A STRANGE DISCOVERY
“It’s another auto!”
“No, it’s the flying machine!”
“Where is it?”
“It must be down among the trees!”
These and various other exclamations came from those in the touring
car. All leaped to their feet and gazed up and down the narrow wood
road and through the trees and bushes. The sound did not come from
overhead.
“It’s in that direction!” cried Joe, pointing with his hand.
“Hark!” came from Harry, and at that moment came one grand explosion of
the distant motor, followed by absolute silence.
“Guess she’s busted!” gasped the carpenter’s son.
“And maybe the man has been blown up!” added Bart.
“We’d better look into this,” advised Fred. “Come on!” And he leaped
from the automobile and started through the bushes in the direction
Joe had pointed out.
The others were not slow to follow, Joe lingering just long enough to
see that the power was well shut off and the hand brake applied. Fred
led the way, with Harry close behind and the others not far off.
“I don’t see anything of it, do you?” remarked the stout youth, after
several rods had been covered.
“That motor was a long distance off,” answered the younger Westmore
boy. “The air is so clear here that the sound carries a long way.”
On and on they went, getting deeper and deeper into the woods. Several
times they stopped to listen and once they thought they heard a faint
cry for help. But this seemed to come from behind, not in front, of
them.
“Hello! hello! Where are you?” yelled Bart, with all the power of his
lungs. But no reply came to this appeal.
The boys did not know whether to go on or not. All came to a halt in a
little glade and gazed questioningly at each other.
“Well, we certainly heard it,” said Harry.
“And it was in this direction,” added his brother.
“It can’t be far away,” said Fred. “Say, why not scatter around?”
“And get lost,” put in Link. He had been lost in the woods more than
once and did not relish the prospect.
“Pooh! We can keep within calling distance of each other,” answered the
stout youth.
They commenced to separate, Joe and Harry moving to the northward. Here
there was a growth of saplings, close together, and the brothers had no
easy task to get through.
“I see something!” cried Harry, a few minutes later.
“It’s the flying machine!” burst out Joe. “It’s caught directly on the
top of those small trees!”
“Is the man in it?”
“I don’t see him.”
The Westmore boys dashed forward, at the same time shouting to their
chums to join them. Soon all the lads were under the trees, gazing
curiously at the big biplane overhead. The machine rested almost as
evenly on the trees as the top of a table rests on its legs. Some of
the canvas planes were slitted, and one of the rubber-tired wheels on
which it was rolled when on the ground was bent, but otherwise the
contrivance looked to be uninjured.
“Wonder where that old aviator can be?” murmured Bart.
“He’s either around here or he tumbled out before the machine came
down,” answered Joe. “Let us hunt around for him. He may have been
knocked unconscious, or killed.”
For fully a quarter of an hour the boys searched the vicinity, without
getting the slightest trace of the man who had been manipulating the
biplane. Then they commenced to search further. But it was of no avail.
“He isn’t here, that’s certain,” was Harry’s comment. “He must have
fallen out some distance back.”
“We might try to follow up the way the machine came,” suggested Bart.
“You’d have a hard job,” answered Link. “Why, that aviator made it turn
and twist like a snake!”
“Well, the way it landed it must have come from that direction,” said
Fred, pointing to the northward.
“Owl Lake is over that way, and he didn’t come from there,” replied
Harry. “If he had, we should have seen him.”
The boys returned to the vicinity of the biplane and talked the matter
over. What to do next they did not know.
“We’ll have to notify the authorities of this,” said Joe, at last.
“Somebody will have to make a regular search for that man, and
without delay. If he fell and got hurt he may need immediate medical
assistance. And if he’s dead, they ought to find his body.”
“And don’t forget we have that black tin box,” added his brother.
“We’ll have to do something about that.”
“Maybe he’s in the machine, hidden by one of the planes,” said Bart.
“One of us ought to climb up and make sure.”
“I don’t think he’s up there,” answered Joe. “Still, it wouldn’t do any
harm to climb up and look. I’ll go up.”
“Take care that the flying machine doesn’t come down on your head,”
cautioned Fred. “It might slip, you know, when you least expected it.”
“I’ll be on my guard.”
With anxious eyes the other lads watched Joe climb one of the small
trees upon which the biplane rested. Soon he was beside the biplane and
then he crawled out on a tree limb, so that he could see the seat and
the engine.
“Nobody up here!” he called down. “He must have tumbled out before the
machine landed.”
“Is there anything up there to tell who he is?” called Bart.
As well as he was able Joe looked the biplane over. He saw where the
wires from the battery had caught in the tree and become broken, thus
stopping the engine. Had this not occurred the motor would most likely
have kept on running until the gasoline was used up.
“All I can see are those initials, A. A. A.,” Joe called down. “This
machine and that black box belong to the same person.”
“Nothing else--no card, or address?” shouted his brother.
“Not that I can see from where I stand. We might find something if the
biplane was on the ground.”
“Well, we can’t get it down, at least not now,” said Fred. “Besides, we
had better find the owner first. Maybe he wouldn’t want us to touch the
outfit.”
