortable sitting
room. Next to it was a kitchen.
This room was sizzling hot, for it held a big
cooking-range, before which an aproned cook
stood with an immense basting spoon in his hand.
He was the blackest, fattest cook Andy had ever
seen. His eyes were big with jolly fun, and his
teeth gleamed white and full as he grinned and
nodded.
“I’ve brought you a new boarder, Scipio,” said
Mr. Parks. “His name is Andy Nelson. You’ll
have to set another place.”
Then he stepped through a doorway outside,
and Scipio took a critical look at Andy.
“’Nother plate, eh?” he chuckled. “Dat’s motion
easy, but what about de contents of dat
plate? Fohteen biscuit do de roun’s now. Yo’
look like a likely healthy boy. I reckon I have to
double up on de rations.”
It was a royally good meal that was spread
out on the table in the sitting room about four
o’clock in the afternoon.
“Where’s Mr. Morse, Scipio?” inquired Mr.
Parks, as the cook brought in a smoking roast.
“Mistah Morse have to be excused dis reflection,
sah, I believe,” responded Scipio. “I ask
him ’bout noon what he like foh dinnah. He dat
sorbed in his work he muttah something bout
fractions, quations and dirigible expulsions; I hab
none ob dose to cook. Jus’ now I go to call him
to dinnah, an’ I find him deeper than ever poring
over dose wheels an’ jimdracks ob machinery, and
when I say de meal was ready, he observe dat de
quintessimal prefix ob de cylinder was X. O. plus
de jibboom ob de hobolinks. It sounded like dat,
anyhow. Berry profound man, dat, sah. I take
him in his meal later, specially, sah.”
From this and other references to the man in
the shop, Andy decided that Mr. Morse must be
quite a proficient mechanician. He longed to get
a peep into his workshop. After dinner, however,
Mr. Parks said:
“Would you like to stroll over to the big aero
practice field, Andy?”
“I should, indeed,” responded Andy.
He found the aviation field to be a more or
less shrouded locality. It was reached only by
crossing myriad railroad tracks, dodging oft-shunted
freight-cars, scaling embankments and
crossing ditches. The field was dotted with shelter
tents for the various air machines, trial chutes
and perfecting shops.
There were any number of monoplanes, biplanes
and dirigible balloons. On the different
tents was painted the name of the machine housed
therein. There was the Montgo, Glider, the Flying
Dutchman, the Lady Killer, and numerous
other novelties with fanciful names.
“Every professional seems to be getting up
the oddest freak he can think of,” explained
Parks. “Do you see that new-fangled affair with
the round discs? That is called the helicopotol.
That two-winged, one-hundred-bladed freak just
beyond is the gyropter. Watch that fellow just
going up with the tandem rig. That’s a new thing,
too. It’s of the collapsible type, made for quick
transportation, but not worth a cent as a racer.”
Andy was in a realm of rare delight. He passed
the happiest and most interesting hour of his life
looking over and studying all these wonderful
aerial marvels about him.
When they got back to camp, the aeronaut
showed Andy where he would sleep, and told him
something about the routine.
“I am making test runs with the Eagle,” he explained,
“and will want you to sail with me for a
day or two. Then you may try a grasshopper run
or two yourself.”
“I shall like it immensely,” declared Andy with
enthusiasm.
When Mr. Parks had left him, Andy wandered
outside. The sound of a twanging banjo led him
to the front of the kitchen quarters.
Seated on a box, his eyes closed, his face wearing
an expression of supreme felicity, was Scipio.
Strains of “My Old Kentucky Home” floated on
the air. The musician, opening his eyes, happened
to spy Andy.
“Tell you, chile,” declared the portly old cook,
with a rare sigh of longing, “des yar Scip could
play dat tune all night long.”
“Keep right at it, Scipio,” smiled Andy. “You
go on enjoying your music, while I do up any little
chores you have to attend to.”
“If it wouldn’t be a deposition on yo’,” remarked
Scipio thoughtfully, “dar’s de suppah
dishes I’d like brung back from Mistah Morse’s
quarters.”
“Can I find them?” inquired Andy.
“Yo’ jess follow yo’ nose down through the big
shed,” directed Scipio. “Mistah Morse nevah notice
yo’. He’s dat substracted he work all night.”
Andy proceeded on his mission. Passing
through one shed, he saw a light at the end of
one adjoining. In the second shed he came to a
halt with sparkling eyes and bated breath.
Across a light platform lay the skeleton of an
airship. Its airy elegance and fine mechanism
appealed to Andy intensely. He went clear
around it, wishing he had the inventive faculty
to construct some like masterpiece in its line.
Just beyond the machine was a small apartment
where a light was burning. Near its doorway was
a table upon which Andy observed a tray of dishes
and the remnants of a meal.
He moved forward carefully to remove them,
for seated at a work-bench and deeply engrossed
in some work at a small lathe, was a man wearing
great goggles on his eyes.
“It must be Mr. Morse, the airship inventor,”
thought Andy.
Just then the inventor removed his goggles,
rubbed his eyes and turned his face towards Andy.
With a crash the boy dropped a plate, and
with a profound start he drew back, staring
blankly at the man at the bench.
“Oh, my!” said Andy breathlessly.
CHAPTER IX—THE AIRSHIP INVENTOR
Morse, the inventor, made a grab for his eye-goggles.
He had become a shade paler. He did
not take up the goggles, however. Instead, he
turned his back on Andy.
Our hero had a right to be startled. He stood
staring and spellbound, for he had recognized the
inventor in an instant. He was the handcuffed
man he had poled down the river from Princeville
the night of the flight from the Talbots,
and who had given him the very watch he now
carried in his pocket with such pride and satisfaction.
The man had shaved off his full beard since
Andy had first met him. This made him look
different. It was the large, restless eyes, however,
that had betrayed his identity. Andy would
know them anywhere. He at once realized that
the inventor had sought to disguise himself. Probably,
Andy reasoned, he had caught him off his
guard with the goggles off his eyes.
“What did you say ‘oh, my!’ for?” suddenly
demanded the inventor.
“I—I thought I recognized you—I thought I
knew you,” said Andy.
“Do you think so now?” inquired the inventor,
turning sharply face about.
“I certainly thought I knew you.”
“And suppose you was right?”
“If you were really the person I supposed,”
replied Andy, “I would have done just exactly
what I promised to do when I last saw that person.”
“And what was that?”
“To forget it.”
“You’d keep your word, eh?”
“I generally try to.”
The man’s eyes seemed riveted on Andy in a
peculiar way that made the boy squirm. There
was something uncanny about it all. Andy experienced
a decidedly disagreeable creeping sensation.
The inventor was silent for a moment or
two. Then he asked:
“Who sent you here?”
“I wasn’t sent by any one. I just came.”
“How?”
“With Mr. Parks—in his airship.”
“Are you going to stay here?”
“He has hired me at ten dollars a week and
board,” proudly announced Andy.
“He’s a good man,” said Morse. “I don’t
think he’d pick you out if you were a bad boy.
What time is it?”
This question was so significant that it flustered
Andy. He drew out his watch in a blundering
sort of a way, fancying that he detected the faint
shadow of a smile on the face of his interlocutor.
“It’s half-past seven,” he reported.
“Watch keep good time?”
“Yes, sir. The man who gave it to me was
the man whom I took you for.”
“Good timepiece.”
“Splendid.”
“U-m. What’s your name?”
“Andy Nelson.”
“I’m going to trust you, Andy Nelson; I don’t
think I will have any reason to regret it.”
“I will try to deserve your confidence, Mr.
Morse.”
“Oh, you know my name?”
“Yes, sir. I heard Mr. Parks speak of you.”
“I see—of course. I must be cautious after
this, though. I had an idea that shaving off my
beard would change my appearance, but as you
recognized me, I must not be seen by outsiders
without my goggles. Andy, I do not wish Mr.
Parks to know anything about that handcuff affair
of mine.”
“All right, sir.”
“I suppose it struck you suspiciously.”
“It did at first,” confessed Andy. “When I
came to think it over, though, I remembered that
I was in trouble and acting suspiciously myself.
I knew that I was right in my motives, and I
hoped you were.”
“I’ll tell you something, Andy,” said the inventor.
“It won’t be much for the present, but
later I may tell you a good deal more. A bad
crowd have a hold on me, a certain power that has
enabled them to scare me and rob me at times.
I am an inventor. They knew that I was getting up
a new airship. They captured me and locked me
up. They demanded a price for my liberty—that
I would disclose my plan to them. I consented.
They even forced me to make a working
model. The night before the day I intended to
complete it I made my escape, but handcuffed.
You came along and helped me on the way to freedom.
After I left the barge on the creek I got to
the home of a friend, disguised myself, and came
here and hired out with Mr. Parks.”
“But your invention the rascals got away from
you?”
“Let them keep it,” responded the inventor, “so
long as they do not trouble me again. There was
a defect in the model they stole from me. Unless
they are smart enough to remedy it, they may
find out they haven’t made so big a haul as they
anticipate. Look here, Andy.”
Mr. Morse beckoned our hero over to the
work-bench and showed him a drawing.
“The work you see in the big room,” he said,
“is the skeleton of this machine. I am basing
great hopes on it. I want to make a record in
aviation, for I believe it will be the most promising
field for inventors for many years to come.
If you are going to work with us, you should know
what is going on. This is my new model.”
As Mr. Morse spoke, he became intent and
eloquent. He lost himself in his enthusiasm as an
inventor. Andy was a ready listener, and it was
delightful to him to explore this marvel of machines.
“What I hope to accomplish,” explained Mr.
Morse, “is to construct a combined steerer and
balancer on one lever. I aim to make this lever
not only tilt the flyer to which it is attached on
a transverse axis, but also on a longitudinal axis.
It is called a double-action horizontal rudder, and
if I succeed will give instantaneous control of a
flying-machine under all conditions, be it a high
wind or the failing of motive power. I combine
with it a self-righting automatic balance. It is a
brand-new idea. I thought those villains I have
told you about had stolen my greatest idea, but
this beats it two to one.”
“Will they try to use the invention they stole
from you?” inquired Andy.
“Of course they will—to their cost—if they
are too rash,” declared the inventor seriously.
“That was a rudder idea, too.”
“Tell me about it, Mr. Morse,” pleaded Andy;
“I am greatly interested in it all.”
“I am going to tell you, Andy,” responded the
inventor, “because I believe the men who imprisoned
me will try to enter the prize contest, and I
want to keep track of them. I don’t dare venture
among them myself, but I may ask you to seek
them out and bring me some news.”
“Yes, sir,” said Andy.
“The head man of the crowd is an old circus
man named Duske. It is a good name for him,
for he is dark in looks and deed. The idea they
have stolen from me is this: In place of the conventional
airship rudder, I planned to equip the
aeroplane with movable rear sections of pipe, the
main sections of this pipe to extend the full length
of the craft. Suction wheels at each end of the
main tube force the air backwards through the
tube, the force of this air explosion driving the
nose of the craft into the air when the movable
section of the tube is raised, lowering it when it
is pointed downwards, and providing for its
lateral progress on the same principle. Do you
follow me?”
“I can almost see the machine right before my
eyes, the way you tell about it!” said Andy, with
breathless enthusiasm.
CHAPTER X—LEARNING TO FLY
That was the first of many pleasant and interesting
visits that Andy had with Mr. Morse, the
inventor. By the end of the week the automobile
boy had become an airship enthusiast. Andy was
charmed. When he was not pottering about the
Eagle or sailing the air with John Parks, he was
with Mr. Morse in a congenial atmosphere of
mechanics.
Although John Parks was now engrossed in
using his glider, he had not given up using his
dirigible balloon, and he also gave Andy some
lessons in running this.
The dirigible was shaped like a fat cigar, and
had under it a frame-work carrying a thirty horse-power
motor and two six-foot suction wheels.
When there was no wind, the dirigible could sail
quite well, but in a breeze it was hard to make
much progress, and to use it in a high wind was
entirely out of the question.
HE GAVE ANDY SOME LESSONS IN RUNNING THIS
“The monoplanes and biplanes make the old-style
balloons and the dirigibles take a back seat,”
said the Airship King. “But, just the same, if
your motor gives out, a dirigible is a nice thing
to float down in.”
“I like the dirigible,” answered Andy. “But
for speed, give me the new kind of flying machines.”
Andy was in his element among the lathes,
vises, saws, and general tools of the workshop.
Once or twice he made practical suggestions that
pleased Morse greatly. The inventor rarely left
the camp, and when he did it was generally after
dark. There was material and aeroplane parts
to purchase. These commissions were entrusted
to Andy, and he showed intelligence in his selections.
Once he had to go fifty miles on the railroad
to a factory to have some special devices
made. He used such dispatch, and was so successful
in getting just what was wanted by staying
with the order till it was filled, that Mr.
Morse warmly commended him to Parks.
Andy had drifted completely away from the
old life. He was fast forgetting all about the
Talbots and his former troubles at Princeville.
One day, in a burst of satisfaction over a trial
flight Andy made alone in a monoplane, John
Parks declared that he would not rest until he
had made Andy the junior air king of America.
Then Andy felt that he had found his mission
in life, and pursued his new avocation with more
fervor than ever.
About all Parks thought or talked of was the
coming aero meet. Andy learned that he was investing
over two thousand dollars in maintaining
the camp and in building the machine with which
he was to compete for the prize. His success
would mean something more than the winning of
the five thousand dollars. It would add to the
laurels already gained as the Air King in his former
balloon experience, and would make him a
prominent figure in the aviation field.
“Come on, Andy,” he said to his young assistant
one afternoon. “We’ll stroll over to the
main grounds and see what new wrinkle these ambitious
fellows are getting up.”
They spent an interesting hour over in the
main enclosure where prospective exhibitors were
located. There was quite a crowd of visitors.
Some of the aviators were explaining the make-up
of their machines, and others were making try-out
flights. Parks and Andy were passing to
the outfield where the test ascensions were in
progress, when the former suddenly left the side
of his companion.
Andy was surprised to see him hasten up behind
a sinister-looking man, who was apparently
explaining to an old farmer about the machines.
Parks seized the man rudely by the arm and faced
him around squarely. The latter scowled, and
then a strange, wilted expression came into his
dark face.
“Excuse this gentleman, if you will,” said Parks
to the farmer.
“Why, suttinly,” bobbed the ruralite. “Much
obleeged to him for being so perlite in showing
me ’round.”
Parks drew the shrinking man he had halted
to the side of a tent.
“Now, then, Gib Duske,” he said sternly,
“what were you up to with that greenhorn?”
“He told you, didn’t he?” growled the other;
“showing him the sights.”
“You’re given to doing such things for nothing!”
rejoined Parks sarcastically. “I recall some
of your exploits in that line in the rural districts
when you were with the circus.”
“See here,” broke out the other angrily, “what
is it your business?”
“Just this,” retorted Parks steadily; “we’re trying
to run a decent enterprise here, and such persons
as you have got to give an account of themselves
or vacate. What’s your game, anyhow?”
“I’m up to no game that I know of,” sullenly
muttered the man called Gib Duske. “If you
must know, I’ve entered my airship for the race.”
“You!” exclaimed Parks; “‘Your airship!’
Where did you get an airship?”
“I suppose I have friends to back me like anybody
else when they see a show for their money.
I’m an old balloonist. A syndicate, knowing my
professional skill, has put up the capital to give
me a try.”
“Oh, they have?” observed Parks incredulously.
“I’d like to see your syndicate.”
“And I’ve got my machine,” declared Duske
excitedly, “I’d have you know. I’ve heard you’re
entered. Fair play, then, and I’m going to beat
the field.”
Parks eyed his companion in speculative silence
for a minute or two. Then he said:
“You talk about fair play. Good! You’ll get
it here, if you’re square. If you’re not, you had
best take my warning right now, and cut out for
good. There will be no balloon slitting like there
was at a certain race you were in two years ago
out West. The first freak or false play you make
to *** an honest go, I’ll expose you to the
field.”
“I’ve got no such intentions,” mumbled Duske,
with a malicious glance at his challenger.
“See you don’t, that’s all,” retorted Parks, and
walked off. “You noticed that man?” he added,
as he rejoined Andy, who had listened with interest
to the conversation.
“Yes, particularly,” answered Andy, really able
to tell his employer more than he dared.
“Whenever you run across him,” went on the
Air King, “keep your eyes wide open. I’d like
to know just how much truth there is in his talk
about entering for the race.”
“Is he a bad man, Mr. Parks?” inquired Andy.
“He was once a confidence man,” explained the
aeronaut. “When I knew him he was giving balloon
ascensions at a circus. He had a hired crowd
picking pockets while people were staring up into
the air watching his trapeze acts. Once at a race
he slyly slit the balloon of an antagonist, who
was nearly killed by the fall.”
“I’ll find out just what he is doing,” exclaimed
Andy.
“You can manage, for he knows me,” observed
Parks.
