Читать книгу Dave Dashaway and His Giant Airship: or, A Marvellous Trip Across the Atlantic - Roy Rockwood - Страница 2

“Whoa!” sang out Hiram Dobbs, bringing the team to a halt and beckoning to Dave.

“Why, what’s the trouble, Hiram?” inquired the young aviator.

“Crowd didn’t come, that’s all.”

“And no word from them?”

“Why, yes, there was a wire,” and Dave’s friend and assistant handed a yellow sheet to Dave with the explanation: “Operator at the station gave it to me that way. A rush, so I read it.”

“That’s all right,” returned Dave, and he also read the brief dispatch in his turn.

It stated that there had come an unexpected hitch in the arrangements of the New York agent of the Interstate people, and that the party he had in tow would not visit Lake Linden until the following day.

“That’s good,” said Dave. “It will give us a chance to go to the city and see how our giant airship scheme is coming on.”

“Fine!” applauded Hiram. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about first, though, Dave.”

“What’s that, Hiram?”

“Wait a moment, Miss.”

Hiram interrupted with these words, addressed to the only passenger in the carryall. For the first time Dave glanced at her closely. She was a plainly-dressed, modest-looking girl of about sixteen. Her eyes were red with weeping. She held a handkerchief in her hand, and was pale and seemed greatly distressed.

“Oh, I must make you no farther trouble,” she said, in a broken tone. “I will get out of the carryall here and walk the rest of the way to the seminary.”

“I want to speak to my friend here first, Miss,” said Hiram. “You just wait. Maybe he can suggest some way to help you out.”

“You have been so kind to me already,” murmured the girl.

Dave wondered what was up. The carryall was a hired one, and he had supposed at first that Hiram had given the girl a lift, finding she was going his way. Hiram was always doing such kindly things.

The forlorn appearance of the girl, however, and the rather serious manner of Hiram as he jumped from the wagon seat and beckoned Dave out of earshot of his passenger, made the young aviator surmise that he had something of particular moment to impart to him.

“Now then, what is it, Hiram?” he asked.

“You see that girl?”

“Of course.”

“I never felt so sorry for anyone in my life as I do for her.”

“Who is she?”

“A poor girl working her way through the young ladies’ seminary up at the other end of the lake.”

“Oh, I see.”

“It seems she got a telegram about an hour ago. It is from her home, a hundred miles west of here. It stated that her mother was in a critical condition, and if she expected to see her alive she must take the first train for Easton. She hurried to the depot. I found her there crying as if her heart would break.”

“Poor girl! she had missed the train.”

“By just four minutes, and no other until eight o’clock this evening.”

“I am dreadfully sorry for her,” said Dave, glancing with genuine sympathy at the girl in the carryall.

Hiram fidgeted about. He dug the toe of his shoe into the dirt. Then he looked Dave daringly in the eye. Then he dropped his glance. Dave was quick to read his impetuous and open-hearted comrade’s thoughts.

“I fancy I guess what’s in your mind, Hiram,” he said.

“I hope you do, anyhow. Say, if I knew how to run an airship like you – ”

“You’d run it to Easton, I suppose?” intimated Dave.

“Yes, sir, that’s just what I would do. See here, Dave, suppose you had a sister in the trouble that young girl is in?”

Dave put up his hand interruptingly. His face was earnest and serious.

“I’d get her to her mother if I had to sell the shoes off my feet. You’re a grand-hearted fellow, Hiram Dobbs, and, as I’ll not let you beat me in the doing-good line, why – ”

“You’ll take her to her mother in the Gossamer?” fairly shouted Hiram, dancing from one foot to the other in his excitement over such a prospect.

“I’ll try and make it out that way,” responded Dave. “Let me think for a minute or two, Hiram.”

The young aviator took another look at the mournful face of the young girl in the carryall. Then he made up his mind. He was a fully-trusted employe of the Interstate Aero Company, and pretty nearly at liberty to do as he pleased. Dave looked up at the sky, made some mental calculations, and said finally:

“Tell her who I am, Hiram – I want to have a little talk with her.”

“This is my best friend, Dave Dashaway, Miss – ”

“My name is Amy Winston,” spoke the girl, a trifle shy and embarrassed.

“Hiram Dobbs has told me about your trouble, Miss Winston,” said Dave. “He is a fine fellow and feels sorry for you, and so do I. We are going to try and get you to your home within the next three hours.”

“Oh, if you only could!” exclaimed the young girl, anxiously. “But there is no train until this evening.”

“That is true,” replied Dave.

“You see, Dave is a great aviator, Miss,” broke in Hiram, in his usual impulsive, explosive way. “He’s taken lots of prizes. He won the – ”

“That will do, Hiram,” laughed Dave. “The truth is, Miss Winston,” he continued to the puzzled girl, “we have only one way of getting you to your home. Please step down and I will show you what it is.”

Dave helped the girl down the steps at the rear of the vehicle. He led her to the gates of the enclosure and drew one of them wide open.

“Why, it is an airship!” exclaimed Amy Winston. “I saw it yesterday from the seminary grounds.”

