THE "FOOL-PROOF" AEROPLANE
"That was a good breakfast, all right, but I'm glad it's over," Bud
remarked some time later.
Ralph, of course, did not exactly understand what this meant, but
Hugh knew. He was in the confidence of the young inventor far enough
to appreciate his eagerness to be at work. He knew what had brought
Bud all the way up to this lonely spot, in order that none of the
town boys might spy upon him while trying out his latest wonderful
invention.
Truth to tell, Bud had taken a most intense interest in aviation of
late. Everything that bore upon the subject fascinated the boy, and
he dreamed of making the name of Morgan famous through some
remarkable invention connected with the work of the daring airmen.
He had confessed to Hugh in strict confidence that he had managed to
fashion a little model aeroplane that he believed to be uncapsizable.
Many more mature minds than that of Bud Morgan had been wrestling with
this important question for years, because it was pretty generally
understood that when this condition had been really attained, the
sport of aviation would advance with great bounds. Make navigating
the upper air currents practically safe, and thousands would take up
flying just as they had the driving of automobiles when the road
racers had been perfected as they are to-day.
The huge packages which the two scouts had staggered under during
their weary hike from the road where the accommodating farmer had
dropped them, really contained the said model. It was not of very
large size, and the little engine which was to drive it really
weighed as much as the rest of the thing; but Bud declared that it
would answer all his purposes, and prove whether he had been wasting
his time and spending money uselessly of late or not.
Once the breakfast had been disposed of, Bud was trembling with
eagerness to get started. He could not understand why the others
should delay so, when time was slipping away.
Presently they left the cabin, closing the door behind them. All of
the blankets, as well as their food supplies, had been left inside,
and they did not want any wandering wild animal like a 'coon or a fox
to make way with the latter during their absence at the proving
grounds. It was this same caution that urged Hugh to cover up the
aperture through which they had obtained fresh air during the night
just past, and which went by the name of a window.
The open field which Bud had once before mentioned as the very place
for the trial spins with his aeroplane model was not very far distant.
The man who had originally started to make a farm away up here had
diligently cut down trees for a space of several acres. He had also
grubbed the ground so thoroughly that it had remained clear all these
years, save for an annual crop of grass, now withered and dead.
"If we can help any, Bud, just tell us what to do," Hugh said to the
inventor, after the three boys had come to a halt on the border of
this open space.
"That's the kind of talk I like to hear, Hugh," the other replied,
looking up with a smile on his anxious face. "Just wait till I get
these covers off, and then you'll see what I've been doing all these
months when some of the fellows were kidding me on being a regular
old book worm and not wanting to come out and play even football
with them. It was the hardest kind of work, but if she even goes a
little, I'll think it wasn't time wasted. All I want is encouragement;
I've got the bull-dog grit to carry it on all right."
"I reckon you have, Bud," was the only comment Hugh made; and he ought
to know, because Bud was a member of the Wolf patrol and the leader
had watched him work many a time as though there were no such word as
"fail" in his lexicon.
So Bud busied himself in undoing stout cords and opening both bundles.
When Hugh saw the nature of the load he had been packing up the side
of Stormberg Mountain, he shook his head and laughed.
"What did you think I was, Bud, a mule, or a Chinese porter used to
carrying as much as half a ton on his back?" he demanded. "Why,
that engine would have given me a bad scare if I'd seen it beforehand.
And I toted that all the way up here from the road, did I? Well,
anyway, I've earned the right to boast after this. A motor is no
light load, I don't care how small it may be. Don't you agree with
me, Ralph?"
Ralph was chuckling to himself, seemingly much amused.
"I should say yes," he replied; "and I don't wonder you complained of
feeling a touch of pain in the muscles of your back last night, Hugh.
But really the load Bud took himself was larger and just about as
heavy as yours, you see."
"Oh! he gave me my choice. I saw it was six of one and half a dozen
of the other, so I took the smaller one. I reckon I'll be ready to
tackle a house next time, after having a motor on my back."
Bud set to work assembling the various parts of his model. In some
respects it was rather a crude imitation of a monoplane, but for
practical purposes no doubt it would answer just as well as the most
elegant model. What Bud wanted to find out most of all was whether
he had been working on the right principle. If that turned out to
be correct he could afford to have a better model made; then he
could take up the idea with some of those capitalists who were
interested in building airships of all kinds.
For once Bud was supreme. He gave his orders and the others obeyed.
Even Hugh, accustomed to being the leader, willingly assumed the air
of a novice, though Bud knew very well that the other had studied
the subject of aviation very thoroughly and was competent to advise
in a pinch.
By slow degrees Bud managed to get his planes adjusted and the tiny
motor installed. Hugh, in a quiet and unostentatious way, often
assisted him to overcome some difficulty that arose; so that Bud
declared he did not know how he could have managed without the
other's help in tightening wire stays and installing the motor.
At last the work seemed to have been accomplished. Bud said he could
fix the rudder of the model so that when once it was in the air, it
would continue to make revolutions for a certain time. He declared
it would actually fly around the field slowly until the measured
stock of gasoline had been exhausted, when of course it would drop
to the ground as the engine ceased to work.