Andy said no more. He was pretty sure from
the name and description that the fellow whom
his employer had just called down was the enemy
that Mr. Morse had told him about. He wished
he could tell Mr. Parks all that he knew and surmised,
but he could not break his promise to the
inventor.
“Hello, there, Ridley!” hailed Parks, as they
came to where a lithe, undersized man was volubly
boasting to an open-mouthed crowd about the
superior merits of his machine. “Bragging
again?”
“Go on, John Parks,” called the little man
good-naturedly. “I’m not in your class, so what
are you jumping on me for?”
“Oh, just to stir you up and keep you encouraged.
I hear you’ve got a machine that will land
just as steadily and balance on top of a telegraph-pole
as on a prairie.”
“That’s pretty near the truth, John Parks,” declared
Ridley. “I can’t make a mile in thirty
seconds, but I can get to the ground on a straight
dive ahead of your clumsy old Eagle, or any other
racer on the field.”
“Why, Ridley,” retorted Parks, in a vaunting
way, “I’ve got a boy here who can give you a
handicap and double discount you.”
“Is that him?” inquired Ridley, with a stare at
Andy.
“That’s him out of harness,” laughed Parks.
“Like to see him do something?”
“Just to show you’re all bluster, I would,” answered
Ridley.
“Machine in order?”
“True as a trivet.”
“Andy, give them a sample of a real bird diving,
will you?”
“All right,” said Andy.
He had not been tutored by his skillful employer
vainly. Andy was in excellent practice.
He got into the clear, started up the Ridley machine,
and took a shoot on a straight slant up
into the air about one hundred and fifty feet.
A cry of surprise went up from the watching
group as Andy suddenly let the biplane slide on
a sharp angle towards the ground, shutting off
the power at the same time.
Again reaching a fair height, he tipped the biplane
on an angle of five degrees and came down
so fast that the spectators thought something was
wrong. When the machine was within a yard of
the ground, Andy brought it to the horizontal
with ease and made a pretty landing.
“Well, Ridley,” rallied John Parks, as the stupefied
owner of the machine stared in open-mouthed
wonder, “what do you say to that?”
“What do I say,” repeated Ridley. “I say,
look out for your laurels, John Parks. That boy
is a wonder!”
CHAPTER XI—SPYING ON THE ENEMY
“There is that man again, Mr. Parks.”
“Duske? Yes.”
“Shall I follow him?”
“I’d like to know just what he is about.”
“I would like to try and find out,” declared
Andy, with more eagerness than his employer suspected.
“All right, Andy; look him up a bit. Watch
out for trouble, though, for he is a dangerous
man.”
It was late in the afternoon of the day succeeding
Andy’s sensational performance, and Parks
and his young assistant were again on the aviation
field.
Andy had made out the man whom Parks had
called Duske carrying two cans of gasoline past
a tent. He did not seem to have observed Parks,
and Andy did not believe that he knew him. Andy
left the side of his employer, and, circulating
around kept Duske in sight from a distance.
The boy had not said anything to Mr. Morse
about Duske. He felt certain that Duske was
one of the enemies the inventor had described.
Just at present, however, Andy considered it
would be unwise to disturb Morse. The latter
had almost completed the new airship. His mind
was absorbed in his task, and he was working
day and night.
Duske passed the last tent on the field, and then
struck off beyond some old railroad sheds to the
side of an abandoned switchyard. Scattered here
and there over this space were several tents. They
were occupied by aero contestants who had not
been able to get a favorable location on the big
field, or by those who had sought this seclusion
because they wished to be isolated with some fancied
new invention, the details of which they did
not wish their contestants to learn.
Finally Duske seemed to arrive at his destination.
It was where stout canvas had been
stretched about fifty feet out from the blank side
of an old frame shed. These strips of canvas
and the shed cut out completely a view of what
was beyond. The front of this enclosure was
guarded by a roof set up on posts, this leading
into the entrance tent of the main enclosure.
A man about as sinister looking as Duske himself
was cooking something on a stove, and two
others were lounging on a bench near by. Duske
carried the gasoline cans out of sight. Andy got
around to the side of the enclosure, way back
near its shed end.
It was getting well on toward nightfall, and he
felt that he was secure in making some bold,
prompt investigations. There was no doubt that
the large tent enclosed the airship which Duske
and his crowd intended to enter for the race.
Andy attempted to lift the canvas at one or two
points, but found it securely pegged to the ground.
“Humph!” he soliloquized, “everything nailed
down tight. Must make their trial flights at midnight.
They must think they have got a treasure
in there. I’ve got to see it.”
Finally Andy came to a laced section of the canvas,
which he was able to press apart a foot or
more by tight tugging. He squeezed through, and
stood inside the enclosure.
There was light enough to show outlines, and
with a good deal of curiosity Andy walked around
and inspected an aeroplane propped up on a platform
in the center of the enclosure. He came to
a halt at one end of the machine. Two long hollow
tubes extended beyond the folding planes.
“Why,” breathed Andy, “it’s the idea they
stole from Mr. Morse. Here’s the suction apparatus,
and all!”
“Hi, there! who are you?”
The challenge came so sharp and sudden that
Andy was taken completely off his guard. Two
men had come from the front tent, their footsteps
being noiseless on the soft earth floor. One
of them was the man Duske.
“Just looking around,” replied Andy, edging
away and pulling his cap down over his eyes.
“How did you get in here?”
“Slit in the canvas.”
“Don’t let him go—grab him,” ordered
Duske’s companion quickly, and Andy began to
back towards the canvas.
Duske reached out and made a grab at Andy.
The latter dodged, but Duske’s hand landed on
his cap. His glance falling to the inside peak,
he could not help reading there the words:
“Eagle—Andy Nelson.”
Nearly everything worn by Parks and Andy,
as all the parts of the Eagle, were marked, so
that in case of an accident identification would
be easy.
“‘Eagle’!” cried Duske, bristling up. “Do you
belong to the Eagle crowd?”
“He’s a spy—head him off!” shouted the other
man.
“‘Eagle’—‘Andy Nelson’,” continued Duske.
“That’s your name, is it? Now then, what are
you snooping around here for?”
“What’s that, what’s that?” challenged the
other man quickly. “‘Andy Nelson?’ Say,
Duske, that sounds familiar. I just read that
name somewhere—I have it—in a newspaper——”
“Thunder! he’s slipped us,” exclaimed Duske.
Both men had started for Andy. The latter
let them come on, ducked down, dove straight
between them, ran to the slitted canvas, squeezed
through, and sprinted away from the spot on
feet of fleetness.
“I don’t know how much I have mixed up
affairs,” he reflected, as he made for the home
camp. “Those fellows know my name and that
I am with Mr. Parks. What bothers me most,
is what the man said about seeing my name in a
newspaper. Some one here—in an automobile.”
As Andy reached home he observed an automobile
in front of the living quarters. A man
came out as Andy stood wondering who the visitor
could be. Andy noticed that he carried a
small black case.
“A doctor,” he decided hastily. “Can any one
be sick? What has happened?” he asked, as
Scipio came out.
“Hahd luck, chile, hahd luck!” replied the
cook very seriously. “Yo bettah see Mistah
Parks right away.”
Andy hurried to the sitting room. Lying covered
up on a couch, his right arm in splints, and
looking pale and distressed, was the aeronaut.
“Oh, Mr. Parks! what is the matter?” asked
Andy in alarm.
“Everything off, lad,” replied his employer,
with a wince and a groan. “I’ve had a bad fall,
arm broken in two places, and we can’t make the
airship race.”
CHAPTER XII—TRACED DOWN
“Be careful, Mr. Parks!”
“Foh goodness sake, sah! Yo want to break
dat arm ober again?”
Mr. Morse, the inventor, and Scipio, the cook,
made a frantic rush for the aeronaut. They were
grouped together in the center of the space occupied
by their camp. The eyes of each had been
fixed on an object floating about in the air over-head.
All had been pleased and excited, but
particularly Parks. Now as the object aloft
made a skim that seemed to beat a mile a minute
dash, John Parks lost all control of himself.
He forgot the fractured arm he had carried
in a sling for three days, and actually tried to
wave it, as he burst forth:
“Morse, you’re a genius, and that boy, Andy
Nelson, is the birdman of the century!”
Andy deserved the praise fully that was being
bestowed upon him. That morning Mr. Morse
had completed the Racing Star, his new airship.
At the present moment it was making its initial
flight.
The relieved, contented face of Morse showed
his satisfaction over the fact that his work was
done and done well. Scipio stared goggle-eyed.
As to John Parks, expert sky sailor that he was,
his practiced eye in one moment had discerned
the fact that the Racing Star was the latest and
best thing out in aviation, and he went fairly wild
over the masterly way in which Andy handled
the machine.
Andy aloft, had eye, nerve and breath strained
to test the splendid device to its complete capacity.
He was himself amazed at the beauty
the utility of the dainty creation just turned out
from the workshop. What the Airship King had
taught him Andy had not forgotten. After
five minutes spent in exploiting every angle of
skill he possessed, Andy brought the superb aeroplane
down to the ground, graceful as a swan.
John Parks ran up to him, chuckling with delight.
“You wonder! you daisy!” he roared, shaking
Andy’s hand with his well arm.
Andy was flushed with triumph and excitement.
“If there’s any wonder to talk about,” he said,
“it’s that glorious piece of work, the Racing Star,
and the splendid man who made it.”
Morse smiled, a rare thing for him. Then he
said modestly:
“It will do the work, handled as you manage
it, Andy.”
“I feel like a caged lion, or an eagle with its
wings clipped!” stormed Parks, with a glance at
his bandaged arm. “Why did I go trying to show
a bungling amateur how to run an old wreck of a
monoplane, and get my arm broken for my pains,
and lose that five-thousand-dollar prize!”
“There is time to enter a substitute, Mr.
Parks,” suggested the inventor.
“Who?” demanded the aeronaut scornfully.
“Some amateur who will sell me out or bungle
the race, and maybe smash up my last thousand
dollars?”
“Mr. Parks,” said Andy, in a quick breath,
and colored up and paused suddenly. “I’d be
glad to try it. Say the word, and I’ll train day
and night for the race.”
“Andy, win it, and half of that five thousand
dollars is yours.”
From excitement and incoherency, the little
group got down to a serious discussion of the
situation during the next half hour.
“It’s just one week from the race,” said Andy.
“What can’t I do in learning to run the Racing
Star in that time?”
“Andy, you must make it,” declared Parks energetically.
“It just seems as if my heart would
break if we lost this record.”
Mr. Morse got out a chart he had drawn of
the run to be made on the twenty-first of the
month.
“The course is very nearly a straight one,”
explained Parks; “from the grounds here to
Springfield, where the State fair is going on.
Pace will be set by a Central Northern train,
carrying assistants and repairs. The fleet will be
directed by a large American flag floating from
the rear of the train. It’s almost a beeline, Andy,
and the Racing Star is built for speed.”
They made another ascent the next morning.
Air and breeze conditions were most favorable
for the try-out. Seated amidships, wearing a
leather jacket, cap and gloves, Andy had the
motor keyed up to its highest speed. The quick
sequence of its exhaust swelled like a rapid-fire
gun.
The machine rolled forward, the propellers
beat the air, and the Racing Star rose on a smooth
parabola. Andy attempted some volplane skits
that were fairly hair-raising. He raced with real
birds. He practiced with the wind checks. For
half an hour he kept up a series of practice stunts
of the most difficult character.
“Oh, but you’re a crack scholar, Andy Nelson,”
declared the delighted Parks, as the Racing
Star came to moorings again, light as a feather.
“I think myself I am getting on to most of the
curves,” said Andy. “The only question is can I
keep it up on a long stretch?”
“Practice makes perfect, you know,” suggested
Mr. Morse.
Andy felt that he had about reached the acme
of his mechanical ambition. When he went to
bed that night the thought of the coming race
kept him awake till midnight. When he finally
went to sleep, it was to dream of aerial flights
that resolved themselves into a series of the most
exciting nightmares.
No developments came from Andy’s experience
with the Duske crowd. Once in a while he worried
some over the reference of Duske’s companions
to seeing his name in the newspapers.
“Either it was about my trouble at Princeville,
or some of these reporters writing up the race
got my name incidentally,” decided Andy.
“Anyhow, I can’t afford to trouble about it.”
Andy rarely ventured away from the camp
after dark. In fact, ever since entering the employment
of Mr. Parks he had not mixed much
with outsiders. He had his Princeville friends
and the Duske crowd constantly in mind. But one
hot evening he went forth for some ice cream
for the crowd.
The distance to a town restaurant was not
great. Andy hurried across the freight tracks.
Just as he passed a switchman’s shanty, he fancied
he heard some one utter a slight cry of surprise.
Two persons dodged back out of the light
of a switch lantern. Andy, however, paid little
attention to the episode. He reached the restaurant,
got the ice cream in a pasteboard box, and
started back for the camp without any mishap
or adventure.
Just as Andy crossed a patch of ground covered
with high rank weeds, he became aware that
somebody was following him. A swift backward
glance revealed two slouching figures. They
pressed forward as Andy momentarily halted.
“Now then!” spoke one of them suddenly.
Andy dodged as something was thrown towards
him, but not in time to avoid a looped
rope. It was handled deftly, for before he knew
it his hands were bound tightly to his side.
One of the twain ran at him and tripped him
up. The other twined the loose line about Andy’s
ankles.
“Got him!” sounded a triumphant voice.
“Good business,” chirped his companion, and
then Andy thrilled in some dismay, as he recognized
his captors as Gus Talbot and Dale Billings.
“Hello, Andy Nelson,” said Gus Talbot.
Gus’s voice was sneering and offensive as he
hailed the captive. His companion looked satisfied
and triumphant as he stood over Andy, as
if he expected their victim to applaud him for
doing something particularly smart.
“See here, Gus,” observed Dale, “I’d better
get, hey?”
“Right off, too,” responded Gus. “If there’s
the ready cash in it, all right. If there isn’t we’ll
get him on the way to Princeville ourselves some
way.”
“Can you manage him alone?”
“I’ll try to,” observed Gus vauntingly, “I’ll just
have a pleasant little chat with him for the sake
of old times, while I sample this ice cream of
his—um-um—it ought to be prime.”
Dale sped away on some mysterious errand.
Gus picked up the box of ice cream that Andy
had dropped and opened it. He tore off one of
its pasteboard flaps, fashioned it into an impromptu
spoon, and proceeded to fill his mouth
with the cream.
“Don’t you get up,” he warned Andy. “If
you do, I’ll knock you down again.”
“Big ***, aren’t you!” flared out Andy, provoked
and indignant—“especially where you’ve
got a fellow whipsawed?”
“Betcher life,” sneered Gus maliciously.
“Things worked to a charm. Got a hint from
some airship fellows that you was somewhere
around these diggings. Watched out for you and
caught you just right, hey?”
The speaker sat down among the weeds in
front of Andy. The latter noticed that his face
was grimed and his hands stained with dirt. His
clothes were wrinkled and disordered as if he had
been sleeping in them. From what he observed,
Andy decided that the son of the Princeville
garage owner and his companion were on a ***.
They looked like runaways, and did not appear
to be at all prosperous.
“Say,” blurted out Gus, digging down into the
ice cream, as if he was hungry, “you might better
have turned up that two hundred dollars for dad.”
“Why had I?” demanded Andy.
“It would have saved you a good deal of
trouble. It’s a stroke of luck, running across you
just as we’d spent our last dime. How will you
like to go back to Princeville and face the music?”
“What music?”
“Oh, yes, you don’t know! Haven’t read
the papers, I suppose? Didn’t know you was
wanted?”
“Who wants me?”
“Nor that a reward was out for you?”
“Why?”
“Say, are you so innocent as all that, or just
plain slick?” drawled Gus, with a crafty grin.
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Farmer Jones’ barn.”
“Oh——” Andy gave a start. He began to
understand now. “What about Farmer Jones’
barn?”
“You know, I guess. It was set on fire and
burned down. They have been looking everywhere
for the firebug, and offer a fifty-dollar reward.”
“Is that the reason why you and Dale have
left Princeville?” demanded Andy coolly.
“Eh, well, I guess not,” cried Gus. “Huh!
Everybody knows how you did it out of spite
against Jones because he hindered you running
away from dad. Why, they found your cap right
near the barn ruins.”
“Is that so?” said Andy quietly. “How did
it get there?”
“How did it get there? You dropped it there,
of course.”
“Purposely to get blamed for it, I suppose?”
commented Andy. “That’s pretty thin, Gus Talbot,
seeing that you know and your father knows
that my cap was taken away from me when he
locked me up at the garage, and I had no chance
to get it later. You left the cap near the burned
barn, Gus Talbot, and you know it.”
“Me? Rot!” *** Gus, but he stopped
eating the ice cream and acted restless.
“In fact,” continued Andy definitely, “I can
prove that both you and Dale were sneaking
about the Jones’ place a short time before the fire
broke out.”
