THE UNDER DOG
“I’m not going to stand that!” suddenly shouted Hiram, and he started a
spiral descent, on the spur of the moment.
The young airman was warm-hearted and impulsive. Hiram was usually in
the midst of any “scrimmage” going on in his vicinity, but it was
generally when his sympathy, or chivalry, were aroused from interest in
others. Just now all that was manly in him awakened his natural
championship of “the under dog in a fight.”
Just below him was a wide swampy spot, and about forty feet from the
solid land, edging it on one side, were two men. One of them, portly
and mean-faced, was waving a cane and shouting angrily at a younger
companion. This individual was wading stumblingly towards him. His feet
were mired in the soft, mushy soil, and the water came up to his waist.
Upon a little swamp-island was a ragged, barefooted boy of about
sixteen. He had a broad piece of tree bark in his hand. This he was
using as a scoop. Dipping it down in the black, watery mire near the
edge of the swamp, he would lift it aloft. Then with a dash and a swing
he would fling it at the retreating man in the water.
At a glance Hiram read the situation. The boy looked like a
half-starved runaway. The old man resembled some cruel relative, or
guardian. He was in a fury. Suddenly he seized a flat stone at his
feet, and sent it whizzing through the air. It landed against the boy’s
cheek, drawing the blood.
“Now’s your chance—make for him!” cried the older man.
His younger and mired helper half turned, but it was to find the boy
not yet out of the ring. The latter staggered slightly under the blow
he had received, and the bark scoop dropped from his hand. He quickly
picked it up, however, and sent into the face of his returning foe a
deluge of black, blinding muck. The man rubbed his eyes, veered about
again and made for the shore.
The irate old man was brandishing his cane, and shouting. He seemed to
be censuring his defeated aide, who, dripping and bespattered, stood
disgustedly on dry land.
“They’re trying to corner that boy, and he’s too plucky to let them,”
decided Hiram. “There goes another stone. Good! it missed, and the boy
is safe under cover.”
The lad had slipped behind a tree, but he kept the scoop in his hand.
The two men gesticulated and parleyed. Finally the old man pointed
toward a little settlement about a mile away. His companion started in
that direction. The old man mopped his head with his handkerchief. Then
he sat down under the shade of a tree as if exhausted with rage and his
unusual exercise.
“He’s sent for help; maybe for the police,” reflected Hiram. “Right or
wrong, the boy looks in need of a friend. I’m going to know the ins and
outs of this affair.”
So far no one of the three persons in sight had caught a view of the
descending machine, so absorbed had they been in the conflict in which
they were engaged. At the sound of the snort of the exhaust of the
aeroplane, however, the barefooted lad started nervously, and looked up.
The _Scout_ had landed in the middle of a clear spot edged by some
bushes. Hiram who had some time since shut off the power, faced the
astonished lad not twenty feet away from him.
“Hello!” he hailed, leaping out, and advancing. “What’s the trouble
here?”
For a second or two the lad did not speak. The startling appearance of
airship and pilot seemed to benumb him. He looked appealingly at Hiram,
as though trying to figure out whether his strange and unexpected
arrival meant help or harm. Then, something in the friendly face of the
newcomer seemed partially to reassure him. His wan face twitched and
his lips puckered.
“I’m in trouble,” he said—“terrible trouble.”
“Those men, I suppose?” questioned Hiram, pointing to the spot across
the watery space.
“Yes, I’ve been on a run for hours, till I’m ready to drop. I thought I
was safe here on this island, but they hunted me out. I’ve been
fighting them off for nearly an hour.”
“Who are they, anyway?” asked Hiram.
“That old man claims to be my uncle. The other fellow he sent to town
to get a constable, and hunt me out, is one of the half a dozen bad men
he’s in with. Oh, he’s led me a terrible life! I just had to break away
from him. I couldn’t stand it any longer. Oh, is there any way to keep
me out of their hands?”
The speaker looked up in a beseeching way. The tears were running down
his wasted cheeks. Hiram was much stirred.
“Say, I’ll do anything, any time, for a fellow in the fix you’re in, if
I believe he’s right!” he cried valiantly. “I think you are. That old
man has seen us now. Look at him rage.”
By this time the older man, on the mainland, had caught sight of the
newcomer and of the machine that had brought Hiram to the rescue. He
leaped to his feet, and seized his cane. He ran, brandishing it, to the
edge of the water.
“Hey, say; you there!” he yelled. “Whoever you are, don’t you dare to
interfere. The law will soon be here, and attend to that young rascal.”
“Yes, it will be all over for me when the constable comes,” choked out
the lad by Hiram’s side. “Please, please help me, if you can! I don’t
care for myself. It’s my little sister. They could hammer me, and I’d
grin and bear it, but when they began on her I simply had to get away.”
“Little sister—what? Where?” inquired Hiram, in perplexity.
“Look there,” was the response, and the boy parted some bushes. Hiram
uttered a wondering and a pitying cry, as he looked over the shoulder
of his guide and saw a little girl, not more than four years of age.
She was lying asleep on the dry grass, her head pillowed on a coat,
evidently belonging to the lad, her brother. Her attire was as torn and
threadbare as his own. Her face showed tear stains and exhaustion.
“Oh, dear! Dear!” murmured the pitying Hiram at the sight of such
forlorn misery.
“If you don’t think I’m telling you the truth, just look there!” cried
the lad brokenly, and he leaned over and gently pulled loose the poor
thin dress covering the child. Across her shoulders were half a dozen
dark welts.
“That man over there did that,” sobbed the barefooted boy. “Wouldn’t
you run away for that? Wouldn’t you want to hit that mean man over
yonder, if he treated a sister of yours that way?”
Hiram Dobbs fired up in a flash. He ran forward and shook his fist at
the man in view. Then he looked in the direction of the town. The
messenger sent thither was out of sight. Hiram cooled down.
“That fellow will soon be back with the officers of the law,” he said.
“We mustn’t lose any time, I suppose. Do you know what that is?” he
questioned his companion, pointing to the _Scout_.
“It’s an airship; isn’t it?” asked the boy. “I’ve seen one or two of
them before.”
“Yes, it’s a biplane,” explained Hiram. “There’s a second seat in it,
but it can’t carry a very heavy load, but I am sure, though, it will
hold you and your sister. Pick up that poor little thing and I’ll show
you how to get aboard. You’re not afraid?” he questioned.
“Me? No. I’d jump aboard a balloon if it would get little Lois safe out
of the clutches of old Martin Dawson!” cried the lad.
The little girl stirred and moaned, as her brother lifted her in his
arms. Hiram piloted him with his burden to the side of the _Scout_. He
helped him step over the controls, eased him back into the seat and
strapped him in, the little one in his lap.
“Snug and safe,” he spoke. “All you’ve got to do is to shut your eyes
if you get dizzy. Now then, you old tyrant!” added Hiram speaking in
the direction of the storming stamping man across from them, “we’ll set
you a pace you couldn’t follow with all the constables in creation.”
The young aviator had to make three different efforts to clear the
ground. It was not a very good spot for a start. Finally, however, the
_Scout_ gained enough momentum and made a graceful dart up into the air.
“Law!—stop!—arrest!”—fuming, and shaking his cane, the old man cried in
disjointed fragments frantic threats after the vanishing air craft.
“Look there!” chuckled Hiram to the passenger behind him. Then he
laughed outright, and, notwithstanding his anxiety and his miseries,
the boy laughed, too.
His persecutor, eyes fixed aloft, following the vanishing _Scout_, had
not heeded his steps. Coming too near the slimy edge of the swamp he
lost his balance. With a splash he went flat, face first, into a bed of
black sticky mud.
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