“They have got up a skeme to take the air plane, and I can beet em by takin it away where they aint no one knows where it is. Dont worry about us, for I ll be on hand promp tomorrow at reglar time for the show. Dont have no fear of nuthin for I m all O. K.
“Bud Wilson.”
When, in response to President Elder’s forceful injunction, Jim, the watchman, reached the airship shed again, the canvas front was up, the shed was empty, and only a smell of gasoline told of the stolen aeroplane.
[CHAPTER XI]
DUMPED INTO THE MARSH.
Plunging through the dark in an aeroplane, two hundred feet or more above the earth and in a moonless night, was Bud’s predicament. Up to that time, at least, neither the Wright Brothers, Mr. Farman, Mr. Latham, nor Mr. Curtiss had had such an experience. When the chill night breeze struck the boy’s face and he found himself sailing into what was like a black cave, for a moment he was panic stricken.
Of course, he had not taken such a hazardous chance without a plan. In a vague way, he had outlined what he hoped to do. But it was easier to lay that plan out in his mind while on the firm ground than it was to put it into execution high up in the impenetrable and chill air.
The thing that almost rattled Bud was the fact that he could not see the ground. He could not even make out the lines of the fences beneath him. It was like smoking a cigar in the dark when you can only tell that it is going by the fire on the end. The lack of vibration in an aeroplane is most pronounced in the dark. Like a soaring bird, the ship glides forward with hardly a whirr or rattle to mark its flight. But the breeze on Bud’s face and the spinning propellers told him he was advancing, and with the speed of a train.
“I got to strike the Little Town pike first thing,” said Bud to himself at last, as he began to get his wits together. “If I can’t do that, I’m up a stump. That’s my only guide to where I got to go.”