“Bosh!” mumbled Gus.
“Further than that, I can tell you word for
word what passed between you two. Listen.”
Andy remembered clearly every incident of his
flight from the haystack in Farmer Jones’ field.
He recited graphically the appearance of Gus
and Dale, and the remark he had overheard.
Gus sat staring at him in an uneasy way. He
acted bored, and seemed at a loss to answer.
It was more than half an hour before Dale
returned. He acted glum and mad.
“Is it all right?” inquired Gus eagerly.
“Right nothing!”
“Get the money?”
“No.”
“What’s the trouble?”
“I saw a constable and told him I could give
him a chance to make a fifty-dollar reward, us to
get ten. He heard me through and said it
wouldn’t do.”
“Why wouldn’t it?” demanded Gus.
“Because this is in another county, and he’d
have to get the warrant. Said it was too much
trouble to bother with it.”
“Humph! what will we do now?” muttered
Gus in a disgusted way.
“That’s easy. Get Andy over the county line,
and find someone else to take the job off our
hands,” replied Dale Billings.
CHAPTER XIII—JIU-JITSU
“Come on,” ordered Gus to Andy, unfastening
the end of the rope and giving it a jerk.
“Hey, not that way,” dissented Dale.
“Why not?”
“Think you can parade him through the town
without attracting attention? We’ve got to be
careful to cut out from here without a soul seeing
us till we strike a country road. You march,”
commanded Gus anew to his captive, heading in
another direction. “And you just so much as
peep if we meet anybody, and you get a whack
of this big stick.”
Andy submitted to circumstances. He figured
out that it would be some time before his captors
could perfect their arrangements for interesting
some officer of the law in their scheme. He
readily guessed that for some reason or other
they did not wish or dare to return personally to
Princeville. Andy calculated that it was nearly
ten miles to the county line. He believed he would
have half a dozen chances to break away from
his captors before they reached it.
“Huh, what you going to do now?” inquired
Gus in a grumbling tone, as they came directly
up against a high board fence.
“You wait here a minute,” directed Dale.
The speaker ran down the fence in one direction
to face at its end a busy field occupied by
aviation tents. He tried the opposite direction
to find matters still worse, for there the fence
ended against a lighted street of the town.
“What’s beyond the fence?” inquired Gus.
“Not much of anything—a sort of a prairie,”
reported Dale, peering through a crack in the
fence.
“We can’t scale it.”
“Not with Andy in tow. Here we are,
though.”
Dale had discovered a loose board. He began
tugging at its lower end, and succeeded in pulling
it far enough out to admit of their crowding
through the opening. He went first, grabbing
and holding Andy till Gus made the passage.
“Keep away from those lights over yonder,”
ordered Dale, indicating a point on the broad
expanse where some aeroplane tents showed.
“This way, I tell you,” he added in a hoarse, hurried
whisper. “There’s a man.”
Andy pushed forward, came to a dead halt,
bracing himself as his captors tried to pull him
out of range of a man seated on a hummock,
apparently watching some night manœuvres of
airships over where the lights showed.
“Mister, oh, mister!” shouted Andy.
He received a blow on the mouth from the
fist of Gus, but that did not prevent him from
renewing the outcry. The man sprang quickly
to his feet and came towards them.
He was small, thin, dark-faced, and so undersized
and effeminate-looking that Andy at once
decided that he would not count for much in a
tussle with two stout, active boys. Dale thought
so, too, evidently, for he squared up in front of
Andy, trying to hide him from the view of the
stranger, while Gus attempted to pull his captive
back towards the fence. Andy, however, gave a
jerk that drew Gus almost off his feet, and a
bunt to Dale that sent him forcibly to one side.
“What is this?” spoke the stranger in a soft,
mellow, almost womanly tone of voice. “Did
some one then call?”
“It was I,” proclaimed Andy. “These fellows
have tied me up and are trying to kidnap me.”
“It is wrong, I will so investigate,” said the
little man, coming straight up to the group and
scanning each keenly in turn.
“See here,” spoke Dale, springing in front of
the man, “this is none of your business.”
“Oh, yes, it is,” returned the stranger in the
same gentle, purring way. “I am interested.
Speak on, young man.”
“Get him away!” directed Dale in a sharp
whisper to Gus.
Then, quick as lightning, he made a pass at
the stranger. He was double the weight of the
latter and half a head taller. Andy expected to
see his champion flatten out like the weakling he
looked.
“Ah,” said the latter, “it is so you answer
questions. My way, then.”
What he did he did so quickly that Andy could
not follow all of his movements. The hands of
the little man moved about like those of an expert
weaver at the loom. The result was a
marvel. In some way he caught Dale around
the neck. The next moment he swung him from
the ground past his shoulder and his adversary
landed with a thump.
Gus dropped the rope and ran at the stranger,
club uplifted. Again the wiry strength of the
little man was exerted. He seemed to stoop, and
his arms enclosed Gus about the hips. There was
a tug and tussle. Gus was wrenched from his
footing, and went skidding to the ground, face
down, for nearly two yards.
“Thunder!” he shouted, wiping the sand from
his mouth.
THE WIRY STRENGTH OF THE LITTLE MAN WAS EXERTED
“Go,” said the stranger, advancing upon the
prostrate twain, who scrambled promptly to their
feet.
Both dove for the loose plank in the fence
and disappeared through it. The stranger drew
out a pocket-knife and relieved Andy of his
bonds.
“I look at you and then at those two,” he said
simply, “and your face tells me the true story.
Where would you go?”
Andy pointed in the direction of the Parks’
Aerodome, and the man walked by his side in its
direction.
“I don’t care to have those fellows find out
where I am working,” explained Andy. “Mister,”
he added admiringly, “how did you do it?”
“It was simple jiu-jitsu.”
“Eh? Oh, yes, I’ve heard of that,” said Andy,
but vaguely. “It’s a new Japanese wrestling
trick, isn’t it?”
“I am from Japan,” observed his companion
with a courteous dignity of manner that impressed
Andy.
“I see,” nodded Andy, “and you come from a
wonderful people.”
“We strive to learn,” replied his companion.
“That is why I am here. I was sent to this
country to study aeronautics. Besides that, the
science has a peculiar attraction for me. My
father was chief kite maker to the family of the
Mikado.”
“Is it possible?” said Andy.
“I therefore have an absorbing interest in
your airmen and their daring work. You must
know that we make wonderful kites in my home
country.”
“I have heard something of it,” said Andy.
“Two hundred years ago many of the principles
now used in your airships were used in our
kite flying, only we never tried to fly ourselves.”
“We have a gentleman up at our camp who
would be just delighted to talk with you,” declared
Andy enthusiastically. “He is an inventor,
a Mr. Morse.”
“I should like to meet him,” said the Japanese.
“Then come right along with me,” invited
Andy cordially; “only, say, please, don’t mention
the fix you found me in.”
“It shall be so,” declared his companion.
Andy made sure that his recent captors were
not following them as they made a cut across a
field and reached the Parks’ camp. He led his
guest into the sitting room of the living building,
to find his employer and Mr. Morse there. Andy
introduced his companion. It did not take long
for the inventor to discover a kindred spirit in
the Japanese, who gave his name as Tsilsuma.
That night after he had got into bed Andy
wondered if he had not better tell Mr. Morse or
his employer his entire story, and the former
about the near proximity of his old-time enemy,
Duske. Then, too, he worried some over the
appearance of Gus and Dale and his daily risk
of being arrested. With daylight, however, Andy
forgot all these minor troubles.
There was to be a race for a small prize that
afternoon on the aviation field, and Parks had
arranged for the Racing Star to participate. The
aeronaut was busy half the morning seeing to the
machine, while Mr. Morse flitted about adjusting
a device suggested by the intelligent Tsilsuma for
folding the floats under the aeroplane. The Japanese,
too, had suggested sled runners in front
and wheels at the rear for starting gear.
The Racing Star had not appeared in the general
field before, and this was a kind of qualification
flight. Just after two o’clock Parks made
his final inspection of the bearings of the motors
and the word to go was given. Andy sailed over
the railroad tracks and landed in the field half
a mile distant, with a dexterity that made his
rivals there take a good deal of notice of him
and the Racing Star.
When the word came Andy started the motor,
and a friend of the aeronaut tugged at the propellers.
With a blast that resembled a cyclone
the airship started.
The helpers worked at the rudders, and after
a run of only seventy-five feet the Racing Star
shot up into the air.
Andy tried a preliminary stunt that he had
practiced for two days past. It was to fly around
the field in a figure eight at a height of ninety-five
feet. Then, just to test the excellency of the
machine, he plunged for the ground.
“The boy will kill himself!” shouted the man
in charge of the race, but just at the critical
moment Andy shifted his steering planes and
flew across the ground, barely skimming the grass.
Once in this fashion he went around the course,
then another upward lunge and he circled back
to the starting point and came gently to earth.
The crowds sent up an enthusiastic roar.
Four other machines made their exhibition in
turn. Two went through a clumsy process, one
became disabled, and the other retired with the
derisive criticism of “Grasshopper!” as its pilot
failed to lift it more than ten feet from the ground
at any time.
“Mind the wind checks, Andy, lad,” warned
John Parks anxiously, as the three aeroplanes
were ranged for the prize test of a mile run
around the course.
“I’ll be the pathfinder or nothing!” declared
Andy, his eyes bright and observant, his nerves
tingling with the excitement of the moment.
“Go!”
The three powerful mechanical birds arose in
the air, dainty creations of grace and beauty, Andy
in the lead. Then his nearest competitor passed
him. Then No. 3 shot ahead of the other two,
and then the turn.
“Huzza!” breathed Parks.
At his side, safe from recognition in his great
disfiguring goggles, Mr. Morse moved restlessly
from foot to foot. The Racing Star had accomplished
what he had worked so hard to bring
about—a true circle in a rapid turn.
The two other machines bungled. One nearly
upset. Down the course came Andy, headed like
an arrow for the starting point. A slanting dive,
and the Racing Star skimmed the ground fully
five hundred feet in advance of the nearest
opponent.
Watch in hand, John Parks ran up to Andy,
his face aglow with professional pride and
delight.
“Won the race—but better than that you have
beat the home record by eight seconds!”
“Winner, the Racing Star,” sang out the
starter.
And then he added:
“Time: forty-eight seconds and seven-eighths.”
“Hurrah!” shouted John Parks, throwing his
hat in the air.
CHAPTER XIV—THE OLD LEATHER POCKETBOOK
“No sky-sailing to-day, Andy,” said John
Parks, the aeronaut.
“I guess you are right,” answered Andy.
“A rest won’t do you any harm. There are
three days before the last event, and plenty of
time to try Morse’s new wrinkles.”
“I think I’ll go and see what the latest one
is,” said Andy.
It was a rainy day with a strong breeze, and
waste of time, Andy well knew, to attempt any
flights under the conditions. He went to the workshop
to find Mr. Morse and the Japanese deep
in discussion over some angle of a new reversible
plane, they called it. Tsilsuma had become almost
a fixture at the Parks’ camp. He was unobtrusive
generally, but his instincts and mission to
delve and absorb were accommodated and encouraged
by the inventor, and a strong friendship
had sprung up between the two.
Andy wandered about promiscuously, time
hanging heavily on his hands. Finally he settled
down in the comfortable sitting room looking
over some books on scientific subjects, and
picking out here and there a simple fact among
a group of very abstruse ones.
“If ever I get any money ahead,” he observed,
“I’ll put some of it into education, and I’ll study
up aeronautics first thing. It seems as if it’s
natural for me to see right through a machine
first time I see it, but I don’t understand the real
principles, for all that. No, sir, it’s brains like
Mr. Morse has got that counts. If sky-sailing is
going to last, and I follow it up, I’m going to dig
deep right down into it, college fashion, and really
understand my business. Hello!”
Andy had laid aside the scientific book and had
taken up a newspaper. Glancing over its columns,
his eye became fixed upon an advertisement occupying
a prominent position just under some local
reading matter. This is what it read.
Notice—Important!
Lost—Somewhere on a train between Macon
and Greenville, an old leather pocketbook, marked
Robert Webb, Springfield, and containing $200.
The finder may keep the money, and upon return
of the pocketbook will be handsomely rewarded.
West, Thorburn & Castle, Attorneys,
Butler Block, Greenville.
“Well,” aspirated Andy energetically, “here’s
something new!”
The incident stirred up his thought so much
that he found himself walking the floor restlessly.
Andy had a vivid imagination, and he built up all
kinds of fancies about the singular advertisement.
“Wonder what lies under all this?” ruminated
Andy. “They don’t want the two hundred dollars,
and they offer more money to get back that old
pocketbook! They will never get the whole of it,
though, that’s certain. Gus Talbot tore off the
flap of it. The rest of it—lying in my old clothes
in that shed on the Collins farm, where I helped
drive those geese. There was nothing left in
the pocketbook, I am sure of that. What can they
want it for, then? Evidently Mr. Webb didn’t
get my postal card.”
Andy could not figure this out. He found it
impossible, however, to dismiss the subject from
his mind.
“People don’t go to all the bother that advertising
shows,” he reasoned, “unless it’s mighty
important. Can I get the pocketbook, though,
after all. I threw it carelessly up on a sort of a
shelf in that old shed, and it may have been removed
and destroyed with other rubbish. I’ve
got the day before me, with nothing to do. I
wouldn’t be at all sorry if the two hundred dollars
came my way in a fair, square manner. I’ll run
down to Greenville. It won’t take four hours,
there and back. I’ll see what there is to this
affair—yes, I’ll do it.”
Andy sought out Mr. Parks and told him he
was going to take a run down to Greenville on
business, and would be back by evening at the
latest. He caught a train about ten o’clock, and
noon found him at the door of the law offices of
West, Thorburn & Castle, Butler Block. Our
hero entered one of three offices, where he saw a
gentleman seated at a desk.
“I would like to see some member of the firm,”
he said.
“I am Mr. West,” answered the lawyer.
“It is about an advertisement you put in the
paper about a lost pocketbook,” explained Andy.
“Oh, indeed,” said Mr. West, looking interested
at once, and arising and closing the door.
“Do you know something about it?”
“I know all about it,” declared Andy. “In
fact, I found it only a few minutes after it was
lost.”
“On the train?”
“No, sir. Mr. Webb did not lose it on the
train.”
“He thinks he did.”
“He is mistaken,” said Andy. “He lost it in
an automobile that took him on a rush run from
Princeville across country to Macon. I was his
chauffeur, and found it.”
“Where is the pocketbook?” inquired the
lawyer eagerly. “Have you brought it with you?”
“No, sir; but I think I can get it.”
“We will make it richly worth your while,”
said Mr. West.
“There is something I had better explain about
it,” said Andy.
“Spent the two hundred dollars?” insinuated
the lawyer, with an indulgent smile.
“Oh, no—the two hundred dollars is waiting
for Mr. Webb to claim it with Mr. Dawson, the
banker at Princeville. Let me tell you my story,
Mr. West, and then you will understand better.”
Andy told his story. He had a surprised, but
intent listener. When he had concluded, the
lawyer shook his hand warmly.
“Young man, you are a good, honest young
fellow, and you will not regret acting square in
this affair. Mr. Webb did not get your postal
card, because he is no longer located at Springfield.
How far from here is the farm you spoke
of where you left the pocketbook?”
“About eighteen miles, I should think.”
“Can you get there by rail?”
“Within two miles of it.”
“And soon?”
“Why, yes, sir,” replied Andy, glancing at his
watch. “There is a train west in a quarter of an
hour.”
“At any expense,” said Mr. West earnestly, “get
there and return with the pocketbook. As
to your reward——”
“Don’t speak of it,” said Andy. “Mr. Webb
treated me handsomely when I brought him over
to Macon. I can’t imagine, though, why he puts
so much store by the pocketbook.”
“If you find it, he will tell you why,” responded
Mr. West. “You will be doing the
best piece of work you ever did in finding that
pocketbook. I shall telegraph my client to come
here at once. He will be here by four o’clock.”
“And I will be here not more than an hour
later,” said Andy.
He left the office on a brisk walk, planning his
proposed route to the old farm. As he reached
the street, he again glanced at his watch and
found he had just ten minutes to reach the depot.
Andy made a running spurt down the pavement.
He dodged an automobile speeding around a
corner, heard its driver shout something he did
not catch. Then he heard the machine turn and
start furiously down the street in the direction
he was going.
Andy saw some people stare at him, halt, and
then look towards the speeding machine. Wondering
what was up, he glanced back to notice
the driver of the machine waving one hand frantically
towards him as if bent on overtaking him.
At the same moment the man in the machine
bawled out:
“Hey, stop that boy!”
CHAPTER XV—BEHIND THE BARS
Andy stopped running at the loud alarm from
the automobile. Several persons started to block
his course and one man caught him by the coat
sleeve. Andy recognized his pursuer at once.
It was Seth Talbot.
