A BITTER DOSE
Nat Shaley! The worst enemy Slim Tyler had on earth! The man who
had cheated him out of his wages! The man who had hounded him on
false charges and had had him arrested! The man who, in Slim's
belief, had swindled his father out of twenty thousand dollars!
And for the sake of this miserable rascal, Slim had thrown away his
chance of winning fame and money and possibly of hanging up a new
world's record! And not only his own chance, but that of his loyal
friend and companion, Jerry Marbury!
A wave of bitterness swept over Slim Tyler as he looked at the mean,
wizened face of the old skinflint.
"So it's you, is it, Nat Shaley?" exclaimed Slim.
"Yes, it's me," snarled Shaley. "Why do you fellers stand here with
your mouths open, lookin' so dumb when the train's comin'? Hurry up
an' pull that car of mine off the tracks, an' be quick about it."
The indignant response that flew to Slim's lips at the man's brusque
order was lost in the grinding of brakes as the freight train rounded
the curve and the engineer noted the obstruction on the track.
But the train was heavy and the grade steep, and despite the
engineer's utmost efforts the locomotive struck the car and hurled
it, a twisted mass of wood and metal, to the side of the tracks.
"There, drat it!" cried Shaley, "they've smashed my car, all because
you lazy lummoxes wuz as slow as molasses instead of hustlin'. But
somebody'll pay fer this, by gravy!"
"Oh, shut up!" commanded Jerry, stung beyond endurance by the
fellow's arrogance. "Who do you think you are, to order us about?"
"You ought to be glad you saved your miserable life," declared Slim.
"The old car was a rattletrap, anyway. It ought to have been in the
junk heap five years ago."
"What's all this about?" demanded the engineer of the locomotive, who
had descended from the cab and approached them, accompanied by his
fireman, while the conductor was hurrying from the caboose. "Whose
car was that on the track?"
"Mine!" shrieked Nat Shaley. "An' you've got yourself in a pretty
mess by smashin' it. I'll sue the company, by heck, an' you'll be
lookin' fer another job."
"Cut out that kind of guff," growled the engineer. "What was the car
doing on the track?"
"That ain't neither here nor there," retorted Shaley. "You got eyes
in your head, ain't you? Why didn't you stop your train when you
seed it there?"
"Couldn't stop in time," replied the engineer curtly.
"That's because you don't know your business," snarled Shaley. "You
ain't heerd the last of this yet. That car wuz worth twelve hundred
dollars, an' your company'll pay every last cent of it. I've got
witnesses here," and he pointed to Slim and Jerry.
"Don't call on me," put in Jerry.
"Nor me," added Slim bitterly. "The old car wasn't worth twenty
dollars. I've heard you say that you'd had it for fifteen years and
it was second hand when you bought it."
"'Tain't so," snarled Shaley vehemently. "You lyin'----"
He stopped abruptly and stepped back as Slim Tyler took a quick step
forward.
"Look here, you old rascal," said the young aviator, his eyes
blazing, "no man calls me a liar and gets away with it. I won't hit
you, because you're too old. But another word like that and I'll
take you by the scruff of the neck and shake you till your false
teeth drop out."
"Aw, go on," said Shaley sullenly, taking care to keep his distance.
"Anyways, I'll make the company pay----"
"How did the car come to get on the tracks?" asked the conductor, who
by this time had joined the excited group.
"Because there must have been somethin' wrong in the right of way,"
replied Shaley. "Part of the rail stickin' out or somethin' that
upset it. Why don't your company keep the tracks in order? I wuz
joggin' along nice an' peaceable, everything shipshape, an' I struck
somethin' at the track that upset the car quick as a wink. Wonder I
wuzn't killed. Your company'll have to pay me fer personal damages,
as well as fer the car----"
While this farrago of lies was being reeled off, Slim Tyler and Jerry
Marbury had been looking at each other in stupefaction.
"You infernal old crook!" Jerry finally burst forth. "The whole
thing was your own fault, or the fault of the car. You'd lost
control of it, brakes out of order or something, and you were coming
down that hill lickety-split."
Shaley glared at him, bursting with rage.
