Dave Dashaway the Young Aviator: or, In the Clouds for Fame and Fortune

CHAPTER XV
THE PARACHUTE GARMENT

“Oh!” said Dave Dashaway simply, in a transport of delight.

There was a creak, a hum. Its even keel protected by two hangar men waiting ready for the task, the Aegis moved forward on its rubber shod wheels revolving on ball bearing axles in a soft, lifting glide that was indescribable.

The monoplane progressed in a straight line for perhaps forty feet. Then it took a straightaway flight.

Dave knew nothing of the mechanism of the plane. His eyes were fixed in a fascinated way on the aviator. With supreme faith in the expertness of the man guiding the frail yet sturdy craft, Dave did not experience a single qualm of fear. To every move of the skilled hand of the airman the splendid construction responded instantly. Dave had just one vivid sense of air sailing, safe and ecstatic, as the Aegis arose like an arrow to what seemed dizzying height. Then it began gracefully circling the aviation field.

Dave sat so near to the airman that he had him in full view. He could catch his every word and movement.

“Just feeling the air,” yelled Mr. King. “She’s prime. Now then, slip that strap across your waist.”

“I shan’t fall out. I’m holding on tight,” yelled back Dave, his utterance coming in little gasping jerks.

“Never mind. Do as I say. That’s it. Now I’ll tell you something.”

“Yes, sir,” nodded Dave attentively.

“Start in the teeth of the wind, always. I’m feeling it now,” and the expert bent a cheek to one side. “It’s a ten mile zephyr. That’s easy.”

The aviator did no fancy or trick air sailing. He kept widening his circles and increasing his speed. With a swift movement he took a lateral dart over towards a hill, passed beyond it, made a sharp turn, and then another ascent.

Of a sudden there was a dip. The hand of the aviator moved quick as lightning to the mechanism controlling the elevator.

“Whew! we struck a hole that time,” he exclaimed.

“A hole?” repeated Dave vaguely.

“Yes, a hole in the air. That angle I turned was too sharp, but luckily the elevator was neutral. It’s too gusty. We’ve got to volplane.”

Now came the crisis. Dave was nearly thrown out of the seat as a stray wind gust caught the tail of the plane. The machine was nearly thrown up perpendicularly. Dave was not alarmed, but he was thrilled and excited. He could tell from the face of the aviator that Mr. King was working out some delicate problem of balance and adjustment. Abruptly the machine righted and sailed downwards on a sharp slant.

“We’re coming down pancake. Lucky for us,” spoke Mr. King in a tone of voice decidedly strained. “If we hadn’t, we would have scraped a wing, sure as fate.”

They were now directly over the field. Dave made out the motion picture group.

“Mr. King,” he said, “I think the manager is waving a flag.”

“Then it’s our signal. We’ll cut the circle next whirl around the course. Everything in place below there?”

“I think it is,” replied Dave, glancing down. “The convict is ready for us, I am sure.”

The airman had superb control of his machine. He had descended to a one hundred foot level, and narrowed the circles as they got directly above the spot where the man dressed in convict garb was seated. The latter was watching for them. Near by two prison guards were walking up and down. Dave had tied one end of the rope to the arm of the seat he occupied. The other end, weighted, was coiled up in his lap.

“Now,” ordered Mr. King, slowing up and directing the machine not thirty feet above the ground.

Dave dropped the weighted end of the rope. The convict threw down his hammer and grasped it. Bang! bang! went the rifles. The convict clung on, starting a seeming flight skywards. He let go five feet from the ground, and that section of the motion picture was cut off.

Mr. King made a quick close landing. They had to roll fifty feet over the course to escape a collision with a biplane just getting ready for a flight.

The motion picture manager came up to them smiling and pleased.

“That was first class,” he said. “We got the basis for one-half dozen airship scenes, Mr. King. See here, this gentleman has made a proposition to me that strikes me right. He wants to talk it over with you.”

The airman turned to find himself facing the old inventor. Dave noticed that the latter was full of some excitement.

