Читать книгу Lost at the South Pole, or, Ted Scott in Blizzard Land - J. W. Duffield - Страница 6

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Gustavus Hollister! The man who was doing his utmost to keep Ted Scott from achieving the ambition that was nearest his heart! And Ted had just saved his life at the risk of his own! And not only his life, but that of his wife!

There was sardonic humor in the situation that brought a quizzical look into Ted Scott’s eyes.

The doctor was regarding him curiously.

“You seem to be amused about something,” he remarked.

“Do I?” asked Ted. “Well, I am, rather. Life’s a funny thing sometimes. Don’t you think so, doctor?”

The physician looked rather puzzled.

“Why, yes, I suppose it is,” he assented vaguely. “Though it seems to me there’s more tragedy than humor in the present case.”

“I suppose so,” agreed Ted. “Though I’m thankful that just now it’s only a near tragedy. Well, I guess I’d better be getting on,” and he rose to his feet.

“Oh, but you’re not going yet,” interposed the doctor quickly. “You’ll surely wait till my patients are in a condition to thank you for having saved their lives. They’d never forgive me if I let you go without that.”

“Put all the blame on me,” replied Ted. “Tell them that I had an engagement and couldn’t wait.”

“Just five minutes,” pleaded the doctor. “They’ll be in condition to talk to you by that time.”

“Can’t be done,” replied Ted, smiling.

“Leave me your name and address, anyway, so that they can communicate with you later,” urged the doctor, himself consumingly curious to know the identity of this mysterious personage who was evidently as modest as he was brave.

Ted shook his head.

“I’d really rather not,” he said. “Just tell them that it was some one who is mighty glad that he could have been of service and let it go at that.”

The physician could not dissemble his disappointment.

“You’re an aviator, aren’t you?” he asked, looking from Ted’s flying togs to the machine in the field near by.

“Guilty,” returned Ted lightly. “I can’t deny that with so many proofs at hand. To confirm it still further, I’m going up into the air right now.”

“Well,” said the doctor, extending his hand, “let me at least have the privilege of saying that I’ve shaken hands with the bravest man I’ve ever seen.”

Ted grasped the extended hand heartily.

“Kind of you to say so, doctor, though you’re putting altogether too much value on the little thing I was able to do,” he said. “Good-by and good luck.”

He went over to where the plane was standing, and practically the whole crowd, except those directly ministering to the patients, streamed along after him. All were eager to clasp his hand, and it was only with difficulty that he could get into the cockpit. Then he waved to them to stand clear, darted along the field for a little way, and zoomed up into the skies.

He had no desire to extend his spin any further. He was aching in every muscle. He felt that he knew now the sensations of a man who had been subjected to the torture of the rack. Yet his heart was jubilant at the thought that, had it not been for him, two human beings would have suffered a horrible death.

He caught a glimpse of himself in the little mirror of the plane and grinned. He was as black as a negro, except for the little patches where his skin was red from burns. The smoke stains had proved a most effectual disguise. He knew now why he had not been recognized.

The familiar sights of Bromville soon came into view and Ted Scott prepared to descend. He did not care to be seen in his present condition, for he knew he would be chaffed unmercifully by his friends. His one thought was to get into the privacy of his own room where he could wash and change his clothes.

As he looked at his watch he gave a sigh of thanks that it was not yet closing time at the aero works that adjoined the flying field, and that he would therefore escape the scrutiny of the hundreds who would come trooping out when the whistle blew.

The field, in fact, was practically deserted. Ted swooped down and made a perfect landing, so maneuvering his plane that when it stopped after its run it was almost directly in front of its own hangar.

Jackson, Ted’s mechanic, who had recognized the plane while it was still in the air from the markings on it, ran forward to greet his employer. He started back aghast at the apparition that stepped from the cockpit.

“For the love of Pete, Ted!” he cried, “what on earth have you been doing to yourself?”

“Qualifying for a beauty show,” replied Ted, grinning as he removed his helmet.

“You’re not hurt, are you?” asked Jackson anxiously. “You look like a boiled lobster in places.”

“I’m all right,” asserted Ted. “Came across a fire on the way and joined a bucket brigade in trying to put it out. But say, Jackson, I want to get home as quickly and quietly as possible. I’d never hear the end of it if the fellows saw me as I am now. You hustle out and get me a taxi, and until you get back I’ll stay under cover in the hangar. Get a move on, old boy.”

