PARTNERS
At two A. M. they were over Ayre, Ohio. The lateness of the hour made no
difference in their welcome. Apparently all the able-bodied persons in
the city had decided to make a night of it, and most of them had come
out to the landing field to greet the silver ship. Big searchlights and
hundreds of flares surrounded the field. The mast wore a crown of
colored lights. Just as they reached the field, all lights were
extinguished long enough to display the words “Welcome, Moonbeam” laid
out on the ground in electric letters six feet in height.
They flew so low that the watching throngs could see the passengers
waving. The engines were stopped, and they hung for a minute in the
white glare. They could hear, as once before, the crowd roaring a
greeting to their own ship. “Moonbeam! Moonbeam!” rose the cry. Then
darkness swallowed them again.
“David,” said Red, “you just gotta tell Mr. Hammond.”
“I don’t see it,” said David, stubbornly. “Think what a surprise it will
be for him when we reach Lakehurst. We are bound to make the record he
wants. I want you to tune her up to a hundred miles now.”
Red leaned against the bench, twirling the screw on his wrench.
“Look, David, if you do that, he’ll think you’ve held out on him. I
would in his place. He knows all about the accelerator. Don’t you think
he naturally wants to try it out, too? After all, Dave, he’s the
chief—the commander of this ship, and he’s treated you darned white.”
“You are right, of course,” said David after a long pause, reluctantly.
“I sort of wanted to make him a present of the record at Lakehurst, but
you are right.”
“He’s in the salon,” said Red. “I’ll get him.”
As Mr. Hammond came into the control room, he stopped to look at the
indicator.
“At this rate,” he said hopefully, “we will make our record after all.
Did you want to see me, David?”
“If Van Arden will take the wheel, I’d like to ask you to come to my
room; or perhaps you want to turn in now, sir?”
“Turn in!” exclaimed the chief. “With those engines picking up like
this, and cities to greet every little while—our last night, and all?
Good Lord, no! Never was so wide-awake in my life.”
“We feel like that too,” said David.
Calling Van Arden, the three went to David’s stateroom.
“All right, David,” said Mr. Hammond, lighting a cigar.
“Shoot!” said Red firmly.
“Well, commander, when we recovered the plans, Red and I decided to have
a set of the accelerators constructed in Los Angeles, and try them out
as we crossed the States. They couldn’t do any harm, and—”
Mr. Hammond waved away details.
“You mean they are on the engines now?” he demanded. “Is that why we are
making such good time?”
“I hope so,” said David.
“You know so, you nut,” said Red, angrily.
Mr. Hammond’s cigar went out.
“So your accelerator is actually a success. I thought those plans looked
pretty practical. Can we continue the present speed, do you think?”
“Yes, sir, and Red is going now to speed the adjustment up to a hundred
miles an hour.”
“Go ahead, Red,” laughed Mr. Hammond, rubbing his hands delightedly.
“Don’t let me keep you!”
After Red had gone, opening his wrench with the pleased air of a man
sharpening a carving knife for a particularly juicy-looking turkey, Mr.
Hammond turned to David.
“Well, son, you have certainly won your spurs. By the way you have
handled the ship, and now by making the record I wanted so much.”
“We aren’t there yet,” said David cautiously.
“You are Scotch, aren’t you?” laughed Mr. Hammond. “I congratulate you,
David, with all my heart. It is wonderful, absolutely wonderful! I’m as
proud of you as though you were my own boy. Where are those
specifications? I want to look them over again. David, I’m certainly
delighted.” He shook hands heartily, as David, with a light heart,
handed him the envelope.
Red joined David in the control room later. He was laughing.
“Confess now, David, that it would have been a black deal to leave the
Big Fella out in the dark any longer. I met him just now. He’s crazy
glad. The engineers are havin’ a celebration, too. In every egg they are
all leanin’ over their engines, oiling and wiping and testing, for fear
she might slow down. And they are all remindin’ each other that they are
personal friends of the famous Captain Ellison of the good ship
Moonbeam. This must be Newcastle coming,” he added, dodging David’s
left. “It is three o’clock.”
As they passed over, Mr. Hammond came in and peered at the indicator.
“She’s making one hundred and ten miles!” he said shakily.
“It’s all right, sir,” laughed David.
“Come to my room; I want to talk to you.”
He closed the door, and motioned David to a seat.
