“Lovely,” said the young lady. “They must be going awful far in that contraption—maybe as far as Chicago!”
CHAPTER VIII
A FIGHT IN THE SKY
A hundred and fifty miles an hour!
It takes nerve not to slow down when, for hours at a time, the earth rushes so fast and so far beneath you that hills and towns and fields all blur together in one brown smear, and you don’t know where you would land if there were an accident suddenly. It takes nerve to see a city far off, then suddenly have it spread all about beneath you, with dangerous currents swirling up between its buildings, and then have it vanish behind you. But they had to make up time. They were late. Hike had to keep his grit.
He was getting nervous and tired from his long strain. Each time he swung the rudder, he jerked at his weary backbone, too. He had to keep telling himself foolish little things, to remain calm. “He mustn’t let good ole Poodle get hurt” thought Hike. “This would soon be over.... Be over.... Another hour, and he’d take a rest.... Bimeby, he’d slow down to a safe easy slow hundred an hour.... Anyway, if anything happened, the Hustle would probably sink safely to earth.... Besides, there was the stabilisator to depend on.”
The stabilisator is a mechanism which controls the rudder and elevating planes by means of sliding weights and plates of metal, and all by itself brings the machine back to an even keel if she tips too much. Hike took a lot of comfort in thinking about the stabilisator. He did not worry, but kept the Hustle whirling on, at a hundred and fifty an hour.
It was about noon that they were passing over the Tennessee mountains, toward which the north wind had driven them, out of their course. About twelve-thirty, perhaps a quarter of an hour later, Hike decided that the rudder was not answering the lever properly. It looked as though the fastening of the rudder-control-wire was working loose under the terrific twitches he had been giving it.
Far ahead, there was a broad hill, among the wild, wooded mountains. He slowed down, dipped toward the hill, circled it, and made out a broad bare space, on which he finally landed. Slowly, he crawled out of his seat, and reached the ground. He found himself so dizzy and stiff that he promptly sat down on the grass and stared dumbly at the tetrahedral, rubbing his tired wrists, slowly.
Poodle, waked up by the stopping of the machine, yawned till it looked as though the top of his head would come off, scratched his left ear, and grunted:
“Gee, you’re lazy. Ain’t I been teaching you in-dus-try and habits of work? And what d’you do? Here I get to thinking, kinda deep, about how I can improve your character, and then you go and sneak in a sleep on me. It’s orful.”