“Mr. King, you can do me the biggest favor of my life,” declared Mr. Dixon earnestly.

“Indeed – how is that?” asked the aviator.

“My parachute garment, you know. You said you would take up the matter with me this afternoon.”

“I know I did, and so I will.”

“I want you to anticipate that.”

“In what way?”

“I was talking to the motion picture man here, and he made a new suggestion to me. You know how anxious I am to get my invention before the public. It would about make me to have a test made to-day, and the trial photographed, and my invention be shown all over the country in moving picture shows.”

“That is quite an idea for a fact,” agreed the airman.

“Can’t it be arranged?”

“Yes, here,” broke in the manager. “I have thought out quite a little scheme. If I could get a picture of some one jumping from an airship it would be a thrilling and a genuine novelty. You see, I could work in quite a story.”

“How?” asked Mr. King, getting interested.

“Well, that man over yonder with the torpedo monoplane says he’ll join in for a consideration. Your airship is supposed to contain a fugitive from justice, bent on escaping by the air route. The torpedo monoplane is a sort of police aircraft, in pursuit. Work up a regular chase. The criminal springs from your monoplane just as the pursuer is about to overtake you.”

“I can see quite some pretty play possible,” said Mr. King. “Have you found one ready to risk his neck getting into your parachute suit?” he asked of the inventor.

“You thought you could find my man for me,” reminded the latter.

“That’s so.”

Mr. King glanced over at Dave. He reflected silently for a moment or two. Then he beckoned Dave aside from the others.

“See here, Dashaway,” he said, “you’ve heard what these people are putting up to me?”

“Yes, sir, I understand the situation,” answered Dave.

“There’s some money in this for whoever tries it. I wouldn’t let a novice take a risk, but I’ll say from what I’ve seen of the parachute suit of this old fellow that it’s no great trick to take a short drop in it.”

“Then why not let me try it?” asked Dave.

“You’re willing?”

“More than willing.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. The old inventor is pestering me to death, and while I’d be glad to help him along, I also want to get rid of him. He’ll be satisfied if he can announce to airmen generally that a successful test of his device was made from the Aegis, under my supervision. I think I’ll let you try it.”

The airman again consulted with the inventor and the motion picture manager. A few minutes later some arrangement seemed to be agreed upon. The inventor went away. The manager proceeded over to the torpedo monoplane. When the inventor came back he had a long box under his arm. He, the airman and Dave went over to where the Aegis stood. The inventor produced his patent parachute suit from the box.

He explained how it worked as Dave put it on. Then the airman and Dave went aloft on a little run in the machine. At twenty feet, and then at fifty feet from the ground Dave jumped from the monoplane. In both instances he descended through the air light as a feather. He not only landed safely on his feet, but he did not experience the least disturbing jar.

While they were thus practicing for a more spectacular leap, Dave could see the old inventor almost dancing around with suspense and satisfaction. The camera man was notified that the Aegis was ready for its part in the picture. The torpedo monoplane got aloft, and the scene began.

Dave by this time felt so safe, easy and at home up in the air, that he greatly enjoyed the mock chase. It was like two immense birds in a race. The machines came pretty close together finally on a level about one hundred feet from the ground.

Dave caught the signal for the drop from the motion picture manager below.

“Ready,” said Dave.

“Be careful, Dashaway,” warned Mr. King.

“Here she goes,” answered Dave simply, and shot earthwards.

CHAPTER XVI
THE YOUNG AVIATOR

“There he is, Dave,” said Hiram Dobbs.

“Yes, that is Jerry Dawson, sure enough.”

“You see he is here.”

“I knew before this that he was,” replied Dave. “Mr. King told me this morning that young Dawson and his father were both working for an airman named Russell.”

“Well, Dave,” said Hiram in quite a serious tone, “I want you to look out for that fellow.”

“Why? I never did him any harm.”

“Because I’m around a good deal, and I hear a lot of things you don’t. That Jerry Dawson is a selfish, vicious boy. His father, they say, is almost as bad, and the man they are working for, Russell, has been barred from some meets on account of winning an altitude race by a trick.”

