CHAPTER VII
THE HIDDEN HAND
“Hurray!” cheered Hiram Dobbs enthusiastically—“we’re off! Oh, Dave, this is life!”
“We are going to make this a record attempt, Hiram,” the young aviator advised his excited assistant. “Got the sealed barographs in place? All right. If we should really do something quite stunning, at the end of the flight we’ll submit results to the contesting committee of the governing organization at New York City.”
“A cross country flight as the crow flies!” cried Hiram. “It must be over three hundred and fifty miles. Dave, what do you expect?”
“If this cross wind doesn’t interfere, I calculate about three hours and thirty minutes.”
“Why, that would beat the Western record,” suggested Hiram, wonderingly.
“That’s what I am setting out to do,” answered the young airman quietly. “We are tanked up forty-six gallons, and enough oil to last us for a five hour run.”
The Ariel made three trips around the Midlothian grounds, and then struck her going level. The main plates of the machine were so arranged above the fuselage or framework, that pilot and observer had an almost unlimited range of vision. Dave experienced a sense of relief at leaving a spot where trouble seemed to menace them. Hiram comfortably belted in, had eyes open for everything. This was his second trip in the Ariel, and the novelty of the machine had not yet worn off for him.
There was a minor trial course outside the Midlothian grounds, given over to amateurs and non-eligibles. There both Dave and his chum noticed a good many ambitious airmen trying out their machines. Several of them set the Ariel a pace, but all but two of them soon fell behind. One of these, a full type Curtiss, held a fair follow-up at a distance.
“Looks as if it was headed for Chicago, too; that particular machine,” observed Hiram. “Do we follow the railroad, Dave?”
“It’s the clearest and best course, I think,” responded the pilot of the Ariel. “Did you leave word for our tramp friend, Borden?”
“Yes, with that accommodating fellow at the next hangar to ours. I left a little note telling him to wire us if he made any important discoveries. Say, Dave, do you suppose that fraud lieutenant will show up again?”
“I think we must be careful all along the line,” was the reply, delivered gravely. “That telegram showed that our old-time enemy, Vernon, is after us. The lieutenant, and undoubtedly the man whose picture Borden drew, are certainly working in the interest of Vernon.”
“But what can he be after?” persisted Hiram, in a nettled way because he could not probe the mystery.
“That will develop later,” answered the young air pilot. “To my way of thinking, and also that of Mr. Brackett, our enemy has offered his services to some contestant we do not yet know. Now we’ve picked up the railway. That will be our guide to our terminus.”
The biplane had been given a careful investigation and adjustment. Dave had driven onward and upward until they had attained an altitude of five hundred feet. Hiram had been watching a receding speck, the Curtiss machine, that seemed bent on their own course, when, turning, he touched Dave sharply on the shoulder, and called loudly above the throb of the motor:
“There’s a heavy cloud-bank ahead.”
“I see that,” spoke the pilot of the Ariel.
“It ends in a mean fog, earthward.”
“Yes, I notice that, too. I tell you, Hiram, we are safer up here, under the circumstances, than trying to get down. We’ll nose up to a still higher altitude and get above the clouds.”
“We’re nearly touching the seven thousand mark,” reported Hiram, a few minutes later. “It’s clear sailing ahead, though.”
Because of the maneuver just attempted, the two young airmen became mixed as to their course. For some time neither saw the earth again. Dave tried to allow for the same drift as before, but could only hope that he was steering in the right direction.
“There’s a change in the atmospheric conditions,” announced Dave’s assistant, after a while.
“Yes,” responded Dave, “there’s a storm raging below.”
“And ahead, too,” added Hiram.
“We’ve got to get above those newly formed clouds,” declared Dave, and he shot the machine still higher up.
“Dave!” cried his companion, “I never saw anything so beautiful! Isn’t this grand!”
It was, indeed, an unusual sight. Dazzling white clouds paved a seeming highway beneath them in every direction. Overhead the sun was shining brilliantly. The light reflected upon the cloud-mass was so intense that it affected the eyes as snow blindness would.
“It’s getting terribly cold!” Hiram remarked, shivering.
“Yes,” answered Dave, with a glance at the thermometer, “two degrees above freezing point,” and even through his leather suit he could feel the sharp and piercing cold. The wind above the clouds came straight from the north. Below it was blowing from the northwest. It was a wonderful sight about then, and it reminded the young aviator strongly of past experiences in the polar regions, while on his famous trip around the world. He did his best to keep a due east course, but had no landmarks to steer by, and he decided they must have drifted far to the south.
At last there were rifts in the clouds, which began breaking up, giving a sight of the ground.
“We’ve been up here nearly three hours,” announced Hiram, “and the gasoline is giving out.”
A slow glide brought them directly over a large farm. They made out great stacks of hay, and the Ariel settled down like a tired-out bird in the center of these fields.
“There’s a man—with a gun!” Hiram sharply exclaimed.
Dave, alighting, saw a farmer, of middle age. He, indeed, had a gun—but he set this, and a game bag, alongside a haystack, and advanced towards them with no indication of antagonism.
“That was a pretty slick landing,” he said. “No fire about your machine, is there?”
“None at all,” answered Dave. “I have shut off everything.”
“I was thinking of the haystacks,” explained the farmer. “You’ve got a fine machine there. I’ve seen some, they’re getting so common they often come out this way.”
“We have run out of gasoline,” said Dave. “Do you happen to have a supply?”
“I don’t, for a fact,” was the reply, “but I happen to know my nearest neighbor has. If you want to come up to the house, and wait a bit, I’ll send one of my men after it.”
“We need quite a quantity,” said Dave, “and will be glad to pay a good price.”
“A bite of something to eat wouldn’t come in amiss, either,” suggested Hiram.
“I reckon we can accommodate you in that particular,” said the farmer. “Make things snug, lads, and come up to the house.”
He led the way, chatting busily. Dave soon discovered that he was up-to-date, readily pleased with novelty, very inquisitive and hospitable in the extreme. He learned of the extent of the needs of his guests, and forthwith sent a hired man with a wagon over to the neighbor’s for gasoline. Then, as his visitors were comfortably seated on a screened porch, with chairs and a table on it, he left them for the kitchen of the house.
“The girl will fetch some victuals in a few minutes,” he advised the boys upon his return. “Sort of enjoyable, eating here in the air. Big meet out in Chicago, I understand?”
“Yes, we are going there,” said Dave, and from then on he was kept busy answering the questions “fired” at him rapidly by their curious host.
“I declare! that’s an interesting trade of yours,” he said. “But here’s the victuals. Sort of out of reg’lar meal-time order, but you’ll find it all right, I hope.”
Hiram was very hungry, and ate the cold roast beef, biscuits and fried potatoes served in plentitude, with the keen appetite of a hungry boy. Dave, too, enjoyed the palatable lunch.
“I suppose it’s a great bracer to get away up in the air,” observed the farmer. “Through, youngsters?”
“No. I say!—Why, where is that?” suddenly ejaculated Hiram.
He had leaped up unceremoniously from the table, and advanced to the end of the porch.
“Hear that chugging, Dave?” he inquired, peering up into the sky. “There’s a machine somewhere aloft. Oh, here’s the screen door! I want to look. There she is!” he shouted, once out in the yard, and staring upwards. “Dave, it’s the Curtiss we thought was taking up our course!”
“Then they’ve made as good time as we have,” called back Dave. “What now?” for Hiram had uttered a new cry of excitement.
“Why, I say!” he shouted. “That’s strange! It’s suddenly vanished!”