CHAPTER XXV
CONCLUSION
Ben opened his eyes and looked about him. He was lying in bed in a bright and cheerful room that made him think instantly of home. He had a quick mind, however, and at once knew that this was not home. He tried to rise up, could not stir a limb, and glanced over a trim dressed lady arranging some medicine at a little stand.
“This is a hospital?” he observed.
“Dear me!” exclaimed the nurse. “You are awake.”
“Am I hurt much?” was Ben’s prompt question.
“There are no bones broken,” replied the nurse, coming to his side.
“How soon can I get up to the aviation grounds?”
“You strange boy!” voiced the astonished nurse. “No fever, no delirium, good for at least two weeks here, and talking about going to the aviation grounds. I suppose you would start right off in another of those dreadful airships——”
“If I had the chance? Oh, sure,” laughed Ben. “Why, what is there to be serious about?”
“You must ask the doctor, and here he comes,” announced the nurse, stepping to one side.
Voices and footsteps sounded in the hall outside. Ben caught the words spoken by one. The tones were familiar, yet puzzling.
“Doctor,” a man was saying, “you have given the boy the best room in the hospital?”
“The very best, sir.”
“No expense spared, if it’s a hundred dollars a day.”
“He shall have every care.”
“And doctor,” added the voice pleadingly, “let me see him. Just a word. Only to tell him my gratitude—the hero who saved the life of my only treasure in the world, my darling little Lena.”
“Come to-morrow morning, Mr. Knippel. He must be kept quiet now.”
“Ah,” murmured Ben, “the man of the gig! It was his child I helped at the runaway,” and then a queer weak feeling overcame him, and he drifted into a dream before he could learn or even think of anything further.
Later in the day, however, Ben was awake once more, and strong enough to learn that he had grazed death very narrowly in that terrific runaway experience. The hospital physician explained that there were bruises and fractures that absolute rest alone could prevent from turning into something critical. Ben took it all in seriously enough. Then he surprised the doctor by suddenly laughing outright.
“You’re a merry chap,” observed the physician brightly, “what’s the funny bone idea now?”
“Why, I was just thinking,” explained Ben, “here I go hundreds of miles in an airship that makes people shudder and escape without a scratch. Then I take a fifty-yard ride in an old gig four feet from the ground, and get a tumble that lays me flat. Why, it’s like the old sailor who sailed the five oceans for half a century, came home, fell into a ditch with two feet of water in it, and drowned.”
There was a tap at the door, and the doctor admitted Ben’s mother. She was too sensible a woman to show her concern and make a scene. Not so John Davis, however, who arrived shortly afterwards. The big hearted old aviator sniffled like a schoolboy at a sight of the pride of his eyes lying helpless on a hospital cot.
“Why, the doctor says I’ll be as well as ever in a week,” remonstrated Ben airily, but really affected at the devotion of his good friend.
“I know, but we had arranged such an ovation for you up at the field,” explained Mr. Davis.
“What were going to ovate about, Mr. Davis?” inquired Ben quickly.
“Shall I tell him?” inquired the aviator, and the doctor nodded assentingly, and the blunt fellow blurted out proudly:
“The Dart won the long distance event by two hundred miles!”
“Say—say, that’s great!” aspirated Ben, his face beaming. “We’re all rich.”
“And famous,” added the old aviator. “Oh, boy, it was a gallant run!”
The grand news was enough to make any boy well. Ben was sure he would be able to be up and around in two days. The next morning he was interested when a visitor was announced as Mr. Knippel.
Ben was struck with the great change in the appearance of this man since the time he had last seen him. All the shrewd forcible look was subdued. He trembled like a child, and tears stood in his eyes and his voice broke as he poured out his gratitude to the boy who had saved his only darling child from a terrible death.
“It has changed my whole life,” he declared. “I am about to give up my business. It has been a bad business. This is a warning. I shall leave the country. Lad, I’m not a poor man. Ask what you will, it shall be yours.”
“Do you mean that?” inquired Ben, fixing his eyes on Knippel.
“Heartily.”
“Do you know a man named Tom Shallock?”
Mr. Knippel shuffled and colored. He looked embarrassed, but he nodded assentingly.
“I have only one favor to ask,” said Ben. “I have reason to believe that this man Shallock has plotted against my father, that you have in your keeping a document of great importance which Shallock stole from my father.”
“Boy, that is true,” admitted Knippel, greatly agitated. “But tell me more. I only know a part of Shallock’s affairs.”
Ben recited the whole story of the stolen contract, of the suspected visits of the Shallocks to the Hardy home, of Saxton’s accusation of theft against his father. Knippel rose to his feet with a determined look on his face when the recital was concluded.
“I shall go from here at once to your father’s lawyer at Woodville,” he promised. “The stolen document shall be restored—more, the Shallock plot against your father’s good name shall be exposed.”
“Thank you,” said Ben.
“No, it is I who thanks you,” replied Knippel in broken tones, “and my little child blesses you every day.”
The following Monday morning, Bob Dallow, chipper as a lark, came to the hospital for Ben in an automobile. Ben was overcome with the greetings that welcomed him at the aviation field. Everybody was packing up to get away, but the Davis quarters were crowded with congratulating professionals, and a big feast was spread. Ben enjoyed a happy time. Count Beausire had delayed his departure to say good-bye to him.