“I’ve heard of Russell, too,” responded Dave. “He’s no friend of Mr. King, and that’s enough for me. As to Jerry, though, I have no business with him, and don’t intend to have if I can help it.”

“He’ll cross your path in some mean way, you mark my words,” said Hiram warningly. “He’s got an idea that he owes Mr. King a grudge, and he’s crazy to pay it off. Down by the south pylons early this morning, I saw him talking to two of the roughest looking fellows I ever met. You was at your practice, and Jerry pointed you out to the men, and was whispering to them – something about you, I’ll bet.”

“I’ll keep an eye out for him, but I’m not a bit scared,” said Dave.

Hiram spoke of pylons just now as if he had known what they meant all his life. It was nearly a week after his first meeting with Dave, and a vast improvement was visible in the manner, position and finances of the humble but ambitious farm lad.

Hiram had gone to work with a vengeance. Mr. King had told him that there were many steps to the ladder leading to fame and fortune in the aviation field, and Hiram had taken this literally.

“Why, I’m willing to scrub floors, work as candy butcher, tar ropes, wash dishes, peddle programmes, anything honest to reach that first rung,” he had told Dave back at Fairfield. “I’ll make good every step I take, no matter how slow or hard it is, I’m going to become an aviator, like yourself, Dave.”

“Me an aviator?” smiled Dave. “You flatter me, Hiram.”

“Do I?” retorted Hiram. “Well, then, so does Mr. King. And your teacher, old Grimshaw. He says he never saw a person take to the business like you do. Mr. King was bragging about you, too, down at the office yesterday. He actually talked about entering you in one of the races next week.”

Dave flushed with pleasure. He was too sensible to imagine himself a full-fledged aviator, or anything like it. At the same time, he could not deny that he had learned a great many new things within the past ten days.

He did not look much like the tired, dusty and threadbare boy who had left Brompton hungry, barefooted and practically penniless. The one hundred feet descent from the Aegis in the old inventor’s parachute garment had been a complete success. It had put Dave in funds, too, for Mr. Dixon had given him a ten dollar bill for his services.

“I don’t pretend to be much more than a rediscoverer as to my parachute device,” Dixon acknowledged. “It’s up to date, and it does what I claim for it, though. Tell you, Dashaway, I’ll be over to the Dayton meet, and I’ll add a five dollar bill to every one hundred feet you drop with my apparatus.”

“It really does work, doesn’t it, Mr. King?” Dave asked of the aviator a little later.

“Oh, yes,” replied the airman, somewhat indifferently. “It won’t sell much, though, outside of amateurs.”

“Why not?”

“A professional won’t admit any lack of skill or pluck, any more than a crack swimmer would use a life preserver. Another thing, a crack operator can’t be hampered with a suit tied around his ankles. Still another thing, when the moment arrives for an airman to desert the ship, things are so desperate he hasn’t much chance of jumping clear of the machine.”

Dave had also received some money from the motion picture manager. Then Mr. King handed him what was due him of a modest salary for the broken week.

Saturday afternoon Mr. King had arranged to ship his traps to Dayton, all except the monoplane, in which he and his young assistant made the trip.

Dave found his friend, Hiram, on the new grounds. The country boy was in high spirits. He had worked tirelessly while at Fairfield. When there were no visitors to the grounds, he went into the town. He sold out a lot of leftover souvenirs, and that Saturday afternoon boasted gleefully of being for the first time in his life the possessor of ten dollars.

“All my own,” he announced, “and I’m going to tidy up a bit. Come and help me pick out a cheap suit, Dave.”

“Yes, and I need a complete outfit myself,” explained Dave. “I tell you, Hiram, this is a great day for two poor fellows who hadn’t a quarter between them a week ago.”

“And see what we are learning,” added Hiram. “If ever airshipping gets to be the go for traveling about, we’ll be in right on the jump, won’t we?”

