CHAPTER VII—A RESCUE IN MID-AIR
It was decided after a brief consultation not to deflate the gas bag and drop to earth, but to fly straight on to Pokeville. Jack knew the direction in a general way, and kept the Flying Road Racer headed for a white steeple which appeared on the distant horizon. He believed that this marked the site of the village they were in quest of.
The trip with the farmer had delayed them somewhat, and it was almost eleven o’clock as they drew near the little town for which Jack was aiming. As they got close to it a cluster of white tents with a crowd of people about them could be seen on the outskirts of the place. Gay flags hung above the canvas structures, and even at the height that the air travelers were—about five hundred feet—they could hear the sounds of music.
“It’s a circus!” cried Tom.
“So it is,” said Mr. Jesson, “and look—what is that?—surely a balloon they are sending up!”
Sure enough, as he spoke the boys became aware of a huge, dirty-looking sphere with black smoke rolling from its narrow mouth. It was still tied to the ground apparently, but even as they watched there came the sharp report of a saluting cannon. Instantly the balloon was released from the earth, and shot rapidly skyward, reeling and careening. The manner of its inflation was plainly, judging by the smoke from its mouth, by hot air. The balloon, in fact, formed a part of the free show given by the circus to draw the crowds, and was a common enough feature of small traveling shows.
“Look, there’s somebody swinging below it!” shouted Jack suddenly.
The figure he indicated was a small one, and as they drew closer they could see that it wore red tights gaily spangled. It was suspended from the hot-air balloon by a trapeze, and held on by gripping the ropes on either side of its insecure seat. Under the trapeze hung an object not unlike an immense umbrella closed up. This, the boys knew, was a parachute, and that as soon as the balloon had risen to a sufficient height, the aëronaut would cut the parachute loose and fall by it to the ground.
“Phew!” exclaimed Tom, “I’d hate to do a parachute jump like that.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Jesson, “I was reading only the other day of a parachute jumper whose parachute failed to open. He fell more than a thousand feet to the earth and was dashed to bits.”
“Let’s go closer to the hot-air balloon and watch him when he cuts loose,” suggested Jack.
The others agreed, and the Flying Road Racer was headed for the hot-air balloon, which was rising rapidly. But the Boy Inventors’ dirigible craft had no difficulty in keeping up with it. Soon they were quite close to it, and sweeping around the great pear-shaped bag in big circles. And now they observed something that they had not seen before.
The aëronaut was a boy of not more than twelve years old. His face was white and pinched, and he looked terrified. As the balloon swung higher, there was borne upward from below repeated pistol shots.
“That’s the signal for him to cut loose,” exclaimed Tom. “I know. I’ve seen lots of ascents like this one.”
“Well, why doesn’t he?” demanded Jack.
“For a very good reason,” said Mr. Jesson, who had been observing the young aëronaut closely; “he’s scared to death.”
The boys, observing the spangled air traveler more carefully, now perceived that Mr. Jesson was correct. The little fellow turned a pitiable face toward them. What made his situation worse was that the hot air in the balloon was evaporating, and if he did not jump quickly it would be too late. Jack shouted words to that effect to the lad. But the panic-stricken boy only clung tighter to the ropes of his trapeze, and shook his head pitifully. It seemed as if he dared not look downward at the empty void between himself and the earth.
“Drop on the parachute!” shouted Tom; “if you don’t, the balloon will fall with you!”
As his cousin spoke, Jack maneuvered the Flying Road Racer yet closer to the hot-air balloon. Big wrinkles now appeared in the bag of the circus balloon, and it began to sag downward more rapidly.
“Great ginger! That kid is paralyzed by fright!” exclaimed Tom, his own face pale; “what are we going to do?”
“Save him if we can,” breathed Jack, “but how?”
“Can’t you get alongside that balloon and take him off?” interrogated Mr. Jesson.
“It will be fearfully risky.”
“True; but we can’t let him be dashed to earth without attempting to save him.”
“I have it,” exclaimed Tom; “I’ll get out the light grappling iron. I’ll throw it and try to entangle it in the parachute. Then we can pull the balloon alongside and get that boy off.”
“A capital idea,” said Mr. Jesson; “how close can you get, Jack?”
“I’ll come as close as I dare,” was the reply. Below—far, far below—the crowd, with upturned faces, watched the maneuvering of the great air craft. This was indeed a spectacle they hadn’t bargained for. The tension was too great for speech. A death-like silence hung over the throng.
Behind one of the white tents two men stood, also gazing upward. But there was no pity nor suspense on their faces. Instead, they cast furious glances at the drama of the skies being unfolded before them.
“I told you that kid would lose his nerve!” snarled out one of them, a heavy-set man in a loud checked suit, in whose bright red necktie an imitation diamond, as big as a walnut, glistened.
His companion slashed at his high boots with a whip he held in his hand.
“I’ll fix him for this,” he growled, “and I’d like to fix those pesky butters-in on board that dirigible, too.”
In the meantime, the dirigible, under Jack’s skillful handling, had been maneuvered quite close to the hot-air balloon. Tom, with the light grapple in one hand, and its attached rope in the other, stood ready to make a cast.
“Now!” shouted Jack suddenly, as the gas envelope of the Flying Road Racer almost bumped against the flabby bag of the hot-air balloon. The grapple whizzed through the air, and so skillfully had it been thrown, that its flukes caught and became entangled in the pendent parachute under the trapeze, to which clung the terrified boy.
“Haul in!” shouted Jack, and Tom and Mr. Jesson belayed heartily on the rope. As the trapeze swung alongside the body of the dirigible, Tom reached out and seized the lad. The little fellow had partially recovered his nerve and was able to help himself, and in a moment more he was safe on board the Flying Road Racer.