"Well, we can't stay here all day chewing the rag," interrupted the
conductor, looking at his watch. "I'll take the names of you two
gentlemen," he said, taking out a notebook and doing some hasty
scribbling. "As for you," he said to Shaley, "you can put your claim
in the regular way, though I don't think you'll get anything. Get
into the cab, Jim," he directed the engineer, "and start her going."
A minute or two more and the train was under way.
Slim Tyler had gained his nickname because of his tall, lanky figure.
He had been christened Ross Joseph, and was the son of Stillwell and
Mary Tyler. Both had now been dead for years. Mr. Tyler had once
been possessed of considerable means, but most of it had been swept
away in the later years of his life by unfortunate investments.
There was practically nothing left for the orphan lad, and he knocked
about, supporting himself as best he could, until he got a job in Nat
Shaley's lumberyard at Centerville.
Slim worked early and late, hard and faithfully, but Shaley, whose
dislike he had incurred because of an accident that had been wholly
Shaley's fault, discharged him abruptly, owing him forty dollars in
wages. Shaley offered him twelve dollars in full settlement, but
Slim Tyler insisted on getting the forty that were due him. High
words took place and Slim declared that he would get square with
Shaley for cheating him. The threat was thrown out in the heat of
anger and really meant nothing.
But that night Shaley's yards burned, and Slim, friendless and
moneyless, realized the deadly significance that would be attached to
his threat, which had been overheard by the foreman. In bewilderment
and consternation he "hopped" a freight train that same night. In
the car where he had ensconced himself he came in contact with a
half-drunken tramp who called himself High Hat Frank and who referred
to the fire, chuckling tipsily.
In his wanderings Slim Tyler finally brought up at North Elmwood,
where he found employment with Carl Stummel, a good-natured old
German keeper of a "hot dog" stand. It was a great relief for Slim
to have his livelihood provided for, but his chief satisfaction rose
from the fact that the hot dog stand directly faced the North Elmwood
flying field, one of the great aviation fields of the country.
Slim Tyler, from his earliest boyhood, had been fascinated by the
idea of flying. He would have given the world to be an airman. But
without money to go to a flying school it seemed that this ambition
would never be realized.
It was a great delight, however, to watch the planes circling about
and to see the pilots and mechanics at work. He picked up many
acquaintances among the aviators, and every spare hour he had he
spent on the flying field. He looked with reverence on the famous
airmen and especially on Dave Boyd, the most famous aviator in the
United States and, for that matter, in the world.
Slim's great chance came when he found in the road, where it had been
jolted from an automobile, a satchel containing two thousand dollars
in cash. To his delight this proved to belong to Dave Boyd, and Slim
hurried to him with the money.
The great aviator was so struck with the boy's honesty that he
insisted on giving him a substantial reward, and finding that Slim
was interested in flying, he gave him employment in his own hangar.
The lad was in the seventh heaven and was learning rapidly all that
was to be known about airplanes when one day, just on the eve of a
South American flight by Boyd, he found himself confronted on the
crowded flying field by Nat Shaley.
The latter clamored instantly for Slim's arrest. In the hue and cry
that followed Slim took refuge in the tail of the _Shooting Star_,
the plane that was to carry Boyd and his party to Buenos Aires,
Argentina, the goal of the flight. While hiding there, he overheard
Shaley say something inadvertently that led him to associate the old
miser with his, Slim's, father's lumber deal.
Then, to the lad's surprise and consternation, the _Shooting Star_
rose in the air, and he found himself an unwilling stowaway on the
great South American flight.
What thrilling adventures he met with on that voyage, the stern
disfavor with which Boyd and his assistants met him when he emerged
from his hiding place, the way in which he conquered their respect
and admiration by his courage and quick wit in desperate emergencies,
his arrest by Shaley on his return and his exoneration; all this is
told in the first volume of this series, entitled: "Sky Riders of the
Atlantic."
The wrongs he had suffered at the hands of Shaley were in Slim
Tyler's mind as he gave vent to his bitter denunciation of the
wizened old rascal.
"You'd better look out what you're sayin', you boys had," bristled
Shaley. "Them words is actionable at law. You can't go aroun'
callin' people names an' not get caught up with, let me tell you."
"Oh, close your face!" exclaimed Jerry, in profound disgust. "Slim
knows you're a crook. I know you're a liar. I wish you were younger
so that I could take a swing at you. Gosh, Slim," he added as he
turned to his comrade, "if I'd known that it was this old rascal in
that car I'd never have agreed to come down."
