Читать книгу The Boy Aviators on Secret Service; Or, Working with Wireless - Goldfrap John Henry - Страница 3

The boys lost no time in explaining to their mother when they reached their home on Madison Avenue the nature of the enterprise in which they had enlisted their services. That she was unwilling at first for them to embark on what seemed such a dangerous commission goes without saying, but after a lot of persuasion she finally yielded and gave her consent and the delighted boys set out at once for White Plains where the large aerodrome in which they had constructed the Golden Eagle I was still standing. The place was equipped with every facility for the construction of air craft and so no time was lost in preliminaries and two days of hard work saw the variadium steel framework of the Golden Eagle the Second practically complete.

The craft was to be a larger one than the Golden Eagle I, which had a wing-spread of fifty-six feet. The planes of her successor were seventy feet from tip to tip and equipped with flexible spring tips that played a very important part in assuring her stability in the air. Like the first Golden Eagle the boys had determined that the new ship, should carry wireless and the enthusiasm of Schultz and Le Blanc, their two assistants, was unbounded as Frank placed before them his working drawings and blue prints which bore on paper the craft which they expected to eclipse anything ever seen or heard of in the aerial world for speed and stability.

The old Golden Eagle had been equipped with a fifty horse-power double-opposed engine with jump spark ignition. The boys for the new craft had determined to invest in a one hundred horse-power machine of similar type and equipped with the same ignition apparatus. As in the other ship they planned to have the driving power furnished by twin screws but, whereas in the first ship the propellers had been of oiled silk on braced steel frames in the new Golden Eagle the screws were of laminated wood, razor sharp at the edges and with a high pitch.

Except for her increased size the Golden Eagle II did not differ in other respects from her predecessor. Her planes were covered with the same yellow-hued balloon silk that had given the first craft her name and the arrangement of pilot-house and navigating instruments was much the same. The boys, however, planned to give her a couple of low transoms running the length of each side of the pilot-house on which the occupants could sleep on cushions stuffed with a very light grade of vegetable wool. A light aluminum framework, which could be covered in with canvas in bad weather, or mosquito netting in the tropics, forming in the former case, – a weather-tight pilot-house with a mica window in front for the steersman, was another improved feature.

Billy Barnes was astonished when a few days later, having resigned his newspaper job, he was met at the White Plains station by Frank and Harry, and found, on his arrival at the aerodrome a framework which was rapidly beginning to assume very much the look of a real air-ship. The enthusiastic reporter crawled under it and round it and pulled it and poked it from every possible angle till old Schultz, angrily exclaimed:

“Ach, vas is dis boy crazy, hein?”

Billy was nearly crazy with joy he exclaimed and the old German’s heart warmed toward him for the interest he displayed in the craft which Schultz regarded as being as much his own creation as anyone else’s.

“Well, you certainly look like business here,” exclaimed Billy as he gazed about him. What with the lathes, the work-tables, the blue prints and plans, the shaded drop-lights and the small gasolene motor, – used to test propellers and run the machinery of the shop, – Frank and Harry were indeed as Billy said, “running a young factory.”

“You picked out a private spot,” exclaimed Billy, gazing out of the tall aerodrome doors at the low, wooded hills that surrounded them.

“Well,” laughed Frank, “if we hadn’t we’d have half the population of White Plains around here trying to get on to what we were doing and spreading all sorts of reports.”

“Oh, by the way,” asked Billy, “did you have any more manifestations from our dark-skinned friend on your way to New York?”

“No,” replied Frank, “he sat in his chair and read the papers and apparently paid no more attention to us. I really begin to think that we may have been mistaken.”

“I guess so,” said Billy lightly; “maybe he was just some rubber-neck who was surprised to hear three boys talking so glibly about invading the Everglades in an airship.”

With that the subject was dropped, for Harry, who had just entered the workshop from the small barn outside, where he had been putting the horse up, carried Billy off to show him the “camp” as the boys laughingly called it. The eating and sleeping quarters were in a small portable house, a short distance from the main aerodrome. It was divided into a dining and a sleeping room. The latter neatly furnished with three cots – a third having been added to Frank and Harry’s for Billy’s use that very morning. On its wall hung a few pictures of noted aviators, a shelf of technical books on aviation and the usual odds and ends that every boy likes to have about him. The two mechanics took their meals in the house and slept in the aerodrome. The cooking was done by Le Blanc who, like most of his countrymen, was a first-rate chef.

“Camp!” exclaimed the admiring Billy after he had been shown over the little domain, “I call it a mansion. Different from old Camp Plateau in Nicaragua, eh?”

“And you came very nearly been shaken out of even that;” put in Harry with a laugh.

“I should say so,” rejoined the reporter. “B-r-r-r-r! it makes my teeth chatter now when I think of the rain of stones that came from the Toltec ravine. By the way,” he broke off suddenly, “where is good old Ben Stubbs?”

The boys laughed knowingly and exchanged glances.

“Go ahead and tell him, Frank,” urged Harry.

