JUST IN TIME
“Who is that man, Hiram?”
It was two days after the stirring adventure among the burning
haystacks. They were now under a new and changed environment. Outside
of a roomy hangar on the training grounds near Chicago, they seemed to
have passed from a zone of peril and trickery into an atmosphere of
order and security.
The chums had been oiling the _Scout_, which had been shipped to them
from the Midlothian grounds the day previous. Dave had noticed a thin
wiry man standing outside of their hangar and studiously regarding the
_Ariel_. Then the stranger had moved nearer to them, and transferred a
steady, almost insolent gaze to the young aviator. Hiram had been so
absorbed in his task that he had not noted what the keen observation of
Dave, always on the alert, had taken in. Now he straightened up and
shot a glance at the stranger, just turning away.
“Hello!” he exclaimed, “he’s familiar. Why it’s Valdec!”
“You don’t mean the crack cloud-climber, as they call him, the
Syndicate champion?” questioned his companion.
“That’s him,” went on Hiram. “Yes, that’s ‘the great and only.’ I saw
him down at the clubhouse last evening. Humph! I don’t like him any
better than I do his backer, and that’s Worthington.”
Dave viewed the rival airman from head to foot. He was not only
curious, but interested. The chums had met a variety of amateurs and
professionals since their arrival at the present centre of attraction
in the aviation world. A portion of them were a motley group. They
ranged from expert balloon trapezists to acrobatic notables. They were
essentially “stunt” men. The real professionals were a widely different
crowd. There were men who had earned fame in their particular line of
activity. Some were inventors, and there was a sprinkling of
scientists. The name, Valdec, however, Dave had heard a great many more
times than that of any professional on the grounds.
Valdec was an importation. He claimed some wonderful records made in
France and England. His specialty was the handling of a machine in
speed, gyration and novelty effects. He had been a public demonstrator
and exhibitor at big fairs in Europe. His daring was notorious. He was
a grim, unsocial specimen of humanity, and talked but little. His
backers talked for him, however. These comprised the Syndicate, a group
of old-time racehorse and baseball promoters and the like. They had
taken to the aviation field as the newest and likeliest sport where
their peculiar abilities would count.
A great many standard airmen besides Dave did not like this feature of
the great International meet. It was not to be helped, however. The
manager, Worthington, paid for his special entrants, who were able to
qualify. It was his business to finance them, and he claimed that such
a connection was legitimate. The Syndicate group formed quite a camp of
their own at one end of the grounds. There were over half a dozen
airmen in the combination, covering various phases of flying, all out
for prizes, and selected by the promoter as likely to win.
“Yes, that’s Valdec,” resumed Hiram. “I don’t like him, nor his crowd,
nor their hangers-on, but I will say the fellow can do things. When you
were away yesterday he had half an hour’s practice on spiral work. It
was not only pretty, but it took away your breath. I heard one of the
bystanders say that before Valdec makes one of his sensational dives,
he works himself up to such a point that he is perfectly reckless.
That’s his crowd—running things just as they would for a track race.”
“Well, the steady nerve and the clear head counts in the wind up,”
observed Dave philosophically. “This job is done. Now for some real
work.”
It was not Dave’s habit to “show off” nor to advise his rivals of his
prospective programme. The location of the practice grounds was ideal.
The country about was level, and there was a lake area over which long
distance flights would be unhampered. The day before, however, and on
the present occasion, as soon as both aviators were in their places in
the machine, its pilot started a course for a barren uninhabited reach
among the sand dunes twenty miles south of the grounds. Here they were
unnoticed and had free scope.
“No danger of collisions here,” observed the cheerful Hiram, as they
landed and Dave sailed off alone. Then he sat down on a heap of brush
and chucklingly announced himself as “an audience of one,” prepared to
enjoy the spectacle of the occasion.
“Bravo!” voted the loyal and enthusiastic lad, as Dave made a superb
sweep that vied with a sailing pigeon, fleeing in terror from this
unfamiliar monarch of the air.
Then Hiram clapped his hands loudly, and kicked with his feet, as
though in some auditorium, and bound to applaud, as Dave made a
volplane that seemed destined to land the machine nose deep in the
flickering sands. Suddenly, twenty feet from the ground, he balanced,
even tipped, and went up, up, up—until machine and pilot were a mere
speck.
“Hurrah!” rang out briskly, when the daring operator of the _Ariel_
began a spiral drop. And then as Dave landed, his assistant, half wild
with delight, was dancing from foot to foot. “Oh, I say,” he shouted,
“it’s up to Valdec! Honest, Dave, it beats him. Yes, sir, it actually
does!” and the faithful chum laughed, as though already he saw the
capital prize of the meet safe in the hands of his friend.