The Princeville garage owner ran his car up
to the curb and jumped out. His face was red
with exertion and excitement, and he grasped
Andy roughly by the arm.
“What’s the trouble?” queried the man who
had detained Andy.
“Escaped criminal—firebug,” mumbled Talbot.
“In with you,” and he forced Andy into the
machine. “Hey, officer, take charge of this
prisoner.”
Talbot hailed a man in uniform pressing his
way through the gathering crowd.
“What is he charged with?” inquired the
officer.
“Burning a barn at Princeville. Get him to
the station and I’ll explain to your chief.”
There was no chance for Andy to expostulate
or struggle. The officer held him tightly by one
wrist, while Talbot whisked them away till they
reached a police station.
Here the garage owner drew the officer in
charge to one side. They held a brief consultation.
Andy caught a word here and there. It
was sufficient to apprise him of the fact that there
was a reward offered for his arrest, and Talbot
was agreeing to divide it with the officer if he
would take charge of Andy till he was delivered
over to the authorities at Princeville.
“You are in charge of the law now, young
man,” said the officer, leading Andy back to the
automobile. “I won’t shackle you, but don’t try
any tricks.”
He and Andy occupied the rear seat in the automobile,
while Talbot drove the machine.
“May I say something to you?” inquired Andy
of the officer.
“About what?” asked the officer.
“My being arrested this way. I don’t see what
right Mr. Talbot has to chase me and give orders
about me like some condemned felon. I haven’t
seen any warrant for my arrest.”
“You’ll see it soon enough. Meanwhile don’t
say anything to incriminate yourself,” returned
the officer, glibly using the pet phrase of his
calling.
“I’ve done nothing to be incriminated,” declared
Andy indignantly. “What I wanted to ask
was the simple favor of getting word to some
people here in Greenville, who have sent me on
an errand, and will be put out and disappointed
if I don’t show up.”
“What people?” quizzed Talbot, overhearing
Andy and half turning around in his seat.
“A firm of lawyers here——” began Andy.
“Yah!” derided the garage owner. “Guessed
it was something of that sort. Want to tangle
up this affair with some legal quibble! Officer,
you just hold on to him tight. He’s a slippery
fellow.”
Andy saw that it would be useless to appeal to
either of his companions in the automobile, and
put in his time doing some pretty serious thinking
as the machine sped over the landscape.
“This is a bad fix at a bad time,” reflected
Andy. “The lawyer will expect me back as I
promised, and think all kinds of things about me
because I don’t come. And there’s Mr. Parks.
And the race. I mustn’t miss that! But then,
I am arrested. They’ll lock me up. Suppose they
really prove I fired that barn?” Andy’s heart beat
painfully with dread and suspense.
The town hall at Princeville was reached. Andy
had been in the main offices of the structure many
times, but this was his first visit to the lower floor
of the building where the prisoners were kept.
He only casually knew the deputy sheriff in charge
of the barred cage, and who looked Andy over
as he would any criminal brought to him to
lock up.
“This is Andy Nelson—Jones’ barn—ran away—reward.”
Andy was somewhat chilled as the
deputy nodded and proceeded to enter his name
in a big book before him on the desk.
“Search him,” said the official to the turnkey.
“Hello!” *** Talbot, as Andy’s watch
was brought into view, and “hello!” he repeated
with eyes goggling still more, as Andy’s pocketbook
came to light, and outside of some small
bills and silver, a neatly-folded bill was produced.
The officer himself looked surprised at this.
Andy, however, did not tell them that this represented
the prize he had won at the aviation
meet, treasured proudly in its entirety.
“Wonder if that’s some of the money I’ve
found short in my business?” insinuated Talbot.
“If there is any shortage in your receipts,”
retorted Andy indignantly, “you had better ask
your son about it.”
The shot told. The garage owner flushed up.
“What’s that?” he covered his evident confusion by
asking, as the officer unfolded a slip of
printed paper.
It was the advertisement about the lost leather
pocketbook, that Andy had preserved. Glancing
over the shoulder of the officer and taking in its
purport, Talbot gave a start. Then he eyed Andy
in an eager, speculative way, but was silent.
“What are you going to do with me?” Andy
asked of the officer.
“Lock you up, of course.”
“Won’t I be allowed to send word to my
friends?”
“Who are they?” demanded the officer.
“I think Mr. Dawson, the banker, is one of
them,” replied Andy.
“Mr. Dawson has been away from town for a
week, and will not return for two.”
Andy’s face fell. The thought of the banker
had come to him hopefully.
“Can I telegraph, then?” he asked, “to friends
out of town?”
“Telegraph,” sneered Talbot. “My great
pumpkins, with your new suit of clothes and
watch and one hundred dollar bills and telegrams!”
“I can grant you no favors before I have notified
the prosecuting attorney of your arrest,” said
the deputy. “Lock him up, turnkey.”
All this seemed very harsh and ominous to
Andy, but he did not allow it to depress him.
He followed the turnkey without another word.
The latter unlocked a great barred door, and
Andy felt a trifle chilled as it reclosed on him and
he was a prisoner.
“How do you do, Mr. Chase?” he said, as he
recognized the lockup-keeper, an old grizzled
man, who limped towards him.
“Got you, did they?” spoke the man. “Sorry,
Andy.”
“Yes, I am sorry, too, just at this time. Of
course you know, I’m not the kind of a fellow
to burn down a man’s barn.”
“Know it—guess I know. I can prove——” began
Chase, so excitedly, that Andy stared at him
in some wonder. “See here,” continued Chase,
controlling himself, “I’ve got something to say
to you later on. Just for the present, you count
on me as your friend. I’ll see you get the best
going in this dismal place.”
“Thank you, Mr. Chase,” said Andy.
“You needn’t sleep in any cell. I’ll let you
have a cot in my room,” continued Chase with
earnestness and emotion. “Andy——” and there
the speaker choked up, and he grasped Andy’s
hand, and turning away trembled all over.
“You’re a blessed good boy, and you’ve got a
true friend in me, and remember what I tell you—they
will never find you guilty of burning down
Jones’ barn.”
Andy returned the pressure of the hand of the
man whom he was meeting under peculiar circumstances,
feeling sure that his avowed friendship
was genuine. He had good reason to believe
this.
When Andy had come to Princeville, Chase
was a worthless drunkard, who worked rarely and
who was in the lockup most of the time. One
winter’s night, as Andy was returning from taking
a customer to the lake, he lined a swampy stretch
and noticed a huddled-up figure lying at its half-frozen
edge.
Andy got out of the automobile and discovered
a man, his body and clothes half frozen down
into the reeds and grass. It was Chase, sodden
with drink and fast perishing.
Andy managed to get the poor fellow in the
tonneau and drove home. It was late, and Talbot
had left the garage for the night. Andy
dragged his helpless guest into his little den of a
room and hurried for a doctor. He was a favorite
with the physician, for whom he had done
many little favors, and the latter worked over the
half-frozen Chase for nearly two hours. He refused
to think of taking any pay, and at Andy’s
request promised to say nothing about the
incident.
Andy kept his little oil stove going all night
and plied the patient with warm drinks. When
morning came Chase was awake and sober, but
he was so weak and full of pain he could hardly
move.
All that day and into the next Andy managed
to house and care for Chase without detection.
Talbot finally discovered the intruder, however.
He stormed fearfully. He was for at once sending
for an officer and having Chase sent to jail
or the workhouse.
Andy pleaded hard for the poor refugee. Talbot
declared that his wet garments had spoiled
the automobile cushions. Andy got Chase to
agree that he would work this out when he got
well, and Talbot was partly mollified.
When Chase got about he did some drudgery
at Talbot’s home. Then one day he came to tell
Andy that Talbot had got him a position. Chase
was well acquainted with prison ways. Talbot
had quite some political influence, and the forlorn
old wreck was installed as lockup-keeper at the
town jail.
Once a week regularly he came to visit Andy
at the garage. It was usually Saturday nights,
after the others had gone home. Chase would
bring along some dainty for Andy to cook, and
they would have quite a congenial time. During
all this time Chase never touched a drop of liquor.
He told Andy he had received the lesson of his
life, leaving him crippled in one limb, and that
he would show Andy his gratitude for his rescue
by keeping the pledge.
“Mr. Chase,” now said Andy, “there is something
you can do for me, if you will.”
“Speak it out, Andy,” responded the lockup
keeper eagerly.
“I want to send a telegram to a friend right
away. They have taken all my money from me,
but the message can go collect.”
Chase hobbled down the corridor rapidly to
return with paper and pencil.
“Write out your message, Andy,” he said.
“I’ll see that it goes without delay.”
Andy wrote out a telegram to John Parks. It
ran:
“Under arrest on a false charge. I want to
see you on important business.”
Chase took the message, put on his hat, and
going to the barred door tapped on it.
The turnkey appeared and unlocked the door.
As Chase passed out, Andy observed that someone
passed into the cell room. It was Seth Talbot.
“I want a little talk with you, Andy Nelson,”
spoke the garage owner, “and it will pay you to
listen to what I have to say.”
CHAPTER XVI—BAIL WANTED
The garage owner moved a few feet away
from the grated door of the cell room and sat
down on a bench. He beckoned to Andy.
“No, I’ll stand up,” said our hero.
“All right, I won’t be long. Short and sweet
is my motto. To begin with, Andy Nelson, I’ve
been a second father to you.”
“I never knew it,” observed the boy.
“Don’t get saucy,” replied Talbot. “It don’t
show the right spirit. I gave you a job when
you didn’t have any, and took on myself a big
responsibility—agreeing to look after you like a
regular apprentice. What is the result? Ingratitude.”
Andy was silent, but he looked at Talbot, marveling
that the man, mean as he was, could
imagine that he meant what he said.
“You’ve brought me lots of trouble,” pursued
Talbot in an aggrieved tone. “The worst of all
is that it’s led to my son running away from
home.”
The speaker evidently thought that Andy knew
all about this, while in reality Andy only
guessed it.
“Oh, I’m responsible for that, too, am I?” observed
Andy.
“Yes, you are. You left me in the lurch, and
while Gus was off with a customer some one
robbed the money drawer. I was mad and accused
Gus of taking it. Gus got mad and left home.”
“What did I have to do with that?”
“Why, if you’d stayed where you belonged it
wouldn’t have happened, would it?”
Andy actually laughed outright at this strange
reasoning.
“What!” he cried. “Me, the firebug, me, the
thief you accuse me of being!”
“Well, anyhow, you’ve been a lot of expense
and trouble to me. Now you’re in a hard fix.
You are dead sure to go to the reformatory until
you are twenty-one years of age, unless some one
steps in and saves you.”
“You think so, do you, Mr. Talbot?”
“I am certain of it.”
“Who’s going to step in and save me?” inquired
Andy innocently.
“I’m the only man who can.”
“Oh!”
“And I will, if you’re willing to do your share.”
“What is my share?” demanded Andy.
“Doing what I advise you. I’m a man of influence
and power in this community,” boasted
the garage owner. “I can fix up this business all
right with Jones. You’ve got to help, though.”
“All right, name your terms,” said Andy.
“I wouldn’t put it ‘terms,’ Andy,” replied Talbot,
looking eager and insinuating, “call it rights.
There’s that two hundred dollars at the bank.
It was found on my property by one of my hired
employees. Good, that gives me legal possession
according to law.”
“Does it?” nodded Andy. “I didn’t know that
before.”
“You can get that money by going after it,”
continued Talbot.
“How can I?”
“Why, that advertisement they found in your
pocket says so, don’t it? See here, Andy,” and
Talbot looked so mean and greedy that our hero
could hardly keep from shuddering with disgust,
“tell me about that advertisement—all about it,
I want to be a good friend to you. I am a
shrewd business man, and you’re only a boy.
They’ll chisel you out of it, if you don’t have
some older person to stand by you. I’ll stand by
you, Andy.”
“Chisel me out of what?” inquired Andy, intent on drawing
out his specious counsellor to the
limit.
“What’s your due. They’re after the pocketbook
that held the two hundred dollars. Don’t
you see they’re breaking their necks to get it
back? Why? aha!”
“That’s so,” murmured Andy, as if it were all
news to him.
“So, if you know what became of that pocketbook——”
“Yes,” nodded Andy.
“And where it is——”
“I do,” declared Andy.
“Capital!” cried Talbot, getting excited. “Then
we’ve got them. Ha! Ha! They can’t squirm
away from us. Where’s the pocketbook, Andy?
You just hand this business right over to me. I’ll
do the negotiating.”
“And if I do?” insinuated Andy.
“You won’t be prosecuted on this firebug
charge. I’ll take you back at the garage and
raise your salary.”
“How much?” inquired Andy.
“Well—I’ll be liberal. I’ll raise your wages
twenty-five cents a week.”
“Mr. Talbot, if you made it twenty-five dollars
I wouldn’t touch it, no, nor twenty-five hundred
dollars. You talk about your goodness to me.
Why, you treated me like a slave. As to the
two hundred dollars, it stays right where it is
until its rightful owner claims it. If he then
wants to give it to me as a reward, you can make
up your mind you won’t get a cent of it.”
“You young reprobate!” shouted Talbot,
jumping to his feet, aflame with rage. “I’ll make
you sing another tune soon. It rests with me as
to your staying in jail. I’ll just go and see those
lawyers myself.”
“You will waste your time,” declared Andy.
“I have told them all about you from beginning
to end, and they’re too smart to play into any
of your dodges.”
“We’ll see! We’ll see!” fumed the garage
owner, as he went to the cell-room door and shook
it to attract the attention of the turnkey. “I’ll
see you once more—just once more, mind you,
and that’s to-morrow morning. You’ll decide
then, or you’ll have a hard run of it.”
Andy was left to himself. He walked around
the stout cell room with some curiosity. There
were two other prisoners in jail. Both were
locked up in cells. One of them asked Andy for
a drink of water. The other was asleep on
his cot.
A clang at the barred door attracted Andy’s
attention again, and he reached it as the turnkey
shouted out in a tone that sounded very official:
“Andrew Nelson!”
He stood aside for Andy to step out. An
officer Andy had not seen before took him by the
arm and led him up two flights of stairs to a
large courtroom.
It had no visitors, but the judge sat on the
bench. Near him was the prosecuting attorney
and the court clerk. Talbot occupied a chair, and
conversing with him was Farmer Jones.
“We enter the appearance of the prisoner in
this case, your honor,” immediately spoke the attorney,
as if in a hurry to get through with the
formalities.
“Let the clerk enter the same,” ordered the
judge in an indifferent tone. “Take the prisoner
before the grand jury when it convenes.”
“In the matter of bail——” again spoke the attorney.
“Arson. A pretty serious offense,” said the
judge. “The prisoner is held over in bonds of
two thousand dollars.”
Andy’s heart sank. He had heard and read
of cases where generally a few hundred dollars
bail was asked. He had even calculated in his
mind how he could call friends to his assistance
who would go his surety for a small amount, but
two thousand dollars.
“How are you, Andy?” said Jones, advancing
and looking him over critically. Andy was a trifle
pale, but his bearing was manly, his countenance
open and honest. He was neatly dressed, and
looked the energetic business boy all over, and
evidently impressed the farmer that way.
“I’m glad to see you, Mr. Jones,” he said respectfully.
“I suppose you feel a little hard agin’ me, Andy,
but I couldn’t help it. That barn cost me eight
hundred dollars.”
“It was a serious loss, yes, sir,” said Andy,
“and I am sorry for you.”
Jones fidgeted. Talbot was talking to the
attorney, and the farmer seemed glad to get away
from his company.
“See here, Andy,” he said, edging a little
nearer, “I’ve got boys of my own, and it makes
me feel badly to see you in this fix.”
“What did you place me here for, then?” demanded
Andy.
“I—I thought—you see, Talbot had the evidence.
He egged me on, so to speak. Honest
and true, Andy, did you set fire to my barn?”
“Honest and true, Mr. Jones, I had no hand
in it. Why should I? You have always been
pleasant and good to me.”
“Why, you see, I stopped you running away
from Talbot that day.”
“And you think I turned firebug out of spite?
Oh, Mr. Jones!”
“H’m—see here, judge,” and Jones moved up
to the desk. “I don’t know that I care to prosecute
this case.”
“Out of your hands, Mr. Jones,” snapped the
prosecuting attorney sharply. “The case must go
to the grand jury.”
“Andy—I—I’ll come and see you,” said Jones,
as the officer marched Andy back to the jail room.
“Two thousand dollars bail,” ruminated Andy,
once again under lock and key. “I can never
hope to find anybody to get me out. Too bad—I’m
out of the airship race for good.”
CHAPTER XVII—A TRUE FRIEND
“All right, Andy.”
“Did you send the telegram?”
“Yes, and paid for it, so there would be no
delay.”
“You needn’t have done that.”
“I wanted to be sure that it went double rush.”
“All right, I will settle with you when they
give me back my money.”
Chase, the lockup-keeper, had promptly and
willingly attended to the errand upon which Andy
had sent him.
