JIMMIE’S DARING FEAT.
In ten minutes all doubts as to the identity of the aviator were
dissipated by a signal from the sky which the boys all understood.
Besides informing the boys of his presence, the signal also conveyed the
intelligence that he was in need of assistance.
“I wish I had a ladder long enough to reach him!” Jimmie grumbled.
“We’ve got a ladder long enough to reach him!” insisted Carl.
Almost before the words were out of his chum’s mouth, Jimmie was
whirling the wheels of the _Louise_ down the valley so as to get a good
running ground, the machine having been drawn close to the fire after
lighting. Understanding the boy’s purpose, Carl lent a hand, and the
aeroplane was soon facing a clear field.
“What are you boys going to do?” asked Ben.
“We’re going up in the _Louise_ to see what we can do for Mr. Havens!”
Jimmie answered. “Didn’t he say he needed help?”
“You can’t help him after you get up there!” declared Ben.
“We can tell better about that after we get to him.”
“All right, go it!” replied the other. “I’ll remain here and watch the
_Bertha_ and the camp while you’re gone. But look here,” he continued,
“if Mr. Havens is in bad shape, don’t either one of you boys try to
shift over to the _Ann_. If you do, you’ll break your neck.”
The next moment the _Louise_ was in the air, her lights burning
brilliantly. The _Ann_ was still approaching, but staggering as if the
aviator had lost all control. Below the boys saw Ben piling dry pine on
the fire so as to provide a broadly-lighted landing-place for the
oncoming machine.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do when we get up there,” Jimmie
shouted in Carl’s ear, “but there’s one thing sure, and that is that if
we don’t do something Mr. Havens will soon go crashing to the ground!”
The boys were now obliged to give over conversation, for the motors were
in swift motion and the roar of an express train could hardly have been
heard above the sparking.
When at last they came close to the _Ann_ and swung about so as to move
with her, they saw Mr. Havens sitting limply in the aviator’s seat. His
chin was lowered upon his breast, and he appeared to be too weak or too
dazed in mind to look up as the _Louise_ swept past him, whirled and
moved along directly above him.
The boys saw that the great machine was rapidly getting beyond his
control. Had he understood the nature of the ground below, he might have
shut off his motors and volplaned down, but they understood, of course,
that the dark surface below was unknown territory to him.
For some reason, probably because the disabled aviator had realized that
he was fast reaching his objective point and shut the motors down to
half power, the _Ann_ was not making good speed. The _Louise_ slowed
down so as to keep exact step with her and Jimmie bent over in his seat
and looked past the edge of the upper plane to the framework and
propeller of the _Ann_. Directly he sent the _Louise_ faster for a
second and looked under the edge of the _Ann’s_ upper wing to the vacant
seat at the left of the aviator.
“Do you think,” he shrilled into Carl’s ear, “that I could get down into
that seat?”
“Of course you can’t!” answered Carl.
“I could if I had a rope!” insisted Jimmie.
“There’s a rope in the box under your seat,” Carl replied, “but there’s
no need of your attempting suicide!”
“Now, look here!” Jimmie argued, speaking very slowly and shouting to
the full capacity of his lungs in order to make his chum hear his words,
“if you can hold this machine steadily above the _Ann_, without varying
half an inch in her pace, I can drop past the upper plane of the lower
machine, light on the framework, and climb into that seat.”
“No one ever heard of such a thing being done!” declared Carl.
Before the words were out of Carl’s mouth, Jimmie had the rope in his
hands. He fastened it securely to the framework of the _Louise_ and
dropped one end down.
“Now,” he called to Carl, “unless you hold the _Louise_ exactly right,
you’ll get the rope tangled in the _Ann’s_ propeller, and then it will
be all up with all of us!”
The boy’s face was pale as death as, motioning Carl to shift his weight
as much as possible so as to prevent the _Louise_ swaying when he
changed his position, the boy took hold of the rope and lowered himself.
In a second he felt his body brushing against the framework of the
_Ann’s_ top wing. Then the rope began twisting and untwisting under his
weight, and he whirled round and round like a top, until he became
possessed by a feeling of dizziness.
He could see the ground, red with firelight, where the tents were and
nothing else. He sensed that both machines were passing over the camp.
At last, after what seemed to him an eternity, the twisting rope brought
him face to the vacant seat and to the disabled aviator, whose hands
were limply touching the levers.
When at last the boy’s feet touched the framework and he let go of the
rope to cling to the edge of the plane, it seemed that the swaying of
the machine must certainly throw him to the ground. However, he steadied
himself for an instant, lowered himself at the knees and half fell
forward clutching the seat when his outstretched hands came to it.
For a moment it did not seem possible that he was ever to recover his
faculties again. Everything was in a whirl. The stars in the sky, the
red light of the camp-fire on the cliff to the east, the dark bulk of
the mountains farther away, all seemed mixed in a great jumble, in which
nothing was distinct and everything seemed to be mixed with everything
else.
When his mind cleared he saw that Mr. Havens’ hands were dropping from
the levers. Another instant of indecision or inactivity would have
brought death to them both. He seized the levers, and the _Ann_ swung
upward again, steady as the hands on the dial under his confident touch.
