THE DIGNITY OF THE LAW.
The two flying machines, the _Louise_, with Jimmie and Carl on board,
and the _Bertha_, with Ben in charge, flew swiftly over the great city,
lying before them with its lights stretching out like strings of beads,
crossed the North river with its fleets of vessels, and passed on over
New Jersey, heading directly for the west.
At first Jimmie and Carl tried to carry on a conversation, but the
snapping of the motors and the rush of the wind in their faces
effectually prevented anything of the kind. The moon was well down in
the west, yet its light lay over the landscape below in a silvery
radiance.
Now and then as they swept over a city or a cluster of houses far out on
a country road, lights flashed about, and voices were heard calling from
below. Ignoring all invitations to descend and explain their presence
there, the boys swept on steadily until the moon disappeared under the
rim of the sky.
At first there was the light of the stars, but this was soon shut out by
a bank of clouds moving in from the ocean. By this time the boys were
perhaps two hundred miles from New York. They were anxious to be on
their way, yet the country was entirely new to them, and they knew that
a chain of hills extended across the interior farther on, so at last
Ben, who was in the lead, decided to drop down and make inquiries as to
the country to the west.
Of course the boys might have lifted their machines higher into the air
and proceeded on their course regardless of any undulations of the
surface, but they were still comparatively new in the business of
handling machines, and did not care to take high risks in the darkness.
Jimmie followed Ben’s lead, and the two machines groped their way along
a tolerably smooth country road and finally came to a stop only a few
feet from a rough and weather-beaten barn which stood close to the side
of the road.
The clatter of the motors almost immediately brought two husky farmers
into the illumination caused by the aeroplane lamps.
“What you doing here?” one of the men asked.
“Came down to rest our wings,” Jimmie replied, saucily.
“Where you from?” asked the other farmer.
“New York,” answered Jimmie.
“We’re carrying government despatches to Japan,” Carl added, with a
grin. “We’re in the secret service!”
Ben gave the two boys a jab in the back, warning them to be more civil,
and, stepping forward, began asking questions of the farmer regarding
the country to the west. The two men looked at each other suspiciously.
“Is this him?” one of them asked.
The other shook his head.
“Might be, though!” insisted the first speaker.
“No,” replied the other, “this is not the man!”
Ben looked at his chums significantly for a moment. He was thinking that
the farmers might be referring to an aviator who had passed that way not
long before. He was thinking, too, that that aviator might be the
identical one who had started out to beat the _Louise_ and the _Bertha_
to the Pacific coast.
“When did you boys leave New York?” one of the men asked, in a moment.
“About midnight,” was the reply.
“And you’ve come two hundred miles in three hours?” asked the man,
incredulously. “I don’t believe it!”
“Our machines,” Ben answered, very civilly indeed, “are capable of
making the distance in two hours.”
“Well,” the farmer went on, “the other fellow said he left New York
about dark, and he didn’t get here until something like an hour ago. He
lit right about where you are now.”
“Where is he now?” asked Ben.
“Why, he went on just as soon as he tinkered up his machine.”
The boys glanced at each other significantly, and then Ben asked:
“What kind of a looking man was he?”
“He looked like a pickpocket!” burst out the farmer, “with his little
black face, and big ears, and hunched up shoulders. And he was, I
guess,” he continued, “for we heard him sneaking around the barn before
we came out of the house.”
“What did he say for himself?” asked Ben, now satisfied that the man
described was the one who had pursued the _Louise_ on the previous
afternoon.
The two farmers looked at each other a moment and broke into hearty
laughter. The boys regarded them in wonder.
“He said,” one of the men explained, in a moment, “that he was a
messenger of the government, taking despatches to the Pacific coast. If
he didn’t say almost the same thing you said, you may have my head for a
pumpkin.”
“And that,” added the other man, “is what makes us suspect that you
chaps are in cahoots. Mighty funny about you fellows both landing down
here by our barn, and both telling the same story! I’m a constable,” he
went on, “and I’ve a good mind to arrest you all and take you before the
squire as suspicious persons. I really ought to.”
“What are we doing that looks suspicious?” demanded Jimmie.
“You’re wandering about in the night time in them consarned
contraptions!” declared the other. “That looks suspicious!”
Daylight was now showing in the east, and the sun would be up in a
little more than an hour. The boys were positive, from information
received from the farmer, that the aviator who had made his appearance
on New York bay the previous afternoon was only an hour or so in advance
of them. By following on at once they might be able to pass him.
It was their intention now to wheel farther to the south, and so keep
out of the path taken by the other. It was their idea to reach the
coast, if possible, without the man who was winging his way toward the
murderers knowing anything about it.
Of course the fellow would suspect. There was no doubt that he fully
understood that the _Louise_ and the _Bertha_ were to be used in a race
to the Pacific. Had he been entirely ignorant regarding the plans of the
boys, he would never have found it necessary to follow the _Louise_ over
New York bay and Manhattan island for the purpose of ascertaining her
capability as a flier.