“See here, Andy,” said Chase, “I understand
they had you up in court.”
“Yes,” answered Andy, “they took me up to
fix the bail.”
“How much?”
“Two thousand dollars.”
“Why!” exclaimed Chase, his face darkening,
“that’s an outrage.”
“I think so, too.”
“There’s something behind it,” muttered the
lockup-keeper.
“Yes,” returned Andy. “Mr. Talbot is behind
it. He seems to stand in with the prosecuting attorney.
Mr. Jones was quite willing to drop the
case, and said that Mr. Talbot had egged
him on.”
Chase did not say any more just then, but as
he strolled away, he muttered to himself in an
excited manner. He busied himself about the
place for the next hour. Then he showed Andy
his own sleeping quarters, a quite comfortable,
well-ventilated room, and set up an extra cot in it.
“You and I will have our meal in my room
after I feed the other prisoners,” he said. “I’ll
make it as easy for you as I can, Andy.”
“I know you will, Mr. Chase,” responded Andy
heartily.
“I’ll do a good deal for you,” declared the
faithful old fellow. “What do I care for this
mean old job, anyway? Say,” and he dropped
his voice to a cautious whisper, “suppose there
was a way for both of us to get out of here?”
“What do you mean?” queried Andy quickly.
“Just what I say. Suppose you and I could get
to some place a long way off, where they couldn’t
trace us, could you get me another job, do you
think?”
“Don’t you like this one?”
“No, I don’t. I despise it. I have to give
Talbot half of my salary for getting it for me,
and I’m tired of the jail.”
“Do you mean to tell me that Talbot takes
one half of your salary?” questioned Andy indignantly.
“I do.”
“Then he’s a meaner man than I thought he
was. I can get you a much better job when I get
free,” said Andy, “and I’ll do it, but you mustn’t
think of such nonsense as my escaping.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m a sticker, and never ran away
like a sneak in my life,” declared Andy strenuously.
“No, I’m going to face the music like
a man.”
Chase was silent for a while. Finally, evidently
struggling with some new disturbing
thought, he said:
“Sure you can get me a job, Andy?”
“I am.”
“If I cut loose from here and make Talbot
an enemy for life, you’ll see to it that I get work?”
“As long as you keep sober, Mr. Chase, you
can always get a position. You have made a
brave start. Now brace up, think something of
yourself, and earn a comfortable living.”
“I’ll do it!” cried Chase. “I’ll risk everything.
Andy, you didn’t fire that barn. Do you know
who did?”
“I have a suspicion,” replied Andy.
“If I guess right who you suspect, will you nod
your head?”
“Yes.”
“It was Gus Talbot and Dale Billings.”
Andy nodded his head. He started slightly as
he did so, wondering at the sturdy declaration
of Chase. Then he asked:
“Why do you think so, Mr. Chase?”
“I don’t think, I know,” declared the lockup-keeper.
“Did you see them do it?”
“No, I didn’t, but—see here, Andy, I’ve nothing
more to say.”
“Why not?”
“I want to find an old *** named Wandering
***, before I go any farther.”
“Does he know?”
“I’ll not say another word except this: they’ll
never prove you a firebug, and old Talbot will
be sorry for the day he stirred things up and
started out to persecute an honest boy. Drat the
varmint! I’ll be afraid of him no longer, Andy,
you are a good friend.”
“I try to be, Mr. Chase.”
“I’ll prove that I am to you.”
Chase refused to say another word. Andy
curiously watched him stump around attending to
his duties. The old fellow would scowl and mutter,
and Andy believed he was mentally discussing
Talbot. Then he would chuckle, and Andy decided
he was thinking something pleasant about
himself.
Chase appeared to have entire charge of the
cell room. At five o’clock in the afternoon he let
the other prisoners out in the corridor for exercise,
and at six o’clock he gave them their supper
in their cells. Then he and Andy adjourned to
the little room beyond the cells and had a hearty,
appetizing meal.
Chase supplied Andy with some newspapers,
and later they played a game of checkers. About
nine o’clock a prisoner was brought in and
locked up.
At ten o’clock, just as Andy was going to bed,
the turnkey’s ponderous key rattled at the barred
door, and again his voice rang out:
“Andrew Nelson!”
“Wonder who wants me now?” said Andy.
“Somebody to see you in the sheriff’s room,”
said the turnkey, “follow me.”
Andy did so. As they entered the apartment
indicated, a man with one arm in a sling advanced
and grasped Andy’s hand warmly.
“This is a blazing shame!” he burst out, “but
I’ll have you out of here if it takes all I’ve got
and can beg or borrow.”
It was Andy’s employer, John Parks, the Airship
King.
CHAPTER XVIII—OUT ON BAIL
Andy’s heart warmed up and he felt that the
tide was turning. Parks was an energetic, impulsive
man, and generally put through what he
started at. His hearty greeting showed what
he thought of Andy and the charge against him.
“Is that the sheriff coming?” he demanded impatiently
of the officer or guard at the door of
the room.
“He’ll be here soon,” was the reply, “we have
sent for him.”
“Come over here, Andy,” directed the aeronaut,
leading the way to a corner of the apartment
so the others could not overhear their conversation.
“I want to talk with you. Now then,”
he continued, as they were seated by themselves,
“tell me the whole story.”
“I wish I had done it before,” began Andy,
and then he recited his experience with Talbot
and the details of the barn burning.
“Guesswork and spitework, eh? The whole
business,” flared out Parks. “They haven’t a
foot to stand on in court. I’ll see that you have
the right kind of a lawyer when the case comes
to trial. All I am anxious about is to get you
back to camp double quick. You know the race
takes place day after to-morrow.”
“Yes, I know it only too well,” replied Andy;
“I’ve worried enough about it.”
“Here comes my man, I guess,” interrupted
Parks, as a portly consequential-looking person
entered the room.
“I wanted to see you about this young man,”
explained Parks. “They’ve shut him up here on
a false charge, and I want to get him out. He’s
a trusted employee of mine, and I need him badly
in my business.”
“You want to give bail, do you?” inquired the
sheriff.
“Every dollar I’ve got, judge,” responded the
aeronaut with emphasis, “so long as he gets free.”
“The bail is two thousand dollars, and I suppose
you know the bondsman must qualify as a
real estate owner in the county.”
“I’m not that, judge,” said Parks, “but I’ve
got some money.” He pulled out a roll of bills.
“I’ve got nigh onto one thousand dollars personal
property, and I’m going to earn the aviation prize
down at Montrose day after to-morrow.”
“Considerably up in the air, part of your schedule,
eh?” remarked the sheriff, smiling, “I’m
afraid we can’t accept you as a bondsman. Residence
here as a real estate owner is absolutely
necessary.”
“Why, do you think I would leave you in
the lurch or a boy like Andy sneak away. No
sir-ree! You can trust me, Mr. Sheriff.”
“I don’t doubt that, but the law is very strict.”
Parks paced the floor excitedly. He looked
disappointed and bothered.
“I’ve got to do something—Andy has just got
to be at the aviation meet day after to-morrow.
I’ve got it! Say, suppose I could line up two
thousand dollars through friends, in cash, mind
you, couldn’t I hire some man in Princeville to go
on the bond?”
“It is very often done,” acknowledged the
sheriff.
“Then I’ll do it. Andy, I’ll be back here to-morrow.
Mr. Sheriff, you can fix the papers for
quick action. I’ll raise that two thousand dollars
if I have to mortgage everything I’ve got. I’ve
got some friends and I own a farm out West.”
“Just a word, Mr. Parks,” said Andy.
“What is it, lad?” inquired the aeronaut.
“I wish you would get word to a lawyer at
Greenville, a Mr. West, about something. He
expected to see me yesterday, and I was arrested
before I could get to him.”
Andy explained about the advertisement and
the lost pocketbook. Mr. Parks was very much
impressed and interested over his story.
“Why, Andy,” he commented vigorously.
“There’s something strange about all this.”
“There is probably something very important
for the man who lost the pocketbook,” said Andy.
“I don’t want the lawyer to think I fooled him.”
“Can you find the pocketbook, Andy?”
“Unless it has been removed from the place
where it was three weeks ago, I am sure that
I can.”
“H-m, this sets me thinking,” observed Parks.
“I’ll see that the lawyer gets the message, Andy.
I’ll be back here to-morrow.”
“Mr. Parks,” said Andy seriously, “I don’t
think you had better try to raise the money. It
will be harder than you think, and all this will
take up your time and attention away from the
airship race.”
“There won’t be any airship race for me if
you are out of it, will there?” demanded Parks.
“Why not? You can surely find someone to
take my place. It’s the Racing Star that is going
to win the race, not the man at the lever. He’s
got to keep his eyes open, but the machine is so
far ahead of anything I’ve seen, that a careful,
active pilot can hardly fail to win.”
Parks looked dubious and unconvinced.
“I’m going to get you out of here,” he maintained
stubbornly, and, knowing the determined
character of his employer, Andy went back to
the lockup believing that he would keep his word.
“What’s the news, Andy?” inquired Chase
eagerly.
“The best in the world, Mr. Chase,” replied
Andy brightly.
“Are they going to let you out?”
“I hope so, soon.”
Andy had told Chase something about his circumstances,
and now told him more, mentioning
the airship race.
“I say, you shouldn’t miss that, should you,
Andy?” excitedly proclaimed Chase. “I wish I
could help you. I can in time. I have a good
mind——”
Chase paused mysteriously, and began stumping
about in his usual abstracted, muttering way.
Andy sat down on a bench as there was a
movement at the cell-room door.
“Here, give this man shelter for the night and
something to eat,” ordered the turnkey. “Turn
him out in the morning.”
“Hello!” spoke Chase, evidently recognizing
a regular habitue of the place, “it’s you again,
is it?”
“On my rounds, as usual,” grinned the newcomer,
a harmless-looking, trampish fellow.
“Been in some other lockup, I suppose, since
we saw you last?” insinuated Chase.
“No, Wandering *** and I have been following
a show. You see——”
“Who? Say that again,” interrupted Chase
excitedly.
“Wandering ***.”
“Where is he now?”
“Three days ago I left him about fifty miles
south of here.”
“Is he there now?”
“I think so. The show broke up and that
threw me out, but *** talked about staying
around Linterville till he could panhandle it south
for the winter.”
“See here,” said Chase, drawing out his pocketbook.
“There’s a ten-dollar bill,” and he flipped
over some bank notes.
“I see there is,” nodded the *** wonderingly.
“I’ll start you out with a good breakfast and
that money in the morning. I want you to find
***, bring him here, and I’ll give you each as
much more money when you do.”
The *** looked puzzled, then suspicious,
and then alarmed.
“See here,” he said, “what are you going to
work on us, same old charge?”
“Not at all. I want *** to answer a half
dozen questions, that’s all, and then you are both!
free to go.”
“Say, let me start to-night!” said the ***
eagerly.
“No, it’s too late,” replied Chase. “There’s no
train until morning.”
Andy had overheard all this conversation.
Wandering *** was the name he had heard
Chase speak once before, and he had coupled it
with the suggestion that in some way Wandering
*** was concerned in the incident of Farmer
Jones’ burned-down barn.
Andy slept in a good bed and got up early in
the morning, believing that the new day would
bring some developments of importance in the
situation.
The *** was started off by Chase, breakfast
was over, and Chase had been let out by the
turnkey into the main room. He came rushing
back in a few minutes carrying an armful of
towels for jail use.
“Andy,” he chuckled, throwing his load recklessly
on a bench and slapping his young friend
gleefully on the shoulder, “You’re free!”
CHAPTER XIX—A DISAPPOINTMENT
Andy was led into the office of the jail and
up to the desk of the official who had registered
his name the day before. This man opened a
drawer and pushed a package before Andy and
a receipt.
“See if your money is all right,” he directed,
“and sign that receipt.”
“Going to give them back to me, are you?”
said Andy brightly, feeling delighted at recovering
his liberty. “They must have found out
that I am innocent.”
“H-m! that’s to be determined later on.”
Andy looked questioningly about the room.
Who had set him free? What did it mean? Just
then he caught the sound of voices in another
room and the officer pointed to it.
“Your friend is in there,” he said. “He’s
waiting for you.”
Andy felt as if he had wings on his feet. His
heart was overflowing with gladness. He crossed
the threshold of the doorway the officer had indicated,
looked in, and then stood stock still, very
much surprised.
“Well, young man, we’ve reached you at last?”
spoke a hearty voice.
“Why, it’s Mr. Webb!” exclaimed Andy.
He had at once recognized the gentleman whom
he had driven over in the automobile from Princeville
to Macon, the day when all his troubles in
life seemed to have begun.
With Mr. Webb was a man who nodded pleasantly
but curiously to Andy. This was Joshua
Bird. He was reported to be the richest man
in Princeville, and dealt principally in real estate
and had the reputation of being something of a
miser.
Mr. Webb, holding Andy’s hand, turned to
Mr. Bird.
“Well, sir, everything is satisfactory?” he
asked.
“Entirely so,” answered Bird. “You’re putting
a good deal of faith in a lad you scarcely know,
though.”
“I’ll bank on my confidence,” answered Mr.
Webb. “Nelson, you remember me, do you not?”
“Perfectly, sir, but I don’t understand.”
“My being here?” questioned Mr. Webb. “A
purely selfish motive is at the bottom of it, I am
free to confess, although I am glad to be of
service to you on general principles. Are you
ready to leave here at once?”
“Where for, sir?”
“An automobile dash across the country.”
“And then am I to return here?”
“Not until your trial comes on. Let me explain,
so you will understand the situation. I
have gone on your bail bond.”
“I don’t know how to thank you,” said Andy
gratefully.
“Your friend, Mr. Parks, found me late last
night at Greenville, where Mr. West and myself
were anxiously awaiting you. He explained about
your arrest, and told us the whole story of your
affairs. It seems that your trouble began with
the finding of my pocketbook. It was only right,
therefore, that I should stand by you—which I
have done, and intend to keep up, Andy, for you
have proven yourself a good, honest boy.”
“Thank you, Mr. Webb,” said our hero with
considerable emotion.
“Mr. West, my legal adviser, arranged with
Mr. Bird, who has just left us. The signing of
your bail bond is the result. You are free to get
to those anxious friends of yours at the aviation
meet, but first I want you to take a little trip
with me.”
“After that old leather pocketbook, I suppose.”
“You’ve guessed it right, Andy.”
“I would like to speak with a good friend of
mine in the jail here for a moment,” said Andy,
“and then I will be ready to go with you.”
“All right, Andy.”
Chase had already heard the good news and
congratulated Andy, chuckling and hobbling
about at a great rate.
“Remember you’re to look out for a new job
for me,” he intimated.
“I’ll attend to that all right, Mr. Chase,”
promised Andy. “If things go as I think they
will, I have a friend as well as an employer who
will probably need a man such as you to potter
about and look after things.”
“Andy, I’ll potter for keeps if you get me that
situation,” declared the old lockup-keeper earnestly.
“You get it fixed for me, and when your
trial comes up, I’ll show you how much I think
of you.”
“Things are certainly coming out famously
right,” chirped Andy gaily, as he left Chase.
“Now then, Nelson, take a try at my new machine,”
said Mr. Webb, as he led Andy to the
street.
Seth Talbot, one of his own machines waiting
at the curb for a fare, was strolling around inspecting
the beautiful touring car which Mr.
Webb had indicated.
“Eh, hey! what’s this?” he blubbered out, as
Andy walked smartly to the machine and leaped
into the driver’s seat.
An officer who was aware of the situation
nudged Talbot and spoke a few quick words to
him in an undertone. The face of the garage
owner turned white with astonishment and malice.
Mr. Webb had noticed him, and asked
Andy:
“Who is that man?”
“Mr. Talbot, my old employer,” responded
Andy.
“I don’t like his looks,” spoke Mr. Webb
simply. “Now then, Nelson, of course you know
where I want to go.”
“After the leather pocketbook—yes, sir.”
“I hope you can find it.”
“I feel sure we shall, sir. We will have to
take some roundabout roads to get to the farm
I told Mr. West about.”
“This is a very important matter to me,” explained
Mr. Webb. “I may as well tell you,
Nelson, that the fortune and happiness of two
orphan children, distant relatives of mine, depend
on the finding of that old pocketbook.”
“I am very much interested, Mr. Webb,”
said Andy.
“You did not notice perhaps, but glued down
in the big part of that pocketbook is a thin compartment.
Secreted in that is an old time-worn
sheet of paper that I spent thousands of dollars
and a year’s time in locating and getting into my
possession. I was on my way to my lawyer with
it, and had placed two hundred dollars in the
pocketbook for costs in the law suit, when I lost
the pocketbook, as you know.”
“I never dreamed there was any value in the
old pocketbook,” said Andy. “I knew it was
in my old clothes which I threw away at a farm
near Wade, I told you about. I remember perfectly
well tossing them up on an old shelf. Unless
they have been disturbed, we will find the
clothes and the pocketbook. It was a regular old
rubbish pile where I tossed them, and out of anybody’s
way.”