The chums put in two hours about the flying field afforded by the sand
dunes. They started back for the International grounds feeling duly
satisfied. Dave was more satisfied with the _Ariel_ than ever. The
perfect piece of mechanism had never “balked” yet. Hiram professed to
see new skill and expertness in his gifted chum with every succeeding
flight.
“Let’s take a view of the city before we go home,” he suggested, and
Dave was nothing loth.
“Doll houses and pigmies; eh?” submitted Hiram, as they flew over the
south end of the city. “A little flat patch of the world, down there.
Those vessels on the lake look like play-ships. That big skyscraper
doesn’t appear much larger than a chicken house. There’s some
excitement!” and Hiram leaned over to get a better view of what had
attracted his attention. “Dave,” he cried suddenly, “it’s a fire!”
Dave made out smoke and flames about a very high structure located near
the river that traversed the heart of the city. He was as much
interested as his companion, for a mimic play seemed going on below.
Everything appeared in miniature—the hurrying fire engines, the puffing
fire-boats on the river, the great crowds, the giant building wreathed
with smoke. As they neared this Dave made out more clearly the
situation.
“It seems to be a storage warehouse, built solid from the sixth story
up,” he said. “The lower stories are all on fire. It will be a bad
blaze when it gets up into the closely sealed upper part.”
“Dave,” cried Hiram sharply—“look, look, on the roof!”
“Yes—a girl,” responded Dave. “Why, Hiram, she is alone, and imprisoned
up there by the fire!”
It was not difficult to understand the situation. The sixth floor of
the building was probably the office of the warehouse. Such concerns
hire but little help outside of the men who handle consignments for
storage. The girl, probably a stenographer, must have been alone on the
floor noted when the fire broke out.
She could not descend, for the five lower floors were all ablaze.
Escape was cut off, except upwards. She had probably fled up the spiral
staircases without coming to a break in the solid masonry, in the dark,
and groping her way, and driven to frenzy by the pursuing smoke.
Now she was plainly visible to the two chums. She stood near the edge
of the roof, waving her hands frantically. Below, the hook and ladder
service attempted to reach her point of refuge, but they could not get
above the eighth floor.
“Dave,” spoke Hiram in a muffled tone that trembled, “can’t we do
something?”
Already the pilot of the _Ariel_ had received the same mental
suggestion. His eye took in all the chances. All that was chivalrous
and humane in him came to the surface.
“There’s just one way, Hiram,” he said. “That is to make a volplane and
a landing on the roof.”
“Yes, yes,” agreed Hiram eagerly. “It’s a long narrow building, with
plenty of room for a stop and a start.”
“You’re willing to risk it?”
“Yes—surely!” cried Hiram. “Don’t delay, Dave. We’re safe to try it,
before the flames reach her, or the building collapses.”
A great cry went up from the excited crowds in the streets below, at
the sight of what resembled some mighty winged bird coming on a mission
of rescue and mercy, where other help seemed vain.
The girl on the roof saw the machine, and comprehended what it meant
for her. She ran towards it with a glad cry as Dave dexterously
directed it. The _Ariel_ struck the smooth flat roof, and came to a
stop, Hiram leaped out.
“This way!” he called, and, taking her outstretched hand he guided her
to the seat he had just vacated, and belted her in. “Don’t get scared,
nor faint. You’ll be safe on solid land in a jiffy. Go ahead, Dave,”
added Hiram. “The machine won’t stand my weight on the narrow margin
start we can give it.”
Onward went the _Ariel_. To the spellbound crowd below it seemed to
slide off the roof. Dave made a spiral drop. A block away from the fire
there was a lumber yard, only half stocked, affording a good landing
place.
The girl was out of the machine and safe in charge of two ladies who
supported her. She turned to Dave, her lips moving as if in gratitude,
and then swooned. Dave got started before the onrushing mob got in his
way. It seemed to him as if the voices of thousands joined in a
thunderous cheer. There on the roof, as if in response to this mighty
tribute to daring heroism, stood Hiram, smiling and unconcerned as
though it were all an every day occurrence.
“Good for you, and quite in time,” he commented briskly, as Dave landed
on the roof in safety. “The fire is eating up through the staircases.
See, yonder!” and the speaker pointed to wreaths of smoke and cinders
shooting out through a roof trap as if forced by an air compressor.
“Something wrong with the control,” said Dave, as they skidded into
space again. “The jar of that roof, I guess. It needs fixing,” and the
young aviator was compelled to land again in the spot where he had
delivered the imperiled girl into friendly hands.
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