CHAPTER XI
A STRANGE RACE
Dave, busying himself about the Ariel inside the hangar, had caught an echo of the shot outside the fence and the shouts accompanying it. There was generally considerable commotion about the grounds, however, and he paid no particular attention to these demonstrations.
Even the sound of the exhaust of the Scout did not suggest anything out of the ordinary. It was only when a loud cry sounded directly beyond the open doors of the hangar, that the young airman was aroused.
“Oh, Mr. Dashaway!” gasped out a startling voice—“come here! come, quick!”
Dave looked up to discern Rohan, his newly employed watchman. The latter was limping towards the hangar. The light from the inside shone on his face, showing excitement, and a sort of terror.
“Why, Dennis, what is the matter?” inquired Dave, anxiously.
“Your partner, Dobbs—the Scout!” stammered the watchman, so excited that he could scarcely speak. “Hear it? See it? And here are the police!”
Dave hurried out. His first swift glance showed that the Scout was nowhere near. The gathering lake haze formed its usual veil between the ground lights and the upper clear area. A look in that direction told nothing.
A crackling, tearing sound next directed Dave’s glance. It proceeded from the fence. There the uniformed figure of a man was to be seen. He came through a two-foot gap in the barrier. A companion on the outside was just tearing loose a third board. He was pulling it from the bottom, and did not release the top nails. He sprang through after his mate.
“Where is he?” demanded the latter of Dave, and just then Rohan came limping up to the spot.
“Tall man, wearing a buttoned-up frock coat?” he announced in jerks.
“With a fortune in it, yes!” responded the police officer, quickly. “Where is he?” followed the sharp challenge.
“Up there,” answered the watchman promptly, and he pointed aloft.
“Eh, what? Trying to guy us!”
“No, sir,” answered Dennis. “He’s gone, and he’s gone in the little airship. I saw him!”
“Well, I’m flabbergasted!” puffed the officer. “Mate, he’s slipped us. I wish we’d got another shot at him. You mean the fellow has sailed away in one of these balloons around here?”
“I saw him,” continued the watchman rapidly, with a glow of excitement in his eyes. “He dropped to the ground. Mr. Dashaway’s partner here had just got into his machine. The fellow you’re after ran for it. He gave it a shove, jumped onto a side plane, crawled right up to young Dobbs, and put a pistol to his head!”
Dave started. The thought of his chum in peril set his wits at work in an instant.
“The man made some threat to Dobbs,” went on Dennis. “Anyhow, up went the biplane. Then, as the fellow dropped into the cockpit, I heard him yell, ‘West—straight west.’”
“You did?” spoke Dave, questioningly. “That’s a point,” and he made a dash for the hangar. The officers were, indeed, “flabbergasted.” They stood like dummies, dismayed and at a loss as to further action. Dave ran the Ariel out into the field.
“Officer,” he called to the policeman who seemed most to direct affairs, “that man—who is he?”
“Reddy Marsh, the slickest diamond thief in America,” came the response.
“And he’s got a load of the sparklers in his coat right now,” added the other officer. “Padded brick, smashed a lighted show-window in a jewelry store and off he was with a case, with stones in it worth fifty thousand dollars. We thought we’d run him down when he made for the fence.”
“Yes,” put in the other policeman, who was staring overhead in a lost, puzzled way, “and it won’t be a question of hundreds, but of thousands to the person who gets him and his booty.”
“I’m not thinking of that,” said Dave in an anxious way, “but of my friend. He’s clear grit, but the man is armed. Officer, I’m going aloft. If the Scout hasn’t got too far away, I may catch sight of it. I may need protection; assistance. One of you come with me.”
“Hey!” exclaimed the head officer—“you mean in that airship?”
“It’s the only way, isn’t it?” propounded Dave.
“I’ll go,” spoke up the other officer. “This lad must know his business or he wouldn’t be here. It’s in my line of duty—besides, there may be glory in it, and a reward. Go ahead!”
“Quick, then!” directed the young aviator. “Now then,” as he guided the unusual passenger to the seat behind the pilot post, “buckle on the straps, keep cool and quiet, and I’ll see what can be done.”
He liked the obedient composure of his passenger. If the latter felt that he was taking a risk, and experienced a little natural dread, he masked it by shouting to his comrade:
“Tell the sergeant I’m off on special duty—joined the airship corps—ha! ha!”
His laugh ended, however, and Dave could catch a series of quivers and sharp short gasps as the watchman gave the ground gear an impetus and the Ariel rose up majestically. The machine pierced the blanket of haze and came up above the lower strata of obscuring ground air. Dave described a slow broad circle. His eye swept in all directions the level they were on.
“If the moon were only up,” he murmured. “Well, the only course is west. Hiram is shrewd and intelligent. If he guesses for a moment that I am after him, soon as he gets his thinking cap on he will find some way to signal, or get the best of his passenger.”
“Don’t see anything,” observed the officer, and, big, brave fellow that he was, there was the tremor of the novice in air evident in his voice.
“They’ve got a start, you must remember,” explained Dave, “and a big field. We can only go on, keeping a sharp lookout. If you should happen to get sight of a black speck against the stars, tell me.”
There was a spell of silence for some minutes after that, Dave paying strict attention to directing the machine, his passenger keeping as keen a lookout as was possible for him under the unfamiliar conditions. Suddenly the officer shouted out:
“There! See, a little way ahead? No, it’s gone. Now, again! Pshaw!—fireflies.”
“Too high for that,” spoke Dave, “I see what you mean. Thanks my friend, this is important!”
Ahead of them, and on a higher level, there was now visible a series of swiftly-vibrating brilliant sparks. They filled a mere tiny spot in space. To the expert young airman they were guiding. Dave set the machine on a swift drift then climbed up several hundred feet. Now the sparks, intermittent but perfectly distinct, were clearer and nearer the faster they went.
“It’s a machine,” soliloquized Dave, “and it must be the Scout. If it is—clever Hiram! He doesn’t dare show the lights, for that man aboard wouldn’t let him. I can guess what he has done—the vibrator.”
Dave, with a perfect knowledge of all the parts and possibilities of the natty little Scout, was at home with every detail of the mechanism of the machine, and guessed what was transpiring. Later on his surmises were verified. The young aviation expert decided that his chum counted on his searching for him. He had loosed the top of the vibrator, probably sending it adrift.
If he awakened the suspicion of the passenger, he could readily make a pretence of watching the sparks jumping from one coil to the other, to see that all the cylinders were working right. Correct or not in his guess, those distant electric points of light were now a direct guide to the eager pilot of the Ariel.
“We’re getting nearer,” breathed the man behind him. “You think it’s the airship we’re after?”
“I am pretty sure of it,” responded Dave. “It’s a race, now, officer. This machine can overtake the Scout and outdistance it within the next half hour. Then the case is up to you.”
“Just get me in reach of Reddy Marsh,” spoke the policeman, “and I’ll do the rest.”