“I shall feel immensely relieved and glad when
I find that document,” declared Mr. Webb, with
a sigh of anxiety.
John Parks was responsible for bringing the
word to Mr. West that had sent Mr. Webb to
Princeville. The aeronaut had told the lawyer
considerable about Andy and the approaching
airship race, and as they rolled along Mr. Webb
showed a great deal of interest in Andy’s aviation
ambitions and asked a great many questions.
“I shall want to see you again as soon as I
get that document in the pocketbook to the lawyers,”
said the gentleman. “The airship race is
to-morrow?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I will keep track of you through Mr. Parks,
and probably meet you day after to-morrow. I
hope you win the race, Nelson, and get the prize.
You deserve it, my boy. If you fail, do not get
discouraged. You have some good friends, and I
am one of them.”
“You have shown that,” said Andy with feeling.
“I wouldn’t have missed the race for a good
deal.”
Andy entertained his companion considerably
by a recital of his adventures three weeks previously
when he had helped the goose farmer get
his product to market.
“Just yonder is where I met him first,” explained
Andy, as they passed over a bridge crossing
the river. “It’s a straight road to the Collins
farm now, but not very even.”
“I hope we find things as you expect,” said Mr.
Webb.
“I think we will,” answered Andy cheerfully.
It was about an hour later when they rounded
a curve in a beautiful country road.
“Just beyond that grove of trees,” said Andy,
“and we come in full view of the Collins farmhouse.
Now we can see it—Why, I—don’t—understand—this.”
Andy slowed down in speech, with a series of
wondering gasps, as he likewise slowed down the
machine.
“Why, what’s the matter, Nelson?” queried
Mr. Webb.
“Don’t you see?” began Andy. “No, you
don’t see, and that’s just it. There’s something
wrong. The farmhouse did stand right over
where that gravelled road runs into the farm, and
now——”
“Nelson,” interrupted Mr. Webb almost
sharply, “there has been a fire here.”
Andy stared dubiously, but in great concern.
There could be no doubt of it, this was the site
of the Collins’ farm. There were the white-washed
posts where the farm road began, the
horse block where he bade the goose farmer
good-by, but the farmhouse itself had disappeared.
CHAPTER XX—A NEW CAPTIVITY
“Nelson, could you possibly be mistaken?”
“No, sir, positively not.”
Andy had come to a dead stop with the automobile.
He stared blankly at the prospect before
them. The site of the Collins farmhouse
was a flat stretch of waste and ruin. Grass,
weeds, trees, fences showed the ravages of a great
fire.
Mr. Webb looked dreadfully disappointed.
His face had become almost pale. Andy shared
his disquietude, but he could simply say:
“I am very sorry.”
“You did all you could, Nelson,” responded
his companion. “Here comes some one. We
will question him a little.”
A farm laborer with a hoe across his shoulder
sauntered down the road. Andy hailed him. As
he came nearer to them Mr. Webb said:
“My man, what has been happening around
here?”
“Don’t you see?” queried the man, with a comprehensive
wave of his hand across the bleak
ruins. “Fire.”
“This is the Collins farm, isn’t it?”
“It was,” answered the man. “The fire took
them in the night a week ago.”
“And burned everything about the place?”
“Down to the pig styes.”
“Where are the Collins people?”
“Gone over into Bowen County until they can
arrange to build again.”
“Start up, Nelson,” ordered Mr. Webb. “It’s
a waste of time to loiter around here.”
Mr. Webb felt cruelly disappointed. Andy
saw this and was sorry for him. He glanced at
the spot where he remembered the old shed to
have stood. Even the tree that had sheltered it
had burned to a crisp.
“Where am I to go?” inquired Andy.
“You had better strike for Rushville,” replied
Mr. Webb. “From what I remember, you can
get a train to Montrose earlier than on the Central.”
“I am to go on to John Parks?”
“That’s the programme,” said Mr. Webb, trying
to appear cheerful; “why not?”
Andy reflected seriously for a moment or two.
Finally he spoke:
“Mr. Webb,” he said; “I hardly feel right to
leave you on my bond for that big amount. Something
might happen so that I could not appear for
trial—trickery, or a dozen things.”
“And because you have not succeeded in recovering
that pocketbook, you suppose I’m going
to desert you, Nelson?” inquired the gentleman.
“You are not the man to do a single mean
thing,” replied Andy, “but, with all your troubles,
and me being a stranger——”
“Drop it, Nelson. You have tried to be the
best friend in the world to me, and I’d go on
your bond for double the amount I have. You
are to go straight on to Montrose, win that airship
race, and when you have got that off your
mind we will have a talk together.”
“You are a good, kind man,” said Andy, with
fervor, “and I’d walk barefooted on hot coals
to get you back that pocketbook.”
When they reached Rushville, Mr. Webb took
charge of the automobile. He made many encouraging
references to the coming airship race,
and when he left Andy at the railroad station
shook his hand in a friendly way.
Andy made a disappointing discovery as soon
as he consulted the train schedules. A change
in the service of the road had been made only
that week, and there was no train south until
seven o’clock. It was now three, and he would
have to wait four hours.
“I won’t be able to get home until after dark,”
reflected the lad. “I hoped to have an hour or
two of daylight for practice, but this knocks my
plans awry. Well, as it is, this is a good deal
better than missing the race altogether.”
It was quite dark when the train reached the
limits of Montrose. It stopped at a crossing, and
Andy got off and made a short cut for the Parks
camp.
His course led him past the large aviation field.
Andy was anxious to report to Mr. Parks as soon
as possible, but unusual light and animation about
the big enclosure aroused his curiosity and interest,
and he passed the gate and strolled by the
various aerodromes.
Everything was “the race!” Groups were discussing
it, contestants were oiling up their machines
and exploiting the merits of the others. An
hour passed by before Andy realized it. He
came to halt in front of the last tent in the row,
turned to retrace his steps, and then suddenly
halted.
“I’d like to know what the Duske crowd is
about,” he reflected, glancing towards the isolated
camp which he had surreptitiously visited only a
few nights previous. “Mr. Parks might be glad
to know, too. I’ll do a little skirmishing and
find out what I can.”
Andy crossed a dark space. Lights were moving about
the Duske camp, and these served as
a guide. He neared the fence surrounding the
camp, got over it, and cautiously approached the
large tent which held the airship he had inspected
on his first stealthy visit to the place.
Suddenly Andy tripped and fell. His foot had
caught in a wire stretched taut under the grass.
As he went headlong across the grass, a bell
began to jingle, and he realized that the wire was
one of many probably set to trap intruders. At
all events, before he could get to his feet two
men ran out of the tent.
One of these was Duske. The other was his
companion of the evening when Andy had previously
visited the place. They pounced on him
promptly.
“Another spy,” spoke Duske, dragging the
captive toward the tent.
“They’re getting thick,” observed his companion.
“Those fellows at the big camp are mighty
curious to pry into the secrets of our craft here.
Hello! why, Duske, this is the same fellow we
caught snooping around here three nights since.”
“Eh? Oh, it’s you again, is it?”
They had come inside the tent. The light
burning there revealed Andy fully. Without
letting go of him Duske scowlingly surveyed his
captive.
“Say, Duske,” spoke the other man quickly,
“it’s Parks’ boy, and he’s the one who won the
pony prize.”
“Was that you?” demanded Duske; “are you
Andy Nelson?”
“Suppose so?” queried Andy.
“Then you’re the fellow who is going to take
Parks’ place in the race to-morrow?”
“I guess that is right,” affirmed Andy.
“No,” cried Duske, showing his teeth, and
looking fierce and malicious, “it’s wrong, dead
wrong, as you’re going to find out. Fetch me
some rope.”
“Hold on,” objected Andy, “you aren’t going
to tie me up?”
He put up a manful struggle and very nearly
got away. The two powerful men were more
than his equal, however, and in a very few minutes
Andy found himself tied hand and foot.
Duske and his companion carried him bodily
along through the tent, past the flying machine,
and threw him onto a mattress lying on the
ground in a small compartment partitioned off
with canvas. Duske tested the ropes that bound
Andy, gave them another twist, and went out
into the main tent.
“This looks like luck,” observed the companion
of Duske.
“Yes, if we’ve got the bearings right,” replied
the other, “Are you sure he was scheduled to
take Parks’ place in the race?”
“Of course I am. Hasn’t Tyrrell told us already
about his getting into trouble somewhere,
and couldn’t be here to make the race? Hasn’t
Parks hired Tyrrell in his place?”
“Then how comes the boy to be here? I don’t
like the looks of things at all.”
“Tyrrell will be here before long. He can
post us if there is any break in our arrangements.”
The two men passed out of hearing. Andy
made one or two efforts to loosen his bonds,
found them unusually secure, and gave up the experiment.
What his captors had said startled
and disturbed him considerably.
“Mr. Parks doesn’t expect me to show up in
time to make the race, and this man they talked
about, Tyrrell, is going to take my place,” reflected
Andy. “He is a friend of the people here,
and that certainly means harm for Mr. Parks.”
Andy worried himself a good deal during the
next hour, imagining all kinds of plots on the part
of Duske and his friends to prevent the Racing
Star from winning the prize.
Finally Andy heard voices in the large tent.
His name was spoken, and he listened intently to
catch what was said.
“If that’s so, and it’s really Andy Nelson,”
sounded a new voice, “it’s funny, for up to this
morning he was in jail at Princeville.”
“Then he’s escaped, or got free somehow,”
answered Duske. “He’s that boy of Parks’ who
was the winner in the dash for the pony prize.”
“If he is,” came the reply, “you want to hold
him a close prisoner till the big race is over.”
CHAPTER XXI—A FRIEND IN NEED
The voices that Andy heard died away in the
distance. In about ten minutes, however, they
came back again within his range of hearing. The
man he believed to be Tyrrell, who in some way
had induced Mr. Parks to accept him as a substitute
for himself in the aviation race, was speaking
to his companion, who was Duske.
“That’s the programme, is it?” he was asking.
“To a T.”
“You will look out for the Nelson boy.”
“Don’t fret on that score. We’ll cage him safe
and sound until the race is over.”
“You think I had better use the bottle?”
“Yes, here it is. Stow it anywhere in your
clothes.”
“Isn’t there some easier way? What’s the
use of fire? It may strike investigators as suspicious.”
“Not at all. They tanked you too full, a spark
did the mischief, see? You know enough to descend
in among some trees?”
“Of course.”
“Let the flame singe your clothing, tell some
sensational story of a hairbreadth escape, and
you’ll be quite a hero.”
“You think with the Racing Star out of the
way that your machine is bound to win, do you?”
“I know it,” affirmed Duske confidently.
“Those other aeroplanes are mere botches. They
will do as playthings, but as to distance, they’re
not in it with the Moon Bird.”
“All right, I’ll follow instructions. Keep that
boy safe. I’d better go. It would be all up with
our scheme if Parks should suspect I was your
friend.”
Andy fairly writhed where he lay. The plot
of the villains was now perfectly clear to him.
The man Tyrrell had wormed himself into the
confidence of Mr. Parks, who little suspected
that he was a confederate of Duske. Tyrrell was
to make the start with the Racing Star, pretend
that an accident had happened, and burn up the
airship.
“What shall I do—what can I do?” breathed
Andy. “They don’t intend to let me go until
after the race is over to-morrow.”
In about an hour Duske and an old man who
seemed to be the cook of the camp came to where
Andy lay. Duske released one hand of the captive.
The anxious prisoner did not feel much
like eating, but he realized that he must keep
up his strength. He ate some bread and meat
which the cook brought, and drank some water.
Duske tied him up again, tighter than ever.
Then he spoke to the cook:
“You get your armchair right outside the canvas
flap here, Dobbins.”
“All right, Mr. Duske,” replied the man.
“Every fifteen minutes, right through till morning,
you are to look in on that boy. See that he is
comfortable, but particularly that he is safe.”
“I’ll attend to it.”
“If you let him get away, you’re out of a job,
remember.”
The cook followed out the programme directed
by Duske to the minutest detail. Andy had no
opportunity to free himself—he was watched so
closely. He decided that the effort would be futile.
Until midnight he lay wide awake, nervous
and worried. Then he made up his mind that it
did no good to fret, and got some sleep.
He was given his breakfast about six o’clock in
the morning. Then he was tied up again and
left to himself. He lay on the mattress so that
when the wind blew the canvas lifted and he could
look out. He was faced away from the direction
of the aviation field, however, and twenty feet
away the fence stared him blankly in the face.
From sounds near by and in the distance during
the next two hours, Andy could figure out just
what was going on about him. The Moon Bird
was carried from its aerodrome and taken to the
aviation field. The old cook seemed to be left
in possession of the camp. He looked in on Andy
every so often. The rest of the time he was busy
in the larger tent or outside of it with his cooking
utensils.
Poor Andy was in sore straits of despair. He
had a vivid imagination, and could fancy all that
was shut out from his view by captivity. He
heard a distant town bell strike nine o’clock.
“In an hour the airships will be off,” soliloquized
the captive mournfully, “and I won’t be
there.”
Andy pictured in his mind all that was going
on at the aviation field. He could fancy the airships
ranging in place for the start. He could
imagine the animation and excitement permeating
the groups of spectators. He shut his eyes and
tried to forget it all, so keen was his disappointment.
He heard the band strike up a gay tune. Then
a gun was fired. Andy almost shed tears. In
twenty minutes the starting signal was due.
“They’ll have a head wind,” he ruminated, as
the breeze lifted the canvas at the side of the mattress
upon which he lay. “It will be light, though,
and won’t hinder much;” and then he thrilled, as
he fancied himself seated in the operator’s stand
of the splendid Racing Star, awaiting the final
word, “Go!”
Andy stared blankly at the fence of the enclosure
of the Duske camp. A section of it had been
broken down, and the gate left open in removing
the airship. Of a sudden he stared eagerly. Some
one had come into the enclosure.
The intruder was evidently some casual sight-seer,
a boy. His hands were in his pockets, and
he strolled about as if curiously inspecting everything
that came under his notice. He cast a careless
glance at the tent, and was proceeding on his
way towards the main aviation field, when Andy
gave a great start.
“Silas—Silas Pierce!” he shouted, ignoring discovery
by the cook.
Andy’s heart was thumping like a trip-hammer.
It seemed as if on the verge of the blackest despair
a bright star of hope had risen on the horizon.
He had recognized the intruder with surprise,
but with gladness as well.
It was his companion of the goose trip, the
son of Mr. Pierce—the farmer Silas—whom
Andy had last seen at the Collins place, the farm
he had visited the day previous. Silas wore a
brand-new suit of clothes. He suggested the typical
country boy, with some loose cash in his pocket,
enjoying a brief holiday to the utmost.
“Hey!” exclaimed Silas, with a startled jump,
his eyes goggling all about, and unable to trace
the source of the challenge.
Andy uttered a groan. At the moment the
breeze let down, and the canvas dropped, shutting
him in and Silas out. Then a puff of wind
came and lifted the flap again.
“Here, here, Silas!” called out Andy in tones
of strained suspense. “Quick—help!”
“I vum!” gasped the farmer boy, staring
blankly at what he saw of Andy. “Who is it?
And—I say, you’re dad’s great friend, the Nelson
boy!”
Silas had advanced, and took in the situation,
and recognized Andy slowly.
“Lift up the canvas; come in here,” directed
Andy in a more cautious tone of voice. “You
remember me, don’t you?”
“Guess I do; but what in the world of wonder
is the matter with you?”
“Don’t talk so loud,” pleaded Andy anxiously,
fearing the arrival of the cook at any moment.
“Some bad men have tied me up. Have you got
a knife?”
“Yes; and a brand-new one. Won it in a funny
game where you throw rings. See there,” and
with great pride Silas produced and opened a
gaudily-handled jack-knife.
“Oh, thank you, Silas; I’ll never forget this.”
“Hold on! Say! Thunder! Is he crazy?
Stop! Stop!”
In profound excitement, Silas Pierce regarded
Andy. The minute he had cut the bonds of the
young aviator, Andy had bounded to his feet as
if set on springs. Afar from the aviation field
there boomed out the second, the get-ready gun.
“Ten minutes!” gasped Andy, on fire with
resolve. “I’ve got to make it.”
He swept aside the canvas, headed in the direction
of the main camp. Hot on his heels came
his amazed rescuer, now a wondering pursuer.
Andy ran at the fence, gave a spring, and cleared
its top in a graceful leap. Silas, more clumsy,
ran at two loose boards, and by sheer force of
his might and strength, sent them out of place
and put after Andy.
“Nelson!” he bawled. “What’s the matter?
Nobody’s following you. Crickey, but you’re a
sprinter!”
“I’ll see you later—Parks’ camp—in a hurry.”
In a hurry, indeed, was Andy. He was running
against time. As a turn past some tents brought
him in full sight of the open field, he was a lone
heroic figure—heart, brain and body strained to
reach the dainty, natty Racing Star, just being
wheeled in place for flight.
