ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND
Speedy as the _Snowbird_ was, she could not get out from under the
shadow of the strange aeroplane. That was driven at a sharp angle down
upon the boys' flying machine, and it seemed to all those in the lower
'plane that a collision was imminent.
The thunder fairly deafened them all. Around them rolled the mists and
the wind shrieked through the stays of the aeroplane and shook the
structure like a dog worrying a bone.
Down they fell, and in an instant the rushing rain, emptied in a torrent
from the clouds, swept about them, saturating their garments and beating
the flying machine itself toward the distant earth.
During the next few moments Jack Darrow, Mark Sampson, and their
companions were in as grave peril as had ever threatened them in their
eventful lives.
The torrents of water all but beat the flying machine to the earth--and
to be dashed down from such a height spelled death to all and
destruction to the aeroplane.
Jack, however, had been taught to keep cool in moments of danger, and
he realized that their lives depended entirely upon his handling of
the great machine. They had descended below the level of the storm-cloud
at a most inopportune moment. They were caught in the midst of a
veritable cloudburst.
Shaken desperately by the wind, and beaten upon by tons upon tons of
water, it was a wonder that the great planes, or wings, of the flying
machine were not torn away. All Jack could do was to guide her the
best he could, and all his companions could do was to cling to a slender
hope and endure the lashing of the gale.
But Jack Darrow did not propose to be cast to the ground--and the
flying machine and his friends with him--without some further attempt
to avert such a catastrophe.
After the first breath-taking rush of the storm he diverted the course
of the machine again upward. He could scarcely see, the driving rain
was so blinding; nor could he observe the indicators before him with
any clearness. But he was quite sure that the enemy that had driven
him down into the storm-cloud could see the _Snowbird_ no better than he
could see that strange aeroplane that had threatened to collide with
them.
So he shot the _Snowbird_ upward again at a long slant, and put on all
the power of the engine to drive her onward. The flying machine shook
and throbbed in every part. The power of the engines would have driven
her, under other and more favorable conditions, at more than one hundred
miles an hour--possibly a hundred and twenty-five.
Jack himself was almost blinded and deafened. He was strapped to his
seat, so could give both hands to the work of manipulating the levers.
He brought the _Snowbird_ through the cloud and--with startling
suddenness--they shot out of the mass of rolling moisture and into the
sunlight of the dawn. But they were far off their course.
The change from the chaos of the storm-cloud to the almost perfect
calm of the upper ether was so great that it was almost stunning. For
a minute none of the five spoke a word.
Then it was Mark who shouted:
"There's that 'plane again, Jack I Look out for her!"
The enemy had missed them. She was some miles away, and although still
on a level above, at the pace the _Snowbird_ was now traveling it would
take a fast flying machine indeed to overtake her.
The pursuit of the enemy (which they all believed to be the smuggler,
manned by Bainbridge and his friends) was not kept up for long. By
eight o'clock the _Snowbird_ had dropped the other machine below
the horizon, and the swift pace at which they had driven the _Snowbird_
was rapidly bringing them once more toward Canada.
The storm had broken, but the clouds still hovered below them. They
descended about noon, passing harmlessly through the vapor which had
so long hidden the earth from them, and so came to within a thousand
feet of the ground, where they swung along at fair speed for some
hours.
They crossed the line, but did not descend until near St. Thomas. They
went out of their way a good bit to land near this town on the shore
of the St. Lawrence, for the flying machine had been so shaken in its
struggle with the thunderstorm that some repairs were needed.
They descended in a field on the edge of the town, gave the farmer who
owned the place a five-dollar bill to allow the machine to stand on
his land, and then engaged him to drive Professor Henderson and the
boys into town.
While the professor saw the authorities and obtained a legal document
recommending the exploring party to the good offices of all
British-Canadian officers whom they might meet, the boys went to a
machine shop to have a rod repaired. The party took supper with the
farmer, and an hour later the flying machine being pronounced by both
Mark and Jack in perfect order, they got off amid the cheers of the
onlookers, whose numbers were by that time swelled to almost five
hundred persons.