What a cheer came up from below! The crowd had seen a unique rescue in mid-air—a triumph of the wonderful resource and achievement of the twentieth century—and it went wild. Hats were thrown up and women sobbed and laughed in the same breath.
As for the young air navigators, they were the coolest people in that neighborhood. Tom cut the balloon loose, and it went sagging and wallowing off, dropping in a field a short time later. In the meantime, Jack began to send the Flying Road Racer earthward, using the depression planes in doing so.
The boy they had rescued speedily found his tongue, and when he did he told them a story that made them flush with indignation. He had been hired out to the circus, he said, by his father some years before. From that time on his life had been one of misery. Urged on by the ringmaster’s whip, he had learned to ride bareback and do some other tricks, but this had been his first trip aloft. The way in which he shuddered as he spoke of it, showed that only the utmost cruelty could have prevailed on him to make an ascent on the hot-air balloon.
The regular parachute jumper had been injured—disabled for life—by a fall at the last “stand” the circus had played. As the boy, who said his name was Ralph Ingersoll, was light and active, he had been ordered to take the parachute performer’s place, by the brutal men to whose care he had been consigned. Terrified by threats of a terrific beating, the boy had consented, with what results we know.
“Oh! If it hadn’t been for you, I would have been killed,” he exclaimed, clasping his hands and gazing gratefully at his rescuers.
“Never mind, Ralph,” said Mr. Jesson, whose indignation had been aroused by the lad’s recital, “we’ll see what we can do to stop any further ill treatment of you.”
“Oh, then you are going to take me back to the circus!” cried the boy, a look of real terror coming over his thin, pale face.
“Well, for the present, yes,” said Mr. Jesson, “but we will have your case investigated, and the law——”
“No law will save me if you take me back,” cried the boy, crouching in a spasm of fear, “they’ll kill me—beat me to death, or do away with me in some way before you can save me.” As he spoke, the Flying Road Racer reached the ground, and the crowd came rushing and surging about it. Through the press, the two men who had so angrily watched the Boy Inventors’ plucky rescue came shoving their way. A look of black rage was on both their faces.
“Now, then,” shouted the man with the whip, as he pushed his way to the side of the Flying Road Racer, “what’s all this mean? What right had you to interfere with this lad?”
“The right that everyone has to save a human life,” rejoined Mr. Jesson firmly, standing between the angry man and the boy, who crouched behind his protector in an agony of fear.
“Oh, that’s all very fine; but you spoiled our show. Come on now, Ralph, you young sneak. I’m going to fix you for getting cold feet.”
“Hold on a minute,” said Mr. Jesson calmly. “It’s evident to me from this boy’s story that you have treated him brutally. You could be proceeded against for the way you have abused him.”
“None of your business, is it, Mister Smart Alec?” demanded the man with the red necktie and the diamond. “I’m Josh Sawdon, the boss of this show, and I demand that boy. He was given us by his father to train.”
“That’s right,” declared his companion, with a vicious crack of his whip, “and we are going to do it, too. Come on, mister, give us that boy.”
“Have you got any papers to prove your right to him?” asked Mr. Jesson calmly.
“No, we ain’t,” sneered Sawdon, “at least, we ain’t got none to show you. Come on, now—give us that boy, or——”
“Well, or what?”
Mr. Jesson stared calmly at the man, who had stepped threateningly toward him. Sawdon stopped short. Something in the direct look of the bronzed explorer checked him.
“I am satisfied that you have no right to this lad,” said Mr. Jesson, in calm, even tones. “I am even better satisfied that you have used him shamefully. Therefore, we will take him under our protection till the matter can come up in the courts.”
“Hooray!” yelled the crowd, whose sympathies were plainly with the aerial party.
Sawdon sprang forward furiously. Behind him came the man with the whip. He “clubbed” his weapon and aimed a vicious blow at Mr. Jesson’s head. But Tom caught the descending wrist in a steel grip. He gave it a quick wrench, and with an “ouch!” of pain the fellow dropped the whip.
In the meantime Sawdon set up a shout for his assistants. In a moment a score of canvasmen and performers came running from every side, armed with tent pegs. The crowd scattered right and left before the attackers.
“We’ll have to get out of this quick,” exclaimed Mr. Jesson, in a low voice to Jack.
The boy nodded. At the same instant he started the propeller. Up shot the Flying Road Racer like a stone out of a sling. Sawdon, who had just sprung at its side, was flung over in a heap, with his companion of the whip on top of him. As the big machine rose a roar of rage went up from the circus hands. But they could do nothing but shake their fists.
Suddenly Tom bethought himself of something which they had forgotten in the excitement. Putting his head over the edge of the car he shouted downward to the crowd:
“Is this Pokeville?”
“Naw, this is Westerlo!” was yelled back from below; “Pokeville’s six miles to the west.”
Jack changed his course, and before long they came in sight of a small town, which really proved to be Pokeville. They descended in the village, much to the alarm of some of the inhabitants, and inquired the way to Mr. Peregrine’s home.
A handsome structure with a pillared portico, standing on a hill about a mile off, was pointed out to them as the home of the inventor.
“No use flying there,” decided Jack; “we’ll take to automobiling again.”
Accordingly, the Flying Road Racer’s gas envelope was deflated, and once more “an auto,” she sped off toward Mr. Peregrine’s house. As they left the village, a car coming in the opposite direction almost crashed into them as it rounded a corner. It was going fast, but not too fast for Jack and Tom to see that it was a yellow vehicle, and that one of its passengers had a big red beard. It was the same car that they had pulled out of the mud the previous evening, whose occupants had been so curious about Mr. Peregrine and his habits.
Jack was conscious of a vague sense of uneasiness at the presence of these mysterious men in Pokeville.