CHAPTER VIII
AT HAMILTON CORNERS
Instinctively, as he felt the airship falling, without being under control, Dick had loosed the strap that held him to his seat. This advice had been given as one of the first instructions, to enable the aviator to leap clear of the craft as it struck.
But, in this case the landing had been such a queer one that there was no time for any of the three to do the latter. Down on the roof of the pig sty they had come, crashing through it, for the place was old and rotten.
It was this very fact, however, that saved them from more serious injuries than severe joltings. The roof had collapsed, had broken in the middle, and the squealing porkers were now running wild. Most of them seemed to prefer the vicinity of the spot near where the three aviators were now tumbled in a heap, having been thus thrown by the concussion.
"Get out of here, you razor-back!" cried Dick, as a pig fairly walked over him. He managed to struggle to his feet, but another pig took that, seemingly, as an invitation to dart between the legs of the young millionaire, and upset him.
Dick fell directly back on the form of Captain Grantly, who grunted at the impact. Then, as Lieutenant Larson tried to get up, he, too, was bowled over by a rush of some more pigs.
But the two army officers, and Dick, were football players, and they knew how to take a fall, so were not harmed. Fortunately they had been tossed out on a grassy part of the pen, and away from the muddy slough where the porkers were in the habit of wallowing.
"Get out, you brutes!" cried Dick, striking at the pigs with a part of one of the pen roof boards. Then, with the army men to help him, he succeeded in driving the swine out of their way. This done, the aviators looked at one another and "took an account of stock."