“Dave was running it, and I was aboard,” boasted Hiram, proudly.

“How beautifully it sailed,” murmured the girl.

“Miss Winston,” spoke Dave, “I can make Easton in about three hours in that machine. It may be something I should not propose, considering the possible risk, but the Gossamer is at your service.”

“Oh,” exclaimed Amy, her eyes filling with tears of gratitude and hope, “I would dare any danger to once more see my dear mother before she dies.”

“You are willing to try it?” asked Dave, definitely.

Amy was trembling, but she answered bravely in the affirmative.

“Tell Mr. Grimshaw,” said Dave to his friend, who at once started off to obey the order. “Now, Miss Winston,” continued the young aviator, “I will help you to a seat in the machine.”

When the girl had been disposed of in the most comfortable seat in the Gossamer, Dave gave her a strap to draw her dress skirt tightly about her feet. Other straps bound her in the seat so that by no possibility could she fall or be thrown out.

The girl had grown a shade paler and was all in a flutter, but she did not show the least inclination to draw back from an exploit that would start most people into hysterics.

Dave went into the tent where he and Hiram and Grimshaw ate and slept, and came out in aviation garb. He took some time looking over a guide book. Meanwhile his two helpers had been working about the Gossamer, getting everything in order.

Grimshaw made no comment on the occasion. While he always resented any intrusion of outsiders at aerodrome or meet, he had long since made up his mind that Dave knew his business and was just about right in everything he did. The old expert went over the Gossamer as thoroughly as if the machine was bound on a long distance non-stop flight. He saw to it that nothing was lacking that an air navigator might need. He even set the green lantern on the right side and the red to the left, steamship code, in case of some delay or accident, whereby the Gossamer might drift up against night work.

“Look out for a change in the wind,” was Grimshaw’s parting injunction.

“It looks like a coming squall in the northwest,” replied Dave; “but I think this head wind will hold till we get out of range. All ready, Miss Winston?”

“Yes, sir,” fluttered the little lady, holding tightly to the arms of her seat behind the operator’s post, although she was securely tied in.

“All free,” said Dave simply, and his helpers stood aside as the self-starter was set in motion.

The Gossamer rose lightly as a bird. Just above the fence line, however, Dave slightly turned his head at an unusual sound. He had just a glimpse of two figures acting rather wildly immediately beyond the enclosure.

One was the foppish fellow who had recently been repulsed by Grimshaw, and who had made the strange threat that he would bring somebody with him who would settle affairs.

Apparently this vaunted individual was now in his company. He was a richly dressed lad, somewhat older than Dave. He seemed to be a good deal excited about something; acted, as Grimshaw had described it, as if he owned the world.

His companion was waving his cane angrily as the airship shot skyward. The boy himself shook his fists toward the Gossamer, and shouted out furiously some command or threat the young aviator could not make out.

Dave wondered what this second visit meant. He had no time nor thought to spare, either staring or guessing, however. Eye, hand and brain were centered intently upon his task. Dave for the moment forgot everything, except that he was directing to a safe, steady course a mechanism as delicate and sensitive as the works of a fine chronometer.

He caught the echo of a low, quick respiration from the girl behind him. The suddenness of the ascent had acted on her as it did on every novice, producing a startled feeling. Then, as the Gossamer whirled three hundred feet high, and the swaying, gliding exhilaration of perfect motion followed, a long-drawn breath told of relief and satisfaction.

“Don’t be frightened, Miss Winston,” called out Dave, venturing a quick glance at his passenger, whose wide-open eyes surveyed the panorama beneath them in speechless wonderment.

“Oh, I am not, indeed,” cried Amy Winston. “It is only the strangeness.”

“You are perfectly safe,” assured the young aviator. “We have made a splendid start. Just think of home – and your mother,” he added very gently. “I feel certain that we can make Easton inside of two hours.”

“I am so glad; oh, so glad,” replied Amy, with grateful tears in her eyes.

Dave was pleased that his course towards Easton took him due southwest. A six-mile breeze was coming from that direction. This was a perfect condition for even, stable progress. Over towards the northwest a bank of ominous black clouds were coming up, threatening a gale and a deluge of rain. The young pilot of the Gossamer planned and hoped to dodge this storm by fast flying.

The southern edge of the big cloud began to cover the sky ahead of Dave. Once or twice there were contrary gusts, and he had to do some skillful engineering to preserve a safe balance. He felt considerably relieved to observe that the Gossamer was safely out of range of the real storm center. Some ragged-edge masses thrown out from the main body were, however, scudding ahead of him. There were one or two spatters of rain.

To the far right of him Dave could tell that a momentary tornado was sweeping the tops of the trees. He set the lever to the limit notch, made a long volplane and then a wide circuit to the south.

“I believe we are out of range,” Dave told himself, hopefully.

Then, as a sudden and unexpected shock announced the meeting of two powerful forces, he sat motionless and helpless.

The young aviator faced a mishap most dreaded of all that threaten the safety of the expert aeronaut.