THE STOWAWAY
The young aviator took a long, earnest stare at the mysterious person
who had just stated that he was a stowaway. In a flash Dave seemed to
get hold of one end of a long chain of circumstances and mysteries.
“A stowaway?” repeated Professor Leblance, incredulously. “You mean
aboard the _Albatross_?”
“Yes, sir.”
“From the time when she first started?”
“And before.”
“You amaze me!”
“I am amazed at myself,” came the words, in rather a depressed way. The
speaker dropped his head, and both of his interlocutors looked troubled
and more puzzled than ever. “I’ll tell you, gentlemen, I’d rather not
say much till I am sure your airship is out of the country. You know you
promised I should stay aboard if I wanted to,” he added to Mr. King.
“I surely did,” assented the airman, heartily.
Dave had been studying the profile of the stowaway. He had noticed that
his ebony hue was due entirely to soot or greased lampblack smeared over
face and hands. Further, the keen glance of the young aviator had
scanned closely the clothing, even down to the necktie of the stranger,
and then—he was a stranger no longer to Dave.
“Mr. King, may I speak to you for a moment,” said Dave, moving out of
the cabin into a passageway. In some surprise the airman followed him
there.
“What is it, Dashaway?” he asked.
“The stowaway. I know him, Mr. King,” declared Dave, hurriedly. “There
is a certain mystery about him he dares not explain just now, and you
are embarrassing him dreadfully. Don’t ask him any more questions. Tell
him to come to my stateroom. Later, I will explain everything to you
about him.”
“Well, well,” commented the airman; “you seem to have the faculty for
preparing surprises for your friends, I must say. I’ll do what you
suggest, but I’m curious to understand what it all means.”
“You shall soon know,” promised the young aviator, and he went to the
little partitioned-off space where he and Hiram slept. He sat down on
one of the berths, placing a stool in the middle of the room for his
expected guest.
“You will find a friend in there,” reached Dave’s ear, a little later,
in the tones of the airman.
“Did—did you want to speak to me?” rather falteringly asked the
stowaway, entering the stateroom. Mr. King retired and closed the door
after him.
“Why, yes,” replied Dave pleasantly. “Say,” and he grasped the hand of
his guest in a hearty way, “I am glad to see you, and doubly glad
because you have made good, just as I knew you would. I once told a
friend you were of the right kind. You’ve proved it, Elmer Brackett, and
I’m proud of you.”
“Yes, I see you know me. Made good! Proud of me?” repeated the boy in a
dazed, half-stunned way.
“Why, you saved the _Albatross_, didn’t you?” cried the young aviator,
in a spirited tone, bound to rouse and buoy up his guest. “The lives,
too, probably, of every person aboard. What are you crying for—joy?”
Sure enough, young Brackett was crying. He acted like a boy in such a
tangle of circumstances that he was fairly crushed. Finally he blurted
out:
“Joy? None of that for me, ever again, I guess.”
“Why not?” challenged Dave.
“Oh, you don’t know, you don’t know!” cried the young man. “It seems as
I sit here, in the strangest position a fellow ever was in, I reckon,
that I’m in some terrific dream. There’s only one clear idea I can cling
to—to get out of the country, away—away——”
“Away from that villain, Vernon? Am I right?” spoke Dave, quickly.
“Yes, that’s it,” assented Brackett, in a lost tone of voice.
“I thought so. Now then, see here, you are among the best friends any
fellow ever had. You have just been the best kind of a hero ever was.
Forget everything else for the present. Make up your mind that whatever
your troubles may be, there’s a combination aboard the _Albatross_
strong enough to help you fight your way clear out of the last one of
them, and—tell me all about it.”
There followed the most interesting hour of Dave Dashaway’s life. The
friend of everybody, he had been the confidant and helper of many a lad
in difficulties. As bit by bit the strange history of Elmer Brackett
came out, however, Dave conceded that it was the most remarkable case he
had ever handled.
Briefly, the reckless, impetuous son of the big man in the Interstate
Aero Company had become the helpless victim of the schemes of Vernon.
Young Brackett did not tell Dave everything. He hinted that while in a
muddled condition he had been induced by Vernon to forge a number of
notes.
Once completely in the power of the schemer, the latter showed no mercy.
He appalled Brackett by claiming that he could send him to the
penitentiary, disgrace his family, and almost ruin his father’s
business. These claims were, in a measure, exaggerations.
Elmer Brackett then lost his head completely. His one thought was to
escape from Vernon. He disguised himself, after sending a letter to his
father, warning him against the forgeries, and saying he was going to
seek some foreign country where he could lose himself and be forgotten.
“I had no money, I dared not appeal to friends, for Vernon was seeking
for me everywhere to tighten the chains of his power around me,” related
the youth, bitterly. “I thought of you, and while tracing down the
_Albatross_ I ran across Davidson and young Dawson and their _Dictator_.
Maybe it was a wild idea, but I thought how it would just suit me to get
away from this country by airship, for Vernon had claimed that if I left
him he would have the detectives looking out for me everywhere. Well, I
hung around Senca. Then, as I didn’t think much of the way the
_Dictator_ showed up, I went to Croydon.”
“It was you, then, who asked my friend, Hiram Dobbs, about me, and wore
a false mustache?”
“Yes, I was disguised,” admitted Brackett.
“And you were, too, the ghost who scared the watchman at the _Albatross_
aerodrome nearly into fits!”
“That was me, too,” admitted Brackett. “The night before you started I
sneaked aboard the airship. I stowed myself away behind the big boxes of
provisions near the cabin here. I heard and saw what was going on. Then
that crowd of outlaws came, I got the magazine gun from the arsenal,
and—here I am.”
“And here you wish to stay till we get across the Atlantic?” said the
young aviator. “Good! Now, then, take my advice; forget all this
wretched fear and trouble that is part of your past. Help us win the
great prize, and when this trip is over trust to it that Mr. King and
Mr. Dale will find time and money to squelch this miserable Vernon,
straighten out your affairs, and start you on a new career.”
Elmer Brackett, minus the lampblack and encouraged by Dave, was soon
quite another person in appearance and spirits to the refugee stowaway.
Dave imparted to his friends only as much of Brackett’s story as was
necessary.
The following morning the boys awoke to find the _Albatross_ out of all
sight of land, fairly started on the great trip across the broad
Atlantic.