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

CHAPTER XXIV
SOMETHING WRONG

Dave was a good deal disheartened. It was several hours after his meeting with the two persons he wished most to avoid. And now Dave was a prisoner.

He sat crowded up on the back seat of a rickety old wagon, covered with canvas top and sides, and boarded up at the back. Beside him was his foxy-eyed, ferret-faced guardian, old Silas Warner. On the front seat, acting as driver, was the Brookville sheriff. Around Dave’s wrist was what is called a “come-along,” or rope handcuff, its two crossed stay pieces of wood being held tightly by the watchful, sleepless Warner.

The way this had all come about seemed like a dream to Dave. The instant that his guardian and the sheriff had recognized the runaway they were seeking, they had pounced down upon poor Dave like hungry wolves.

Silas Warner held our hero while the sheriff hurried out into the main room of the station. He spoke a few words to the police clerk, and then Dave was led out of the place, both men holding tightly to him, and soon found himself in a room in a cheap boarding house.

Dave had tried to expostulate, to explain. His jubilant captors had refused to listen to him. He had frantically begged of them to allow him to send word to some friends, to take a simple message to the police lieutenant.

“Don’t trust him for a minute, Daniel Jackson,” his guardian shouted to the sheriff. “You know what a slippery one he is.”

“But it’s important,” pleaded Dave. “A fellow robbed me. He must be caught.”

“All a pack of lies,” declared old Warner. “Don’t trust him or listen to him, Sheriff. He’s trying to get his friends to rescue him, trying to put on time to delay us, and slip.”

“Oh, indeed, no,” answered Dave desperately.

“Shut up. Sheriff, we’ll make our plans, and bundle this boy back to Brookville quick as we can get him there.”

Over Dave the sheriff kept close watch and ward while Warner went away to make arrangements of which Dave learned later. It was long after midnight when these plans were perfected. By that time, from the conversation of the two men, Dave found out a great deal that was new to him, and astonished him not a little.

It seemed that by the sheerest accident the two men had come across Dave at a time when they were on their way to Dayton to arrest him. They were on their way to that city, because Jerry Dawson had written Warner that there he would find his runaway ward.

This was the reason why Jerry had boasted to Dave that he would not make any more air flights. His crony, Brooks, had overheard Dave tell Hiram all about his guardian and the circumstances of his leaving home, and the mean-spirited Jerry had been quick to take advantage of the chance to get his rival into trouble.

It seemed that Warner, with his usual miserly penuriousness had hired the sheriff to “work cheap.” They had got as far as Genoa through “lifts” in various farm wagons. They had taken the cheapest lodgings that evening they could find. The sheriff and Warner happened to be at the police station, because the former had a slight acquaintance with the lieutenant, and was waiting to see him when Dave arrived.

Silas Warner had managed to hire a sorry nag and a miserable wreck of an old milk wagon to convey them back to Brookville. Dave’s feelings may be imagined when he found himself in the clutches of the enemy. He had been in torment to think that Hiram and the chauffeur would wait for him vainly. He wondered what Mr. King would think of this second unusual absence. Most of all, poor Dave nearly wept when a thought of the great air race of the morrow came into his mind. He would miss the grand event in which he had hoped to take so proud a part.

“It’s awful, just awful,” reflected Dave, feeling well-nigh crushed, “and no hope of my getting any word of explanation to my friends.”

It must have been two o’clock in the morning when the wagon come to a halt. Dave had caught sight of lights ahead on the road as they jogged along. Then strains of music grew plainer. The shouts of merry makers filled the air.

It appeared that they had reached a roadhouse with a dancing pavilion and park attached to it, much in favor with excursion parties from the country around. Outside of the place stood a hayrack with four horses attached.

“Horse needs a rest, Warner,” the sheriff declared, “and some refreshment wouldn’t hurt you and me, hey?”

“Nothing for me, Sheriff, nothing for me,” the miserly old fellow was quick to retort. “Of course you can buy what you want – with your own money.”

“Just so. Well, I’ll stretch my limbs a little and sort of see what that jolly crowd is up to.”

The old man kept his tight hold on Dave. He would silence the youth every time the latter tried to talk or reason with him or question him. With low mutterings and chuckles he hinted that the law would see to it that Dave did not again “desert his comfortable home.”

It was fully four o’clock when the sheriff came back to the wagon. He pulled himself up into the seat like an overfed porpoise.

“Just going to break up, that crowd,” he observed, “and having a great time. I wish I was young again. Get up, there,” he added to the horse.

Dave made up his mind that he would be given no chance to escape, at least during the trip to Brookville.

