THE HAUNTED AERODROME
The excitable Leblance was on his feet in an instant. Dave reached the
side of Mr. King and glanced quickly at the paper he had opened out.
“Impossible—so poorly equipped! Incredible—so quickly!” almost shouted
the Frenchman.
“The _Dictator_ has sailed, just the same,” announced the veteran
airman, conclusively. “I’ll read it to you.”
Every word of the article in the newspaper was taken in absorbedly by
the persons in the room. According to it, the _Dictator_ had made a
splendid ascent from Senca at two o’clock that afternoon. The red, white
and blue appearance of the great gas bag had evoked the most patriotic
enthusiasm, and cheers and flag-waving had accompanied the flight.
The _Dictator_, according to the report, would float southward overland
till a point near Baltimore was reached. Here a descent would be made to
learn its condition, the machinery carefully scanned, and the ocean
course begun. Then followed an interview given out by Davidson on the
superiority of his double monoplane apparatus. There was, too, a
portrait of Davidson and one of Jerry Dawson. The article wound up with
a reference to the _Albatross_, which it stated, would soon be hot on
the heels of the _Dictator_.
“They have got the lead,” observed Mr. Dale, in an anxious tone, the one
of the group most disquieted by the newspaper article.
Professor Leblance shrugged his shoulders. He waved his hand to express
ridicule. His long, waxed mustache curled up in disdain.
“It is absurd,” he said. “Do I not know? An egg shell like that—no
science, no reserve force. Bah! I laugh at it.”
All the same the volatile Frenchman beckoned Mr. King to the next room.
In low, serious tones they held quite an extended conversation. At its
end Leblance hurried from the house. Mr. King returned to his friends
with a serious face.
“The ball has been set rolling,” he spoke, “there is no doubt of that.
No matter what we think or guess about the _Dictator_, it seems certain
that the craft has made a start. Leblance has gone to set his men at
night work. The _Albatross_ must be gotten in trim for its flight within
forty-eight hours.”
“As quickly as that!” exclaimed Dave.
“Leblance assures me he will have the _Albatross_ all ready for its
flight by day after to-morrow,” said the airman. “Make preparations, my
friends. There must be no delay.”
“Hurrah!” whispered Hiram, into the ear of his young friend.
The guests of Mr. King saw that his mind was seriously on his business,
and arose to depart.
“Some of our crowd will be here to give the _Albatross_ the right
send-off,” one of them declared.
The airman saw the visitors to the door. When he returned he snatched up
his hat quickly.
“Come with me, Dashaway; you too, Hiram,” he directed.
“Where are you going?” inquired Mr. Dale.
“To the aerodrome. There is going to be a lot of rush work to do, and
perhaps we can help.”
“Count me in,” said the old man, cheerily, “although I haven’t been very
useful so far outside of gaping at the wonderful work of our gifted
friend, Leblance.”
“Day after to-morrow is the twenty-first,” spoke up Grimshaw. “Two days’
start for the _Dictator_ crowd.”
The group left the boarding house. They crossed the street and walked
along the fence of the aerodrome enclosure. Dave and Hiram were in the
lead. They were chatting animatedly as they turned the corner of the
building, when Dave was thrust violently to the side and Hiram was
knocked head over heels to the street.
A frenzied yell accompanied the collision with them of a wild, scurrying
form, which recoiled at the unexpected impact, a hat bobbing from its
head.
“Hi! what’s all this?” challenged the astonished Mr. King.
“Why, it’s the night watchman!” declared Grimshaw.
“Oh, Mr. King!” panted the man, and then, pale, shaking, and gasping for
breath, he fell against the wall of the building from sheer weakness.
“Here, brace up,” ordered the aviator, seizing the arms of the fellow
and shaking him. “What’s the trouble?”
“Ghost!” choked out the watchman, in thrilling accents.
“Where—what do you mean?”
“Aerodrome.”
“A ghost in the aerodrome?” questioned Mr. King, derisively. “Is that
what you’re trying to say?”
“Yes.”
“Nonsense! Here, Grimshaw, help me get this fellow back to his post of
duty.”
Between them they forced the man along the walk. He gurgled, quaked, and
held back as they neared the gates of the enclosure. They found these
locked, as also the door to the old factory, when they reached it.
“I locked it in,” quavered the frightened watchman. “Don’t—don’t let it
out!”
“You’re a fine guardian of property, you are,” censured the airman,
severely. “Here we are,” and as he opened the door, Mr. King snapped on
the electric lights. The watchman sank to a chair and crouched as he
directed a scared glance around the place.
“Where’s your ghost?” derided the aviator quickly.
“I—I don’t see him now,” grunted the watchman.
“I guess you don’t,” scoffed Grimshaw. “You must be a weak one to fly
into a tantrum like this over nothing.”
“Nothing!” fairly bellowed the watchman. “I saw it plain as the nose on
my face. See here, I had the door ajar about a foot to let in a little
of the cool evening air. Here I sat in my chair right near it. I must
have half snoozed and woke up suddenly. Not five feet away, right near
that oil tank yonder, was a horrible shape. It was all white and
unearthly. As I started up it let out an unearthly scream and waved its
arms. Say, it was curdling! I bolted for the door, locked it, and
scooted.”
“Yes, you scooted all right,” grumbled Hiram, rubbing a bump on his
head.
Mr. King, with a glance of impatience at the great booby of a watchman,
proceeded briskly the length of the building, peering into every odd
nook and corner. When he came back he held in his hand a long cotton
sheet that had been used to cover some of the machinery.
“That is what you saw,” he declared. “Somebody has been playing a trick
on you.”
“Why, how could that be,” chattered the watchman, “seeing nobody was in
the building but me?”
“How do you know that?” demanded the aviator; “when you say you had the
door open? I tell you some one slipped in, wrapped in the sheet, and
half scared the life out of you.”
“Then he must be here now,” insisted the watchman, “for when I bolted I
locked the door after me.”
“It all looks rather queer,” remarked Mr. Dale.
“Hi!” suddenly shouted the watchman.
“What’s the matter now?” asked Mr. King.
“My dinner pail—that I bring my night lunch in.”
“What about it?”
“Gone! It was right here near my chair. It’s been taken.”
Dave had followed the progress of the incident of the hour with
curiosity, ending in positive interest.
“Come on, Hiram,” he said.
“What for?” inquired his comrade.
“To do some investigating. Don’t you see that if the watchman’s story is
straight some one really was here?”
“And if the door was locked when the watchman ran away he couldn’t very
well get out.”
“Exactly.”
The two lads made more than one tour of the length and breadth of the
place. Their quest proved a vain one. There was no one hiding about the
aerodrome, as far as they could discover.
“We’ll have to give it up,” said Hiram at last, “although it’s something
of a mystery.”
It was, indeed, but a mystery soon to be explained in a startling way to
the young aviators.