LOST IN THE AIR
“This is serious, fellows,” spoke Dave. “Get ready for the worst.”
“What is the worst?” inquired Elmer Brackett.
“A sudden drop. You had better have the breeches buoys ready.”
“Oh, Dave!” cried Hiram Dobbs, in actual distress. “You don’t mean to
say that the brave old _Comet_ is going back on us just as it looks as
though the home stretch is right ahead of us?”
“It’s the fog, fellows,” explained Dave. “We have beaten around in it
for twelve hours, until I feel certain we are all out of our course. In
a word, we are lost.”
“Lost in the air!” exclaimed Hiram—“who’d ever have thought of it!”
“Yes, just like a ship in strange waters,” said Dave. “If we were not so
far from the mainland we left last week, there might be some hope.
According to my calculation, we have missed St. Helena. If that is true,
we can count on no land this side of Trinidad.”
“That must be hundreds of miles away,” remarked Hiram.
“Worse than that,” declared Elmer, who was pretty well posted on chart
and “log” details. “If the fog would only lift!”
“That is our only hope,” declared Dave. “I do not wish to alarm you,
fellows; but we must face the music like men. I don’t believe the
_Comet_ will last out six hours.”
“As bad as that?” said Hiram, in a subdued tone.
“Yes,” asserted the young airman. “If we could sight some ship I would
not hesitate to descend upon its deck. This fog, of course, shuts out
any chance to depend on that. The trouble is with our wires. That strain
we had in last night’s wind seems to have played havoc with the entire
steering gear.”
“Can’t it be fixed?” inquired Elmer, anxiously.
“Not while we’re flying,” replied Dave. “You know, the post is really a
lever and the wheel a handle. The cloche, or bell-like attachment that
runs to the warping wires, has got out of kilter. You know, the steering
post is made of one-inch, twenty-gauge steel tubing. At the lower end of
this is a fork made of pieces of smaller tubing, bent and brazed into
place. The fork forms part of the universal joint on which the post is
mounted. From this run the warping wires through pulleys to the
elevators.”
Hiram nodded intelligently at this technical explanation. Elmer, too,
understood what their pilot wished to convey to them.
“Some of the tubing is loose,” continued the young airman. “I have felt
it vibrate for the past hour. If any part gives way, and a puff of wind
should come up, we will lose all control of the steering gear.”
“The mischief!” ejaculated Hiram, who always got excited readily. “We’re
in a bad fix; aren’t we?”
“Bad enough to keep on a low level, for fear we may turn turtle at any
moment,” declared Dave.
The young aviator had not misstated conditions. The situation was a
critical one, and he had known it for some time. Even now, as they made
a straight volplane, there was an ominous creak in the tubing joints,
and the machine wabbled.
“Fellows, she’s going!” declared our hero. “We’ve got to drop or take a
risk of a sudden plunge that may end everything.”
The _Comet_ had no float attachment. Hiram got the breeches buoys and
the life preservers ready. The fog was so heavy they could not see the
sky above nor the sea beneath them. Dave allowed the machine to drift on
a long, inclined dip. Something snapped. The _Comet_ wavered from side
to side but did not upset. There was a second sudden jar.
“Get ready. It’s a sure drop, any way we manage it,” shouted Dave.
All hands were ready to leap from the machine when it struck. Suddenly
Dave shut off the power at a contact. The machine grated, ran on its
wheels, and came to an astonishing but substantial standstill.
“Dave, Dave,” cried the delighted Hiram, springing out. “Land, solid
land!”
“It can’t be! Must be a rock!” gasped Elmer, unbelievingly.
“Whoop! hurrah!” yelled Hiram. “Oh, glory!”
Dave’s young assistant acted mad as a March hare. He could not help it.
He sang and danced. Then he reached down and grabbed up handfuls of the
light sand at his feet, and flung it joyously up in the air as if it
were grains of precious gold.
“Sure as you live,” exclaimed the bewildered Elmer. “It’s solid land—oh,
what luck!”
