MOTOR MATT PROTESTS.
The parade was finished without further incident worthy of note, a
huge crowd following it back to the show grounds to see the aëroplane
flight. As soon as the grounds were reached, Ben Ali came for Haidee.
There was a burning light in his black eyes, and he was shaking like a
man with the ague.
"Just a minute, Ben Ali," said Matt, catching the Hindoo by the sleeve
of his embroidered coat and leading him apart. "What's the matter with
your niece?"
"Salaam, sahib," chattered Ben Ali. "Haidee all right soon."
"She can't make an ascension with me, Ben Ali. She was the cause of
that trouble, and it would be sheer madness to take her aloft on that
trapeze."
"Yis, sahib, _such baht_" (that is true). Ben Ali drew a quivering hand
over his forehead. "But she be well like ever soon, sahib."
Ben Ali whirled away, took Haidee by the hand, and vanished among the
wagons.
Boss Burton strode to the scene.
"What ails that brown rascal?" he asked, staring after Ben Ali. "He's
in as bad a taking as the girl. What did he say about her? I've never
been able to get him to tell me anything about her spells."
"He tells me that she will be all right in a little while," answered
Matt.
"Then we'll delay the flight. It will be half an hour yet before all
the people get here."
Matt peered at the showman as though he thought him out of his senses.
"You don't mean to say that you want the girl to ride a trapeze under
the _Comet_?" he demanded.
"Why not?" Burton answered. "You said you'd take her, and she's willing
to go--she wants to go."
"When I said I'd take her," returned Matt, "I didn't know anything
about her spells. Suppose she were to have one while we're in the air?
Why, Burton, she might throw herself from the trapeze."
"No," declared the other, "she wouldn't do that. After she has one
spell, I understand she doesn't have another for days, or weeks. It's
been a month since she had the last. Why, in St. Paul, she had one ten
minutes before she went to the ring for her trapeze work--and she never
did better. If Ben Ali says she'll be all right in a little while he
ought to know."
"I protest against allowing her to go up in the aëroplane," said Matt
firmly. "When the machine is off the ground it has to have my whole
attention. I won't be able to look after Haidee without endangering
both our lives."
A hard look came into Burton's face.
"I'm paying you five hundred a week for the stunt you pull off with the
flying machine, ain't I?" he demanded harshly.
"You are," was the young motorist's calm response.
"And I'm giving the fifty on top of that for taking the girl up with
you?"
"That was your proposition."
"And you agreed to it?"
"That was before I knew Haidee was afflicted in this way, Burton."
"Bosh!" scoffed the showman. "The thing has got on your nerves."
"So it has," acknowledged Matt. "I'm not going to place Haidee in any
danger, if I can help it."
"And that shot goes as it lays, Burton," spoke up McGlory, who had been
taking a deep interest in the talk. "If you think Motor Matt is going
to risk the girl's neck, or his own, for a little fifty a week, you've
got another guess coming."
Boss Burton had set his heart on that trapeze act. It was a decided
novelty, and he could not cut it out of his calculations.
"Am I to understand," he went on, taking a look at the gathering
crowds, "that you'll break your contract rather than take Haidee up
with you?"
"That's what you're to understand!" snapped McGlory. "We'll not hem,
and haw, and side-step, not for a holy minute."
"It's this way, Burton," continued Matt. "Haidee can't go up on the
trapeze--we have to take a running start, you know, and it would be
impossible. She'll have to ride up on the lower plane; then, after we
are well clear of the ground, she'll have to drop from the footboard
with the trapeze in her hands. If she's not entirely herself, the drop
from the footboard to the end of the trapeze ropes will be too much for
her. She'll fall."
"But I told you that after she comes out of these things she's as fit
as ever," cried Burton. "It's a still day--the best we've had for
flying since you joined the show. I don't want to give up the idea."
"And you don't want to see Haidee killed before your eyes, do you?"
asked Matt coldly.
"Oh, splash! There'll be nothing of that kind. Ah, look! Here she
comes, and she's just as well as ever."
Matt and McGlory turned. Haidee, ready for the ascent, was hurrying
toward the machine from the direction of the tent. She moved swiftly
and gracefully, and there was nothing mechanical in her actions--as
there had been during the parade. The pallor had left her cheeks and
the vacant look was gone from her eyes. Matt and McGlory were astounded
at the sudden change in her.