“Well,” Jimmie said, after a moment, “We may as well be on our way. We
stopped here because we were afraid of butting into some wrinkle in the
old earth if we proceeded in the darkness.”
“I don’t know about letting you go on!” broke in the constable.
There was greed in the man’s eyes. There was also an assumption of
official severity as he glanced over the three youngsters. The machines
were standing in the middle of a fairly smooth road running directly
east and west.
To the right of the thoroughfare stood the shabby barns referred to
before. To the left ran a ditch which had been cut through a bit of
swamp lying on the other side of the road. As the farmer concluded his
threatening sentence, Jimmie and Carl sprang to the _Louise_ and pressed
the button which set the motors in motion. For a moment the farmers were
too dazed to do more than follow the swiftly departing machine with
their eyes.
When they did recover their understanding of the situation, they both
sprang at Ben in order to prevent his departure. This, doubtless, on the
theory that one boy was better than none. If they couldn’t get three
prisoners, they did not intend to lose the opportunity of taking one.
In carrying out this resolve, the men made a serious mistake in not
seizing the machine. Had they thrown their muscular arms across the
planes at one end it would have been impossible for the machine to have
proceeded down the road in a straight course.
Instead of doing this, they both made an effort to seize Ben. Now Ben
had been in many a rough-and-tumble skirmish on the lower East Side, and
knew how to protect himself against such clumsy assaults. One of the
farmers cut a circle over the shoulder of the boy as he fell from a
hip-lock, and the other went down from as neat a jolt on the jaw, as was
ever delivered in the prize ring.
While this remarkable contest was in progress, Jimmie was whirling the
machine, he had mounted, into the air. When he saw one of the farmers
land in the ditch he came swiftly about with a jeer of defiance and
thrust an insulting face toward the ground.
“Say, you feller!” he shouted. “That’s Billy Burley, the Bruiser. Don’t
you go to getting into a mix-up with him!”
The man who had tumbled into the soft muck of the trench clambered
slowly out and shook his fist at the freckled, scornful face bent above
him.
“I’ll show you!” he shouted. “I’ll show you!”
By this time Ben had taken possession of the _Bertha_, and the motors
were clattering down the road. In a second almost the flying machine was
in the air, and the boys were off on their journey, leaving the two
farmers chasing down the road after them, shouting and waving pitchforks
desperately in the air.
It was now almost broad daylight, and the boys sent their machines up so
as to attract as little attention as possible from the country below. A
few miles from the scene of their encounter they shot off straight to
the south, resolved to reach the Pacific coast by way of Kansas and
lower California. It seemed to them that the aviator who had preceded
them had purposely lingered in order that they might come up with him.
This looked like trouble.
If it meant anything at all, it meant that if possible they were to be
interfered with on their way across the continent. This prospect was not
at all to their liking. They wanted to the get to the Pacific coast as
soon as possible and begin the quest in the mountains.
Shortly after five o’clock they saw the city of Baltimore stretched out
below them. Deciding that it would be much better to land some distance
from the city and prepare breakfast out in the open country than to
attract universal attention by dropping down in the city, Ben volplaned
down on a macadamized highway some distance out of the town. Jimmie
followed his example at once, and before long a small alcohol stove was
in action, sending the fragrance of bubbling coffee out into the fresh
morning air. Even at that early hour half a dozen loungers gathered
about the machines, gazing with wondering eyes at the youthful aviators.
The boys explained the object of their journey in the first words which
came to their lips, which, it is unnecessary to state, were highly
imaginative, and the loungers stood about watching the boys eat and
drink and asking questions concerning the mechanism of the motors.
After eating and inspecting the machines the boys started away again. At
the time of their departure there was at least half a hundred people
standing around, hands in pockets, mouths half open.
The boys passed over Washington in a short time and glanced down at the
great dome of the capitol and at the towering shaft of the Washington
monument. The machines, however, were going at a swift pace, and the
many points of interest at the capital of the nation soon faded from
view.
About every two hours all through the day and early evening the boys
came to the surface at some convenient point and rested and examined
their machines. The motors were working splendidly, and the lads were
certain that if it should become necessary they could make five hundred
miles without a halt. This was at least encouraging.
When night fell they found themselves not far from St. Louis. They
dropped down in a lonely field about sunset and built a roaring
camp-fire. There was not a house in sight, and the field where the
machines lay was surrounded by a fringe of small trees. Ten or fifteen
miles to the west rolled the Mississippi river and beyond lay the paved
streets of St. Louis, where they were to meet Havens.
The day’s journey had been a most successful one. Jimmie was certain
that at times the _Louise_ had traveled at the rate of a hundred miles
an hour. There had been no accidents of any kind.
“From New York to the Mississippi in one day appears to me to be going
some!” declared Jimmie, “and I never was so tired in my life. We can’t
go on to-night if we are to meet Havens in St. Louis to-morrow, and so
I’m going to get out one of the oiled silk shelter tents and go to bed.”
While the boys planned a long night’s rest the whirr of motors came
dully from the sky off to the north.