It was long after dark and the moon had not risen. It was a cloudless
night, however, and as the flying machine soared heavenward the voyagers
could look deep into the seeming black-velvet of the skies, picked out
by the innumerable sparkling stars, and thought they had never seen
so wonderful or beautiful a sight.
As they cast their gaze downward, too, they beheld the torches at the
Canadian farm rapidly receding, and then, in a few minutes, they were
flying over St. Thomas, where the lights twinkled, too. Then they shot
over the broad, island-dotted bosom of the St. Lawrence River, and so
on across country and town toward the vast Canadian wilderness.
The professor and Andy had the watch and Jack and Mark went to bed.
The excitement of the previous twenty-four hours had kept the boys up;
but once they closed their eyes, they slept like logs all night. Andy
Sudds relieved the professor now and then in the operator's seat, and
they did not call the boys until Washington White made breakfast at
daybreak. By that time the _Snowbird_ had passed Lake St. John, far to
the north and east, and was heading for Hudson Bay. The earth below them
was a checker-board of forest and field, with here and there a ribbon of
river, and occasionally a group of farmsteads, or a small town. Suddenly
they were forced down, and had to remain many hours for repair work
before ascending again.
The ranges of hills--some of them dignified enough to be termed
"mountains"--which they crossed necessitated their flying high. They
were generally at an altitude of two thousand feet and the rarefied
atmosphere so far above the earth was cool, anyway. Since leaving St.
Thomas, on the bank of the St. Lawrence, they had averaged eighty miles
an hour, and before moonrise they were cognizant of the fact that they
were approaching a great sheet of water.
"St. James Bay, the lower part of Hudson Bay," Professor Henderson
explained.
Soon the moonlight shimmered upon the waves beneath them. Jack, who
was guiding the craft, deflected the wings and they slid down the
airways toward the water. They traveled all night over this great
inland sea, at times so close to the surface that the leaping waves
sprinkled them with their spray--for there was a stiff breeze.
A gale broke in earnest over the Hudson Bay territory that day, and
despite the efforts of the voyagers they could not rise in the
_Snowbird_ above the tempest. Had there been solid ground beneath
them they could easily have descended and remained upon terra firma
until the storm was past.
This gale was favorable to their course, but it gripped them in its
giant grasp and hurled them on into the northwest at a speed that
imperiled the safety of the flying machine each moment. There was no
sleep for any of the party now, and Washington White came pretty near
(as Jack said) "making good his name in his face"--for if ever a darkey
of Wash's ebony complexion turned pale, the professor's servant did
so at this juncture.
On and on they were driven hour after hour. Scarcely a word was spoken
the entire time. There was no cessation of the gale. The great body
of water was passed and they knew that there was land beneath them
again. But each time they tried to descend they found the storm near
the earth-crust far heavier than at the upper levels.
To descend through the belt of the storm might partially wreck their
flying machine and the professor knew, by the study of his recording
instruments, that they were passing over an utter wilderness in which
no help could be obtained and from which, should they be wrecked, they
could not escape before the rigorous Arctic winter set in.
Hour after hour they drove on. The speed of the _Snowbird_ at times,
when driven by the full force of the gale, had mounted to one hundred
thirty miles an hour.
Great Slave Lake was far south of their route; yet the professor told
them that, had it been clear, at the altitude they traveled, they could
have seen and marked this great body of water.
They actually crossed the Great Bear Lake and the Mackenzie River,
however, and saw the ragged peaks of the Rocky Mountains, which here
almost touch the shores of the Arctic Sea. Blown on and on, with little
diminution of speed, it was not many hours before the _Snowbird_ was
flying over Alaskan wilds. The flying machine had kept closely to the
course the professor had laid out for her when they left Maine. They
were still headed for the slopes of the Endicott Range and the native
town of Aleukan.
The question paramount in all their minds, however, was this: Would
they reach their destination in safety?