There came a rumbling behind them as the horse was plodding along a narrow country road with a deep ditch on either side of it. Then singing voices broke the silence. The party from the roadhouse was homeward bound.

The road twisted and turned. At its narrowest part, before the sleepy-headed driver could realize it, the great loaded hayrack wagon lumbered by. Its side grazed the inside wheels of the wagon the sheriff was driving.

“Hey, look out!” yelled the officer.

Derisive shouts answered him. There was a crash, a tip over, and down the embankment went horse, wagon and passengers. The hayrack crowd indulged in mocking cat calls as if it was a great joke, and went on without anybody trying to find out what damage had been done.

The horse broke loose from the rotten old shafts of the wagon before it rolled over twice. The frame of the box cover was crushed in and the wooden end was reduced to kindling wood.

Dave was jerked free from his guardian, rope handcuff and all. He landed in a great clump of bushes, was slightly jarred, and lay there for a minute or two.

“The scoundrels!” roared the sheriff, extricating himself from a nest of brambles. “What you whining about, Warner?”

“I’ve torn my best coat all down the back, and I’ve got a lump on my head big as a goose egg.”

“How’s the prisoner?”

“Hi, whoop! That’s so, Sheriff, he’s sloped.”

“What! after all our trouble?”

That was enough to rouse up Dave. Now was his chance. Day was just breaking, but it was dark and dim down in the ditch. On hands and knees, bending down low, the boy crept along its windings. Where the road turned and the ditch followed it, he felt safe in rising to his feet and starting on a keen run.

Dave did not venture to climb up to the road as yet. His late captors would certainly make some kind of a search for him. He kept on running along in the dry ditch, out of view from the road. Its bottom was rock strewn, and several times his feet became tangled up in trailing vines. Finally, all unaware of what he was heading into, Dave plunged into a maze of bushes to take a direct tumble where the ditch dropped suddenly nearly a dozen feet.

It was a gravel pit Dave had fallen into, and a heavy tree stump lay at its bottom. Dave’s head struck this as he landed, and he was stunned.

He was conscious of partially rousing a little later. In a dreamy, dazed way the main idea in his mind was that he was very sleepy. Dave passed into another spell of insensibility. He awoke with a start finally, to find the sun shining brightly on his face.

“Oh, the mischief!” exclaimed Dave, as he realized that the day was several hours old.

The boy felt of his head. He found a lump there, but he was as bright as a dollar otherwise. He was immensely satisfied to find himself free. If his late captors had searched for him, they had looked in the wrong direction.

Dave got up on the roadway and looked up and down it. No one was in sight. He crossed it, plunged through the timber, and reaching a north and south road faced the sun on a pretty good sprint.

Dave wondered what had become of his guardian, and the sheriff, and the wrecked milk wagon. It seemed certain that sooner or later his enemies would look for him at Dayton. The lad did not mind that so much just now. He had great faith in Mr. King, and he believed that the airman would find some way to circumvent his enemies.

“It’s missing the race that makes me feel bad,” ruminated Dave. “Of course they’ll find a substitute to take my place.”

A mile down the road Dave came to a farmhouse. The men folks were out in the field and the mistress was just washing up her breakfast dishes. She prepared a hasty meal for Dave, which refreshed him considerably. She directed him to the nearest town, gave him a clear idea of his bearings, and told him it was nine o’clock.

“They are just starting at the meet,” said Dave rather mournfully, as he proceeded on his way. “That lady said Clyde is two miles ahead. Why, I remember now, Clyde is one of the towns on the route of the one hundred mile dash. Some of the contestants ought to be passing over the place inside of the next fifteen minutes.”

A farmer came along in a light wagon and gave Dave a lift. Just as they drove into Clyde, the man made the sudden remark:

“There’s one of them airships.”

Over towards the southeast a whizzing monoplane was speeding on its way.

“The race is on,” decided Dave.

“There’s another!” cried his companion, and stopped his wagon and got out. Dave followed his example, thanked him for the lift, and, looking upwards, walked on to a rise where he could get a better view of the air movements.

In turn four machines came into view. One or two of them were near enough for Dave to recognize. A queer qualm came over him as a fifth machine drove a course directly over the town.

“The racing monoplane I was to have run,” he said breathlessly. “I wonder who has taken my place? Hello – something wrong!”

Like a soaring eagle suddenly wounded, the monoplane dropped one wing. It curvetted under a manipulation of the rudder. Then with no reason apparent for the strange movement, the monoplane tilted at a sharp angle.

“He’s gone – it’s a smash up!” shouted Dave in a transport of the wildest anxiety and alarm.