Mr. King was pleased to see the improved appearance of his young apprentice in a neat sensible suit of clothes. He had taken a decided liking to Dave, who was quick, reliable and accommodating. Dave felt like a bird given its freedom after a long and irksome captivity. His head was full of aviation all of the time, however, and the various airmen he got acquainted with were all willing and glad to answer his questions about this and that detail of the different make machines.

Monday morning, Mr. King had taken Dave down to a roped-off section of the aviation field. It held a tent covering an old type airplane, and also housing a queer old fellow with one arm, whom the airman introduced to Dave as Mr. Grimshaw.

“Here’s the young fellow I was telling you about,” said Mr. King. “You’ll find him a likely pupil.”

“I’ll soon know it, if that’s so,” responded the gruff, grim old fellow. “Put him right through the regular course of sprouts, eh?”

“That’s what I want. It’s what he wants, too. Make it special, Grimshaw. I’ve great hopes of him, and don’t want him worked in a crowd.”

Dave understood that his kind employer was spending some money for his instruction. He felt duly grateful. He entered into his work with vim and ardor, determined to make rapid progress, to show Mr. King how he appreciated his friendly interest in him.

For three days Dave was with Grimshaw from ten to twelve o’clock in the morning and two to four in the afternoon. The rest of the time he was helping about the little building, where Mr. King made his headquarters. His employer was preparing to enter for the first day’s altitude prize. There was practicing to do, and the Aegis needed constant attention. Dave now knew how to oil it, keep the tanks full and clean up the monoplane.

Dave had heard that his gruff old tutor, Grimshaw, had been quite a balloonist in his time. A fall from an airship had crippled him. He was useful in his line, however, kept pace with all the new wrinkles in aviation, and ran a kind of school for amateurs.

From the first step in learning how to run the airplane, to the point when with a wild cheer Dave felt himself safe in making a brief flight all by himself, our hero’s progress was one of unceasing interest and delight.

The first step was to learn how to glide. Dave aboard the glider, Grimshaw and an assistant helped get the airplane under way. They carried the weight of the machine and overcame its head resistance by running forward at its own rate of speed.

Over the course Dave ran and repeated. As the glider cut into the air, the wind caused by the running caught under the uplifted edge of the curved planes, buoying up the machine and causing it to rise. At first Dave lifted only a foot or two clear of the ground. Then he projected his feet slightly forward, so as to shift the center of gravity a trifle and bring the edges of the glider on an exact level parallel with the ground.

“You see,” old Grimshaw would say, “you scoop up the advancing air and rise upon it. Keep the planes steady, for if they tilt the air is spilled.”

Dave soon learned the rudiments. He knew that in his first experiment he must watch out that the rear end of the skids or the tail did not scrape over the turf or slap the ground hard and break off. He kept the machine always under control, so it would not get tail heavy. He guarded against wing deflection, and the second day felt proud as a king when his tutor relented from his usual grimness, and told him quite emphatically that he would “do.”

“Never stubbed the toe of the machine, and that’s pretty fine for a beginner,” commented the veteran airman.

It was not until Dave had a chance at a real biplane that he felt that he had gained a glorious promotion. He spent hours looking over a technical book Mr. King had loaned him. He hung around old Grimshaw every spare moment he could find. It was the afternoon on his third day’s tuition when Dave started his first real flight.

He had learned the perfect use of the rudder from running the airplane up and down the ground. Dave knew the danger of leaving the course unexpectedly in his frequent practice runs. He knew how to gauge a rush of air against the face, how to use the elevator as a brake to keep from pitching forward. Dave had mastered a heap of important details, and felt strong confidence in himself.

Dave rose a few feet from the ground with the motor wide open. He moved the rudder very gingerly. The switch was of the knife variety, and the throttle and advance spark were in the form of pedals working against springs.

“Ready,” called out Grimshaw, in his strange forbidding voice.

“Ready I am,” warbled Dave, keen for the contest of his skill.

“Then let her go.”

The biplane took a superb shoot into the air.

