IN THE LEAD
“Someone here to see you, Dave.”
Hiram greeted the young aviator with this announcement one evening, two
weeks after their arrival at Croydon.
“Is that so?” said Dave. “Who was it?”
“I can’t say, for he wouldn’t tell his name. I was walking along the
fence around the aerodrome, and just as I neared the gates he popped out
from behind a pile of boards, just as if he had been in hiding.”
“Did he ask for me?”
“Yes. I told him you were here quite regularly, and always evenings at
the boarding house. The fellow looked peaked and scared, and backed away
as soon as he saw someone coming down the street. He mumbled something
about finding you.”
The young airman could not surmise who his strange visitor might be. He
ransacked his mind, wondering if it could be some one of his old friends
from his home town. Then he said:
“Describe him to me, Hiram, will you?”
“Why,” explained Hiram, “he was a trifle older than I am, and taller;
yes, fully two inches taller. Oh, by the way, he wore a false mustache.”
“What’s that?” challenged Dave, half guessing Hiram was joking. But the
narrator looked earnest enough. “You say he wore a false mustache?”
“Sure thing,” persisted Hiram.
“How did you know it was false?”
“Because it came partly off just as the boy turned his face away. Say,
you couldn’t tell much about him. His face and hands were all grimed up,
and he had his cap pulled way down over his eyes. It was funny, though,
one thing.”
“What, Hiram?”
“For all his trampish looks, I noticed that his linen was fine and
white, and the necktie he wore was one of those expensive ones you see
in good furnishing shops.”
“Is that so?” observed Dave, musingly. Then a quick thought came to his
mind. He put Hiram through a rapid course of cross-questioning.
“I am satisfied it is young Brackett,” said Dave, to himself. “But why
in that trim, and acting like a fugitive? Hiram,” he added aloud, “keep
your eye out for that boy. I am sure he is in some kind of trouble, and
wishes to see me very much.”
“All right,” nodded Hiram, carelessly. “He won’t get away from me next
time.”
“Don’t use any force and scare him,” directed Dave. “Tell him that I
guess who he is, and want to see him very much.”
“Very well. There’s Professor Leblance just going into the aerodrome.
Isn’t it famous what he says about the _Albatross_ being nearly finished
and just as perfect as money and skill could make it.”
Both boys hurried their steps to overtake the genial, accommodating
Frenchman. For the time being Dave’s recent visitor drifted from his
mind.
The past two weeks had been the busiest and most engrossing in all the
career of the young airman. Dave’s report on the Davidson balloon and
the drawing of it he had showed to Leblance had convinced the expert
that the _Dictator_ could not make even a start in the race across the
Atlantic.
Dave had told him the gas bag of the _Dictator_ was conspicuously made
of tri-colored fabric. Its promoter, Davidson, had made a great claim.
The propelling power of the _Dictator_, he declared, would be built on
the monoplane principle. When traveling the gas bag would collapse,
except when they wanted to float. A gas-generating machine was among the
adjuncts of the hull, and was placed just above the framework attaching
the airplanes to the balloon.
“It is nonsense, ridiculous,” insisted Leblance, over and over again.
“They are inviting sure death if they venture a hundred miles away from
land.”
“All the same, they are going to try it,” proclaimed Hiram, a week
later, holding up a newspaper. “Here is a great account of the machine
and the plans, and Davidson and Jerry Dawson, who are going to fly the
_Dictator_.”
These two latter individuals did not trouble the _Albatross_ people any
further. A constant guard, however, was kept on duty in the aerodrome.
There were a great many curious and interested visitors. Day by day the
giant airship approached completion. Now, as Hiram had announced, it was
practically ready to essay its initial flight.
Professor Leblance smiled indulgently at them, as with considerable
professional pride he walked around the mammoth structure his skill and
efficiency had devised. Dave never tired of surveying the splendid
machine. To him it was a marvel how Leblance had assembled the parts of
the airship so speedily. There were three engines, and from the wooden
ribs and metal bracing, socketed to withstand collisions, to the
passenger cabin almost as sumptuously furnished as a Pullman palace car,
every detail fitted into a mammoth scheme never before attempted in
aeronautics.