“Expect an honorary membership from the International Aero Club, my good friend,” he said in parting.
Ben wondered what had become of Dick Farrell. He questioned one of the helpers around the flying machines concerning that individual.
“What, ain’t you heard about Farrell?” asked the man in surprise.
“Not a word—that is, since I came back.”
“He’s gone.”
“Where to?”
“A whole lot of fellows would like to know that—Burr Rollins especially.”
“Then he left rather suddenly?” questioned our hero, curiously.
“He did—for he had to.”
“Tell me what you know.”
“Well, it was this way, the nearest I can get to it. Farrell and Rollins got into some kind of a quarrel. What it was about I don’t know, but I heard ’em having some hot words, and some other men heard it too. Then, out of spite, what does Farrell do but run the Torpedo into some old building and smash it up, top, bottom and sides. Maybe Rollins wasn’t mad.”
“What did he do?”
“He couldn’t do nothing. He wanted to have Farrell locked up, but Farrell got out of sight. Then Rollins got into some sort of trouble with the aero managers and he got out too. But before he left he told a friend of mine that Farrell had not only wrecked the flying machine but also taken two hundred dollars of his money and his watch.”
“That certainly was a loss,” commented Ben.
“Yes, it was, but, in one way, I don’t sympathize with Rollins. He wasn’t no square man, and it was a mistake to let him enter any of the contests.”
“Is he going to build another flying machine to take the place of the Torpedo?”
“That I don’t know. But I do know one thing—I don’t want anything to do with him,” returned the man.
“Nor I,” concluded our hero.
Mr. Davis and Bob, on invitation, accompanied Ben to Woodville. They put in the first day in a rare whirl of excitement and pleasure. They inspected Mr. Hardy’s Airatorium. They visited the Diebold works, and in the evening they formed a merry gladsome group in the pleasant Hardy home. Ben thought he had never seen his father and mother look so pleased and happy.
Bluff Caleb Dunn walked in on them about nine o’clock. He feigned his usual grim manner, but Ben saw that the hard-headed old fellow was secretly greatly pleased about something.
“Well, Hardy,” observed Dunn, “I’ve attended to the business you’re too easy and good natured to attend to yourself.”
“Thank you,” said Mr. Hardy mildly.
“All hands are satisfied, so we’ll make a public meeting of it,” went on the practical old fellow. “The whole secret is out. That man Knippel before leaving the country delivered that contract about the automobile patents to your lawyer, Mr. Pearsons. We have just got through showing it to old Saxton and his lawyer and calling them down to terms.”
“How was it settled?” asked Mr. Hardy.
“Saxton has agreed to restore to you seventy-five per cent. interest in all the patents. He claims the other twenty-five per cent. for financing and promoting the inventions.”
“Does that seem enough?” questioned the fair-minded Mr. Hardy.
“Oh, no!” cried Caleb Dunn with good-natured sarcasm. “Ought to have given Saxton the whole thing, as you tried to do once. We’re your guardians, and we nailed the old skinflint down to the last cent we could. So that’s all settled. The whole secret came out. It was Tom Shallock who stole the contract from you. He held it as a threat over Saxton, and that was the mystery of his influence with the old man. Saxton has fired Shallock now, though.”
“What for?” inquired Ben.
“Stealing. He and his son Dave, and that precious Dick Farrell have been stealing supplies from the Saxton works for years. They belonged to a ring of junk dealers. That man Knippel headed the crowd. They had secret signs, and that pin you found in your work shed was an emblem of their order. Dave Shallock dropped it there the night he dumped a bag of fittings in the shed. His father put up the contract with Knippel as security for money he borrowed. The whole plot has been exposed, the Shallocks are disgraced, and your father’s name, Ben, comes out clear as crystal.”
“Oh, I am so glad and happy!” murmured Mrs. Hardy.
“There’s more, too,” announced Mr. Dunn.
“Tell it,” said Mr. Hardy.
“Saxton is all broken up, and he is going to sell out to the Diebold people. That means a new manager, Hardy, and you’re the man.”
“Oh, dear!” said the delighted Mrs. Hardy.
“As to you, old grumbler,” Caleb Dunn hailed Mr. Davis pleasantly, “I heard you railing around about being too old to sail around in the air much longer.”
“And clumsy,” added the old aviator.
“Very well, here’s your chance: You know the aviators all along the line. The Diebold company will pay you more money than you ever earned before to sell the Hardy new model monoplane.”
“That’s a go,” declared Mr. Davis enthusiastically. “It gives me congenial employment and keeps me in touch with my old friends.”
“Of course Ben and I are independent,” observed Bob, jingling some gold coins in his pocket, “but we’d like a show at some honest employment.”
“Till school begins again,” supplemented Ben. “You know, Bob, you agreed to attend to the education feature while you had money to do it.”
“All right,” said Dunn. “In the meantime though, Bob can pick up a few dollars selling the airship men supplies, and Ben can take charge of adjusting them.”
“The very thing!” cried Bob, “so long as Ben and I work in a team, we’ll be both satisfied.”
And the flying machine boys shook hands over the bargain, and everybody was happy.
THE END