Dave was not afraid of forgetting how to run the machine straight ahead. He had watched Mr. King at the level too often for that. He got fairly aloft, tried coasting, veered, struck a new level, and worked the ailerons to decrease any tendency for tipping.

On his second turn Dave had to use the emergency brake, the stout bar of steel on the skid near the rear end. He banked on a spirited whirl, got his level, circled the course twice, and came back to the ground flushed with excitement and delight, without so much as a wrinkle put in the staunch aircraft.

It was on this account that Dave felt proud and then modest, as his staunch friend, Hiram, referred to him as an aviator. He had entire confidence now in his ability to manage an airship alone. Dave had some pretty ambitious dreams as he went on his way. Great preparations were being made for the meet, which was to open the next morning.

Dave kept busy about the Aegis quarters. Just at dusk Mr. King sent him to the town near by to order some supplies from a hardware store. Dave attended to his commissions and started back for the grounds an hour later.

Just as he passed through the crowd about the main entrance to the aviation field our hero turned as he heard a voice say quickly and in a meaning way:

“There he is!”

“Yes, it’s the Dashaway fellow,” was responded.

Dave made out two forms skulking into the shadow of the office building. Then some passersby shut them out from view.

“Hello,” said Dave to himself, “that sounds and looks suspicious.”

CHAPTER XVII
KIDNAPPED

If Hiram Dobbs had not pronounced so serious a warning only a few hours previous, Dave would not have paid much attention to the incident of the moment.

Hiram had spoken of two rough looking characters in the company of Jerry Dawson. Here were a couple who filled the bill, strangers to Dave, and yet speaking his name in a way that was sinister.

“They’re gone, whoever they are,” said Dave a few moments later, and dismissed them from his mind for the time being.

He walked down the row of automobiles and other vehicles lining the main entrance road. There was quite a crowd. General admission to the grounds was free to any one respectable that day and evening.

Outside of the curious visitors who had gone the rounds of the hangars, there were groups of airmen and others discussing the features of the morrow’s flights.

Dave passed along through the crowds, interested in all he saw. When he got to that part of the broad roadway where the booths and crowds were sparser, he deviated to cross towards the hangars at one side of the great course.

He met a few people and here and there came across tents given to the exhibiting of some new model, or occupied by employees who worked about the field. Most of those who ate and slept on the grounds, however, were down at the center of animation near the big gate, and Dave’s walk was a rather lonely one.

“It’s going to be the week of my life,” thought the youth. “I wonder if there’s any hope at all of my taking a flight, as Hiram hinted. Not but that I believe I could manage a biplane as well as any amateur. Hello!”

Dave was rudely aroused from his glowing dreams as he passed a tent where a man with a lantern was tinkering over a motorcycle. Happening to glance back, Dave saw two stealthy figures in the dim distance.

“They are the men I noticed at the entrance,” decided Dave. “There, they’ve split up. One has gone out of sight around the tent, and the other has made a pretence of stopping to watch the fellow mending that motorcycle.”

Dave hastened his speed, making straight for the hangars. The row in which Mr. King housed his machine was quite remote from the others. It was bright starlight, and glancing over his shoulders several times Dave was sure that he made out the two men he was suspicious of following in his tracks.

They neared him as he passed a row of temporary buildings. Dave had a mind to stop at one of these until his pursuers, if such they were, had made themselves scarce. Then, however, as he glanced around, he caught no sight of them.

“Pshaw!” said Dave, “what am I afraid of? Perhaps I’m making a mystery out of nothing. If those fellows intended to do me any harm, they’d have got at me long since. They’ve had plenty of chances. I’ll make a bee line for home and forget all about them.”

Dave put across an unoccupied space. At its edge were three temporary buildings. Two he knew held airships. One was quite famous. It belonged to a wealthy man named Marvin, who made aeronautics a fad. His machine was a splendid military monoplane of the latest model, and was listed to do some heavy air work in the next day’s programme.