There were seven airships entered for the race.
These were now stationed a distance of several
hundred yards apart, ready to start. The spectators
were held back from the dead line by
ropes stretched from post to post, but Andy was
coming across the field from its inside edge. Silas
Pierce was putting after him, puzzled and excited,
breathless, and far to the rear. Their unconventional
arrival attracted no attention, for those in
charge of the airships were engrossed in seeing
that everything was right for the start.
The Racing Star was being pushed forward to
its starting position. All the others were in place.
In a swift glance, Andy made out the Moon Bird,
and recognized Duske seated amidships.
Near the Racing Star was Mr. Parks, directing
affairs, and Scipio was standing near by. At one
side were Mr. Morse and Tsilsuma, deeply interested
in the manoeuvres going on.
“It’s Tyrrell!” panted Andy, and he redoubled
his speed as he made out the treacherous ally of
Duske. Tyrrell was arrayed in leather jacket and
gloves, keeping pace with the Racing Star as it
moved along. As the airship came to a halt on
the starting line, Andy saw him move forward to
take his seat amidships.
It was then that Andy massed all his strength
of being, accompanied by animated gesticulations,
as he shouted out:
“Stop that man!”
CHAPTER XXII—“GO!”
“Andy!” shouted John Parks in a transport of
amazement.
“It’s me,” panted Andy, running up to his employer
and pointing at Tyrrell. “Mr. Parks, stop
that man. He’s a traitor; he’s a villain!”
Tyrrell had heard and seen Andy. He gave a
great start. Then he made a move as if to hasten
aboard the airship and get out of his way. Mr.
Morse and the Japanese hastened forward. The
men guiding the aeroplane stared hard at the newcomer.
“Andy, what do you mean?” demanded Mr.
Parks, lost in wonderment.
“Just what I say. Don’t let him get aboard.”
“Hold on, Tyrrell,” ordered the aeronaut.
“We’ll lose the start,” spoke Tyrrell hurriedly.
“Don’t you get aboard.”
“No, sah; yo’ just obey Mistah Parks, suh,”
interposed Scipio, laying a great hindering hand
on the arm of Tyrrell.
“I have been a prisoner in the Duske camp
since yesterday,” explained Andy, catching his
breath. “This man Tyrrell came there last night.
He is in the employ of Duske.”
“What!” shouted Parks, his face growing dark.
“It’s true, Mr. Parks,” asseverated Andy.
“They are in a plot to burn the Racing Star and
have you lose the prize.”
“Do you hear what this boy says?” thundered
the aeronaut, moving down on Tyrrell with
threatening mien.
“It’s—it’s not true,” declared Tyrrell, but turning
pale, shrinking back, and looking about him
for a chance to run.
“If you don’t believe me,” cried Andy, “search
him.”
Scipio held Tyrrell’s arm in a viselike clasp.
Parks ran his hand over his clothing. He drew
from his pocket a parcel done up in a handkerchief.
Mr. Morse took it, opened it, and revealed
a bottle filled with some substance like kerosene,
a small box of matches and some lint. Quick as
a flash the hand of the aeronaut shot out for
the throat of Tyrrell.
“You treacherous scoundrel!” he shouted.
Boom!
“The third gun! They’re off, Mr. Parks,” cried
Andy. “Oh, don’t let the Racing Star miss it.”
“What can I do?”
“Send me. Men, get ready. Mr. Parks, I’ll
win this race!”
Andy was in no trim physically or in attire to
attempt the race. At a glance the aeronaut saw
this. But our hero was irresistible. He ran
towards the machine, and with nimble movements
he glided among the planes and reached the operator’s
seat. Already the other airships were
sailing skywards.
“Go!” shouted Andy.
Upon the operator’s seat lay the skull cap and
goggles, ready for Tyrrell, and Andy hastily
donned them. He heard the voice of Parks, now
as excited as himself, giving orders, a tacit consent
to make the start.
There was a run of scarcely a hundred feet
along the grass. Andy placed a firm hand on the
wheel. Then came a series of curves and sweeping
arcs, which kept the crowd of spectators turning
first one way and then the other in entranced
silence.
The young aviator followed the popping of the
motors of the contestant machines. One was
fast becoming a mere speck in the sky.
“The Moon Bird, Duske’s machine,” murmured
Andy.
It seemed poised in the air without motion, so
direct was its course, so true its mechanism. Two
of the other airships had already descended, one
of them wrecked and out of the race. The forty-foot
mechanical bird, the Duske machine, however,
had made the lead and kept it.
The climax came in Andy’s preliminary ascent.
Now the Racing Star, light and dainty as a lark,
mounted with amazing speed. A glance at
three of the airships convinced Andy that they
were too faulty to make a record. The Moon
Bird, however, was a marvel. From what he had
heard Mr. Parks say, Duske had been an expert
balloonist, and he now showed amazing ability in
the aviation line. He seemed to be putting the
stolen airship idea to marked advantage.
Andy struck a level about fifteen hundred feet
in the air. There was a head wind, but it was not
strong. Andy put on fine speed gradually. The
Racing Star passed two of the contestants, and,
fully in action, he drove keen on the trail of the
Moon Bird.
The train that acted as a pilot with an American
flag on its last car, Andy kept in view as a
guide. When they came to Lake Clear, the Moon
Bird did not follow the rounding land course,
nor did Andy. Lake Clear was a shallow body
of water, but of considerable extent, and dotted
here and there with little islands.
Suddenly the Moon Bird, a machine of good
utility, but, as Andy knew, of little lasting power,
made a decided spurt, passed the Racing Star,
and at a distance of half a mile got fairly abreast
of the lake. It was here that Duske met his
Waterloo. Hitherto he had maintained practically
a steady course. More than once Andy had
got near enough to this rival to hear the loud
gasping of the tube exhausts drown out the sharp
chug-chug of the motor. Suddenly Duske made
a sharp turn.
An appalling climax followed. In consternation
and suspense Andy watched aerial evolutions
that fairly dizzied him.
“He is lost!” breathed Andy, a-thrill.
In an instant he recalled what Mr. Morse had
told him of the unfinished model that Duske and
his crowd had stolen from him. The inventor
had explained to Andy that while the suction principle
involved in the rudder construction was
unique and bound to increase speed, there should
have been added automatic caps to close the rear
ends of the suction tubes where a curve was attempted.
Of this Duske evidently knew nothing. The
moment he turned the machine, however, there
was a whirl. The aeroplane described a dive,
then a somersault. Its lateral planes collapsed,
and, tipping from side to side, it began to descend
with frightful velocity.
Once it half righted, balanced, went over again,
and, fifty feet from the ground, shot clear of a
little islet, and went down in the water of the
lake, a wreck, first spilling Duske out.
“He is killed or stunned!” exclaimed Andy.
The boy aviator saw the other airships forging
ahead, indifferent to the accident. Minutes
counted in the sixty-mile race to Springfield and
back to the starting point, but Andy was humane.
He saw clearly that, if alive, the half-submerged
Duske would be suffocated in a few minutes’ time.
“I can’t leave him to die,” murmured Andy,
and sent the Racing Star on a sharp slant, landing
on the island.
Andy was soon out of the airship. He waded
to the spot where Duske lay, and dragged him
bodily up on dry land. As he turned him on his
face, Andy knew from its purple hue, the lifeless
limbs and choked gasps of the man, that another
minute in the water would have been his last.
A boat put out from the mainland where a
crowd of spectators was watching the race. Four
men jumped out as the island was reached.
“Take care of this man,” ordered Andy.
“You’re a pretty fair fellow to risk losing
the race to save a competitor,” spoke one of the
men heartily.
He and his companions followed Andy’s instructions
the best they could in starting the Racing
Star, and Andy shot skywards again, making
up for lost time.
CHAPTER XXIII—THE GREAT RACE
“Hurrah!”
“Why, it’s only a boy!”
“Parks’ man—get your rest, lad, while we see
to things.”
Andy found himself in a whirl of motion and
excitement. When he had left the island where
he had sacrificed his time and risked his chances
of winning the race, he had discovered that he
was fourth on the programme. The Flash was
becoming a distant speck, and the two other contesting
biplanes were lagging after the leader.
Andy now set a pace to force the Racing Star
to do its utmost. His good knowledge of detail
as to the machinery and his masterly manipulation
of the same soon brought results. The Racing
Star easily passed two of the airships ahead.
Then Andy ran neck-and-neck with the pilot train
for several miles.
The Flash, however, kept up admirable speed,
but finally a wing broke or oil ran out at Wayne,
and the operator descended to a relief station.
Now was Andy’s chance, and he made the
most of it. With those inspiriting shouts of
“Hurrah! Why, it’s only a boy!” and the announcement
from the relay posted at Springfield
by Parks that they were on hand to tank up the
Racing Star and adjust the machinery, Andy
landed at the outskirts of the city, just half the
race distance covered.
It made him quite dizzy-headed to sail down
along a vast sea of human beings, wild with enthusiasm
at greeting the leader so far in the race.
Two men took entire charge of the Racing
Star, with quick movements, tanking, oiling the
cylinders, testing every part of it. A third man
brought Andy a tray containing a cup of steaming
coffee, one of beef tea, and some crackers.
“There she comes!”
“Hurrah No. 2!”
“The Flash!”
“And there she goes!”
“All aboard, Parks,” sang out the leader of
the relay gang, and with a glide and a *** the
Racing Star was once more up in the air.
Again the Flash was in the lead. Having been
supplied with fuel and oil at its recent stop, the
operator did not make any halt at the turning
post. Andy felt fresh and ambitious, and the
Racing Star responded loyally to every touch of
wheel and lever.
Fifty feet from the ground a wheel dropped
from place, but Andy paid no attention to this.
The train did not act as pilot on the return trip.
Instead, at intervals of five miles to indicate stations,
smudges were being sent aloft. Andy made
a direct run for the first one of these, mapping
out his route from those dimly visible on the
course ahead.
At Dover Andy passed the Flash. For the
next five miles they kept pretty well abreast.
The last smudge was about eight miles from
Montrose. Andy flew past it making a circular
turn as he plainly made out the aviation field in
the distance. His competitor made a short cut,
lost on a turn to strike the straight course and
Andy overtook him.
Now it was that Andy tensioned up the splendid
machine to its highest power. The white expanse
of canvas and wood shivered and trembled
under an unusual strain.
“In the lead!” cried Andy in delight, and his
eyes sparkled through the goggles as he took a
swift backward glance. The Flash was bungling.
Its progress was a wobble and its operator was
at fault in striking an even balance.
The speed of the Racing Star had now been
increased to its utmost.
“Five minutes more, six at the most, will decide
the race,” breathed Andy. “I can’t lose
now.”
The Racing Star was no longer a bird afloat,
but an arrow. Giving to the machine a certain
slant, calculating to a foot how and where he
would land, Andy saw nothing, thought of nothing,
but the home post.
He was conscious of a frightful bolt downwards
that fairly took his breath away. There
was a blur of flying fences, buildings, tents, a
green expanse, a sea of human faces, a roar as
a great shout went up, and the Racing Star met
the ground on a bounce, and Andy Nelson was
the winner of the great race.
Our hero did not step from the airship as
eager, willing hands eased the Racing Star down
to a stop. Cheering, excited men fairly pulled
him over the drooping planes. Some one hugged
him with a ringing yell of delight, and John
Parks’ voice sounded in his ears.
“Oh, you famous boy—Andy, my lad, it’s the
proudest moment of my life!”
Mr. Morse caught Andy’s hand, his serious
face flushed with pride.
“The Racing Star did it,” said Andy.
“Yo’ did it, chile, and yo’ did it brown,” chimed
in Scipio, his mouth expanded in joyous delight
from ear to ear.
John Parks never let go of Andy’s arm as
they made their way through the crowds to the
main aerodrome stand. The official starter had
unscrewed the speedometer and elevation gauge.
He ran before them to the stand. Someone
quickly chalked a legend on the big, bare blackboard.
It ran:
Start of flight—10:04.
Finish—11:39.
Distance traveled—60 miles.
Maximum height—1,200 feet.
Wind velocity—12 miles from the west.
Winner—Racing Star.
Operator—Andy Nelson.
Somehow the boy aviator thrilled as he read
his name at the bottom of the little legend.
“It’s like a dream, Mr. Parks—just like a
dream,” and his voice was faint and dreamy in
itself.
“Don’t collapse, lad,” directed the aeronaut
anxiously—“the best is to come.”
“It’s only the reaction,” said Andy. “To think
I did it—me, only Andy!”
“There isn’t another Andy like you in the whole
world,” enthusiastically declared Parks. “Yes,
sir,” as a man waved to him from the table on
the grand stand.
“Here’s the check, Parks,” notified the judge.
“Well, we’ve won it, haven’t we?” chuckled
the aeronaut.
“You have, and it’s ready for you. A pretty
piece of paper, hey—five thousand dollars. Make
it out to you?”
“I’ll take it in two checks,” answered Parks.
“Mr. Parks——” began Andy.
“There’s only one check for the whole amount,”
replied the judge, “and only the name left to be
filled in.”
“Oh, that’s the way of it, eh?” said the aeronaut.
“All right, fill it in John Parks and Andy
Nelson. I reckon, Andy, I can’t get that twenty-five
hundred dollars away from you without your
signature.”
He poked Andy in the ribs in jolly fun. He
was all smiles and laughter as he shouted an
order to Scipio to hurry home and get up the best
celebration dinner he knew how. Then, Andy
following him, he stepped forward to take the
arm of Mr. Morse, and thus, the Japanese walking
with Andy and congratulating him on his
great feat, they crossed the field away from the
crowds.
Some one broke over the dead line ropes and
made a dash after them, yelling loudly:
“Andy, oh, Andy Nelson!”
“Hold on there!” ordered an officer, trying to
head off the trespasser.
“Silas Pierce!” exclaimed Andy.
“He goes with us, officer,” called out Parks.
“You bet you go with us, you grand old hero!”
he cried, giving the farmer boy a joyful, friendly
slap on the shoulder.
“Yes, indeed,” smiled Andy, catching the arm
of Silas and hugging it quite, “if it hadn’t been
for you, there would have been no race.”
“Andy,” gasped Silas, “I can hardly believe it.
Why you’re famous.”
“Am I?” smiled Andy.
“And rich.”
“Rich in good friends, anyway,” replied Andy.
“I hung around. When I saw you coming in
on the lead, I nearly fell flat I was so excited,”
declared Silas.
“I want a chance for a little talk with you,
Silas,” said Andy. “I want to show you how
much I appreciate what you have done for me.”
The merry, happy coterie crossed the field,
and coming out at a gate made a short cut for
the Parks camp. They had just neared it, when
among the crowd thronging about the place, Andy
made out a boy edging towards him.
He crowded past several persons and came up
to Andy’s side and caught his sleeve.
“Andy,” he said in a bold but sheepish way,
“you know me, don’t you?”
“Why, yes, I know you,” answered Andy.
He stared in mingled surprise, perplexity and
distrust at the speaker.
It was Dale Billings. Hungry-faced, unkempt
looking, as if he had not slept for a week, and
then in a hay mow or a freight car. Andy’s old-time
enemy confronted him in the hour of his
great triumph.
CHAPTER XXIV—A HOPEFUL CLEW
“Did you want to see me, Dale,” inquired
Andy.
“Yes, I do, and bad,” responded Dale Billings.
“See here, you’ve won a big race. You’re rich.
If it hadn’t been for me and Gus Talbot, you
wouldn’t be.”
“How is that?” inquired Andy.
“We figured along the line, didn’t we? If I’d
gone to work for old Talbot when I had a
chance, you’d have been out and wouldn’t have
learned about automobiles and machinery and
such, and couldn’t have run an airship and won
the race.”
This was *** reasoning. Andy had to
smile. He couldn’t feel any way but pleasant
and happy with the great airship prize his, however,
and he said:
“Well, let that go. What are you driving at,
Dale?”
“We’re in hard luck, me and Gus.”
“You look it,” said Andy.
“We haven’t got a cent, we don’t dare to go
back home. Gus is sick in an old shed down
the tracks, and we haven’t had a mouthful to
eat since yesterday morning. There’s no friends
here we know but you. I’m just desperate. Loan
me two dollars, Andy.”
“Why certainly,” answered Andy.
“I mean five—yes, if you’ll loan us ten dollars
till we get work and on our feet, we’ll pay it back.”
“All right,” agreed Andy, “only you’ll have to
come up to our camp for it. You know where
it is—Parks’ camp.”
“Yes, I know.”
“I want to have a talk with you. You can
depend on the money, Dale.”
A thought ran through the mind of the young
aviator that by kindness he might make some impression
on the two outcasts. As he summed up
the meanness and audacity of his recent capture,
however, Andy secretly confessed that it would
be a hard undertaking.
