SOMETHING WRONG
Dave was a good deal disheartened. It was several hours after his
meeting with the two persons he wished most to avoid. And now Dave was a
prisoner.
He sat crowded up on the back seat of a rickety old wagon, covered with
canvas top and sides, and boarded up at the back. Beside him was his
foxy-eyed, ferret-faced guardian, old Silas Warner. On the front seat,
acting as driver, was the Brookville sheriff. Around Dave’s wrist was
what is called a “come-along,” or rope handcuff, its two crossed stay
pieces of wood being held tightly by the watchful, sleepless Warner.
The way this had all come about seemed like a dream to Dave. The instant
that his guardian and the sheriff had recognized the runaway they were
seeking, they had pounced down upon poor Dave like hungry wolves.
Silas Warner held our hero while the sheriff hurried out into the main
room of the station. He spoke a few words to the police clerk, and then
Dave was led out of the place, both men holding tightly to him, and soon
found himself in a room in a cheap boarding house.
Dave had tried to expostulate, to explain. His jubilant captors had
refused to listen to him. He had frantically begged of them to allow him
to send word to some friends, to take a simple message to the police
lieutenant.
“Don’t trust him for a minute, Daniel Jackson,” his guardian shouted to
the sheriff. “You know what a slippery one he is.”
“But it’s important,” pleaded Dave. “A fellow robbed me. He must be
caught.”
“All a pack of lies,” declared old Warner. “Don’t trust him or listen to
him, Sheriff. He’s trying to get his friends to rescue him, trying to
put on time to delay us, and slip.”
“Oh, indeed, no,” answered Dave desperately.
“Shut up. Sheriff, we’ll make our plans, and bundle this boy back to
Brookville quick as we can get him there.”
Over Dave the sheriff kept close watch and ward while Warner went away
to make arrangements of which Dave learned later. It was long after
midnight when these plans were perfected. By that time, from the
conversation of the two men, Dave found out a great deal that was new to
him, and astonished him not a little.
It seemed that by the sheerest accident the two men had come across Dave
at a time when they were on their way to Dayton to arrest him. They were
on their way to that city, because Jerry Dawson had written Warner that
there he would find his runaway ward.
This was the reason why Jerry had boasted to Dave that he would not make
any more air flights. His crony, Brooks, had overheard Dave tell Hiram
all about his guardian and the circumstances of his leaving home, and
the mean-spirited Jerry had been quick to take advantage of the chance
to get his rival into trouble.
It seemed that Warner, with his usual miserly penuriousness had hired
the sheriff to “work cheap.” They had got as far as Genoa through
“lifts” in various farm wagons. They had taken the cheapest lodgings
that evening they could find. The sheriff and Warner happened to be at
the police station, because the former had a slight acquaintance with
the lieutenant, and was waiting to see him when Dave arrived.
Silas Warner had managed to hire a sorry nag and a miserable wreck of an
old milk wagon to convey them back to Brookville. Dave’s feelings may be
imagined when he found himself in the clutches of the enemy. He had been
in torment to think that Hiram and the chauffeur would wait for him
vainly. He wondered what Mr. King would think of this second unusual
absence. Most of all, poor Dave nearly wept when a thought of the great
air race of the morrow came into his mind. He would miss the grand event
in which he had hoped to take so proud a part.
“It’s awful, just awful,” reflected Dave, feeling well-nigh crushed,
“and no hope of my getting any word of explanation to my friends.”
It must have been two o’clock in the morning when the wagon come to a
halt. Dave had caught sight of lights ahead on the road as they jogged
along. Then strains of music grew plainer. The shouts of merry makers
filled the air.
It appeared that they had reached a roadhouse with a dancing pavilion
and park attached to it, much in favor with excursion parties from the
country around. Outside of the place stood a hayrack with four horses
attached.
“Horse needs a rest, Warner,” the sheriff declared, “and some
refreshment wouldn’t hurt you and me, hey?”
“Nothing for me, Sheriff, nothing for me,” the miserly old fellow was
quick to retort. “Of course you can buy what you want—with your own
money.”
“Just so. Well, I’ll stretch my limbs a little and sort of see what that
jolly crowd is up to.”
The old man kept his tight hold on Dave. He would silence the youth
every time the latter tried to talk or reason with him or question him.
With low mutterings and chuckles he hinted that the law would see to it
that Dave did not again “desert his comfortable home.”
It was fully four o’clock when the sheriff came back to the wagon. He
pulled himself up into the seat like an overfed porpoise.
“Just going to break up, that crowd,” he observed, “and having a great
time. I wish I was young again. Get up, there,” he added to the horse.
Dave made up his mind that he would be given no chance to escape, at
least during the trip to Brookville.
There came a rumbling behind them as the horse was plodding along a
narrow country road with a deep ditch on either side of it. Then singing
voices broke the silence. The party from the roadhouse was homeward
bound.