To a casual observance the daring airman aloft was simply giving spectators a stock thrill. Dave realized instantly that something was wrong.

To him it was apparent that the operator of the racing monoplane had unaccountably lost entire control of his machine, and was headed for sure destruction.

CHAPTER XXV
CONCLUSION

Dave came to a dead halt with a shock. In deep distress and suspense he watched the diving monoplane. On every expert calculation, machine and operator were doomed.

Dave expected every moment to see the operator thrown out of the seat. He could not conceive what was passing in the mind of the operator. The machine did not seem to be crippled. Dave doubted if the most daring airman would risk that dangerous glide unless compelled to do so.

“Oh, that’s good – grand!” fairly shouted Dave, as, one hundred feet from the ground, the monoplane slowed, described two mammoth circles, and then resuming the descent, reached the earth, rolled almost fifty feet, and came to a safe halt.

Dave started on a dead run for the spot. Others from all directions preceded him. By the time he reached the place where the monoplane had landed, it was surrounded ten deep by crowding excited people.

“Is he dead?” Dave heard one ask.

“No, only hurt.”

“Why,” said Dave to himself in a startled way, “it’s Mr. Worthington.”

Dave had been able to peer through the crowd. He made out the monoplane, safe and trim, at rest. Some men were lifting the operator out of it. Dave recognized him as one of the professional aviators of the meet.

“Here, young fellow, don’t crowd so,” remonstrated a gaping spectator, as Dave tried to press through the throng.

“I know that man,” explained Dave. “Please let me get to him.”

Dave cleared the crowd and hurried over to where they had placed Mr. Worthington on the grass. The latter looked white and exhausted. He held a handkerchief to his lips, and Dave noticed that it was red stained.

“Oh, Mr. Worthington,” spoke Dave, kneeling at the side of the prostrate man. “Don’t you know me?”

“Why, Dashaway!” replied the aviator, trying to smile. “You here?”

“Are you injured?”

“Hemorrhage, Doctor told me my lungs couldn’t stand the upper currents. Too strong for me. Fainted away. Caught myself just in time.”

“Get a doctor,” spoke Dave to the men.

“No, no,” demurred Worthington. “I’m all right now. No more air sailing for me for a time, though, I fancy. Say, Dashaway!”

In a spurt of excitement Worthington sat up, and his eyes glowed as he fixed his glance on Dave.

“I was in the lead,” he resumed.

“I saw you was.”

“Why can’t you – ”

“Continue the race?” supplemented Dave.

“Yes.”

“Shall I?”

“Don’t lose a moment. She’s the best and fastest machine in the race. She’s done 460 miles in 8: 17: 30. There’s 18 gallons of gasoline aboard and five of lubricating oil.”

“I know all about it – the route marked out, too,” said Dave.

“Then win the day!”

“I’ll try.”

“Give him a start,” cried the enthused aviator to the men about him; and in thirty seconds the racing monoplane was once again driving for the sky.

All that Worthington had said about the monoplane the machine certainly deserved. Dave had never handled so capable a flyer. It was equipped with a marine compass for cross country work, and the acetylene lights for night flying.

“Grass cutting to the heart’s content in this beauty!” cried Dave.

He was all on his mettle, the way things had turned out, and made a superb start. The machine was in splendid trim. Dave took one good look ahead, behind and sideways, and then devoted all his attention to the business of the hour.

He had studied out the route the day previous. As on the hill at Clyde, each town on the course had a white flag hoisted at the highest point in town, with the monogram in black of the national aero club.

It was about thirty-five miles to the turning point, fifty more back. As Dave started the return dash, he passed his rivals straggling along, the nearest one five miles from the first goal.

Once on the return trip, Dave dropped to the ground, on a level meadow where a gaping farmer and his four employees stood fascinated at his graceful descent. The engine was not working at its best speed. Dave gave it a brief rest, impressed the farm hands into service, and started up the engine by swinging the propellor. This operation required more caution than cranking an automobile. With the switch off, Dave turned the propellor several times to fill the cylinders with gas, leaving it just ahead of the dead center of one of the cylinders, and with one blade extending upwards. Then he was off on the home stretch.

It was plain sailing now. Town after town Dave passed and then he saw the aero course in the distance. He made straight for the grounds, for two machines were racing at their best only a mile distance in his wake. As the gasoline was consumed the monoplane increased its speed, and as the essence gave out, just before making the final landing dip, the machine must have been making over seventy miles an hour.

“Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!”

“Why, it’s Dashaway!”

“Where’s Worthington?”