"You see I expect to manage by means of this cord," he explained.
"I'll chase along below, and every once in so often try to upset the
thing by giving a savage jerk. Then you'll discover whether my
device is going to work. If it does half way decently in this
clumsy model, it'll pay to install it on a real aeroplane and
either go up myself or else have an air pilot do it for me. But
say, let me tell you right now that I'm shivering all over as if I
had the ague! 'Cause why? In half an hour or so I'm going to know
whether I'm IT, or else a lunkhead that ought to be smothered before
his fool notions get him into a peck of trouble."
"Oh! I wouldn't put it that way, Bud," advised Hugh. "You mustn't
call yourself hard names, even if this invention fails to work. They
say Edison has lots of rank failures that the public never hears
about; only his brilliant successes become known. Suppose this
scheme doesn't do all that you expect it to, why, perhaps you'll see
where it falls short and be able to remedy the fault. If you have
faith in yourself, it's going to turn out all right every time. Try
seventy times seven, and never give up as long as life lasts."
"_Nil desperandum_!" quoted Ralph; "or, as we Americans have it, 'if at
first you don't succeed, try, try again!'"
"You just bet I will, fellows," said Bud firmly; "and now let's make
the first trial spin."
He had elevated the model so that it would start in the air without
the necessity of leaving the ground. This was a minor matter, and
only intended to hurry things along.
When the little motor got to work there was an immediate movement of
the rough miniature monoplane.
"Hurrah! there she goes!" cried Ralph, really excited when he saw the
object of Bud's recent labors actually moving through space, sustained
by the extended pair of planes.
Hugh, too, felt a thrill of delight. He was very fond of Bud, and
anything that promised to repay the other scout for his weeks of
arduous labor pleased the leader of the Wolf patrol more than he
could express in words.
Bud was about the busiest boy any one had ever known. To run along
and keep, up with that hurrying model, hanging on to the long stout
cord, was no easy task. The rudder had certainly been fixed properly
to insure a circuit of the field; but as the ground was very rough in
places, Bud had great difficulty in keeping from falling many times.
This was partly on account of the fact that he had to fasten his eyes
on the scurrying monoplane model pretty much all the time, and could
therefore not pay much attention to where he was going, or see the
traps lying in the way of his feet.
He stuck to his task heroically, with grim determination to see it
through to the bitter end. Every once in a while he would give the
cord a savage jerk. In this way he managed to make the little flier
take sudden lurches; but in every instance the model instantly resumed
its upright position as soon as the pull was past. It reminded Hugh
of prank-loving swimmers attempting to sink a boat built with air
chambers, which would bob to the surface triumphantly every time.
So far as one could tell from watching these rather clumsy operations
on the part of the inventor, his apparatus for steadying an aeroplane
was surely showing signs of being a success. It consisted of a small
iron bar weighing an ounce or so, which was hung as a pendulum from
an arm projecting from under the operator's seat. This pendulum was
so delicately set that it seemed to respond to the slightest
deviation of the aeroplane from the horizontal.
As the excited inventor explained to his chums, after he had allowed
the craft to come to earth again, not without some little damage
which precluded another flight that day, it was a very simple thing
after all. If the craft was thrown from its balance in any way,
the movement of this pendulum would cause two little valves to open.
This would make the compression from the engine force a piston back
and forth, which communicated with the warping levers and
automatically accomplished what had up to that time, Bud went on to
say, been done by the hand of the busy aviator. Thus a mechanical
balancer had been arranged, so that the pilot need never bother
himself as to whether a stiff gale were blowing or not, since
practically nothing could upset his craft.
"It looks to me as if you had a good idea there, Bud," said Hugh;
"and unless somebody's been ahead of you in the field, it ought to
make you famous as an inventor. Perhaps when you try it again
to-morrow, after mending your planes, you'll discover a few ways
in which it can be improved. Never believe anything is perfect the
first time. And now, shall we gather it up again and carry it to
the cabin?"
"You're awfully kind, Hugh!" declared the happy Bud, whose face was
rosy from his recent tremendous exertions and from the glow of
satisfied ambition. "I am convinced that I haven't been wasting
my time, even if I'm only harrowing in a field some other fellow may
have plowed before me."
They managed to get the miniature aeroplane over to the shack, though
it was no light burden, taken all in all. Bud, however, was feeling
so pleased that he could have done the work of an ox himself. There
is nothing like satisfaction to bring out unsuspected powers in a boy;
and just then Bud believed he could have carried as great a load as
any Turkish _hamel_ or porter.
Leaving the queer looking contrivance outside the door, Bud hurried in
as though something that he had suddenly thought of was bothering him.
A minute later he burst into view again, a row of wrinkles across his
forehead and words of alarm sounding from his lips.
"I can't find it anywhere," he lamented, "and I'm dead sure I left it
there on the pile of blankets. Hugh, somebody's been in the shack
while we were away, and cribbed the plan for my aeroplane stability
device!"