"Well, there's no use crying over spilt milk," said Slim sadly. "We
are down, and that's the end of it. Come along and leave this old
crab to stew in his own juice. Gee, I hate to face Dave Boyd, but we
might as well get the agony over with."
They left Shaley glaring after them malignantly, climbed into the
cockpit, and lifted the plane into the air.
"Feel as if I were going to my own funeral," muttered Jerry
dejectedly.
"It's a blow right between the eyes," admitted Slim. "But I really
don't see what else we could have done. We didn't know that Shaley
was going to recover in time to stagger off the tracks. And we would
never have forgiven ourselves if, for the sake of money, we'd let a
human being be crushed to death, as it seemed likely he would be."
"Of course not," agreed Jerry. "Oh, I'm not beefing because we came
down. I'd do the same thing over again under the same circumstances.
But I'd rather we'd gone to the help of anyone else in the world than
that old miser. And how grateful he was! Thanked us a lot, didn't
he? Called us 'lazy lummoxes' because we didn't get that old bunch
of junk off the track."
They reached the flying field to find the crowds in a great state of
excitement. It was known that the _Lightning Flash_ had come down
and all were agog to know the reason.
The _Speed King_ was still gracefully flying over the field, and
Jerry looked at it with eyes bleak with disappointment.
"They win," he said bitterly, "and all because a wretched old crook
happened to be in this part of the country at the wrong time. This
sure has been our unlucky day!"
Slim brought the plane down to a perfect landing, to be surrounded
immediately by a clamoring crowd.
Dave Boyd pushed his way to the side of the plane.
"What in thunder made you come down?" he demanded. "Engine trouble?"
In a few words Slim Tyler explained the cause of the disaster.
Boyd's disappointment was bitter, but he bore it like the sportsman
he was.
"Of course you had to do what you did," he conceded, when Slim had
finished. "It's just a bit of awfully bad luck. And the fact that
it was Nat Shaley you did it for adds the finishing touch. We've
just got to grin and bear it.
"By the way," he added to Slim, as the young aviator and Jerry
climbed dispiritedly out of the cockpit, "speaking of Shaley reminds
me that a little while ago a trampish-looking man was around here
looking for you. Said he'd known High Hat Frank."
Slim pricked up his ears.
"Where is he now?" he asked eagerly.
"Haven't the least idea," replied Boyd. "Probably hanging round
somewhere. Probably he'll be hunting you up, now that he knows your
plane's come down."
He turned to give directions to have the _Lightning Flash_ drawn into
her hangar, and Slim Tyler made his way wearily through the crowd.
The reason for his descent had spread like wildfire, and he received
many congratulations for having made such a sacrifice for the sake of
saving a life that seemed to be in danger.
These, however, failed to cheer him greatly. His heart was sore. He
had entered the race with the highest of hopes. He had hoped to
write his name on the scroll of fame. His success would have meant
not only money, but reputation. His name and the story of his
exploit would have been in every newspaper in the United States. It
would have been the opening wedge of a great flying career.
But he had lost! And lost for the sake of whom? That was the
bitterest drop in his cup of misery. Lost for the sake of his worst
enemy, a man who had cheated him, a man who hated him, a man who had
not thanked him, a man who would even chuckle when he read the papers
and learned the extent of Slim's loss! It was surely the irony of
fate.
He made his way across to Stummel's hot dog stand and dropped wearily
on a stool.
The old German spotted him at once and was so agitated that he
dropped the cup of coffee he was handling.
"Himmel! It vos Shlim!" he cried, as he hurried toward him. "Vy iss
it dot you iss not yet oop in der air alretty? Iss it dot you haf a
fall gehabt?"
Slim smiled wryly.
"No go, Carl," he replied. "I had to come down."
"Und dot two tausend dollars iss ausgespielt?" asked Carl, in
consternation. "It iss geflopt gangen?"
"All gone," assented Slim. "I don't get a red cent."
"Und I haf lost der fife tollers dot I bet on you," continued Carl.
"But dot iss nuddings. It iss for you dot I feel badt. Poor Shlim!"
A rough-looking man on an adjoining stool turned about sharply.
"Are you Slim Tyler?" he asked.