A NIGHT VOYAGE.
Sailing through the air at night is a vastly different thing to the
delightful exhilaration of a day voyage. In the latter case, all is
plain going—provided, of course, the weather conditions are
right—below the aviator is spread out, like a many-colored carpet, a
glowing landscape dotted with peaceful hamlets, busy smoky cities, and
quiet farms and patches of woodland. But at night all is changed. The
darkness hangs about the driving air-craft like a pall. The aviator
anxiously scans the earth below him for an occasional light or the glare
that a distant city casts on the sky. It is by those means alone that he
can get his bearings, unless he is a skilled navigator and steers by the
compass. Even then he may get lost. All is uncertainty.
So intent on overtaking their rivals, however, were the boys, that they
reckoned little of the risks they ran, and kept the _Golden Eagle_
headed on an almost due westerly course. The tiny shaded light above the
binnacle was the only speck of illumination about the air-ship. Luckily
the moon cast a bright, white illumination, but the luminary was waning,
and was already low in the western sky. Soon all would be as black as a
well.
“Heard anything from the auto?” asked Frank, with a backward glance,
after they had been running about an hour thus.
“Not a thing,” rejoined Harry; “that means they must have a light in
sight.”
“Still, I should like to know just where they are. Send them a flash.”
Harry bent over the wireless key and sent a message crackling into the
night:
“Send up a flare.”
The answer soon came. From far below them a blue illumination lit up the
trees and along a stretch of road in a lurid glare. The amused young
aviators could see horses and cattle out at pasture in the quiet fields
galloping for dear life at the alarming apparition.
“Can you see any sign of the others?” asked Frank, some minutes later.
Both boys had in the interval been peering anxiously ahead into the
night.
“Not a sign, can you?”
“Not yet.”
“We ought to catch sight of them soon.”
“That’s so. We should have no difficulty in making out the dirigible,
illuminated as she is.”
The boys lapsed into silence, straining their eyes ahead in vain.
Suddenly Harry gave a shout.
“There she is, about four points off our course to the north.”
“That’s right. That’s the dirigible, sure enough. Now, comparing her
speed with that of Slade’s machine, he cannot be far off.”
“Say, we’ve been making time, all right.”
“I should say we have. But look! Something’s the matter with the
dirigible.”
As Harry spoke they saw the row of lights by which they had picked the
gas-supported craft out of the night suddenly waver and then begin to
drop.
“They are going to descend,” cried Harry amazedly.
“Evidently. Look there!” he broke off with a sharp exclamation.
A red glare suddenly enveloped the dirigible, showing her every outline.
“It’s a distress signal!” was the elder lad’s excited shout. “Something
has happened.”
“I’ll tell the boys in the auto to answer it,” suggested Harry.
He sent out a sputtering wireless, which was soon answered by a blue
glare from the auto. An answering illumination from the dirigible went
up.
“They’ve seen our signal,” cried Frank. “Now, Harry, switch on the
searchlight.”
“What for?”
“To pick out a landing-place by. I don’t want to risk our necks by
dropping in the dark.”
“You are going to land and help them?”
“Of course; they may be in serious trouble. It is our duty to aid them.”
“But Slade’s machine?”
“Well, he’ll make a big gain on us to-night, I’m afraid, but it can’t be
helped. They have signaled for assistance, and we’ve got to go to their
help.”
The white finger of light of the searchlight began to sweep the ground
below them. So far as they could see, they were traveling over a cleared
country only interspersed here and there by clumps of trees.
“This looks as good a place to drop as any,” said Frank as he
scrutinized the nature of the country over which they were soaring in
slow circles.
Harry assented.
“Tell me when to cut out the engine,” he said.
“I’ll do that myself,” replied Frank. “I’ll do it with the emergency
cut-outs. We might have to shift up again in a hurry, and the engine
acts more quickly on the driving wheel controls.”
The aeroplane began to drop. About a quarter of a mile from her the
dirigible was settling, too. Her crew kept burning flares so as to see
that they didn’t blunder into any growth that might have ripped their
gas bag.
The boys reached the earth without a mishap, and found themselves in a
rocky meadow, about a hundred yards from the road. In a few minutes the
auto came chugging along with an excited party on board.