“The _Albatross_ will do what no aeroplane could accomplish,” said
Leblance to his companions, who were admiringly regarding the great
machine.
“What is that, Mr. Leblance?” inquired the young aviator.
“It can be perfectly handled in a storm exceeding thirty-five miles an
hour velocity. It is as much of a ship as any that can travel the ocean.
An iron ship is sustained on the water by the air inside of her hull,
air being eight hundred times lighter than water. The _Albatross_ will
be sustained in the air by hydrogen gas, which is sixteen times lighter
than air.”
“And sixteen to one is as good as unlimited to one,” remarked Dave, who
had been studying aeronautics.
“That’s it. The _Albatross_ is a ship sustained by displacing more than
its own weight on the air. Its gas chambers are inflated to about
three-fourths of their capacity, to allow for the full expansion of gas
after the ship has been driven up dynamically by the action of the
engines and propellers, the flat top and under surface of the hull
acting as an aeroplane.”
The _Albatross_ was a flexible gas bag, just like the ordinary drifting
balloon, except that in shape it was long and pointed, instead of round.
Otherwise, Leblance explained, it could not be driven through the air.
The gas was contained in twenty-two separate chambers inside of the
rigid hull, which performed the same functions as the air-tight
compartments inside an ocean liner.
“It will sink only if it leaks badly,” explained Leblance. “The
sustaining compartments are always closed. Even if several compartments
should burst, the loss of the lift is compensated by the aeroplane
action of the hull whenever driven at full speed. When thus driven it
burns its own fuel so rapidly that this, acting the same as the casting
of ballast, is continuously lightening the ship. This is what is called
balancing the ship. The air balloonets maintain the rigidity of the bag
whenever it loses gas through the action of the sun or change in
elevation. The breeze passing through the ventilators at the bow
prevents the gas from expanding on the hottest days of the year. I tell
you confidently, my young friends, to my mind the _Albatross_ is
practically unsinkable.”
Neither Dave nor Hiram had thus far been inside the cabin and other
living apartments of the _Albatross_. They had, however, watched their
construction. The big airship could carry twenty passengers, if
necessary, and in providing for the comfort of those making the first
trip no detail for their welfare had been overlooked. There were
washrooms, provision apartments, a cook’s galley; and the engineer’s
quarters, Leblance explained, would be perfect in appointment and
equipment. The main point he had striven for was to maintain absolute
control of the gas at all times. As this depended upon reliable engines,
motors had been built that ran for thirty-six hours at full speed. The
machinery could not break down, as every part had been duplicated.
“That means,” said Leblance, “that if the carburetor gets out of order,
a duplicate enables it to go right on working. The engine has a great
number of automatic devices, among them two pumps which force the fuel
to exactly the right places, even if the ship is standing on its beam
ends, running up into the air or coming down at an angle of forty-five
degrees. You won’t have to sit sandwiched in small quarters, my young
friends. You can walk up and down the cabin and go all over the ship,
without disturbing the balance of the huge float overhead. To-morrow the
last touch will be put on the engine, and then practically we will be
all ready.”
Hiram went down to the post-office for the mail after supper that day.
Mr. King and his party were downstairs in the living room of the
boarding house, entertaining two airmen who had come to Croydon to look
over the _Albatross_ that afternoon, when Hiram returned.
The young aviator’s impetuous assistant burst unceremoniously in upon
the group, stumbled over a rug and went flat, but flushed and breathless
tossed the evening newspaper to Mr. King.
“Read, read!” panted the excited lad.
“Why, what’s all this commotion, Hiram?” questioned the astonished
veteran airman.
“It’s all in—the paper,” gasped Hiram in jerks. “The
_Dictator_—has—got—ahead of us.”
“What’s that!” fairly shouted Mr. Dale, springing to his feet.
“Yes,” declared Hiram. “The _Dictator_ started from Senca this
afternoon—on her trip across the Atlantic!”