"Are you all ready for me, Motor Matt?" she asked eagerly.
The trapeze was ready. That had been attached to the under plane of the
_Comet_ and the bar lashed to the foot-rest before the parade. But Matt
was not ready.
"How are you feeling, Haidee?" asked Matt kindly.
"Fine!" she declared.
"Do you remember what happened during the parade?"
A puzzled look crossed her face.
"I can't remember a thing about that," she declared. "In fact,
everything has been a blank almost from the time I left the calliope
tent, where I was talking with you, until I came to myself in the
menagerie tent with Uncle Ben."
Matt bowed his head thoughtfully.
"What's the matter?" asked the girl, in a quivering voice. "Aren't you
going to take me up with the _Comet_?"
"He's afraid you'll have a spell while you're in the air, Haidee, and
drop off the bar," jeered Burton.
The girl stepped forward and caught Matt's sleeve.
"Oh, it can't be true!" she exclaimed tearfully. "Motor Matt, you're
not going to keep me from making that extra money? I need it! I must
have it!"
The girl's earnestness made Matt waver.
"It won't do," spoke up McGlory decidedly.
"Joe!" and Haidee turned on him. "Why can't you understand that I'm
just as able as ever to do my trapeze work? I'll not have another of
those queer spells for a long time."
"That's what you think, sis," answered McGlory, "but if anything
happened to you my pard would remember it as long as he lived. He has
just protested to Burton against taking you up. And he had a bean on
the right number when he said what he did."
"_I'm_ taking the chances," said Haidee, "and nothing will happen."
The aëroplane was at rest on the hard roadway running across the
show grounds. For a distance of twenty feet on each side of the road
strong ropes were stretched to keep back the crowd. The throng was now
pressing against the ropes, clamoring for the aëroplane to make its
flight.
"If this performance don't come off," said Boss Burton, "it will be a
tough blow for the Big Consolidated. I advertised this trapeze stunt
on the flying machine in the morning papers, wiring it ahead from
Indianapolis. It's _got_ to be done, that's all. Every promise made in
our bills is always carried out. That's what has given this show a
hold with the people. I don't say one thing and then do another."
"Circumstances alter cases," returned Matt.
"If you don't want to take Haidee, will you take Archie le Bon?"
Archie le Bon was one of the Le Bon Brothers, iron-nerved men who
performed wonderful flying feats on the trapeze.
"Certainly I'll take Archie le Bon," replied Matt, glad to find such
a way out of the disagreement. "Bring him here while I'm getting the
machine ready."
Haidee began to cry, but Burton took her by the arm and led her away,
talking earnestly and in a low voice.
A trick was worked on the king of the motor boys that morning, and it
was something for which he never forgave Boss Burton. And it was a
trick carried to a successful conclusion almost under the very eyes of
McGlory and Ping. Matt, being busy with the aëroplane and the motor,
did not discover it until too late.
Matt went over the machinery of the _Comet_ with the same care he
exercised before every flight. A loose bolt or screw might spell death
for him if it escaped his attention.
When he was through with his examination, and had taken his seat ready
for the flight. Le Bon appeared. He was in his shirt sleeves, not
having had time to exchange his everyday clothes for ring costume.
"I'll run with the machine," said Le Bon, "and climb over the lower
plane from behind when it gets to running too fast for me."
"That will do," answered Matt.
Amid the breathless silence of the crowd, Matt set the motor to working.
"Ready!" he called.
The machine started along the road, gaining in speed with every foot of
its progress.
At the end of fifty feet it was going faster than a man could run; and
at a hundred feet it was darting along at thirty miles an hour. This
was the gait that enabled the wing to pick the machine off the ground.
As the _Comet_ slid upward along its airy path, the astounded McGlory
saw Le Bon far back toward the point from which the machine had
started. Thinking that, through some mistake, Le Bon had been left
behind, McGlory turned toward the mounting aëroplane.
Then the trick dawned upon him.
Haidee was climbing over the lower plane toward Motor Matt, now and
again turning to wave her hand at the cheering crowd!
And McGlory saw something else--something that had a fearful
significance in the light of later events.