Читать книгу The Flying Boys to the Rescue - Edward Sylvester Ellis - Страница 5

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THE brief conversation that followed was unique.

“I am looking for Professor Morgan,” said Harvey by way of setting the ball rolling. The landlord thrust a big piece of meat in his mouth and continued chewing, but a side glance showed he had heard the words.

“Do you know him?” continued Harvey.

“Is he the chap that’s got a shop about a half a mile out in the woods, where he makes airships?” asked the host in turn.

“That’s the man! What can you tell me about him?”

“I never heerd of him; can’t tell you nothing.”

“Then how do you know his workshop is half a mile out in the woods?”

Harvey Hamilton had a quick temper and resented the manner of the other.

“I don’t; I asked you if he’s the chap.”

“What chap?”

“The one that has a shop a half mile away, where he makes airships.”

“How do you know he does?”

“See here, young man,” said the landlord, so nettled that he suspended mastication for the moment and looked threateningly at his questioner; “you’re getting too flip; I didn’t say that long-legged galoot does nothing of the kind; I asked you if he did.”

“And I answer that of all fools that pretend to have a grain of sense you’re entitled to the medal.”

And with flushed face Harvey sprang from his chair, stalked out of the room and banged the door behind him. Perhaps he should not have been so rude, but surely he had great provocation. Undecided what he ought to do next, he went up-stairs to his room. Dawson had not yet risen to the dignity of gas, but he lighted the kerosene lamp that stood on the little bureau, and sat down in one of the two chairs with which his apartment was furnished.

“It’s provoking that I should hit upon the biggest chump in this place to question, when probably every one else could tell me what I want to know—Come in!”

The last was in response to a knock on the door, which was pushed open the next moment, and the young woman who had served in the dining-room stepped within.

“Good evening,” she said to the surprised Harvey, who politely rose to his feet; “you know I waited on the table.”

“I remember you; I am at your service.”

“I was standing just outside the door that goes to the kitchen and I heerd everything you said to paw and what he said to you.”

“I got very little satisfaction from him,” remarked Harvey, ashamed of his hasty words at that time; “and am afraid I lost my temper.”

“You mustn’t mind paw, that’s a way he has. He thinks it isn’t right to tell a stranger anything about folks that have been guests at our hotel.”

Harvey saw that here was the well of the information he sought. He asked the young woman to take the chair near the door, while he resumed his own seat. She complied without any false pretense of modesty. Being chambermaid, there was nothing to criticise in her action.

“I gather from what you just said that Professor Morgan has stayed at your hotel?”

“He never stopped over night, but he has eat a good many meals in our house; he took dinner here to-day.”

“How long has he made his headquarters in this part of the country?”

She reflected a moment.

“He come here last fall, that is, to stay. But for weeks before that he had been sending all sorts of stuff,—wheels, cranks, knives, engines, pieces of machinery and lots of things the like of which I have never saw, and they was carted out into the woods, where he hired some carpenters to put up a big cabin, and a still bigger one that ain’t very high where he stowed his flying machine and other things.”

“And he has made his home there ever since?”

“I ’spose you might say so, though he’s away a good deal; sometimes he’s gone for weeks afore he shows up agin.”

“How long has he been able to fly with his machine?”

“I can’t say for certain, but the first time I seen him was last spring—April, I think—when he sailed over the town and we didn’t see him agin for more’n a week.”

“Where is his shop?”

“You walk down the main street to the second turn, then foller a road that ain’t much traveled, for about a quarter of a mile; then you turn to the left over a hunter’s trail that has been there ever since any one can remember, and keep along that till you run aginst his cabin.”

The young woman, who announced that her name was Ann Harbor, illustrated her explanations by so many gestures that her listener was sure he could readily trace the eccentric inventor to his retreat.

“You say he ate dinner at your hotel to-day?”

“Yes.”

“You mean him and the young colored man with him.”

Ann’s big gray eyes became bigger with surprise.

“He didn’t have any colored person with him.”

“But you have seen them together within the last few days?”

The young woman gravely shook her head.

“Professor Morgan is the strangest man I ever have saw; he has been here a good many times but never spoke a word to me, and I don’t believe he’s said a half dozen words to paw; he never brought any person to the hotel and I’ve never saw a colored boy with him.”

“Have you ever been to his place in the woods?”

“No; folks say he won’t let anyone come nigh it; if a person does so he has some contraption that will blow him into the sky; you don’t catch me running such a resk.”

Harvey Hamilton’s heart sank within him. The fact that Professor Morgan had come alone to this house for his meals had a sinister meaning as regarded Bohunkus, whose appetite was something which could be soothed only in the way nature intended.

Had the lunatic discovered that Bunk sent a letter to his friend, and had he punished him for it? Was he starving the poor fellow to death, or had he taken quicker means of ridding himself of his company? Had he turned him adrift, dropped him from his airship, or chosen one of a score of methods for wiping the lad out of existence?

Such and similar were the questions that rushed through the brain of Harvey as he held converse with the young woman. While by no means ready to give up hope, he felt that the outlook for his friend could not well be much darker.

Since his caller had nothing further of importance to impart, she bade him good-night and thanked him for the liberal tip he gave her.

“I’ll say nothing to your father of what you have told me,” he promised, as she rose to go.

“You can tell him all you wanter; I don’t care what paw thinks about it.”