“I’ve been figuring this thing out, and I want to make you an offer. I
have made out a rough agreement for you to sign unless, of course, you
want to consult a lawyer.”
“I’ll say not, sir,” said David decidedly.
“Here’s my idea, then. See how you like it. You will take the invention
and enter it in the school contest, but with ‘patents pending’ all over
it. The prize money to be yours. But before that—now, in fact, I will
buy a half interest in it. I bought back Cram’s shares in the Moonbeam,
you know, and I will make over those shares to you, in payment. As for
the royalties, we will go fifty-fifty. One other matter—” he hesitated.
“I’d like to share in this in another way, David. It’s sort of kiddish,
perhaps, but I’d like to see my name—I’d like to announce it as the
Ellison-Hammond Accelerator.”
David took a deep breath.
“Hammond-Ellison, and you are too generous, sir.” He held out his hand,
and they shook solemnly.
“Good!” said Mr. Hammond. He laughed and pointed to the paper. “Sign on
the dotted line,” he quoted, “but think it over first. And now let’s see
if Ryan has juggled us up any faster.”
The Moonbeam was holding steadily at one hundred and ten, and David
wanted to talk to Red. Search discovered him in his quarters, playing
with the kitten. He jumped up, letting Trouble slide down his leg.
“Anything up?” he demanded.
“Nothing at all. That is, there’s a lot,” David stuttered.
Red took a step toward the door.
“Oh, cool off, the ship’s all right. Sit down.” David repeated his
conversation with Mr. Hammond, and added, “Now, Red, old dear, that
goes. But with one big IF. If you and I go fifty-fifty on the prize
money, and fifty-fifty on my share of the royalties. If you will agree
to that I will make the deal with the commander.”
“No,” said Red promptly.
“Yes,” said David.
“No, I tell you! What an idea! He invents a wonderful contraption. It’s
a great success; so he hands out half the royalties to somebody, mind
you,” Red declared scornfully, “who has just stood around and admired.”
“You have helped me all along,” declared David. “I couldn’t have done
half so well without you. Honest, Red, you have got to do it.”
“God bless you for a generous imbecile, but I won’t do it. Come on down,
if you won’t let a poor working man get an hour’s sleep.”
“You have got to go halves with me,” David persisted doggedly. “Say you
will, and you can go to bed for a couple of hours.”
“Then I sit up,” said Red. “Tell you what, David! Here’s what you can
do, and it will mean a lot more than money to me. You can see to it that
I get a job with you. I like you, boy, and we hit it off. Let’s stick
together. Huh?”
“Surest thing in the world! But the other goes, too.”
“No,” said Red.
“Oh Lord!” groaned David.
Still arguing, they went down to the passenger gondola. Bellefontaine
was below them, and it was half-past four.
By eight-thirty Sunday morning they were over New York City. The ship
was all excitement. The passengers looked down with awe at the majestic
city, at its soaring towers and deep canyons, at its embracing rivers
running to the sea, where the ships of all the world come laden to the
wharves. The sun blazed on gilded domes and delicate spires, Liberty
lifted her steadfast torch, and the Moonbeam turned her proud form
toward Lakehurst.
In the control room the operator met Red with a radiogram.
“From the Padre, I suppose. Do you know, he never answered that telegram
I sent him from Los Angeles?” Red commented, opening the message. He
read the words over and over, as though disbelieving his eyes.
“Well,” he said at last, “the thing that just couldn’t happen has
happened. Read it!”
David took the paper. It read:
“Insist on seeing you at Lakehurst stop most important stop
grandfather’s farm has let loose with two gushers best grade oil stop
worth millions.”
“Why, that’s immense!” cried David.
“Yes, it’s the grand news,” said Red. “That farm! It wouldn’t grow
anything but tarantulas and scorpions and prairie dogs. Two gushers! Now
mother, God bless her, can have all her heart desires, and the Padre can
build himself a whole row of hospitals for his poor. Ain’t it grand,
David? I’m askin’ you!”
“It’s the finest thing I ever heard. But what will you do?”
“Stick to me engines,” said Red, “forever and ever. And pray that Old
Foolish here will now stop tantalizin’ me about royalties.”
As they walked back through the salon, they found the radio man talking
to the youngest reporter, who stepped up.
“What’s this, Mr. Ryan? I guess you have a story for me, haven’t you?”
