It was decided after a brief consultation not to deflate the gas bag and
drop to earth, but to fly straight on to Pokeville. Jack knew the
direction in a general way, and kept the Flying Road Racer headed for a
white steeple which appeared on the distant horizon. He believed that
this marked the site of the village they were in quest of.
The trip with the farmer had delayed them somewhat, and it was almost
eleven o’clock as they drew near the little town for which Jack was
aiming. As they got close to it a cluster of white tents with a crowd of
people about them could be seen on the outskirts of the place. Gay flags
hung above the canvas structures, and even at the height that the air
travelers were—about five hundred feet—they could hear the sounds of
music.
“It’s a circus!” cried Tom.
“So it is,” said Mr. Jesson, “and look—what is that?—surely a balloon
they are sending up!”
Sure enough, as he spoke the boys became aware of a huge, dirty-looking
sphere with black smoke rolling from its narrow mouth. It was still tied
to the ground apparently, but even as they watched there came the sharp
report of a saluting cannon. Instantly the balloon was released from the
earth, and shot rapidly skyward, reeling and careening. The manner of
its inflation was plainly, judging by the smoke from its mouth, by hot
air. The balloon, in fact, formed a part of the free show given by the
circus to draw the crowds, and was a common enough feature of small
traveling shows.
“Look, there’s somebody swinging below it!” shouted Jack suddenly.
The figure he indicated was a small one, and as they drew closer they
could see that it wore red tights gaily spangled. It was suspended from
the hot-air balloon by a trapeze, and held on by gripping the ropes on
either side of its insecure seat. Under the trapeze hung an object not
unlike an immense umbrella closed up. This, the boys knew, was a
parachute, and that as soon as the balloon had risen to a sufficient
height, the aëronaut would cut the parachute loose and fall by it to the
ground.
“Phew!” exclaimed Tom, “I’d hate to do a parachute jump like that.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Jesson, “I was reading only the other day of a parachute
jumper whose parachute failed to open. He fell more than a thousand feet
to the earth and was dashed to bits.”
“Let’s go closer to the hot-air balloon and watch him when he cuts
loose,” suggested Jack.
The others agreed, and the Flying Road Racer was headed for the hot-air
balloon, which was rising rapidly. But the Boy Inventors’ dirigible
craft had no difficulty in keeping up with it. Soon they were quite
close to it, and sweeping around the great pear-shaped bag in big
circles. And now they observed something that they had not seen before.
The aëronaut was a boy of not more than twelve years old. His face was
white and pinched, and he looked terrified. As the balloon swung higher,
there was borne upward from below repeated pistol shots.
“That’s the signal for him to cut loose,” exclaimed Tom. “I know. I’ve
seen lots of ascents like this one.”
“Well, why doesn’t he?” demanded Jack.
“For a very good reason,” said Mr. Jesson, who had been observing the
young aëronaut closely; “he’s scared to death.”
The boys, observing the spangled air traveler more carefully, now
perceived that Mr. Jesson was correct. The little fellow turned a
pitiable face toward them. What made his situation worse was that the
hot air in the balloon was evaporating, and if he did not jump quickly
it would be too late. Jack shouted words to that effect to the lad. But
the panic-stricken boy only clung tighter to the ropes of his trapeze,
and shook his head pitifully. It seemed as if he dared not look downward
at the empty void between himself and the earth.
“Drop on the parachute!” shouted Tom; “if you don’t, the balloon will
fall with you!”
As his cousin spoke, Jack maneuvered the Flying Road Racer yet closer to
the hot-air balloon. Big wrinkles now appeared in the bag of the circus
balloon, and it began to sag downward more rapidly.
“Great ginger! That kid is paralyzed by fright!” exclaimed Tom, his own
face pale; “what are we going to do?”
“Save him if we can,” breathed Jack, “but how?”
“Can’t you get alongside that balloon and take him off?” interrogated
Mr. Jesson.
“It will be fearfully risky.”