“There is no need of disclosing anything and I don’t believe he wishes to talk with me after our spat this evening in the dining-room.”

The night was unusually chilly for the season, but the sky showed signs of clearing. Harvey was hopeful that the morrow would be pleasant, although the country which he had entered lies so far north and is so elevated that he found a marked difference between its temperature and that of his own home. It was on the edge of the Adirondack region famous throughout the Union, and so great an attraction that some of its annual visitors come from across the ocean.

His plan was to go to the headquarters of Professor Morgan, tell Bunk the real situation and compel him to return to his home in New Jersey. The actual problem he would have to face was the inventor, who was likely to interpose and probably forbid any action of the kind.

“I am glad I brought my revolver,” reflected the youth, as he lay in bed waiting for slumber to close his eyelids; “I pray that I shall never have to use it, but it may prove the only means of saving Bunk and perhaps myself.”

When he awoke in the morning he was delighted to find that the day was an ideal one. The sun was shining brightly, the sky was free of clouds and the air mild, but with the crispness peculiar to that remarkable section of our country. The landlord did not appear at the breakfast table, but remained in his office smoking a big briarwood pipe, from which fact Harvey decided that he had already broken fast. His daughter Ann did the honors, and the remembrance of the tip of the night before made her do her best to please the guest. When she had set down a plate of hot griddlecakes and a cup of steaming coffee, she said:

“Professor Morgan was here last night when you and me was talking up-stairs.”

“Did he have the negro lad with him?” asked the astonished Harvey.

“He was alone like he always is; he and paw had a talk.”

“I suppose your father told him I was here.”

“I don’t know a word that either said; I asked paw and he told me it was none of my business; but I guess paw told him all you and him spoke.”

“Well, I don’t see that any harm was done, for the Professor would learn it when I called upon him.”

“La sakes! you ain’t going out to that awful place, be you?”

“That’s what I mean to do.”

“Look out you don’t git blowed sky high.”

“I shan’t forget your warning.”

“Will you be back to dinner?”

“I am not sure, but I hope to see you again before I leave this part of the country.”

“If you go into the mountains look out for bears and deers.”

Harvey assured her that he would do his best to follow her counsel. There could be no doubt that his douceur had done good work.

His first impulse was to say a few pleasant words to the landlord, as a sort of an apology for the little misunderstanding of the night before, but the man looked so sour that he feared another snubbing and let him alone.

Directly after breakfast, therefore, the guest stepped off the porch and started along the principal street, but purposely took a direction opposite to that named by Ann Harbor. Having gone a few rods, he turned about and followed the right course. He resorted to this little subterfuge in order to learn whether the landlord felt any curiosity as to his movements, and the trick worked. The man had come out of his office, and still smoking his briarwood, was watching him. He knew of course that the youth was on his way to the retreat of Professor Morgan.

“They discussed me last night. All of the landlord’s sympathies are with the crank, so I can count on no aid from him. It is well for a person to know how he stands with his acquaintances.”

Ann’s directions were so clear that Harvey could not err. He followed the street, took the turn named, and finally struck the trail that led straight to his destination. He was impressed by the abrupt change in the character of the country. A few steps seemed to have taken him from a settled section to the primitive wilderness. The ground rose steeply, rocks abounded, and the path wound in and out among pines which stood like sentinels guarding the approach to the forbidden spot beyond. He pressed on, walking slowly, with eyes and ears alert, listening and watching for whatever might occur.

“I wonder what the Professor and Bunk will say when I walk in on them. I have been told that the safest course with a lunatic is not to show any fear of him. If you keep cool you can bluff it through with the most violent—hello! here we are!”

He had passed around a mass of boulders which towered twenty-odd feet above his head and had come in sight of the structure for which he was hunting. His first impression was regarding its ordinary appearance, for it might be taken for the home of some poor dweller in the woods. It was a log cabin recalling that in which he had spent an evening with Abisha Wharton in the Pennsylvania solitudes, where he first met Professor Morgan. There were the two windows with the door and small porch between, the half-story above, and the stone chimney on the outside at the gable end. The open space in front was smaller than that of the other cabin, and not the first attempt had been made at cultivation. The owner’s interest lay wholly inside. Harvey noticed one significant fact: the windows, instead of consisting of a number of small panes, had each a big plate of glass for the upper and a similar one for the lower sash. This was probably with a view of improving the light. From where the youth stood he caught a glimpse of innumerable appliances, such as wheels, rubber tires, coils of wire, tools and strange models, which hung upon hooks or stood on shelves; the top of a lathe showed, though his view was imperfect.

A broad low flat building to the right was the hangar for the “Dragon of the Skies,” but he saw the front was open and the remarkable monoplane was not in sight; nor did he gain a glimpse of the man or colored youth. While debating as to what was best to do, he caught sight of a square of white paper pinned on the door. Going forward he read:

“WARNING!

“All trespassers are warned that any attempt to enter this building without invitation from me will cause their instant death. The electrical apparatus cannot be avoided and it strikes with the suddenness of a bolt from heaven.

“The undersigned starts this morning for a distant country and will not return for several weeks. When he does so, the presence or absence of dead bodies in front of this door will inform him whether any one or more or none at all has dared to disregard my notice. It will be equally futile for any one to try to follow me.

“M. Morgan.”