THE ARMY AIRSHIP.
Lieutenant Duvall proved as good as his word. One afternoon, not long
before cold weather set in in real earnest, Rob received word that if,
on the ensuing Saturday, he and his two chums would call at the old
mansion they would be enabled to see for themselves the aeroplane with
which the army was experimenting, Lieutenant Duvall having been selected
to make the tests. If the weather proved right, the note added, there
was even a possibility that a short flight might be attempted, just to
show the boys something of the newest idea in army equipment.
“Gee, I envy you fellows,” said Paul Perkins wistfully, when he heard of
the contemplated excursion. “I’d give anything to see an aeroplane in
action.”
“Maybe you will get a chance,” said Rob kindly, and when the banker’s
son reached home that night he ’phoned to Lieutenant Duvall to know if
he could bring along a member of the Eagle Patrol who was deeply
interested in aeronautics. The reply was in the affirmative, and Paul’s
delight was huge when he received word that he could be one of the
party.
“I never saw a real aeroplane except in a picture before,” he exclaimed,
“and if I can get a good look at one, I’m going to try to work out an
idea I’ve got in my head.”
“What’s that, Mister Edison, Junior?” teased Tubby.
The boys were gathered in the wagon shed in which the wonderful, though
untried, motor-scooter stood, awaiting the days when the Inlet would be
frozen over for its trial trip.
“Well,” said Paul, rather diffidently, “I’m afraid you fellows will
laugh at me if I tell you what it is.”
“No, we won’t,” Merritt assured him, tossing the core of a red-checked
apple out of the open door.
“We’ll be mum as oysters,” chimed in Rob. “Go ahead, Paul, unfold thy
mar-velous plan.”
“It’s a sort of variation on the ice motor car,” explained Paul. “It
came to me last year when we were sledding down Jones’s hill outside the
village. It’s just this, why couldn’t a fellow fit a sled with a pair of
wings?”
“Gee whiz!” groaned Tubby, pretending to roll off the empty nail keg on
which he was seated, and tapping his forehead meaningly. “Another bright
young mind gone—clean gone.”
“Go ahead, Paul. Never mind him. He’s got a rush of fat to the head,”
laughed Merritt reassuringly, for the diffident Paul had stopped and
colored up at the stout youth’s ridicule.
“You know,” explained Paul, “that a sled gets an awful impetus on a long
glide down a hill. Now, if only one could fix wings or planes to it
firmly enough, and equip it with a balancing tail, I don’t see why you
couldn’t make a skimmer.”
“Well, you might do it if you didn’t break your neck first,” chuckled
Tubby. “Guess I’ll stick to the earth for a while.”
“You’re too fat to do anything else,” chortled Rob. “But seriously,
Paul, the idea sounds as if it might be worked out. Maybe the aeroplane
will give you some ideas.”
“I hope so,” said Paul. “I’d like to try it as soon as we get any
sleighing.”
“Boo-hoo! Boo-hoo!” burst out Tubby, rocking back and forth. “And he’s
so young to die!”
When the laugh, in which Paul could not help joining, had subsided, Rob
spoke up.
“Seen any more of Freeman Hunt’s father?” he asked.
“Not a sign of him,” rejoined Paul. “I guess he’s given up the idea of
getting an interest in my machine. What worries me a whole lot, though,
is that I’ve heard nothing more from Washington.”
“Cheer up!” comforted Rob. “I’ve heard my dad say that it takes a year
to do in Washington what could be done anywhere else in a month.”
“That’s why it takes the Washingtons so long to get within peeking view
of the pennant,” chuckled Tubby, who was a close student of baseball
scores.
With what anxiety the weather was watched on the Saturday upon which the
visit to the old mansion was to be paid may be imagined. To the boys’
delight, it dawned fair and clear, with just enough of a sharp tang in
the air to make it pleasant. The boys had an early lunch and then set
out for the place.
“Too bad the inlet isn’t frozen, and then we could skim along in Paul’s
wonderful wind-jammer,” grumbled Tubby, who was somewhat averse to
walking.
It so happened that their way lay past the farm of Jack Curtiss, and, as
they passed it, they saw that hulking lad strolling about the place,
smoking a cigarette. In the rear of the comfortable, old-fashioned
house, his father could also be seen, hard at work splitting and piling
wood with the hired man to help him.
Curtiss stared at the lads as they swung by, but made no move to come
toward them. By this time he, of course, knew how the adventure of the
attack of Dugan and the Jap had turned out, and seemingly he had no wish
to test the lads’ knowledge of who had instigated it.
About half a mile beyond the Curtiss farm lay the estate of one Horatio
Jeffords, among whose possessions was a large and ferocious bull, which
had given trouble on more than one occasion to passers by. For this
reason, Jeffords usually kept him tied up. As the boys swung around a
turn in the road and the stone-walled way lay straight in front of them
for some distance, they perceived, running toward them at top speed, two
girls.
“Those girls are running as if they were scared of something,” exclaimed
Merritt, as they came rushing toward the boys.
The words had hardly left his lips before the lads saw what had alarmed
them. Galloping across the field, with head lowered and froth flecking
from his mouth, was Horatio Jeffords’ savage bull. He was emitting angry
roars as he dashed on toward the girls, one of whom, the boys could now
see, was wearing a red sweater.
“Oh, the bull! The bull! He’ll kill us!” they cried shrilly as they
neared the boys.