Joe took another look at the flying machine and then rejoined his
companions. Once more there was a consultation.
“I don’t know of anything to do but to go on to Cresco and notify the
authorities,” said Joe. “We are closer to that town than we are to
Lakeport.”
“Supposing that man never shows up for his flying machine,” suggested
his brother.
“Then it will belong to us--for we found it!” cried Link.
“Joe and Harry found it,” said Fred, quickly.
“Well, I mean them,” answered the carpenter’s son. “I don’t think we
ought to turn the machine over to the authorities.”
“Oh, don’t bother about that now!” cried Harry. “I guess we’ll find
that man, or some of his relatives. Why, for all we know, he may be
some well-known aviator.”
Slowly the boys walked back to the automobile. As they came in sight of
the machine they saw a man sitting on the front seat, smoking a pipe.
The man had a fishing rod and a basket with him.
“Hello, it’s Joel Runnell!” cried Harry. “How are you?” he sang out.
“Pretty well, everything considered,” answered the old hunter. “I
knowed this was your machine an’ that you couldn’t be far off, so I sot
down to take it comfortable till you come back.”
“Been fishing?” asked Joe.
“Yes, up the Big Woods brook. But fishin’ is poor just now,” was the
old hunter’s answer, as he knocked the ashes from his pipe. “How be you
boys, anyway?” And he smiled broadly, for he liked them all very much.
“Oh, we’re all right,” answered Joe. “Did you see anything of a flying
machine while you were fishing?” he went on eagerly.
“Flyin’ machine? No. Wot put that in your head, Joe?”
“We saw one, run by an old, gray-haired man. He dropped a box and we
picked it up. Now we’ve found the machine over in the woods, but the
man is missing.”
“Great wildcats! You don’t tell me!” gasped Joel Runnell. And then he
asked for the particulars, to which he listened with close attention.
“Must have fell out,” was his comment. “An’ got killed, most likely.”
“We hope not,” answered Harry. “We wish we could find him.”
“You yelled, didn’t you?”
“Oh, yes, a number of times.”
“Then he’s most likely as dead as a doornail. And why wouldn’t he be?
Fallin’ out o’ one of them contraptions is wuss nor fallin’ off a
church steeple, believe me!”
“Well, I guess it’s about as bad,” answered Joe, gravely. “We don’t
know what to do, excepting to notify the authorities at Cresco, or
Lakeport, or Brookside.”
“Let us take another look around Owl Lake,” suggested Harry.
“That wouldn’t do no harm,” returned Joel Runnell. “If you want me to,
I’ll go along.”
“Why, come on, if you wish,” was the ready reply.
Soon the boys and the old hunter were scattered around the lake. While
some followed a path leading to the east, the others took that leading
the other way.
At the far end of the lake was a small stream known as Brown’s Brook,
lined on either side with blackberry bushes. Where the stream emptied
into the lake was a hunters’ lodge, now deserted.
“Hark!” exclaimed Harry, as he and his brother, with Fred and the old
hunter, came in sight of the lodge. “I thought I heard somebody call!”
All listened and from some bushes came a faint moan. The boys gave a
call and another moan was the answer.
“It must be the man!” exclaimed Joe, and ran forward, followed by the
others.
As the crowd rounded some bushes they came upon a strange sight. There,
in a heap, rested the aged aviator. He was capless, wet through and
through, and his face and hands were scratched and bleeding. One leg
was doubled under him, as if wrenched or broken.
[Illustration: THERE, IN A HEAP, RESTED THE AGED AVIATOR.]
“Thank Providence somebody has come!” he murmured. “Oh, help me! Get a
doctor, or somebody! I am about smashed to pieces!” And then he gave
another groan and sank back in the bushes, all but overcome.
“He’s putty hard hit, I reckon,” was Joel Runnell’s comment, as he made
a hasty examination.
“Let us bind up that cut on his head,” said Joe. “His arms seem to be
all right, but that one leg is in bad shape.”
Fortunately the boys had had some lessons in first aid to the injured,
so they knew a little about how to go to work. They got out their
handkerchiefs and Harry tore off the sleeves of his linen shirt,
and with the cloths they bound up some of the wounded man’s hurts.
The medical kit taken on the auto tour was still in the machine and
Fred ran for this, and then the wounds were washed and bathed in
witch-hazel, and the sufferer was given a stimulant.
“Let us carry him to the cabin,” suggested Joel Runnell. “We can lay
him on one of the cots. I know Tom Mason won’t mind.” Tom Mason was a
rich man of Brookside who owned the lodge.
“Yes, and we’ll take the auto and get a doctor,” put in Harry.
“I don’t want a doctor!” cried the old aviator, rousing up. “They are
all butchers! I know ’em! They’ll want to put me in the hospital and
saw my leg off, or something like that! Just you let me rest and I’ll
be all right.”
“But your leg--it seems to be broken,” said Joe.
“I guess it’s twisted, that’s all. No, don’t get a doctor--I hate ’em!
They killed my wife! I’ll be all right in a few days. Only take me to
some place where I can rest, and get food.” And then the injured man
suddenly gave a gasp and sank back unconscious.