Jackson scurried off and in a few minutes returned with a cab. The driver grinned as he saw who was to be his passenger. Ted grinned in return.

“It’s all right, Bill,” he said, as he clambered in. “Double fare if you keep your mouth closed. Over to the Bromville House, pronto.”

In a few minutes he reached the hotel, jumped out, and ran up the steps.

Charity Browning met him as he sped through the hall. She looked startled at the sight of the colored man hurrying through the house with such scant ceremony. The next instant she had thrown her arms about his neck.

“Ted!” she screamed. “My boy! Oh, Ted, tell me what has happened! Are you hurt?”

“Not a bit, Mother,” Ted assured her cheerily, as he kissed her. “But just look what’s happened to your white apron! And I’ve left a smudge on your nose, too.”

“Bother the apron and the nose, too!” exclaimed Charity. “I can get others. Other aprons, I mean,” she added hastily, as Ted laughed and tweaked her ear. “You stop laughing at your old mother. But, Ted, dear boy, are you sure you’re all right?”

“Perfectly sure, Mother,” replied Ted. “Was helping put out a fire and got all messed up with smoke. All I want is a bath and a change of clothes. I’ll tell you all about it when I come down.”

He hurried up the stairs, got out of his begrimed clothes and slipped under a shower. Never had one felt more grateful. Then he applied an unguent to the burns he had here and there, and when he was dressed in fresh, cool garments felt like himself again.

He rested in his room until Charity called him to supper in the little private dining room that the family had to itself apart from the main dining hall of the hotel.

The old couple were all agog with curiosity and concern about the afternoon’s happenings, and Ted, who never had any secrets from them, told them of the whole affair from beginning to end, his narration being frequently interrupted by questions and exclamations.

“Oh, Ted, I’m so proud of you!” exclaimed Charity, wiping her eyes with her apron. “At the same time I’m skeered. You’re always taking such awful risks. Of course I’m mighty thankful that you saved that poor woman and her husband, but suppose when you went into that awful blazing house you hadn’t come back! Think of us, father and me. I should surely die if anything happened to you.”

Ted reached over and patted her hand fondly.

“Nothing’s going to happen to me, Mother dear,” he assured her. “Someway or other, you notice I manage to pull through.”

“You say this man you saved was an enemy of yours,” put in Eben. “What’s he sore at you about?”

“If he’s an enemy of Ted’s, he’s a wicked man,” declared Charity indignantly, up in arms at once in defense of her idol.

“Oh, that doesn’t follow,” laughed Ted. “I suppose there are lots of fellows I’ve rubbed the wrong way. But in this case there really isn’t any reason. The chief thing seems to be that I came back from my Atlantic trip at the wrong time to suit him. He thought I was hogging too much of the limelight. So now he’s trying to queer me.”

“And you saved his life!” exclaimed Charity. “You heaped coals of fire on his head!”

Ted laughed.

“Quite the other way, Charity,” he said. “I saved coals of fire from dropping on his head. But, after all, it doesn’t matter. I’ll get along without his goodwill.”

“You said he was trying to queer you,” said Eben. “In what way is he doing that?”

“Oh, interfering with a little trip I have in mind,” replied Ted evasively.

“What trip?” asked Charity, a look of alarm leaping into her eyes.

“Down toward the south a little way,” replied Ted uncomfortably. “That was a dandy supper, Mother,” he added, as he rose from the table and pushed back his chair. “There’s nobody in this burg that can cook as you can.”

But Charity, her suspicions once aroused, could not be put off by compliments.

“Oh, Ted,” she wailed, “you ain’t goin’ away on any more of them dangerous flights, are you?”

“Not if Hollister can help it,” replied Ted.

“Now you’re giving me a real friendly feeling for that man,” returned Charity, to whom any one was a friend that could keep her foster son at home. “But suppose he can’t help it? Oh, Ted, where is it that you were thinking of going?”

“Toward the south,” reiterated Ted.

“Not to South America, where them snakes and headhunters are?” asked Charity anxiously. “The last time you were there I kept seein’ you in my dreams comin’ home without your head.”

“There wouldn’t be any snakes or headhunters in this trip,” replied Ted.

“But other things, maybe, that’s just as bad,” persisted Charity. “Now, Ted, you ain’t goin’ to get out of this room until you tell me.”

Driven to his last entrenchments, Ted Scott surrendered.

“Well, if you must know,” he said, “I want to go to the South Pole.”