“What is it?”
“What has happened?”
“What’s the matter?”
“Call me a tenderfoot if I didn’t think it was Pain’s fireworks.”
The exclamations and questions came in a perfect volley.
“One at a time, one at a time,” laughed Frank; “we’re not phonographs.”
“You scared the life out of us,” interjected Billy Barnes.
“Well, you needn’t worry about the _Golden Eagle_; with the exception of
the time we are losing, she is as sound as a bell, but the dirigible
over yonder is in some distress. We had better hop in the auto and drive
in that direction.”
Luckily the road went in the direction in which the dirigible had last
been seen, and a short distance down the main track the boys found a
field path leading off into an enclosure in which they could see men
scurrying round the big dirigible with lanterns in their hands. They
seemed much perturbed, and the boys could hear their loud expressions of
disgust at their sudden stoppage.
“Dirigible ahoy!” hailed Frank, as the auto rolled up; “what’s the
trouble?”
“Oh, hello—are you the Boy Aviators?” said a pleasant-faced man, whom
the boys recognized as James McArthur, the driver and owner of the
craft. “It’s mighty good of you to come to our aid. Yes, we’ve cracked a
propeller blade, and are in a bad fix. You see, we lost a lot of gas in
dropping, and that means we’ll have to lighten the ship.”
“I hope it doesn’t put you out of the race,” sympathized Frank; “it’s
too bad such an accident should have occurred.”
“It is, indeed,” said Mr. McArthur. “We were doing so well, too.”
“If you will let us I think we can help you out,” volunteered Frank.
“If you only could,” exclaimed the other eagerly.
“We’ve got a spare propeller in the auto. If you like, I can let you
have it till you reach Pittsburg or some town where you can get a new
one fitted.”
“Oh, I couldn’t think of depriving you.”
“Not at all. I don’t think there is a chance of our having any accident
to our propellers. You are welcome to it.”
Mr. McArthur, with profuse expressions of thanks, thereupon gratefully
accepted the propeller which the boys unpacked from its place in the big
tonneau of their car. It was not long before it was bolted in place, and
the dirigible ready to start. The new propeller was a trifle smaller
than the old one, but the driver of the dirigible was confident he could
get good results with it. Before he started, however, he had to drop
three of his men, with instructions to them to walk to the nearest town
and then take the train for Pittsburg, at which city he could get fresh
supplies of hydrogen gas. In the meantime McArthur and one man were to
handle the dirigible, and almost every bit of ballast she carried was
sacrificed.
Amid a perfect tornado of thanks, which they would have been glad to
dodge, the boys hurried back to the _Golden Eagle_, and were soon once
more in the air. Daybreak found them flying about nine hundred feet
above a hilly, sparsely settled country.
As the light grew brighter, which it did slowly, with a promise of rain,
they gazed eagerly about them in every direction. Far behind them they
could see the tiny speck of the dirigible, laboring along with her small
propeller, but of the Slade machine there was not a sign.
“Well, he has got a start of us this time, for fair,” exclaimed Harry,
as the boys looked blankly at each other, following the result of their
scrutiny.
“There’s nothing to do but keep doggedly on,” rejoined Frank, “but we
ought to reach Pittsburg to-night. It looks as if we are in for a
rain-storm, too.”
“It certainly does,” rejoined Harry. “Well, there’s one consolation,
Slade can’t do any better in the rain than we can.”
“No, that’s so,” rejoined Frank, but there was little elation in his
tone.
For a time the boys sat in silence. It was broken by a sharp shout from
Harry.
“Frank! Frank! look there!”
They were flying above a farm-house, from the chimney of which a
cheerful column of smoke was ascending. Hungry and tired as the boys
were, they could in imagination smell the breakfast coffee, the aroma of
the frizzling bacon and the hiss of the frying eggs. But what had caused
Harry’s shout was clear enough. Outside the farm-house stood two
automobiles, which they recognized as those of Barr and Fred Reade, and
a short distance from the two cars stood the _Despatch’s_ aeroplane.
“They’ve stopped for breakfast,” exultingly cried Frank; “here’s where
we get ahead of them.”