The road twisted and turned. At its narrowest part, before the
sleepy-headed driver could realize it, the great loaded hayrack wagon
lumbered by. Its side grazed the inside wheels of the wagon the sheriff
was driving.
“Hey, look out!” yelled the officer.
Derisive shouts answered him. There was a crash, a tip over, and down
the embankment went horse, wagon and passengers. The hayrack crowd
indulged in mocking cat calls as if it was a great joke, and went on
without anybody trying to find out what damage had been done.
The horse broke loose from the rotten old shafts of the wagon before it
rolled over twice. The frame of the box cover was crushed in and the
wooden end was reduced to kindling wood.
Dave was jerked free from his guardian, rope handcuff and all. He landed
in a great clump of bushes, was slightly jarred, and lay there for a
minute or two.
“The scoundrels!” roared the sheriff, extricating himself from a nest of
brambles. “What you whining about, Warner?”
“I’ve torn my best coat all down the back, and I’ve got a lump on my
head big as a goose egg.”
“How’s the prisoner?”
“Hi, whoop! That’s so, Sheriff, he’s sloped.”
“What! after all our trouble?”
That was enough to rouse up Dave. Now was his chance. Day was just
breaking, but it was dark and dim down in the ditch. On hands and knees,
bending down low, the boy crept along its windings. Where the road
turned and the ditch followed it, he felt safe in rising to his feet and
starting on a keen run.
Dave did not venture to climb up to the road as yet. His late captors
would certainly make some kind of a search for him. He kept on running
along in the dry ditch, out of view from the road. Its bottom was rock
strewn, and several times his feet became tangled up in trailing vines.
Finally, all unaware of what he was heading into, Dave plunged into a
maze of bushes to take a direct tumble where the ditch dropped suddenly
nearly a dozen feet.
It was a gravel pit Dave had fallen into, and a heavy tree stump lay at
its bottom. Dave’s head struck this as he landed, and he was stunned.
He was conscious of partially rousing a little later. In a dreamy, dazed
way the main idea in his mind was that he was very sleepy. Dave passed
into another spell of insensibility. He awoke with a start finally, to
find the sun shining brightly on his face.
“Oh, the mischief!” exclaimed Dave, as he realized that the day was
several hours old.
The boy felt of his head. He found a lump there, but he was as bright as
a dollar otherwise. He was immensely satisfied to find himself free. If
his late captors had searched for him, they had looked in the wrong
direction.
Dave got up on the roadway and looked up and down it. No one was in
sight. He crossed it, plunged through the timber, and reaching a north
and south road faced the sun on a pretty good sprint.
Dave wondered what had become of his guardian, and the sheriff, and the
wrecked milk wagon. It seemed certain that sooner or later his enemies
would look for him at Dayton. The lad did not mind that so much just
now. He had great faith in Mr. King, and he believed that the airman
would find some way to circumvent his enemies.
“It’s missing the race that makes me feel bad,” ruminated Dave. “Of
course they’ll find a substitute to take my place.”
A mile down the road Dave came to a farmhouse. The men folks were out in
the field and the mistress was just washing up her breakfast dishes. She
prepared a hasty meal for Dave, which refreshed him considerably. She
directed him to the nearest town, gave him a clear idea of his bearings,
and told him it was nine o’clock.
“They are just starting at the meet,” said Dave rather mournfully, as he
proceeded on his way. “That lady said Clyde is two miles ahead. Why, I
remember now, Clyde is one of the towns on the route of the one hundred
mile dash. Some of the contestants ought to be passing over the place
inside of the next fifteen minutes.”
A farmer came along in a light wagon and gave Dave a lift. Just as they
drove into Clyde, the man made the sudden remark:
“There’s one of them airships.”
Over towards the southeast a whizzing monoplane was speeding on its way.
“The race is on,” decided Dave.
“There’s another!” cried his companion, and stopped his wagon and got
out. Dave followed his example, thanked him for the lift, and, looking
upwards, walked on to a rise where he could get a better view of the air
movements.
In turn four machines came into view. One or two of them were near
enough for Dave to recognize. A queer qualm came over him as a fifth
machine drove a course directly over the town.
“The racing monoplane I was to have run,” he said breathlessly. “I
wonder who has taken my place? Hello—something wrong!”
Like a soaring eagle suddenly wounded, the monoplane dropped one wing.
It curvetted under a manipulation of the rudder. Then with no reason
apparent for the strange movement, the monoplane tilted at a sharp
angle.
“He’s gone—it’s a smash up!” shouted Dave in a transport of the wildest
anxiety and alarm.
To a casual observance the daring airman aloft was simply giving
spectators a stock thrill. Dave realized instantly that something was
wrong.
To him it was apparent that the operator of the racing monoplane had
unaccountably lost entire control of his machine, and was headed for
sure destruction.
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