THE SECRET FOE
The young pilot of the _Ariel_ was sufficiently interested to follow
his assistant down into the yard. The farmer followed. Three pairs of
eyes scanned the sky with no result.
“I say, it’s queer,” persisted Hiram, trying to get a new focus of view
by running about out of range of surrounding trees and buildings.
“Mebbe they alighted behind the barn,” suggested the farmer.
“Then they pretty nearly came straight down,” declared Hiram.
“There’s a holler over beyond the orchard,” explained the farmer.
“I’m going to find out where they landed,” persisted Hiram, running
away from the others.
He rounded the barn, a corn crib and then the windmill shed. He heard:
“Chug—chug!” Keen as a ferret, the guiding sound spurred him on.
Suddenly Hiram halted.
“There it is,” he said to himself. “They dropped, but they could not
have touched the ground. Sure, it’s the Curtiss. Why—the vandals!”
In a flash the quick senses of Dashaway’s apprentice took the alarm.
The antics of the Curtiss had been curious. Now something caught the
attention of Hiram and awakened positive suspicion; alarm, too, for the
strange machine arose from amid the haystacks where the _Ariel_ had
anchored.
“It means something,” muttered Hiram, resuming his run. “Fire!”
For an instant he was appalled. A smell of smoke was wafted to his
nostrils. Then, getting in range of the haystacks, he caught a gleam of
leaping flames. Rounding the first great heap of fodder, Hiram uttered
an angry cry. The Curtiss was sailing away, and it was fully evident
that its occupants had descended purposely to set a match to the
enormous heaps of hay within ready reach.
“They were after our machine!” shouted the lad, and he snatched up the
gun the farmer had left behind him. It was double-barreled. Hiram fired
twice. He fancied he could hear the shots rattle against the planes of
the fast-swaying biplane aloft. Its speed was not diminished, however.
He threw down the gun and made a dive through a fire-fringed space
between the two nearest haystacks.
The one further along, near which the _Ariel_ stood, was now a mass of
wispy, shooting blaze. Two others beyond it had also ignited. It was
now that the lad ran fastest. His face was hot and blistered as he came
up against the tail rudder of the imperiled machine with a force that
gave him a rebound.
The smoke and the heat choked and blinded him. He bent his head and
gave the running gear a start. He could not see before him now. With
desperate resolve Hiram buckled down to his task. The aeroplane, upon
which his hopes and interest were fixed so intensely, was in peril. He
knew it was scorched, from the faint smell of melting varnish.
All he thought of was getting the _Ariel_ outside the spreading circle
of fire. He could choose no lanes between the numerous stacks, for the
smoke now obscured everything. He had to trust to luck. Now he was
running the machine along.
“The mischief!” uttered Hiram abruptly, and went spinning back half a
dozen feet. He had driven the biplane squarely into an unseen stack.
The rebound shook him loose. He stumbled and fell. Then his head met
some hard solid substance and he closed his eyes with a groan—senseless.
It was the echo of the two shots that first aroused Dave Dashaway, who
had stood looking after Hiram until he disappeared, and then awaited
his return. The farmer had gone back to the porch, but now he ran down
into the yard again with the words:
“Hello! that was my gun—I’d know its sound anywhere, I think.”
“Then something is wrong,” instantly decided Dave, quite stirred up. “I
see nothing of the airship—”
“No,” shouted the farmer, “but there’s a fire!”
The moment he got beyond the barn, Dave also saw the smoke and flames.
“My haystacks!” cried the farmer.
“The _Ariel_!” murmured Dave. “And there is the biplane Hiram saw. Mr.
Rudd, there’s something wrong going on!” but the farmer was speeding
towards the central scene of action. Dave broke into a run. He
out-distanced his companion.
The stranger airship was now high up in the air, and heading due west.
Dave could not make out those on board. He fancied there were two in
the machine.
“Hiram! Hiram!” he shouted, and strained his gaze to try and locate the
_Ariel_. A sudden flurry of wind lifted the smoke. Dave fancied he saw
his machine. It was in the midst of the stacks and seemed doomed. Down
a fire-fringed pathway he darted, however. Then, more by the sense of
feeling than seeing, he came up against his sky-craft.
It was heroic work, for the heat was blistering, the smoke and cinders
blinding. Dave discerned that the _Ariel_ was wedged into the edge of a
stack. He drew it back, whirled it about heading a new way, and bore it
along with a strong push.
He gave a great breath of relief as it wheeled free of the last stack.
He fairly reeled the last few yards of progress. Free of the fire, he
held to the tail of the machine for support. Dave was exhausted, almost
overcome with the ordeal he had gone through. His leather suit,
however, had saved him from being badly burned. As it was, his hair was
singed and his face and hands red and blistered.
“Where is Hiram?” he breathed anxiously. Then Dave called his chum’s
name, steadied himself, and rubbed clear his cinder-filled eyes.
“Had a fall—stumbled right over your partner,” panted the farmer, and
he emerged from the blazing space with unsteady feet.
“Why, what’s this?” cried Dave.
The farmer was half-carrying, half-dragging a human form. He flopped to
the ground himself overcome, as he dropped his burden.
“Hiram!” exclaimed the young aviator, recognizing his senseless
assistant.
“Lucky I found him,” panted the farmer. “He lay on the ground the way
he is now. My feet hit him, and I took a header. If I hadn’t come
across him, it would have been all day for him.”
Dave was now kneeling at the side of his unconscious chum. He lifted
Hiram’s head. A damp spot met his hand. Then he discovered a long scalp
wound, bleeding profusely. The farmer stood dumbly viewing the
destruction going on. He was of a philosophical turn, it seemed, for
finally shrugging his shoulders resignedly he observed:
“Lucky most of it is poor swamp hay. It’s got to go, I see that. Let it
burn out, we can’t save any of it, and I reckon it won’t reach the
sheds. Hurt bad?”
“I don’t think so,” replied Dave, but anxiously. “There’s a cut in the
back of his head.”
“Mebbe he fell against one of the big stone weights used for holding
down the hay. See here, he’s the first to think of. We must get him to
the house.”
Dave was anxious to do this. They ran the _Ariel_ safely out of range
of danger. Then they lifted Hiram and carried him in the direction of
the house. By this time some field workers, near by and on neighboring
farms, came running to the spot. They got rakes and bags and beat out
the dry stubble surrounding the stacks, which had become ignited.
They put Hiram on a bench near the well, and the farmer filled a pail,
and wetting his big handkerchief applied it to the head of the
insensible lad. Its effect was noticed at once.
“Hello!” cried Hiram, sitting up and opening his eyes. “Where did those
rascals get to, Dave? Oh, I remember now!” Then his glance swept the
blazing mass two hundred yards away. “Oh, Dave!” he exclaimed, the
tears coming to his eyes. “I did what I could, but the _Ariel_ is gone
up!”
“No, ’tain’t—your partner saved it!” spoke the farmer quickly.
At that glad news Hiram struggled to his feet. He was wild-eyed and
still unsteady, but his old grit was fast returning.
“Dave,” he cried, “don’t let them get away—the fellows in that big
Curtiss, I mean. They set that fire!”
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