“Well,” said Frank, “as you know, Billy, we gave Ben one of the rubies as his share of the loot of the One-eyed Quesals and as a partial recognition of his bravery in rescuing us from the White Serpents.”

Billy nodded and waited eagerly for Frank to resume. Ben Stubbs, the hardy ex-sailor, prospector and adventurer, whom they had discovered marooned in an inaccessible valley in the Nicaraguan Cordilleras, was very dear to the hearts of all the boys.

“What do you suppose he did with the money after he had sold the ruby for twelve thousand dollars?” resumed Frank.

The reporter shook his head.

“I can’t guess,” he said; “bought a farm?”

“Not much,” chorused the boys, “he invested part of the money in a tug-boat and has been doing well with it in New York harbor. We met him when we were in New York a couple of days ago and partially outlined our plans to him. Nothing would do but he must come along.”

“We couldn’t have a better camp-mate,” cried Billy.

“I agree with you,” said Frank. “So I told him we’d think it over.”

“Well, is he to come?” demanded Billy.

“Don’t be so impatient,” reproved Frank. “Listen to this. I got it this morning.”

He drew from his pocket a telegram and the boys all shouted with laughter as he read it aloud. It was characteristic of their old comrade.

“Have sold the tug and will be in White Plains to-morrow. Ben Stubbs, (skipper retired).”

“Good for him,” cried Billy, as the three boys made their way back from the living quarters to the aerodrome, “he’s a trump.”

“I don’t know of anyone I would rather have along in an emergency and on such an expedition as this, his experience and resourcefulness will be invaluable to us,” declared Frank.

The next morning Frank and Billy left the others busy at the aerodrome applying the waterproof compound to the Golden Eagle II’s planes and started for town behind the venerable old steed that Billy had christened “Baalbec,” because, he explained, “he was a remarkably fine ruin.” The first train from New York pulled into the station just as they were driving into the town of White Plains and a minute later the ears of both boys were saluted by a mighty hail of:

“Ahoy there, shipmates, lay alongside and throw us a line.”

The person from whom this unceremonious greeting proceeded was a short, sun-bronzed man of about fifty. He had an unusual air of confidence and ability and his mighty muscles fairly bulged under the tight-fitting, blue serge coat he wore. He carried an ancient looking carpet bag in which as he explained he had his “duds,” meaning his garments. The greetings between the three were hearty and after Frank had made a few purchases up-town and Ben had laid in a good supply of strong tobacco they started for the aerodrome.

As they drove down the street a thick-set man, with a furtive sallow face, came out of a store and as he did so saw the boys. With the agility of an eel he instantly slipped into a side street. But not so quickly that Billy’s sharp eyes had not spied him and recognized him.

“Bother that fellow,” he said with some irritation, “he gets on my nerves. I wish to goodness he’d keep away from where I am.”

Frank looked up.

“What on earth are you talking about, Billy?” he asked.

“Why that fellow we saw at the Willard, and again on the Congressional Limited, – or his double, – just sneaked down a side street,” said Billy. “I am certain he saw us and was anxious for us not to observe him.”

“Meeting him a third time like this could hardly be a coincidence,” mused Frank.

“Not much,” struck in Billy, “that fellow means some mischief.”

“I think myself that he will bear watching,” replied Frank, as they emerged from the street into the open country.

“Pretty good for a week’s work, eh?” remarked Harry with some pride as, after the joyous re-union with Ben Stubbs, they all stood regarding the air-skimmer which was growing like a living thing under their hands.

They all agreed enthusiastically and Frank even suggested that it might be possible, at the rate the work was progressing, to make the start in less time than he had at first thought feasible.

“Oh, by the way,” said Harry suddenly, “rather a funny thing happened while you were gone, Frank!”

“Yes?” said the elder brother, “what was it?”

“Oh, nothing very exciting,” replied Harry, “nothing more than a visit we had from a tramp.”

“From a tramp?” asked Frank wonderingly.

“Yes, he came here to look for a job,” he said.

“And you told him – ?”

“That we hadn’t any work, of course, and then, apparently, he went away. But Schultz, when he went over to the house for some tools he’d left there, found that instead of going very far the fellow was up in the wood back there and watching the place with a pair of field-glasses.”

“Whew!” whistled Frank with a long face, “a tramp with field-glasses? – that’s a novelty.”

“I sent Schultz up to tell the man that he was trespassing on private property,” went on Harry, “but as soon as he saw the old fellow coming the tramp made off. He, however, dropped this bit of paper.”

Harry handed his brother a crumpled sheet marked with faint lines. Frank scrutinized the paper carefully and a frown spread on his face.

“This bit of paper, as you call it, Harry,” he said, “is nothing more nor less than a very creditable sketch map of the location of this aerodrome.”

“By jove, so it is,” exclaimed Harry, “how stupid of me not to have realized that. What does it all mean do you suppose?”

“It means,” replied Frank, “that we will not leave the aerodrome unguarded for a minute day or night till we are ready to make our start for Florida.”