“Not any,” said Ryan.
“Oh, sure you have—that message.”
Red laughed. “Well, it’s luck I came along, if it’s this you mean.” He
pulled the paper from his pocket. “From my brother,” he explained. “He
uses a code. Decoded, it means that he wants me to go with him in New
York to buy some B. V. D’s, and let’s see—Oh, some socks! And he wants
’em to look like a million dollars. It is a good code. You’d never guess
it, would you?”
Unbelief was stamped on the two faces.
“Where is your home, Mr. Ryan?” asked the reporter.
Red grinned at the trap. “Ayre,” he said.
“But when you are not in the air,” persisted the reporter. Red sauntered
toward the passage. “I’m never anywhere else,” he said over his
shoulder.
Mr. Hammond came in from the control room. “Almost there!” he said. “I
have almost worn that indicator out, looking at it. But I know we have
made the grade.”
“We all congratulate you, Mr. Hammond,” said Doctor Trigg.
“We do indeed,” added Doctor Sims.
“I have already been approached by Parker’s Magazine for an article on
this journey,” said Doctor Trigg. “I should like you to peruse the
manuscript before I send it to them. I want to publish it with your
personal approval.”
“And I,” said Doctor Sims, “am about to finish a valuable monograph on
‘Epitaphs of the World, Past and Present,’ a book which contains the
fruit of twenty years of search and selection. I should like to dedicate
it, with an appropriately commendatory inscription, to your daughter.”
“To me?” cried Dulcie, flinging her arms around Doctor Sims in a quick
hug. “How splendid! Won’t the girls at college be green with envy?”
Doctor Sims looked at her. “My dear,” he said, “you are kind to accept
it. It is all an old man who loves you has to offer. To write an
appropriate book for you would tax Orpheus and put Sappho to shame.”
“You are very kind, doctor,” Mr. Hammond replied; then turning to
Dulcie, “My dear, I want you to pick yourself out a nice little roadster
in New York.”
“Isn’t daddy a dear?” asked Dulcie of the world at large.
“You have earned it,” said Mr. Hammond, and went into the control room
to gloat once more over the speed indicator.
Doctor Trigg led Dulcie over to a window. “I want to add a word, dear
child,” he said. “I want to thank you for what you have done for two old
men. You have shared your youth and freshness with us. You have opened
the portal into a new world, for Sims and for me. You have unlocked a
door leading into the secret place of my heart. I had thought that it
was full of ashes, but I find that it is still peopled by loving and
lovely ghosts, who are glad to accept me again.”
“Oh, dear Doctor Trigg,” murmured Dulcie, squeezing his arm.
A shout from Mr. Hammond interrupted them, attracting the attention of
everyone.
“Lakehurst in sight,” he cried. “Around the world in nineteen days, and
eight hours! Ahead of the flying time of the Graf Zeppelin, and in a
much larger ship.”
The reporters cheered lustily. Everyone rushed to shake the commander’s
hand. Dulcie, with Koko under her arm, went and stood by David at the
wheel.
“We will soon be there, Captain Ellison.”
“Yes indeed, Miss Hammond,” he answered, smiling.
“Look down, David. The place is black with people. Aren’t there acres of
cars over there?”
“Many more than when we left,” said David. “A terrible mob. It would be,
you know. It is the Fourth of July, and the world and his wife and the
kiddies are here to see us finish the cruise. Just look at them! I hope
they can keep the field clear. Take this glass. See the flags, and the
mobs on the buildings outside the field. Enthusiasm! Why, they’re crazy!
What they won’t do to us!”
“It scares me somehow,” said Dulcie. “I’d like to stay right here.”
“Well, the first flight of the silver ship is ended,” David mused, as he
guided his ship over the field. “I wonder what her next will be. So many
things have happened.”
“The Moonbeam has brought you fame and fortune, hasn’t she, David?”
David did not answer. The great ship hovered above the field, then
slowly sank, the landing crew in full formation beneath her. Down and
down, slowly, gracefully until her ropes were seized by eager, practiced
hands.
“She’s brought me something better than fame and fortune;” said David,
suddenly, answering Dulcie’s question. “Hammond-Ellison: partners. Does
that stand, Dulcie?”
Her eyes met his.
“It certainly stands,” she said.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Flight of the Silver Ship, by Hugh McAlister