LATHROP AS AN AIR PILOT.
"Dere she is, massa."
Quatty's dark figure standing up in the canoe was outlined against the
deep ultramarine blue of the night sky as he pointed to an indistinct
blur on the horizon.
"She" both the boys instantly realized with a thrill was the
mound-builders' island on which the _Golden Eagle II_ had been left.
They had been paddling hard all night and sometimes poling where the
maze of streams they followed shallowed to a mere puddle. With the
sudden nearing of their goal a new fear was borne in upon them.
Would the aeroplane be there? Or had the same mysterious forces that
held the Boy Aviators captive wrecked their ship, too?
Silently--after the first flush of the excitement at Quatty's having
guided them right through a wilderness that it seemed impossible to
traverse except at random--the boys paddled on. Their minds were both
busy with the same question. What would they find when they got there?
Perhaps after all their errand would prove to be in vain.
Lathrop was the first to voice the apprehension, they both felt.
"Suppose the _Golden Eagle II_ is gone?" he asked in a low voice.
"Then we will hunt up the _Tarantula_, get a detachment of bluejackets
and clean out the Everglades before we'll give up the search," was the
determined reply of the young reporter. Billy was rising to the
emergency.
The sun had already risen when the outlines of the distant island became
visible in detail and Billy, after a long and careful scrutiny through
the glasses, declared he could see something that might or might not be
the _Golden Eagle II_ perched on its summit. This was cheering news and
put new strength into the paddlers' flagging arms. From that time on
till they reached the island and found that all was well the boys did
not speak a word, but put all their strength into the work of urging the
boats through the water. It was aggravating work too, for at times they
would be only half a mile from the island and then they would find that
they were compelled to follow another watery path that took them a
couple of miles away from their destination. At last, however, the keels
of the little flotilla grated on the island and Billy and Lathrop ran up
the well-worn trail leading to the summit.
Their joy at finding the air-ship intact may be imagined. It was better
luck than they had dared to hope for. Speed was the main thing now and
while they might have reached the island of the formula stealers by boat
the journey there and back to the coast again by water would have been a
tedious one and might indeed, by its very length, have defeated their
purpose.
Lathrop's first care was to examine the gasolene supply. He found to his
satisfaction that the tank was more than half full and he immediately
dumped into it the contents of the two five-gallon cans of reserve
supply that the boys had brought along and which were stored under the
transom.
For an hour or more the boy went over the machine carefully, striving to
master to the minutest detail its working parts. Lathrop was an aviator
and next to the boys, perhaps was as skilled a navigator of aerial craft
as the old school in New York had turned out, but he was a little
dubious about his ability to run the _Golden Eagle II_. However, it had
to be done and after giving Billy careful instructions about keeping the
oil cups filled and seeing to it that the condenser was in constant
working order, Lathrop decided that things were about ready for his
experimental flight in the Chester boys' big aeroplane.
"And to think that in White Plains I'd have given my head to see it and
here I am going to run her," he could not help saying to himself as he
stepped back and gave a final look over the craft.
Under Lathrop's direction the aeroplane was wheeled back to the furthest
boundary of the top of the mound as he did not want to take chances on
not securing a good running start. Lathrop knew that aeroplanes are like
horses, they will go well for the man who is used to them under almost
any condition; but when a new hand takes control accidents are likely to
happen unless the greatest care is used. As he well realized he knew
nothing of the habits of the _Golden Eagle II_, which was a far bigger
aeroplane than he had ever run or in fact ever seen.
The boy's heart beat a little faster as he clambered into the pilot
section of the chassis and adjured Billy for the last time to look well
to the engine.
"That's all right," Billy anxiously assured him, "I'm as good an
engineer as Harry himself, or will be," he added.
"Don't holler till you're out of the wood," said Lathrop, "and obey
orders."
It is curious how circumstances will alter cases. Billy Barnes, by
virtue of his greater age and knowledge of the world was easily
Lathrop's leader, ordinarily. Now, however, when Billy was about to
enter upon a duty of which he knew nothing and the other boy a whole
lot, their positions were readjusted and it was Lathrop who became the
leading spirit.
Quatty, it had been agreed, was to be left behind, and was to make his
way back to the coast with the canoes as soon as possible and apprise
the _Tarantula_ people of what had occurred. He silently watched the
boys' preparations with interest from a safe distance.