The rope which he had used still hung down from the _Louise_ and,
reaching forward, he gave it several quick jerks to indicate that he was
safe. Then he saw the _Louise_ shoot ahead, and knew that Carl was
looking back toward him. The rope had been drawn up as soon as his
signals had been received. The warning against permitting it to become
entangled in the propellers of the _Ann_ had been remembered by Carl.
Both machines were now some distance west of the camp-fire, but the boys
came slowly around and dropped. During the last few yards of the
slanting journey through the dark air, Jimmie was obliged to steady Mr.
Havens in his seat. When at last the strain was over and the great
flying machines lay on the rich grass below, the millionaire aviator
fairly fell from his seat.
When Carl and Ben came forward to greet Jimmie, their faces were as
white as snow. Their hands trembled as they extended them to the boy.
“He would do it!” Carl exclaimed. “I tried to get him not to!”
“Some one had to do it!” declared Jimmie, pointing significantly to the
huddled figure on the ground by the side of the _Ann_.
“It’s a wonder you didn’t kill yourself and Mr. Havens and Carl also,”
exclaimed Ben. “Why, look here, boys,” he went on with a trembling
voice, “if that rope had swung out a few inches farther, you would have
been ground to pieces in the propellers, and the _Ann_ would have
dropped to the ground like a stone! The rope you held would have drawn
the _Louise_ down with you! It was an awful risk to take!”
“If I hadn’t taken it,” Jimmie answered, “Mr. Havens would have fallen
from his seat. His hands were dropping from the levers when I reached
his side. Five seconds more and he would have gone down.”
“In all the history of aviation,” Ben declared, “nothing of that kind
was ever done before! The wildest imagination cannot conceive of a
person leaving one machine and taking a position on another while in the
air! It is an unheard-of thing.”
“Well, it’s been done once!” declared Jimmie. “And it may be done again.
And now, if you’ve got all the kinks out of your system, perhaps you’d
better help me take Mr. Havens into one of the tents.”
“I can’t lift a pound!” declared Carl. “I thought for a second that
Jimmie had been obliged to let go of the rope and drop!”
Ben and Jimmie lifted the millionaire aviator, now almost unconscious,
and carried him into one of the shelter-tents. His face was very pale
and his breathing was uncertain.
“I don’t see what’s the matter with him,” Jimmie exclaimed after
examining the man’s head and breast. “There is no wound here that I can
find!”
Then Ben pointed to the aviator’s feet.
“Strange we didn’t notice those before!” he said.
“What’s the matter?” demanded Jimmie with a shudder. “Have his feet been
cut off?”
The aviator wore no shoes, and his feet were closely wrapped in bandages
which had evidently been made from one of the blankets carried in the
store-box of the _Ann_. The bandages were stiff with congealed blood.
Ben began to remove the cords which held the bandages in place, but
Jimmie motioned him away.
“We’ll have to get hot water before we can get those off!” the boy said.
“We’ll need plenty of hot water, anyway, so you’d better go and tell
Carl to put on the big kettle.”
While Ben was gone, Mr. Havens opened his eyes. He glanced around the
tent and smiled when his eyes encountered those of his companions.
“Did I fall?” he asked faintly.
“I should say not!” was the reply. “I guess if you’d had a tumble out of
the air, you wouldn’t be lying here in this tent, able to talk, would
you? You’d be all smashed up on the rocks!”
“I felt myself falling!” insisted the aviator.
“That was after the machine landed,” Jimmie explained.
“Did some one get into the seat with me?” the voice went on weakly.
“Why, sure!” replied Jimmie. “I dropped over into the seat and we came
down together. Don’t you remember that?”
“I do not!” smiled the aviator.
“We saw something was the matter with you,” Jimmie went on, “and so Carl
and I went up to see what caused the _Ann_ to reel along like a drunken
sailor. We got there just in time!”
“I was weak from loss of blood,” replied Mr. Havens. “I camped last
night in a valley occupied by hosts of yellow-haired porcupines.”
“I’ve heard of ’em,” Jimmie grinned.
“In the night,” the injured man went on, “I got out of my sleeping bag
to mend the fire and stepped on a whole host of the fellows, cutting my
feet into ribbons, almost.”
“Wouldn’t they get out of the way?” asked the boy.
“They never get out of the way!” was the answer. “Instead, they will
walk in a man’s path, like a pet kitten, and refuse to turn aside.”
“Did you get the quills all out of your feet?”
“I don’t know whether I did or not. They bled terribly, and I am now in
great pain with them. You boys will have to find out about that later
on! I’m too tired now to talk.”
Ben now brought a kettle of blood-warm water while Carl appeared with a
cup of strong coffee. After the aviator had swallowed the coffee, the
bandages were removed and his feet carefully examined. There were many
quills still in the flesh, they having worked in instead of out, as is
usual in such cases. These had caused the bleeding to continue, and this
in a measure accounted for Mr. Havens’ weakened condition.
By midnight the aviator was able to sit up and listen to the story of
the two visitors.
“I quite agree with you,” he said, after Ben had concluded the recital,
“there is no doubt in my mind that the men are simply mountain bums. And
I’m afraid that we’ll have trouble with them in future. These machines
must be guarded night and day!”
“How long are we going to stay in this blooming old valley?” asked
Jimmie. “I’d rather be sailing over the mountains!”
“You can go sailing over the mountains to-night if you want to,” Carl
chuckled, pointing, “there seems to be a beacon fire waiting for you!”