A STRANGE RACE
Dave, busying himself about the _Ariel_ inside the hangar, had caught
an echo of the shot outside the fence and the shouts accompanying it.
There was generally considerable commotion about the grounds, however,
and he paid no particular attention to these demonstrations.
Even the sound of the exhaust of the _Scout_ did not suggest anything
out of the ordinary. It was only when a loud cry sounded directly
beyond the open doors of the hangar, that the young airman was aroused.
“Oh, Mr. Dashaway!” gasped out a startling voice—“come here! come,
quick!”
Dave looked up to discern Rohan, his newly employed watchman. The
latter was limping towards the hangar. The light from the inside shone
on his face, showing excitement, and a sort of terror.
“Why, Dennis, what is the matter?” inquired Dave, anxiously.
“Your partner, Dobbs—the _Scout_!” stammered the watchman, so excited
that he could scarcely speak. “Hear it? See it? And here are the
police!”
Dave hurried out. His first swift glance showed that the _Scout_ was
nowhere near. The gathering lake haze formed its usual veil between the
ground lights and the upper clear area. A look in that direction told
nothing.
A crackling, tearing sound next directed Dave’s glance. It proceeded
from the fence. There the uniformed figure of a man was to be seen. He
came through a two-foot gap in the barrier. A companion on the outside
was just tearing loose a third board. He was pulling it from the
bottom, and did not release the top nails. He sprang through after his
mate.
“Where is he?” demanded the latter of Dave, and just then Rohan came
limping up to the spot.
“Tall man, wearing a buttoned-up frock coat?” he announced in jerks.
“With a fortune in it, yes!” responded the police officer, quickly.
“Where is he?” followed the sharp challenge.
“Up there,” answered the watchman promptly, and he pointed aloft.
“Eh, what? Trying to guy us!”
“No, sir,” answered Dennis. “He’s gone, and he’s gone in the little
airship. I saw him!”
“Well, I’m flabbergasted!” puffed the officer. “Mate, he’s slipped us.
I wish we’d got another shot at him. You mean the fellow has sailed
away in one of these balloons around here?”
“I saw him,” continued the watchman rapidly, with a glow of excitement
in his eyes. “He dropped to the ground. Mr. Dashaway’s partner here had
just got into his machine. The fellow you’re after ran for it. He gave
it a shove, jumped onto a side plane, crawled right up to young Dobbs,
and put a pistol to his head!”
Dave started. The thought of his chum in peril set his wits at work in
an instant.
“The man made some threat to Dobbs,” went on Dennis. “Anyhow, up went
the biplane. Then, as the fellow dropped into the cockpit, I heard him
yell, ‘West—straight west.’”
“You did?” spoke Dave, questioningly. “That’s a point,” and he made a
dash for the hangar. The officers were, indeed, “flabbergasted.” They
stood like dummies, dismayed and at a loss as to further action. Dave
ran the _Ariel_ out into the field.
“Officer,” he called to the policeman who seemed most to direct
affairs, “that man—who is he?”
“Reddy Marsh, the slickest diamond thief in America,” came the response.
“And he’s got a load of the sparklers in his coat right now,” added the
other officer. “Padded brick, smashed a lighted show-window in a
jewelry store and off he was with a case, with stones in it worth fifty
thousand dollars. We thought we’d run him down when he made for the
fence.”
“Yes,” put in the other policeman, who was staring overhead in a lost,
puzzled way, “and it won’t be a question of hundreds, but of thousands
to the person who gets him and his booty.”
“I’m not thinking of that,” said Dave in an anxious way, “but of my
friend. He’s clear grit, but the man is armed. Officer, I’m going
aloft. If the _Scout_ hasn’t got too far away, I may catch sight of it.
I may need protection; assistance. One of you come with me.”
“Hey!” exclaimed the head officer—“you mean in that airship?”
“It’s the only way, isn’t it?” propounded Dave.
“I’ll go,” spoke up the other officer. “This lad must know his business
or he wouldn’t be here. It’s in my line of duty—besides, there may be
glory in it, and a reward. Go ahead!”
“Quick, then!” directed the young aviator. “Now then,” as he guided the
unusual passenger to the seat behind the pilot post, “buckle on the
straps, keep cool and quiet, and I’ll see what can be done.”
He liked the obedient composure of his passenger. If the latter felt
that he was taking a risk, and experienced a little natural dread, he
masked it by shouting to his comrade:
“Tell the sergeant I’m off on special duty—joined the airship corps—ha!
ha!”
His laugh ended, however, and Dave could catch a series of quivers and
sharp short gasps as the watchman gave the ground gear an impetus and
the _Ariel_ rose up majestically. The machine pierced the blanket of
haze and came up above the lower strata of obscuring ground air. Dave
described a slow broad circle. His eye swept in all directions the
level they were on.
“If the moon were only up,” he murmured. “Well, the only course is
west. Hiram is shrewd and intelligent. If he guesses for a moment that
I am after him, soon as he gets his thinking cap on he will find some
way to signal, or get the best of his passenger.”
“Don’t see anything,” observed the officer, and, big, brave fellow that
he was, there was the tremor of the novice in air evident in his voice.
“They’ve got a start, you must remember,” explained Dave, “and a big
field. We can only go on, keeping a sharp lookout. If you should happen
to get sight of a black speck against the stars, tell me.”
There was a spell of silence for some minutes after that, Dave paying
strict attention to directing the machine, his passenger keeping as
keen a lookout as was possible for him under the unfamiliar conditions.
Suddenly the officer shouted out:
“There! See, a little way ahead? No, it’s gone. Now, again!
Pshaw!—fireflies.”
“Too high for that,” spoke Dave, “I see what you mean. Thanks my
friend, this is important!”
Ahead of them, and on a higher level, there was now visible a series of
swiftly-vibrating brilliant sparks. They filled a mere tiny spot in
space. To the expert young airman they were guiding. Dave set the
machine on a swift drift then climbed up several hundred feet. Now the
sparks, intermittent but perfectly distinct, were clearer and nearer
the faster they went.
“It’s a machine,” soliloquized Dave, “and it must be the _Scout_. If it
is—clever Hiram! He doesn’t dare show the lights, for that man aboard
wouldn’t let him. I can guess what he has done—the vibrator.”
Dave, with a perfect knowledge of all the parts and possibilities of
the natty little _Scout_, was at home with every detail of the
mechanism of the machine, and guessed what was transpiring. Later on
his surmises were verified. The young aviation expert decided that his
chum counted on his searching for him. He had loosed the top of the
vibrator, probably sending it adrift.
If he awakened the suspicion of the passenger, he could readily make a
pretence of watching the sparks jumping from one coil to the other, to
see that all the cylinders were working right. Correct or not in his
guess, those distant electric points of light were now a direct guide
to the eager pilot of the _Ariel_.
“We’re getting nearer,” breathed the man behind him. “You think it’s
the airship we’re after?”
“I am pretty sure of it,” responded Dave. “It’s a race, now, officer.
This machine can overtake the _Scout_ and outdistance it within the
next half hour. Then the case is up to you.”
“Just get me in reach of Reddy Marsh,” spoke the policeman, “and I’ll
do the rest.”
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