“FIFTY POINTS”
“You’ve got something on your mind, Bruce! What is it?” challenged
Hiram Dobbs.
“Oh, just thinking,” answered Bruce in a way meant to be off-handed,
but palpably evasive and embarrassed.
“You can’t fool me!” insisted Hiram in his persistent fashion. “Ever
since you took those diamonds back to the police you’ve been mooning.
You don’t mean to tell me you’ve caught the detective-fever?”
“Me!” laughed Bruce. “No more chance of that than of running an
airship. I’d better correct one false impression you’ve got, though,
Hiram.”
“And what is that?”
“I didn’t take those diamonds to the police at all.”
“Didn’t? Well, that’s news!” declared Hiram wonderingly.
“You see, you were all so busy here I didn’t want to bother you about a
little thing like that. I took the diamonds back to the people who lost
them. I’ve had an idea about those diamonds for some time.”
“You have some good ideas, Bruce—what’s this one?”
“Why, I have felt satisfied all along that the thief had those diamonds
when he was escaping in the _Scout_.”
“We all believe that. What of it?” inquired the young pilot of the
craft in question.
“So, I’ve dreamed—only dreamed, mind you—of maybe some time going and
looking for them.”
“Ho! ho!” laughed Hiram. “I guess you have no idea of what hunting
around the place where the thief landed might mean. If he really had
them and lost them, or hid them, or threw them away, there’s half a
mile of thicket, gully and creek to go over, with about one chance in a
thousand of hitting the right spot. You never ran across such a mixed
up place.”
“It’s because I was once right in it all for a week or more that I got
interested,” explained Bruce.
“Well, there may be something in your idea, Bruce,” admitted Hiram.
“Just now, though, we’ve got more important business on hand. We must
add twenty points to our thirty before sundown, you know.”
“Oh, I hope you make it!” said Bruce ardently. “I’ve been worried ever
since the Syndicate crowd beat in the altitude work.”
“Beat! who’s—beat! what?” almost shouted Hiram, becoming vociferous,
and looking wrathful. “Mr. Brackett and Dave are saying little and
thinking a good deal. They may talk out when the governing committee
passes on the prizes. I’m doing some guessing myself, and I’d give all
I’m worth to see one man for just one minute, and that’s Mr. Borden.”
“Aha!” cried Bruce—“got a secret yourself, have you?”
“Never mind if I have. It isn’t the time to talk about it just yet,”
retorted Hiram mysteriously. “I’ve got some common sense, though, and
lots of confidence in the word of Dave Dashaway. You heard what he told
us about that altitude climate. It nearly finished him, even with that
new oxygen device aboard. He was soaked, frozen, exhausted when he
landed, wasn’t he? And Valdec wasn’t even damp! Again, Dave says he
never caught sight of the _Whirlwind_ over the 7,000 foot level.
There’s another county to hear from!” concluded Hiram, “and I’ve got
something under my hat.”
“What, Hiram?” asked Bruce, but his comrade only laughed, and walked
off to greet Mr. Brackett and Dave, who, at that moment, approached the
hangar.
The mail bag delivery contest was one of several set for that day.
There were only five entries, the _Scout_ being among the number.
Neither Dave nor Valdec were listed as principals, but one of the
Syndicate machines had been entered.
It was in the _Scout_ that its pilot had done his practicing and the
_Ariel_ was not called into service. A crew of two was apportioned to
each machine competing and Dave of course was to take charge of the
wheel.
“Looks like a game of basket ball,” remarked Hiram as they drove the
_Scout_ over to center field.
The grounds had a two mile circular track, being used on other
occasions for motor contests. Around this, and at each corner of the
grounds, poles twenty feet high had been set up. At the top of the
poles were woven baskets about two feet deep and double that width at
their flanging tops.
Poles and baskets were painted white and were conspicuous to the eye
for a long distance. There were some twenty-five of these improvised
postal stations. That number of bags was put in the cockpit of each
machine. Each set was marked with a numeral, those on the _Scout_
bearing the Brackett entrant number, which was five.
The bags had been furnished by the city post office people, were about
two by four feet and filled each with twenty pounds of newspapers and
old envelopes. The time limit on the stunt was one hour.
“It’s going to be interesting,” Mr. Brackett remarked to Bruce
Beresford, who with him occupied an advantageous stall near the central
stand.
“The crowd seems to think so,” replied Bruce. “It’s something new, and
nearly everybody has a score card.”
Bruce himself was prepared to keep “tab” on the mail deliveries. One,
three, five, nine and eleven were in commission, and the machines were
sufficiently varied in construction and appearance to enable even a
novice to identify them separately when in operation. There was valor
and confidence in Hiram’s last hand wave.
“I hope the lad makes his points,” spoke Mr. Brackett.
“It will break his heart if he doesn’t,” declared Bruce. “Why shouldn’t
he, though? He’s ahead of the rest of them on practicing, and he’s got
an expert pilot in his machine.”
“There’s a hit!” cried a voice near them, and necks were craned and
eyes strained to watch a leather bag go tumbling over the edge of
aeroplane number three. It landed directly on the basket aimed at—and
the crowds yelled at this first sample of a new feature in aviatics.
“What’s wrong?” inquired a curious voice.
The guard stationed under the basket where the mail bag had fallen had
stepped slightly away from his post. He had unfurled and was waving a
blue flag.
“It doesn’t count,” guessed Bruce readily. “The machine must have been
under the low level.”
A great laugh next swept the mob of onlookers. The Syndicate biplane
had sent down a bag aimed at another basket. It went so far wide of its
mark that it landed on the shoulders of a “White Wings” man thirty feet
away, knocking off his hat and sending him scampering as though a bomb
had struck him.
“Hiram—good—one!” suddenly yelled Bruce.
“You mean two,” remarked Mr. Brackett quietly a minute later, but with
a slight chuckle of satisfaction.
The _Scout_ had made two deliveries into different baskets true as a
die. Unlike any of the others, the little machine sailed high, and as
it approached a delivery point described a swift swoop. So true were
the calculations of Dave Dashaway, that, directly at the turn of the
volplane Hiram let loose the mail bag, counting on a forward sway of
several feet in the descent.
“Ah—missed! but it hit the edge of the basket,” reported Bruce. Then
the fourth one landed directly within its intended receptacle.
There were generally cheers for the _Scout_, even when Hiram missed on
three deliveries. These, however, never dropped more than five feet
away from the base of the pole, while some of the other contestants saw
their mail bags go half a hundred feet from the goal.
“Seventy mail bags delivered, only thirteen not gone foul, and the
_Scout_ scores seven of them,” cried Bruce, half an hour later.
“There’s a dive for you—oh, grand!”
Three of the contestants with a decidedly poor showing retired from the
field, among them the Syndicate entrant. Nine kept aloft, with three
deliveries to its score.
It seemed as though Dave and Hiram were husbanding their strength for a
final brilliant exploit. The _Scout_ took a backward swing of nearly a
mile. Then at full speed its pilot headed it down the last side of the
long track.
“Eight, nine and ten—oh, they’ve made it!” shouted the delighted Bruce
Beresford. “Thirty and twenty are fifty. Mr. Brackett, we’re even now
with the _Whirlwind_ people!”
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