The young aviator was filled with surprise and satisfaction. Such rare
good fortune seemed incredible. He stood still, not caring if it was a
sand bank or a desert island. They had escaped a fearful peril—and the
_Comet_ was safe.
“Who cares for the fog. Why, if it’s only a ten foot mud bank we’re so
glad nothing else matters much just now,” declared the overwrought
Hiram.
“It’s something better than that,” responded our hero brightly, all
buoyed up now after the recent heavy strain on nerve and mind. “We must
have landed on some island not down on the chart.”
“Let us explore,” suggested the impetuous Hiram.
“Let us eat first,” added the hungry Elmer. “It’s brought back my
appetite, after that big scare.”
Dave went all over the machine, more with the sense of touch than actual
eyesight inspection in that enveloping fog. He came back to his comrades
not a whit discouraged.
“How is it, Dave?” asked Hiram.
“I can’t tell exactly,” was the reply. “Some of the tubing is loose and
the gear is out of center. With what tools we have and duplicate parts,
we may be able to fix things up good enough to carry on to the South
American coast.”
“Let’s do it, then,” suggested the eager Elmer. “Those other fellows may
get the biggest kind of a lead on us while we are delaying here.”
“They are probably having troubles of their own,” remarked Dave. “It
would be impossible to do anything in this fog. Besides, it will take us
at least a day to repair the _Comet_. We might just as well take a
resting spell and a bite to eat.”
The food supply aboard the biplane was abundant, but no attempt was made
to cook a meal. The airship boys indulged in a lunch composed of
crackers, cheese and some lemonade, in the manufacture of which beverage
Hiram had become something of an expert.
“I say,” he suddenly exclaimed, ten minutes later, as he bolted a
mouthful of cracker—“look there!”
The speaker pointed, and all hands arose to their feet. In the far
distance a growing yellow glow began to diffuse itself over the western
sky. As suddenly and completely as the dense fog had come down upon them
earlier in the day, a grand clearing up transpired.
“Why, it’s just like the rolling up of a curtain,” cried Elmer.
The airship boys stood viewing a swift panorama. Vague shapes and
outlines began to stand out before their vision. The blue sky showed to
their left, the ocean at quite some distance. The sinking sun sent up
its radiant beams and they made out that they were on an island.
Its rounding end was disclosed as they swept the scene with interested
glances. Little patches of forest and grassy plain showed.
“Why, a famous camping spot,” spoke the elated Hiram.
“How lucky we didn’t miss it,” added Elmer.
The young pilot could now inspect the _Comet_ more clearly. He reported
his conclusions after going over every part of the machine.
“I think time and patience will fix things up,” he announced.
“How much time?” inquired Hiram.
“I hope not a great lot of patience,” said Elmer, with a longing thought
of the home mainland.
“There will be some brazing and hammering to do,” explained Dave. “We
will have to build a fire. It will soon be dark and we must wait for
daylight. Now then, fellows, don’t waste any nerve force worrying. What
we lose to-day we’ll try to make up for when we get started again. We
will find a good camping spot, have a pleasant evening, and a full
night’s sleep. That will put us in fine trim for real business in the
morning.”
“Begone dull care,” sang Hiram, in a jolly tone. “We’ll forget that
we’re circling the globe for one ten hours, and be common, everyday boys
out on a picnic lark, and report for duty in the morning.”
“There’s an inviting spot,” observed Dave, pointing to a copse on a
little rise in the near distance.
Before dusk the airship boys had gotten the _Comet_ safely placed,
blankets out, a campfire built, and were settled down comfortably for
the evening. There was nothing to indicate that the island was inhabited
with wild beasts. It seemed to be a little emerald patch set down in the
ocean, a sort of lost Crusoe reef, too small to have a name or a place
on the marine charts.
One by one the boys drifted into slumberland. It must have been nearly
midnight when Hiram and Elmer awakened to find Dave shaking them
vigorously.
“Get up, fellows,” directed the young airman. “Something’s going on that
we have got to investigate.”