Indeed it looked as if the creature was bent on inflicting serious
injury upon the wearer of the flaming article of wear, which had first
attracted his attention.
He leaped the low stone wall separating the pasture lot from the road as
nimbly as if he had been a three-year-old colt. Then on he came, his
alarming bellow ringing out shrilly and angrily. In a few seconds he was
not more than a few feet behind the girls.
With a wild cry one of them stumbled and fell, and the next instant the
infuriated creature would have been upon her, goring her and stamping
out her life. But a sudden interruption occurred.
A boyish figure, with coat off and waving his hand, made a rapid leap
forward, and before the amazed bull could turn to attack this new foe,
his vision was suddenly blindfolded.
A coat had been thrown with deadly accuracy through the air and had
settled on the animal’s horns. Its folds hung down over his eyes,
bewildering him and shutting off his sight. The animal shook his head
and emitted angry roars, but the more he endeavored to throw the coat
off, the closer it hung to his horns.
“Get the girls out of the way!” shouted Rob, as coatless and flushed
with his brave exertion, he stood in the center of the road. But Merritt
and Tubby already had one girl upon her feet, and the other stood a
short distance down the road. Both were pale and trembling at the
imminence of the danger they had escaped.
“Oh, thank you!” exclaimed the girl whom Rob had saved by his quick
presence of mind. The bull, with a wild bellow, swung round and went
staggering off in the opposite direction, trying in vain to rid himself
of the bewildering coat.
“At least—that is, I mean to say, I don’t know how to thank you,” she
went on.
“Oh, glad to have been of service,” said Rob gallantly, as the other
girl came up and began adding her thanks and praise to that of her
companion.
“If you hadn’t worn that red sweater, you wouldn’t have attracted his
attention,” quoth Tubby sagely.
“I know, but they are the fashion this fall, and, then, too, we had no
idea that a wild bull would be rushing around loose like that.”
“I think I know who you boys are,” said the wearer of the red sweater,
who now seemed quite recovered from her fright. “You are Rob Blake and
Tub—Mr. Hopkins and Merritt Crawford.”
“And Paul Perkins, the well-known inventor,” grinned Tubby.
“I guess you have the advantage of us,” rejoined Rob.
The girl laughed merrily at his embarrassment.
“I am Dale Harding’s sister,” she said. “I only got home from the West
two days ago, and my friend is a sister of Freeman Hunt’s.”
“Wow!” Tubby exclaimed, in low voice. Then he went on: “I don’t believe
Miss Hunt has been here very long.”
“No, indeed. I only arrived about a week ago,” said the young lady
herself. “I have been at a finishing school up the Hudson. I think it’s
much nicer here, though,” she added.
“Not if you have many more experiences like that,” laughed Rob.
“Oh, I don’t know. If there are always some nice boys about to help us,
I shouldn’t mind, should you, May?”
“Not a bit,” confessed Dale Harding’s sister. “But come Helen, we must
be walking on or we shall be late for that appointment.”
At this juncture, Horatio Jeffords himself, red-faced and panting, came
in view. He was carrying Rob’s coat.
“Cal-kerlated I’d ketch yer here,” he puffed. “I’m glad you kep’ that
pesky Hercules from doin’ any harm. Had him tied up and can’t figure how
in Sam Hill he got erway.”
He handed the coat to Rob, explaining that the bull had caught it in
some brambles and shaken it off.
“I hope he is safely tied up now,” said Helen Hunt. “I thought every
minute the dreadful creature would toss me on his horns.”
“The men hev got him up ter ther barn,” Jeffords assured her. “I’ll
hitch him with er chain this time, you kin bet yer boots.”
Soon after the two parties separated, the girls hastening toward Hampton
and the boys walking off with Farmer Jeffords, as he was going in their
direction a short distance.
“What nice boys,” said Helen, as she and May Harding walked along. “Not
a bit like what our brothers told us about them.”
“I told you when they were pointed out to us at the post office last
night that they couldn’t be as mean as Freeman and Dale tried to make
out,” responded Helen. “They are awfully brave, too.”
“I hope we’ll get to know them better,” went on Dale Harding’s sister.
“If it depends on our brothers we won’t,” Helen Hunt assured her.
In the meantime, the boys had parted from Farmer Jeffords.
“Say, those girls are all right,” declared Rob enthusiastically, as they
strode on.
“Ho! ho! ho!” laughed Tubby. “Rob is smitten.”
“You needn’t talk,” retorted Rob, with a red face. “You were bowing and
scraping around like a dancing master yourself. Yes, and Merritt, too.”
“I was only trying to be polite,” protested Merritt indignantly.
“Pity they’re not somebody else’s sisters,” grunted Tubby mischievously,
dodging a clip on the ear which Rob reached out to give him.
It was not long before the dark hemlocks of the De Regny mansion came
into view. From the summit of the little hill on which they stood the
boys could see the broad, smooth terrace and the sparkle of the sea
beyond. Hardly a breath stirred the air.
“Guess we’ll have a flight, all right,” exclaimed Paul Perkins
enthusiastically. “Look! They’re busy down yonder.”
Sure enough they could see several small speck-like figures moving about
below them, opening the big double doors of the green shed.
“Race you to the bottom of the hill!” shouted Rob, and off dashed the
Boy Scouts, running as if their lives depended on it.