Dave smiled in a happy way at old Grimshaw and Hiram, who were among the throng that crowded about the landed racer. He made a brief explanation and was borne in triumph to the King hangar by his delighted friends.

It took Dave an hour to satisfy the curious and excited Hiram with an explanation of his mysterious disappearance of the evening previous, and the story of his arriving at Clyde just in time to complete Worthington’s broken trip.

This part of the story soon got about the grounds. It added a new lustre to the exploit of the hour. Worthington arrived in the camp an hour later, not much the worse for his accident.

“You’ve made it, lad!” cried old Grimshaw in delight. “You’ve got a record to go on now that older hands would give their ears for.”

“I am glad,” said Dave simply, and he was, indeed, very glad and very happy.

Only one feature marred the pleasure of the occasion. Mr. King was not at the hangars. Hiram explained that he and the automobile chauffeur had waited till midnight where Dave had left them at Genoa. Then, alarmed they had sped back to Dayton and had told Mr. King all they knew about the strange affair.

“Mr. King said he would fathom the mystery and find you, if he had to give up business for a week,” explained Hiram.

“He’s a grand friend,” said Dave with emotion.

Dave, Hiram and Grimshaw had just finished supper when Mr. King appeared. He looked tired, but his cheery laugh rang out as he slapped his young protege heartily on the shoulder.

“In the name of wonder, what is this I hear about you, Dashaway?” he cried.

“What do you mean, Mr. King?” asked Dave.

“You won the race.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Dave modestly.

“Picked up Worthington at Clyde, when everything seemed off for the machine I backed.”

Dave explained. He had an attentive listener. When Dave had concluded, Mr. King remarked:

“I’ll settle the outrageous claims of that annoying old guardian of yours in double quick time, Dashaway.”

“Can it be done?” inquired Dave, anxiously.

“Trust me for that.”

“I intend to.”

“I’ve been pretty busy on your affairs, Dashaway,” proceeded the airman. “From what Hiram here told me, I had a clew to start on. At the hotel at Genoa I found out about that boy thief you tried to catch. Finally the hotel clerk remembered a chum of his in the town. I located him, and ran on the fellow I was after. His name is Gregg.”

“He made the hotel people think it was Dave Dashaway.”

“There’s a story to that.”

“Please tell it, Mr. King.”

“Why, the young scamp found some papers among the stuff he stole from you.”

“Yes,” nodded Dave, “some letters directed to my father at Brookville.”

“They were from an old friend of your father, a man named Cyrus Dale.”

“Why, yes,” exclaimed Dave, “I know he once had a great friend by that name.”

“Well, the letters, never answered, invited your father to bring you to see an old friend who had become a wealthy man. He did not know that your father was dead when he wrote them. This young Gregg was smart enough to see a chance to work into the favor of Mr. Dale. He went to him and was at once accepted as Dave Dashaway. Mr. Dale practically adopted him, gave him all the money he could spend, and Gregg was in high clover till I nabbed him.”

“He confessed all that, did he?” inquired Dave.

“He did. I made him sign a confession and tell where he had sold my watch and medal. I’m thinking you’ll have a friendly and influential second father, when we tell Mr. Dale that you are the real Dave Dashaway.”

“I couldn’t have a better friend than you are, Mr. King,” declared Dave, “if I searched for a thousand years.”

“There’s a new one come on the scene you may take quite a fancy to,” replied Mr. King, with a mysterious smile.

“Who is that?” inquired Dave.

“You remember the people who sent the Baby Racer on here for a test?”

“Oh, yes – the Interstate Aeroplane people, you mean?” replied Dave.

“Well, I met their agent as I came in at the gate. He will be here shortly to see you.”

“To see me?” questioned Dave.

“Yes.”

“What about?”

“Why, after that fine work of yours with the Baby Racer, and your record to-day, he thinks you’re the likely, lively, up-to-date aviator he wants to deal with. He is going to offer to make a contract with you to exhibit their new hydroplane. Later they will put their hydro-aeroplane on the market.”

“Good for Dashaway!” cried the irrepressible Hiram Dobbs. “Hurrah!”

“We can chorus that, all of us,” declared the genial airman. “As a promising young aviator, Dave Dashaway is certainly a decided success.”

So we leave Dave for the present, at the threshold of his first professional triumph. In our next volume, entitled “Dave Dashaway and His Hydroplane; Or, Daring Adventures Over the Great Lakes,” his experience in a more brilliant field of aviation will be related.

“I’m going to be an aviator myself some day,” said Hiram, on more than one occasion. “But, try my best, I won’t ever be a better birdman than Dave Dashaway!”

THE END