First thing of all, our hero took a bath and
got himself in better shape generally. Mr. Parks
and a group of his friends occupied the main sitting
room. Andy had left Dale in one of the
smaller apartments of the old shack. As he went
thither he passed Scipio, arrayed in white apron
and natty cap and warbling a plantation ditty as
he brandished knife and carver gaily.
“Getting sech a dinnah, Andy, chile,” he
chuckled. “Ah give you a feast you nebber
forgit.”
“Now then, Silas,” said Andy, entering the
room where he had left the farmer boy, “I’ve got
time to shake your hand good and hearty, and
glad to do it.”
“And I’m glad you’re not too proud to do it,”
replied Silas.
“You’ve done a big thing for me, Silas,” went
on Andy.
“Think so?”
“Where would the race be if you had not come
along in the nick of time and set me free?”
“I was mightily surprised to see you in that
*** fix,” said Silas, “and I didn’t know what
had happened when you started on a rush for the
airship.”
“Well, you understand now,” said Andy.
“Now then, Silas, what can I do for you?”
“Do, how?”
“I want to acknowledge your usefulness in some
way. There must be something you want or
need.”
“You mean you’d like to give me some little
memento for trying to help you along?”
“That’s it.”
“But I’m glad to do it for nothing.”
“Never mind. Come, speak out, Silas. A
bicycle, a nice new watch and chain?”
“Why, see here,” said Silas, after a moment’s
deep thought, “if it’s the same to you, I’d like
ten dollars and seventeen cents.”
Andy smiled. “For something special?” he
inquired.
“Why, yes. You see I want to go to school
this winter and learn shorthand. The term is
eighteen dollars, and I’ve only saved up seven
dollars and eighty-three cents.”
“I’ll do better than that for you, Silas,” said
Andy, “and I’m glad to find you so ambitious.
How is your father?”
“All right, I guess, though I haven’t seen him
for nigh onto a month.”
“Why, how’s that?”
“I’ve been staying at the Collins farm.”
“You have?” exclaimed Andy, at once interested.
“Yes. Just came up from there yesterday.
There hasn’t been much doing, and won’t be until
the folks get their new house built. I was on
their hands, though, and I’m staying around visiting
relatives.”
“How do you mean you was on their hands,
Silas?” inquired Andy.
“Why, dad got talking with Mr. Collins after
we’d got rid of the geese. There’s a good
academy at Wade, and Mr. Collins was going
into sheep in a big way. He offered me quite
a good job and the chance to go to school in the
winter, and I took it.”
“But Mr. Collins’ house burned down,” said
Andy.
“What, did you hear of that?” asked Silas in
surprise.
“Yes,” nodded Andy.
“Well, that put things in bad shape for the
family, but they are coming back soon, and in
the meantime I tend to the sheep in the pasture
lot. Lucky they had moved the old shed over
there for storm shelter before the house and
barns burned down.”
“What shed?” asked Andy, with a quick start.
“The one that stood under the old elm tree.
Don’t you remember? Why, it was the shed you
changed your clothes in.”
“What!” shouted Andy, jumping to his feet
in intense excitement; “that shed wasn’t burned
down?”
“Ain’t I telling you? They moved it over to
the pasture on skids two weeks before the fire.”
“And it is there now?”
“Yes—but don’t!”
Andy felt like making a rush at once at the
great hopeful news Silas had told. The latter
had grabbed his arm.
“Don’t what?”
“Bolt. You’re going to make a dash like you
did this morning.”
“No, Silas,” said Andy, trying to be calm.
“You can’t imagine what great news you have
brought me.”
“I don’t see how.”
“We must go to the Collins farm at once, Silas,
that old shed had a shelf up over the side
window?”
“Remember that, do you? So do I.”
“It had a lot of rubbish on it.”
“I noticed that.”
“Has it ever been disturbed?”
“Not that I know of. You see, Mr. Collins
was arranging to have the old barracks patched
up by a carpenter from Wade, when the fire came
along.”
“Silas,” said Andy, “I threw my old clothes up
on that shelf. If they are still there, I shall be
able to find an old leather pocketbook in them that
contains a paper upon which depends a fortune.”
“You don’t say so?” remarked Silas, in open-mouthed
wonderment “What *** things you
happen across!”
“A gentleman named Webb is very, very anxious to recover
that pocketbook. I want you to
go at once with me and see if the clothes are still
there,” and Andy briefly recited the story of the
lost pocketbook and the details of his recent visit
to the Collins farm.
He was consulting a railroad timetable to determine
when the next train left Montrose, when
Scipio rushed into the room.
“Andy, boy,” he spoke quickly, “yo’ told a boy
to told me dat he was to be let come to see yo’?”
“What kind of a boy, Scipio?” inquired Andy.
Scipio described Dale Billings, and as he did
so passed some personal comments on his
“’spicious” appearance.
“Yes, that’s right, Scipio,” said Andy.
“Den somefin’s wrong,” declared the perturbed
cook. “When he come, I say Mistah Nelson very
much preoccupied with another gemman, and he
must wait. He sot down on dat chair just outside
the door hyar.”
“Go on, Scipio.”
“I keep my eye on him. Dat boy,” announced
Scipio, “remind me of mean, low-down people,
I meet afore in my ’sperience. Bimeby I watch
him bend towards de door. He seemed listening.
Den I saw him start and draw closer to de door.
Den all of a sudden he make a rush out of de
place. I run to de gate. Den anoder sneaking-looking
boy meet him. Dey talk fast, berry much
excited. Den dey make a run towards the railroad
tracks as if dey was in a turrible hurry.”
“Dale Billings and Gus Talbot!” exclaimed
Andy, on fire with the intelligence imparted by his
loyal, dusky friend. “Silas, they have got our
secret. They are after the old leather pocketbook
on the Collins farm. We must get there first!”
Andy directed Silas to wait where he was.
Then he ran to the room where Mr. Parks was
engaged with his friends. Appearing at the doorway
he attracted the attention of the aeronaut and
beckoned to him.
“What is it, Andy?” inquired Parks, coming
outside. “You look excited.”
“I am,” admitted Andy, and then very briefly,
but clearly, he explained his urgency.
“I say, you mustn’t let any grass grow under
your feet!” exclaimed Parks. “I reckon you’ve
got it right—that sneaking fellow you was trying
to help is off on the track of the old shed you
tell about. There’s the Racing Star—no, that
won’t do, but—I’ve got it, Andy. Wait here a
minute.”
John Parks flashed in among his friends and
then flashed out again. Now he was accompanied
by a well-dressed portly gentleman whom Andy
had seen about the aviation grounds, and whom he
knew to be one of the principals in getting up
the race.
The aeronaut was busy talking fast and urgently
to this person, who nodded to Andy and
said:
“That’s all right Do you know how to run
an automobile?” to Andy.
“Why, that was his old business,” explained
Parks.
“I’ll risk anybody getting ahead of you, then.
My machine is just outside the camp.”
“Come on, Silas,” hailed Andy as they passed
on towards the gate.
Andy found a magnificent six-cylinder automobile
just outside the camp. He thanked its owner
heartily for allowing its use, beckoned Silas to
the rear seat, and waved adieu to his employer
with the cheery words:
“I’ll be back inside of two hours, Mr. Parks.”
“Say,” bolted out Silas, holding on with both
hands as they crossed the railroad tracks and
struck a winding country road due north, “isn’t—isn’t
this going pretty fast?”
“Oh, this is just starting up,” declared Andy.
“I never rode in one of these before,” said
Silas. “Those sneaks won’t get much ahead of
this, I’m thinking.”
Andy thought this, too. There was not the
least doubt in his mind that Dale Billings and Gus
Talbot were already on the trail of the old leather
pocketbook. All they could do, however, was to
steal their way on some slow freight train. Still,
they might induce someone to go for them or with
them by faster travel. They might get an automobile,
even if they had to steal one. Andy felt
that it was pretty hopeless trying to make Dale
or Gus respectable. He had intended, in the
liberality of his heart, to put them on their feet.
Here, the first thing, Dale was acting the part
of a sneak and a thief.
It felt good to Andy to get back to his old
business once more. Once out on a clear, level
road, he made the machine fairly hum. Various
ejaculations back of him told that his unexperienced
passenger was having spasms. In considerably
less than an hour the machine reached
Wade. They were soon at the site of the Collins
farmhouse.
“There’s the old shed, see?” spoke Silas, as
Andy directed the machine across the fields.
“Yes, I see,” said Andy, “and it’s a sight for
sore eyes.”
He halted the machine and jumped out as they
reached the fence of a pasture lot containing several
flocks of sheep. In one corner of it stood the
old shed. Silas was worked up to quite as high a
pitch of suspense and expectation as Andy himself.
“There’s the shelf!” he cried, as Andy passed
through the doorway.
“Yes, but—my old clothes are not here.”
“Oh, don’t say that!” almost choked out Silas.
“It is true,” said Andy, getting down from the
keg he was standing on. “Here’s a lot of old
truck, wagon hardware and hoops and a grindstone,
but the clothes are gone.”
Silas uttered a dismal groan.
“Oh, I’m a hoodoo!” he declared, banging his
head first on one side and then on the other.
“Here I’ve made you all this trouble, all for
nothing. But, say,” added the farmer eagerly,
“some one must have taken those clothes. We
may trace them down. And say, some one has
been in this shed since I left it yesterday.”
“Why do you think so?”
“Someone has slept here. See, the floor is covered
with straw. Some ***, I suppose. It
rained last night, and he came in here for shelter.
Oh, whoop! whoopee!”
At first Andy thought his companion had taken
leave of his senses. With a Comanche-like yell
Silas had made a spring. Then a method to his
apparent madness was disclosed.
Andy saw him pull a wadded mass out of a
hole formerly used to admit a stove pipe. Andy
gasped with gladness and hope.
“My clothes,” he said, “sure enough!”
“Don’t you see?” said the jubilant Silas, dancing
a joyful hornpipe. “It rained. The *** who
stayed here stuffed up the hole to shut out the
rain. Say, sure your clothes?”
“Yes,” said Andy, searching them.
“And the pocketbook?”
“Here it is,” cried our hero in a strained tone
that trembled. “Yes, the pocketbook is here all
right.”
“Hurrah!” yelled Silas Pierce at the top of his
voice.
CHAPTER XXV—GOOD-BY TO AIRSHIP ANDY
“A visitor for yo’, Marse Andy,” announced
Scipio.
“It’s only me,” said Mr. Chase, stepping into
the sitting room of the aerodrome at the Parks’
camp.
“Well, no one is more welcome, Mr. Chase,”
declared Andy heartily. “Come in, sit down, and
make yourself at home.”
“Not till I ask a certain question,” dissented
the grizzled lockup-keeper of Princeville.
“Fire away,” smiled Andy. “What’s the
question?”
“Can you get me a job?”
“Right off, and a good one,” responded Andy
promptly. “My employer, Mr. Parks, is going
into the airship line as a regular professional,
and I don’t know a better all-round handy man
I would recommend sooner than you.”
“All right,” said Chase, with a sigh of relief,
dropping into a chair and placing a bulging, ancient
carpet bag on the floor. “I’m done with
lockups.”
“Is that so, Mr. Chase?”
“It is, and with that conscienceless old grafter,
Talbot. You know I told you I was waiting for
something when I last saw you.”
“Yes,” nodded Andy.
“It was Wandering ***.”
“So you told me.”
“I sent that *** after him. He found him.
I got from *** what I wanted, paid for it, resigned
my position, and now I am here.”
“Quick work.”
“And here’s what I got from Wandering ***.”
Chase extended to Andy a neatly folded paper.
“And what is this, Mr. Chase?” asked Andy.
“A confession and affidavit.”
“How does that interest me?”
“Read and see.”
Andy’s face grew interested and then startled
as he perused the sheet of paper. It was a legal
document attested to by Wandering *** before
a regular justice of the peace at Princeville.
In his affidavit the *** stated that on the
night that the barn of Farmer Jones burned down,
he was in its hay mow. He saw distinctly the two
boys who set the fire—Gus Talbot and Dale Billings.
He got out of the way for fear of being
charged with the crime, sought later shelter at the
jail, and told Chase about it.
The latter was so dependent upon Talbot and
in dread of the garage keeper, who held his position
at his mercy, that he made no move to right
Andy with the public until the latter was arrested.
“You have done nobly, Mr. Chase,” said Andy
with deep gratitude, “and where is your bill of
expenses to settle?”
“Settle nothing!” flared out Chase stormily.
“You ever mention it again and I’ll get out of
here bag and baggage, double quick.”
“Well, well,” answered Andy, “we’ll try to find
some way to make it up to you.”
Two days later Andy learned that the attention
of Seth Talbot had been called to the affidavit.
Runaway Gus Talbot and Dale Billings had returned
to Princeville. In some way the garage
keeper settled with Farmer Jones, hushed up the
matter, and sent his graceless son on a sea voyage.
The charge against Andy was, of course, dismissed.
Andy went to visit Duske in the town hospital.
His accomplice, Tyrrell, had been driven out of
the aviation camp and threatened with a coat of
tar and feathers if he ever returned. The rest
of Duske’s party disappeared, and creditors seized
what little property he had.
Duske would never drive a balloon or airship
again. One arm and one foot were broken, and
he had sustained other severe injuries. Andy
found him a dispirited, wretched man.
He had an object in visiting the crippled aeronaut.
He began by telling Duske that deeply as
he tried to wrong Parks, the latter had ordered
and paid for the best care during his stay in the
hospital.
“I am circulating a subscription paper among
the aviators,” added Andy. “We expect to raise
a thousand dollars for you to go to some quiet
town and buy some small business that will give
you a living.”
No person could resist the kindliness of Andy
under the circumstances. Duske broke down completely.
He was as sincere and penitent as a
man of his rough mould of mind could be.
“I don’t deserve it, I’ve been a bad man,” he
declared, with tears in his eyes. “What can I do
for you for all your kindness to me?”
“You can do something, Mr. Duske,” said
Andy. “There is a man named Morse. Do you
know him?”
“Why, yes, I do,” replied Duske, with a great
start. “Do you?”
“I happen to.”
“What has he got to do with you and me?”
“Just this,” said Andy, “you have treated him
badly. He is my friend. You had a hold on
him. What was it?”
“A forgery he never committed.”
“Are you willing to prove that, and clear him?”
“Yes, indeed. I’ve done enough wickedness in
the world.”
“Then clear his name of an unjust charge, so
he can stand before the public the good, noble
man he is.”
“I will,” declared Duske earnestly, and he did.
One week after the airship race Mr. Webb, to
whom Andy had sent the old leather pocketbook
by registered mail the day he recovered it, came
down to the Parks camp.
“I have been too busy to come before,” he explained
to Andy. “That document in the old
leather pocketbook took up my time. I tell you,
Nelson, it has brought brightness and comfort to
two orphan children in a grand way.”
“I am very glad,” said Andy.
“I got back the two hundred dollars you left at
the bank in Princeville,” continued Mr. Webb.
“I have added something to it, and my attorneys
have directed me to pay you what they intended
to give the finder of the pocketbook—five hundred
dollars.”
Andy made some demur at the largeness of the
amount, but Mr. Webb was persistent, declared
he was simply acting as agent for the lawyers,
and Andy had to take the money.
“As to myself,” observed the gentleman, “I
want to say what you must already know, Nelson—I
am greatly interested in you. I wish you
could suggest some way in which my means can
benefit you.”
“So do I,” broke in John Parks. “The lad is a
genius in the aviation line, and I want him to
keep on at it.”
“Don’t I intend to?” challenged Andy.
“Not when you say you are going to leave me
next month,” declared the aeronaut.
“Yes, but why?” said Andy. “I’ll leave it to
Mr. Webb here if I have not decided in a sensible,
practical way.”
“What is it, Nelson?” inquired Mr. Webb.
“Why, I have over two thousand five hundred
dollars in the bank. I want to put one thousand
of it aside for my half brother, when he turns up.
He was good and kind to me in the old days, and
I must not forget it. Then I want to go through
college and learn something so I may be of some
use in the world.”
“An excellent idea,” commended Mr. Webb.
“Yes,” growled Parks, but playfully, “and spoil
a good aviator!”
“Not at all,” declared Andy quickly. “I love
the airship business, Mr. Parks, but I want to
learn every branch of the science that covers it.
It looks as if airships are to be the coming vehicles
of travel, you say, Mr. Parks. If that is so,
everybody will be flying in time, and the professional
aviator will be just a common, everyday
person.”
“Well, I suppose that’s so,” admitted Parks.
“Then, the wise man will be the one who knows
how to build the airship. Why, I’ll go through
college, come out with my head chock full of new
ideas, and Mr. Webb and you and I will get up
the World’s Airship Construction Co.”
“That’s a pretty grand scheme, Nelson,” said
Mr. Webb.
“Mayn’t it become a true one?”
“Yes, it may,” said John Parks, “but I’ll always
think most of you just as you are—Airship
Andy.”
THE END
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