“True; but we can’t let him be dashed to earth without attempting to
save him.”
“I have it,” exclaimed Tom; “I’ll get out the light grappling iron. I’ll
throw it and try to entangle it in the parachute. Then we can pull the
balloon alongside and get that boy off.”
“A capital idea,” said Mr. Jesson; “how close can you get, Jack?”
“I’ll come as close as I dare,” was the reply. Below—far, far below—the
crowd, with upturned faces, watched the maneuvering of the great air
craft. This was indeed a spectacle they hadn’t bargained for. The
tension was too great for speech. A death-like silence hung over the
throng.
Behind one of the white tents two men stood, also gazing upward. But
there was no pity nor suspense on their faces. Instead, they cast
furious glances at the drama of the skies being unfolded before them.
“I told you that kid would lose his nerve!” snarled out one of them, a
heavy-set man in a loud checked suit, in whose bright red necktie an
imitation diamond, as big as a walnut, glistened.
His companion slashed at his high boots with a whip he held in his hand.
“I’ll fix him for this,” he growled, “and I’d like to fix those pesky
butters-in on board that dirigible, too.”
In the meantime, the dirigible, under Jack’s skillful handling, had been
maneuvered quite close to the hot-air balloon. Tom, with the light
grapple in one hand, and its attached rope in the other, stood ready to
make a cast.
“Now!” shouted Jack suddenly, as the gas envelope of the Flying Road
Racer almost bumped against the flabby bag of the hot-air balloon. The
grapple whizzed through the air, and so skillfully had it been thrown,
that its flukes caught and became entangled in the pendent parachute
under the trapeze, to which clung the terrified boy.
“Haul in!” shouted Jack, and Tom and Mr. Jesson belayed heartily on the
rope. As the trapeze swung alongside the body of the dirigible, Tom
reached out and seized the lad. The little fellow had partially
recovered his nerve and was able to help himself, and in a moment more
he was safe on board the Flying Road Racer.
What a cheer came up from below! The crowd had seen a unique rescue in
mid-air—a triumph of the wonderful resource and achievement of the
twentieth century—and it went wild. Hats were thrown up and women sobbed
and laughed in the same breath.
As for the young air navigators, they were the coolest people in that
neighborhood. Tom cut the balloon loose, and it went sagging and
wallowing off, dropping in a field a short time later. In the meantime,
Jack began to send the Flying Road Racer earthward, using the depression
planes in doing so.
The boy they had rescued speedily found his tongue, and when he did he
told them a story that made them flush with indignation. He had been
hired out to the circus, he said, by his father some years before. From
that time on his life had been one of misery. Urged on by the
ringmaster’s whip, he had learned to ride bareback and do some other
tricks, but this had been his first trip aloft. The way in which he
shuddered as he spoke of it, showed that only the utmost cruelty could
have prevailed on him to make an ascent on the hot-air balloon.
The regular parachute jumper had been injured—disabled for life—by a
fall at the last “stand” the circus had played. As the boy, who said his
name was Ralph Ingersoll, was light and active, he had been ordered to
take the parachute performer’s place, by the brutal men to whose care he
had been consigned. Terrified by threats of a terrific beating, the boy
had consented, with what results we know.
“Oh! If it hadn’t been for you, I would have been killed,” he exclaimed,
clasping his hands and gazing gratefully at his rescuers.
“Never mind, Ralph,” said Mr. Jesson, whose indignation had been aroused
by the lad’s recital, “we’ll see what we can do to stop any further ill
treatment of you.”
“Oh, then you are going to take me back to the circus!” cried the boy, a
look of real terror coming over his thin, pale face.
“Well, for the present, yes,” said Mr. Jesson, “but we will have your
case investigated, and the law——”
“No law will save me if you take me back,” cried the boy, crouching in a
spasm of fear, “they’ll kill me—beat me to death, or do away with me in
some way before you can save me.” As he spoke, the Flying Road Racer
reached the ground, and the crowd came rushing and surging about it.
