The boys, talking busily with Ernest, had nearly reached camp before
they discovered Fatty’s absence. Skinny, true friend that he was,
turned and would have gone back to find him, but Ernest would not let
him.
“Leave him alone,” he said. “I have a hunch that we will not see our
dear Fatty again until well after lunch time. And then he will
toddle into our midst with a heavenly smile on his face and a
perfectly empty pack on his back. I think work around the hangars
would be good for friend Fatty, and I could take him on a few flights
that would put the fear of the Lord in his heart and make him think
of something besides his meals. Speaking of flying, I can take you
up for a flight this afternoon if you want to go.”
“You bet we do!” said Bill. “I reckon we got off this time without
any of our mothers thinking to make us promise not to fly.”
“Mrs. Bascom made Fatty promise not to fly,” said Skinny. “It was
the last thing she said when we came away.”
“Then that cuts ‘Hennery’ out,” said Ernest. “Four of you to go.
Well, we will make two trips and get in time to have a swim besides.
Come on, let’s get Frank and eat lunch.”
They wandered over to a shady knoll where they waited until Ernest
had seen the man he expected, and as soon as Frank came they brought
out their lunches and ate them with much talk and laughter. There
was plenty to drink for Frank came along with a basket full of ginger
ale and pop, to say nothing of a couple of dozen ham sandwiches he
had bought in the village. There was no need of Fatty’s knapsack.
It was a feast; and Ernest and Frank saw that Skinny, who would not
ask his tired mother to put him up a lunch, did not lack for good
things.
Presently Ernest, who had been lying on the grass telling all the
blood curdling tales he could think of, got up, stretched himself and
announced that it was time for him to go over to the hangar. Ernest
was pilot of the Instruction plane. There was only one as the school
was very small, and the government only supported the Field at Camp
Knox on account of the amount of equipment there. All the students
were going into aviation for commercial service, and soon the Field
would be closed and the equipment transported to some of the large
Fields where men were trained for Government mail service and matters
of that sort. So Ernest was practically in charge of the Field as
far as flying went.
Reaching the Field, they found the six planes drawn out and their
young pilots lounging beside them.
The Instruction plane, with broad scarlet bands across its wings to
distinguish it from the others, occupied the center of the Field.
All the planes were equipped with wireless.
Drawing on his gauntlets, Ernest spoke to the two men beside his car.
“I will take a couple of passengers on each flight this afternoon,”
he said. “Report at the Adjutant’s tent for an afternoon off, if you
like. It is a perfect day for flying.” He took his place. “Who is
going? Bill and Skinny? Somebody lend them coats and goggles.”
Bill and Skinny, pale with excitement, squeezed into the observer’s
seat and with rather a feeble wave at the other boys felt a terrific
sense of goneness as the plane went hopping along the Field before it
rose in the air.
“Tend the wireless!” cried Ernest, and Bill adjusted the apparatus as
they soared up.
One after another the other planes followed. The air was filled with
humming. Higher, higher still they soared, until the plain, the
woods and even the hills looked like a vivid green and brown map,
through which in a silver line the river ran. As they passed over
the hills they had explored that morning, still flying low, Bill
thought he saw a tiny white object moving on the face of the rock,
but forgot it immediately.
As soon as Ernest had attained the height he desired, he turned his
plane and waited for the others. Calling terse sentences to Bill, he
sent order after order by wireless to the surrounding planes, and in
response they formed lines, figures and circles around, below and
above the Instructor’s plane. For an hour they hung there in the
air, then at a last command the planes one by one circled down to
earth, followed by Ernest and the two boys.
Landing, they stepped out of the plane on shaky legs and felt
surprised that no one seemed pleased to see them. Even Dee and Eddie
looked at them more calmly than they felt the occasion warranted.
But they had no time to strut. Nodding to Dee and Eddie, Ernest
hopped into his seat after a critical look over his engine, and the
boys crowded down in the observer’s place. This time they were not
accompanied by any student planes and after they reached the treetops
Ernest asked: “Which way, boys? Have you any choice?”
“Over the hills!” shouted Dee, and Ernest turned the plane toward the
mountains.