"Now, then, crank her up," shouted Lathrop, as he threw in the spark on
the control wheel and waited patiently for results as Billy turned and
sweated at the self-starting apparatus.
"What's the matter?" he demanded, as there was no answering explosion
from the engine.
"I don't know," stammered Billy wiping his brow, "there doesn't seem to
be anything doing, does there?"
"What can be the matter?" exclaimed Lathrop, throwing out the switch and
coming aft.
He examined the spark plugs in turn and found that they were sparking in
perfect order. Next came an inspection of the carburettor--that, too,
was in good trim. Evidently the reason for the failure to start was not
there. Lathrop was puzzled, he had never known an engine to behave in
such a mystifying way before. He went over it again part by part,
carefully, and cranked it and rocked it till his arms were ready to drop
off.
Suddenly an idea struck him--not so much for the reasonableness of it,
but because he had examined about every other likely cause of failure to
start.
"Well, Billy, you are a wonder," he exclaimed in a vexed tone, when to
his surprise he found that what he tried in desperation proved correct.
"What's the trouble?" asked Billy cheerfully.
"Why you only forgot to open the gasolene valve, that's all."
For the first and last time in his life the reporter was fairly taken
back.
"Well, Lathrop, I will admit that I am a first-class,
blown-in-the-bottle chump," he exclaimed contritely. The next cranking
proved successful and after the engines had settled down to a quiet easy
purr, Lathrop with a warning cry of:
"Hold tight, I'm going to throw in the clutch!" started the big
aeroplane on its flight of rescue.
With a swift, wobbling motion that threw Billy from side to side of the
car the _Golden Eagle II_, under the direction of her unskilled pilot,
skidded across the top of the mound-builders' island while Quatty waved
his arm in farewell.
Unaccustomed as he was to the _Golden Eagle II_, Lathrop made his first
mistake when he tried to raise her after too short a run. To his despair
and amazement she refused to rise when he raised his upward planes. They
were traveling over the ground at a rapid speed, now with the two big
propellers threshing the air at a rate of 1200 revolutions a minute; the
roar of the exhaust was like the discharge of a score of gatling guns.
Lathrop set his teeth desperately and jerked the planes at an even
acuter angle in his effort to get her to rise. They were only a few
yards from the edge of the mound now and if she refused to rise by the
time they reached it they would be inevitably dashed down to death in
the ruins of the big sky-skimmer. With that desperate determination that
comes in the face of crucial emergency, Lathrop threw in another speed
on the engine and they attained a velocity of 1500 revolutions a minute.
"I'll make her rise or bust," he said grimly to himself.
But the end he feared did not come; under the added impetus of her
increased speed and the acute angle at which the boy had set the rising
planes the _Golden Eagle II_ shot into the air, as abruptly as a
sky-rocket, as she reached the edge of the mound. The result for an
instant, however, threatened to be almost as serious as if she had gone
over the edge without rising.
In his excitement Lathrop had set the rising planes at such an abrupt
angle that when the ship shot up she reared like a horse, hurling Billy
Barnes back among the engines and almost overboard and causing Lathrop
to let go of his steering wheel for the fragment of a second to grasp a
stanchion. At the same instant the aeroplane, left unguided for a
second, gave a sickening plunge sideways, like a wounded hawk. Lathrop
in his agitation seized the wheel and gave it a twist that brought her
round, it is true, but as her starboard propeller was working in direct
opposition to the curve he wished her to describe, he almost twisted her
rudder off and made her careen at just as alarming an angle in the
opposite direction.
To Billy it looked as if they were gone but Lathrop, who was fast
learning the peculiarities of the craft he had under his control,
managed by a skillful manipulation to right her and the next minute with
her propellers beating the air at top speed the big craft dashed forward
as steadily as an ocean liner. It had been a narrow escape, though, and
taught Lathrop something about navigating a twin screw air-ship. In a
craft of this kind, in a maneuver executed to port, the course of the
ship is bound to receive a backward pull from the starboard propeller
and vice versa. It is necessary for the operator, then to swing in an
easy curve to avoid pulling his steering gear out by the roots and being
dashed to death.
"That's only the overture," cried Lathrop, exhilarated by the rapid
motion as they rushed toward the island, "wait for the big show."