All the buildings were dark. Nobody seemed in their vicinity until Dave neared the larger one of the three where the military machine was housed. Then suddenly around one corner of the canvas house two men came into view.

“We’ve run him home, I guess,” spoke the quick voice of one of them.

“Yes, there he goes, making for the tent,” was the retort given in a breath.

Dave recognized the men as the fellows who had been so persistently following him. They had run ahead, it seemed, and waited for his coming. As they made a move towards him, showing that they intended to reach and seize him, Dave started running around the other side of the building. At this the men separated. One circled the building and headed him off. Dave ran back ten feet out of sight. Then, hearing the other fellow running on from the opposite direction, Dave crowded through a half open sliding door.

“He’s gone,” sounded on the outside, a minute later.

“No, he’s slipped into that shed. I tell you we’ve run him home, and if nobody else is around we can soon finish up our business neat and quick.”

Dave did not know what that “business” was. He stood still in the darkness and listened. His hand had touched the bamboo edge of a machine wing. He was thinking of seeking a hiding place, or some other door or window outlet from the shed, when a sudden flash blinded and confused him.

His pursuers had followed him into the place. One of them carried a portable electric light. Pressing its button, and focussing its rays first on one spot and then on another, its holder soon rested a steady glare on Dave.

“There he is,” sounded out.

“Yes, grab him.”

“All right.”

“Got him?”

“Sure and safe.”

Dave’s captor had great brawny hands and handled the youth as he would a child. The men had come prepared for rough and ready action. The ruffian had felled Dave with a jerk and a slam, kept beside him, and in a twinkling had his hands and feet bound tightly. Dave set up a sharp outcry.

“We’ll soon settle that,” said his captor grimly.

Dave’s lips were muffled with a gag so tightly fastened that for a few minutes he could scarcely breathe. The man who had dealt so summarily with him arose to his feet.

“What now?” asked his companion.

“Go out and see if the coast is clear.”

“I know it is – our way. We’re to make direct for the high fence behind the hangars. Near the freight gate, you know. We can open it from the inside.”

“Let’s be in a hurry, then. Remember there’s something else to do.”

“I haven’t forgotten it. The job’s easy this far. Come ahead.”

“We’ll have to carry him?”

“Yes.”

Dave was lifted up and swung along by the two men as if he were a bag of grain. They made straight for the high rear fence of the grounds. This they followed for a few hundred feet.

“Here’s the gate,” announced one of the men, and they dropped Dave to the ground.

There was a jangling of chains and hasps. From where he lay Dave could see the open country beyond the gateway. He was carried through. Several vehicles were in view, and the horses attached to most of them were hitched to trees or the fence supports. Their owners, Dave judged, were up at a place some distance away. Here there were lights and animation. Dave knew that the building was located there, outside of the grounds, where the supplies from farmers and by rail were received.

“Say,” spoke one of the men carrying him, “there’s half a dozen horses and wagons here.”

“Well, it’s a light wagon with a white horse we were directed to.”

“There it is – see that white horse yonder?”

“I guess you’re right. Toddle along. This is no light lump of a youngster.”

The men reached a light wagon. Its box was littered with straw and a lot of empty bags. It looked to Dave as if its owner had brought a load of potatoes to the aero meet.

“Give him a hoist,” ordered one of the men.

Dave was lifted, swung, and dropped. He sank down among the bags and the straw almost out of sight.

“Now where’s the man we were to meet, the driver of the wagon?” inquired the fellow who had bound and gagged Dave.

“Oh, he’ll probably be here soon. You stay and wait for him and give him his orders. I’ll go back and finish up the job.”

“You can’t do it alone. It won’t take but a few minutes. You may want me to hold a light, or something.”

“Got the tools?”

“Yes” – and the last speaker jangled something metallic in his pockets.

“All right. Let’s waste no time. This is pretty neat, I call it – the lad settled, and the machine no good. I’m thinking old King will do some storming, when he tries another flight.”

“I think so, too. Come on,” was the retort, and the two men disappeared through the gateway of the aviation field.