Through the press, the two men who had so angrily watched the Boy
Inventors’ plucky rescue came shoving their way. A look of black rage
was on both their faces.
“Now, then,” shouted the man with the whip, as he pushed his way to the
side of the Flying Road Racer, “what’s all this mean? What right had you
to interfere with this lad?”
“The right that everyone has to save a human life,” rejoined Mr. Jesson
firmly, standing between the angry man and the boy, who crouched behind
his protector in an agony of fear.
“Oh, that’s all very fine; but you spoiled our show. Come on now, Ralph,
you young sneak. I’m going to fix you for getting cold feet.”
“Hold on a minute,” said Mr. Jesson calmly. “It’s evident to me from
this boy’s story that you have treated him brutally. You could be
proceeded against for the way you have abused him.”
“None of your business, is it, Mister Smart Alec?” demanded the man with
the red necktie and the diamond. “I’m Josh Sawdon, the boss of this
show, and I demand that boy. He was given us by his father to train.”
“That’s right,” declared his companion, with a vicious crack of his
whip, “and we are going to do it, too. Come on, mister, give us that
boy.”
“Have you got any papers to prove your right to him?” asked Mr. Jesson
calmly.
“No, we ain’t,” sneered Sawdon, “at least, we ain’t got none to show
_you_. Come on, now—give us that boy, or——”
“Well, or what?”
Mr. Jesson stared calmly at the man, who had stepped threateningly
toward him. Sawdon stopped short. Something in the direct look of the
bronzed explorer checked him.
“I am satisfied that you have no right to this lad,” said Mr. Jesson, in
calm, even tones. “I am even better satisfied that you have used him
shamefully. Therefore, we will take him under our protection till the
matter can come up in the courts.”
“Hooray!” yelled the crowd, whose sympathies were plainly with the
aerial party.
Sawdon sprang forward furiously. Behind him came the man with the whip.
He “clubbed” his weapon and aimed a vicious blow at Mr. Jesson’s head.
But Tom caught the descending wrist in a steel grip. He gave it a quick
wrench, and with an “ouch!” of pain the fellow dropped the whip.
In the meantime Sawdon set up a shout for his assistants. In a moment a
score of canvasmen and performers came running from every side, armed
with tent pegs. The crowd scattered right and left before the attackers.
“We’ll have to get out of this quick,” exclaimed Mr. Jesson, in a low
voice to Jack.
The boy nodded. At the same instant he started the propeller. Up shot
the Flying Road Racer like a stone out of a sling. Sawdon, who had just
sprung at its side, was flung over in a heap, with his companion of the
whip on top of him. As the big machine rose a roar of rage went up from
the circus hands. But they could do nothing but shake their fists.
Suddenly Tom bethought himself of something which they had forgotten in
the excitement. Putting his head over the edge of the car he shouted
downward to the crowd:
“Is this Pokeville?”
“Naw, this is Westerlo!” was yelled back from below; “Pokeville’s six
miles to the west.”
Jack changed his course, and before long they came in sight of a small
town, which really proved to be Pokeville. They descended in the
village, much to the alarm of some of the inhabitants, and inquired the
way to Mr. Peregrine’s home.
A handsome structure with a pillared portico, standing on a hill about a
mile off, was pointed out to them as the home of the inventor.
“No use flying there,” decided Jack; “we’ll take to automobiling again.”
Accordingly, the Flying Road Racer’s gas envelope was deflated, and once
more “an auto,” she sped off toward Mr. Peregrine’s house. As they left
the village, a car coming in the opposite direction almost crashed into
them as it rounded a corner. It was going fast, but not too fast for
Jack and Tom to see that it was a yellow vehicle, and that one of its
passengers had a big red beard. It was the same car that they had pulled
out of the mud the previous evening, whose occupants had been so curious
about Mr. Peregrine and his habits.
Jack was conscious of a vague sense of uneasiness at the presence of
these mysterious men in Pokeville.