As they swept toward them, Dee, gazing down, was startled to notice
what looked like the caricature of a human face against the wall of
rock. Two trees bent over like bushy eyebrows, a dark smear made the
nose, and a pile of stones a grinning mouth. Eddie saw it too.
“See that face?” he shouted to Ernest.
He nodded. “I have seen it often,” he said. “It is funny about
that. You can only see it from two places. One is where we saw it a
moment ago, up in the air, and there is one place you can see it from
the camp.”
“Is it a cave?” asked Eddie,
“No, there is just a slit in the rock there. I suppose a thin man
could squeeze through, but no one has tried it. It doesn’t look
worth while. I was all excited the first time I saw it and hunted it
up, but it is nothing at all. Just a funny coincidence.”
“I thought I saw something white sticking out of the cleft place; the
nose, I mean,” said Dee.
Ernest shook his head. “A ray of light striking on a spur of the
rock,” he explained. “There is never anyone up there except when the
men from the cantonment go up, and they seldom go as far as that.
No, there is nothing interesting about the place except what you see
up here. And as I told you, you can only get the face from one
place.”
He wheeled his plane and commenced to circle about the mountain, now
flying low, now rising high in the air. As they made a low flight,
Dee noticed two men sitting by the roadside. They were tramps, and
had a scarlet handkerchief knotted on the end of a stick.
“More tramps around here,” said Ernest, catching sight of the men.
He turned the nose of his plane upwards, and they commenced to climb
higher and higher, the hills and valleys dropping away beneath them.
The buildings in the cantonment diminished to doll houses, the rough
roads turned to narrow yellow ribbons, the fields became smooth blurs
of green and yellow. The mountains took on a new, unaccustomed look.
Viewed from far above, they became green and yellow hills with dark
depressions in their sides.
On and on they flew. They no longer knew the country. Nothing
seemed to matter. They were masters of space; they felt as though
they could fly into the face of the sun itself; they felt as though
they owned that vast infinitude about, above, below them.
And there in higher space than they had ever dreamed that even those
tremendous wings could soar, they met him: an eagle!
Straight toward them he came, without fear and seemingly without
surprise. It was Ernest who veered, and the eagle, keeping
majestically on his course, passed them by. To watch him Ernest
circled and turned.
To his surprise, the eagle had done the same thing and once more they
faced each other. The eagle advanced with slow, rhythmic sweeps of
his tremendous pinions, his piercing eyes watching the strange
intruder. Once more, Ernest turned and gave him the right of way.
As they passed, the plane swept so close that they could see the
piercing, angry eyes fixed upon them. This time they did not turn
for, as they looked, they saw that the eagle himself, gallant and
fearless warrior that he was, had turned and given chase. Ernest
looked at the speedometer. The eagle was gaining, and they were
going at eighty-nine miles an hour. As Ernest kept in a straight
line, the eagle commenced to climb. Instantly Ernest changed his
course and commenced nosing up into the higher stretches of the air.
The great bird flew straight up. Ernest grew grave. If the big bird
should fly into the delicate wires of the plane he knew that nothing
could save them from a whirling dash to the earth. He did the one
thing that could save them. He raced the eagle, up and up, round and
round, darting here and there, Ernest growing cooler and cooler as
the danger pressed closer, the bird bristling with rage. He could
not understand this strange winged creature that evaded and pursued
him. There were men, his eternal and ancient enemies, controlling
those wide, stiff pinions. He could see their heads turn, their
goggled eyes watching him.
Dee looked at Ernest and realized that the strange encounter was a
dangerous one. The set mouth of the young pilot and the clutch of
his gauntleted hand on the steering wheel gave evidence of anxiety
and the keen alertness that comes with danger. Eddie, round eyed and
silent, sat watching the manoeuvers of the eagle, which constantly
swerved upward in his effort to soar above the laboring plane.
But manoeuver met with maneuver, and the bird, wise and keen, truly
king of his kind, found himself pitted against a higher intelligence
and keener wit. Slowly the great wings began to lag and it took a
visible effort to lift himself above the level on which he swung to
rest.
