The Flying Boys to the Rescue

by Edward Sylvester Ellis

“That notice is meant for me. The Professor learned last night that I was at the hotel and he needed no one to tell him my business. The closing sentence is intended to check any pursuit by me. His statement that he has started for a distant country to be gone several weeks is also a bit of information for my exclusive benefit. He doesn’t name Africa, but that is the destination in his mind.

“Why didn’t he take Bunk to the hotel for his meals? Evidently he feared to trust him, suspecting he would write to me, as the Professor may have learned he had already done. Although Ann did not tell me and likely did not know it, he has brought the necessary food to this place. He forbade Bunk to stray from the cabin, and the fellow was so scared by the words and manner of the Professor that he dared not disobey him.

“Why is he so resolute that I shall not prevent Bunk from going on a trip which only the brain of a lunatic could originate? Bunk, in his first feeling of resentment toward me, won the sympathy of this strange person, who, as Detective Pendar said, saw how useful my friend would be as his assistant. Had Bunk wished to leave him at the beginning of their venture, the Professor might have consented, but the poor lad is as eager as he for the trip. The inventor is angered against me because I am trying to interfere, and is resolute I shall not succeed. His disordered brain has settled into an iron resolve that I shall be defeated at every cost. Until I can bring about some understanding with Bunk and make an ally of him, I have the biggest kind of a job on my hands, but with the help of Heaven it shall be pushed through to the end.”

One phase of the situation gave Harvey a new thrill of hope. Professor Morgan on his visit to the hotel the night before must have learned that the young aviator had come to Dawson by train and stage, leaving his aeroplane behind. Naturally he would conclude that his pursuer meant to make no further use of the machine. Harvey’s manifest course therefore was to turn to his aerocar to solve the problem.

“I shall go home as fast as steam can carry me and return faster than it can bring me to this point and it will then be do or die.”

The perplexing problem was to guess what course the crazy inventor would follow from that morning when he, with Bunk as his companion, had sailed into the northern skies. Was he really heading for Quebec or some distant point that would shorten the distance across the Atlantic, with the purpose of striking out upon his crazy venture, or was he subjecting his machine to a crucial test before doing so?

Whatever might be the intention of Professor Morgan, it was evident that he could not escape that test, for previous to plunging into the aerial ocean to the eastward, he must sail for hundreds of miles over the New York wilderness and the solitudes of Canada, so far from cities, towns and settlements that if any accident befell the monoplane it would mean the end of the aviator and his companion. If perchance the long voyage through the upper air was effected in safety, who should insist the Professor was not warranted in trying the far grander one that should land him and his companion in Great Britain on their road to Africa?

Hopeless as such an attempt must be (at least until the science of aviation is much further advanced than now), it was as promising as the effort of Harvey Hamilton, to follow the flying machine by rail, steamboat, stage, and on foot or horseback. There were vast reaches over which he would have to travel by roundabout routes and at a snail’s pace. Using every advantage at command, he could not get to one of the Canadian cities until at the end of several weeks.

We have no means of knowing what fancies filled the brain of the man whose powers of reasoning were warped, but who in some directions was capable of as perfect logic as is ever displayed by the most brilliant mathematician. The probable conclusion reached by him was that his pursuer would abandon the unsettled sections of the country and take a direct course to the leading Canadian seaport, with a view of heading him off on the assumption that the monoplane would meet with accident or delays on the way.

It seemed to Harvey that he had other ground—though shadowy—for hope of tracing the elusive Professor. He would not venture upon his ocean voyage, as it may be called, until satisfied that his preparations were complete. He had spoken only a short time before of his conviction that they would soon be finished. He was too skilled an aviator to start for Europe before his machine was ready. The chemical compound which he had discovered would carry him the greater part of the distance and it was reasonable to believe he needed a few days in which to perfect its composition. To effect this he would make excursions over the surrounding country, returning to his workshop to push his investigations. It followed that if this theory was correct, he would stay in the vicinity of Dawson for an indefinite though probably a brief time. If such proved the fact, Harvey had fair prospect of success by shaping his own conduct in accordance with such theory.