At last with a mighty effort he darted up, and up, away from the
plane, then with a quick turn darted toward it, meaning to sweep upon
it. But quick as he was, Ernest was quicker, and the great bird
whirled only to find the enemy just above him. He wavered, caught
himself, struggled to rise, and then with a last dart toward the
plane, shot downwards, the plane following. The eagle fell like a
plummet, wings half spread, head down. Following as closely as he
dared, Ernest traced the drop, and they were close enough at the end
to see the wings spread out and the bird make a sudden harsh landing
in a plowed field. The earth flew up around him like spray, and he
lay where he had come down, motionless save the ever keen, savage eye
that still followed their movements.
“Is he going to die?” asked Eddie in an awed voice.
“Not hurt a bit,” Ernest answered, turning the plane upward, “but all
in!”
You don’t indulge in long conversations in an airplane. Aside from
the noise of the engine, the pilot has his hands and brain busy--too
busy to pay attention to his passengers.
So the boys sat watching, until Ernest, making a wide circle, headed
for the Field at the cantonment, and landed with his usual skill.
They were both talking at once, telling the less fortunate ones about
the affair with the eagle, when Frank came strolling across the field.
“Three more dynamitings, fellows,” he drawled, stuffing a paper into
his pocket. “A corner of the New York Stock Exchange blown off, the
residence of the Mayor of Charleston, West Virginia, wrecked, and the
Fourth Street car barns blown to smithereens.”
“Jingo!” exclaimed Eddie. “What they goin’ to do about all this
anyhow? Who do you suppose it is?”
“Well, they have a clue to the organization,” said Frank, “but it
won’t do any good, because if they had not been sure of a good
disguise, they would never have given them that much information.
There was a placard on the wall of the Exchange this morning. It
read, “The division of capital must come.” It was signed “Veritas.”
“My word!” exclaimed Bill feebly. “Gee, I am certainly glad I have
no capital! That is, none to speak of.” He dug into his pocket and
brought out eleven cents, which he handled fondly before replacing it.
“I have heard two or three people say that they thought these geezers
who are making the infernal machines are somewhere around Louisville.”
“Mamma!” ejaculated Eddie.
“And papa and Auntie Sue!” added Ernest. “Say, Frank, I tell you
what let’s do! My new plane is coming next week, my owntie, downtie,
ittie plane that I own _all by myself_. No Government about it! And
to celebrate, I am going to have two weeks’ leave. Now if you will
put me up I will come and visit you, since you are so insistent, and
I say we go on a little still hunt after these guys. If they are
anywhere in the hills, we can loaf overhead and watch for their smoke
or trails or what not.”
“S’pose you _did_ find them?” said Bill with a shudder of pleased
anticipation. “Suppose you collared the whole batch? What would you
do then?”
“We couldn’t collar the whole batch,” said Frank, shaking his head.
“They are scattered all over the country. It looks like a brand-new
organization to me. Nothing to do with the Bolsheviks or the Reds or
any of those ducks. Something perfectly new!”
“Aw, they are all as old as the hills!” declared Ernest. “Just a lot
of lazy, half-baked chaps who won’t work and haven’t the brains to
study, but who hate everyone else who has anything or does anything.
I’d like to see the whole caboodle set to chippin’ rocks for the next
fifty years.”
“It is awful, at that, to have that sort of spirit,” said Frank. “I
call it plain jealousy. They haven’t anything themselves and they
don’t want anybody else to have anything.”
“Not even my eleven cents!” said Bill.
“No, not even your eleven cents,” agreed Frank with a smile. “Well,
I went to a meeting of those anarchistic fellows once and, believe
me, they all looked hungry. I wonder what they would be like if they
were all parcelled out and fed well for two or three months.”
“Gosh, where is Fatty?” demanded Eddie suddenly.
“Speaking of eats!” said Ernest.
“Well, where is he?” asked Eddie again.
“I haven’t seen him since he went off at noon,” said Frank.
“Gone home mad,” suggested Bill.
“He wouldn’t do that,” said Skinny loyally.
“Well, we will go down and have a swim and by that time he had better
put in an appearance.”
“I reckon I had better go back up where the caves are and look for
him,” said Skinny.
“Don’t you do it!” said Frank. “He can’t get hurt; there is nothing
for him to fall off or into, and he will come mogging along after a
while. Let’s go down and swim.”
Skinny followed, but unwillingly. He wondered where Fatty was.