Produced by Roger Frank, Juliet Sutherland and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
[Illustration: THE RACING STAR PASSED TWO OF THE CONTESTANTS (Page 172)]
Airship Andy
Or
The Luck of a Brave Boy
BY
Frank V. Webster
AUTHOR OF "ONLY A FARM BOY," "BOB THE CASTAWAY,"
"COMRADES OF THE SADDLE," "TOM THE TELEPHONE BOY," ETC.
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
BOOKS FOR BOYS
By FRANK V. WEBSTER
12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.
ONLY A FARM BOY
TOM, THE TELEPHONE BOY
THE BOY FROM THE RANCH
THE YOUNG TREASURE HUNTER
BOB, THE CASTAWAY
THE YOUNG FIREMEN OF LAKEVILLE
THE NEWSBOY PARTNERS
THE BOY PILOT OF THE LAKES
TWO BOY GOLD MINERS
JACK, THE RUNAWAY
COMRADES OF THE SADDLE
THE BOYS OF BELLWOOD SCHOOL
THE HIGH SCHOOL RIVALS
AIRSHIP ANDY
BOB CHESTER'S GRIT
BEN HARDY'S FLYING MACHINE
DICK, THE BANK BOY
DARRY, THE LIFE SAVER
Cupples & Leon Co., Publishers, New York
Copyright, 1911, by
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
AIRSHIP ANDY
Printed in U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I The Young Chauffeur 1
II Breaking Away 11
III Runaway and Rover 21
IV Down the River 30
V Tramping It 38
VI The Sky Rider 48
VII John Parks, Airship King 55
VIII The Aero Field 61
IX The Airship Inventor 67
X Learning To Fly 74
XI Spying on the Enemy 82
XII Traced Down 88
XIII Jiu-jitsu 99
XIV The Old Leather Pocketbook 108
XV Behind the Bars 115
XVI Bail Wanted 124
XVII A True Friend 132
XVIII Out on Bail 138
XIX A Disappointment 145
XX A New Captivity 153
XXI A Friend in Need 161
XXII "Go!" 169
XXIII The Great Race 175
XXIV A Hopeful Clew 183
XXV Good-by to Airship Andy 195
AIRSHIP ANDY
CHAPTER I--THE YOUNG CHAUFFEUR
"Hand over that money, Andy Nelson."
"Not on this occasion."
"It isn't yours."
"Who said it was?"
"It belongs to the business. If my father was here he'd make you give it
up mighty quick. I represent him during his absence, don't I? Come, no
fooling; I'll take charge of that cash."
"You won't, Gus Talbot. The man that lost that money was my customer,
and it goes back to him and no one else."
Gus Talbot was the son of the owner of Talbot's Automobile Garage, at
Princeville. He was a genuine chip off the old block, people said,
except that he loafed while his father really worked. In respect to
shrewd little business tricks, however, the son stood on a par with the
father. He had just demonstrated this to Andy Nelson, and was trying his
usual tactics of bluff and bluster. These did not work with Andy,
however, who was the soul of honor, and the insolent scion of the Talbot
family now faced his father's hired boy highly offended and decidedly
angry.
Andy Nelson was a poor lad. He was worse off than that, in fact, for he
was homeless and friendless. He could not remember his parents. He had a
faint recollection of knocking about the country until he was ten years
of age with a man who called himself his half-brother. Then this same
relative placed him in a cheap boarding school where Andy had to work
for a part of his keep. About a year previous to the opening of our
story, Dexter Nelson appeared at the school and told Andy he would have
to shift entirely for himself.
He found Andy a place with an old farmer on the outskirts of
Princeville. Andy was not cut out for hoeing and plowing. He was willing
and energetic, however, and the old farmer liked him immensely, for Andy
saved his oldest boy from drowning in the creek, and was kind and
lovable to the farmer's several little children. But one day the old man
told Andy plainly that he could not reconcile his conscience by spoiling
a bright future for him, and explained why.
"If I was running a wagon-shop, lad," he said enthusiastically, "I'd
make you head foreman. Somehow, you've got machinery born in your blood,
I think. The way you've pottered over that old rack of mine, shows how
you like to dabble with tools. The way you fixed up that old
washing-machine for marm proves that you know your business. Tell you,
lad, it's a crying wrong to waste your time on the farm when you've got
that busy head of yours running over with cogs, and screws, and wheels
and such."
All this had led to Andy looking around for other employment. The old
farmer was quite right--Andy's natural field was mechanics. He felt
pretty happy the day he was accepted as the hired boy in Seth Talbot's
garage.
That position was not secured without a great deal of fuss and bother on
the part of Talbot, however. The latter was a hard task-master. He
looked his prospective apprentice over as he would a new tool he was
buying. He offered a mere beggarly pittance of wages, barely enough to
keep body and soul together, and "lodgings," as he called it, on a
broken-down cot in a dark, cramped lumber-room. Then he insisted on Andy
getting somebody to "guarantee" him.
"I'll have no boy taking advantage of me," he declared; "learning the
secrets of the trade, and bouncing off and leaving me in the lurch
whenever it suits him. No sir-ree. If you come with me, it's a contract
for two years' service, or I don't want you. When I was a boy they
'prenticed a lad, and you knew where you could put your finger on him.
It ought to be the law now."
Fortunately, Andy's half-brother happened to pass through the village
about that time. He "guaranteed" Andy in some manner satisfactory to the
garage proprietor, and Andy went to work at his new employment.
Talbot had formerly been in the hardware business. He seemed to think
that this entitled him to know everything that appertained to iron and
steel. When roller skating became a fad, he had sold out his business,
built a big rink, and in a year was stranded high and dry. The bicycle
fever caught him next, but he went into it just as everybody else was
getting out of it. The result was another failure.
Now he had been in the automobile business for about six months. He had
bought an old ramshackly paint-shop on the main street of the town, and
had fixed it up so that it was quite presentable as a garage.
There were not many resident owners of automobiles in Princeville. Just
at its outskirts, however, along the shore of a pretty lake, were the
homes of some retired city folks. During the vacation months a good many
people having machines summered at the town. Some of them stored their
automobiles at the garage. Talbot claimed to do expert repairing, and as
a good road ran through Princeville he managed to do some business with
transient customers who came along.
Before he had been in the garage twenty-four hours, Andy was amazed and
disgusted at the clumsy clap-trap repairing work that Talbot did. He
half-mended breaks and leaks that would not last till a car reached its
destination. He put in inferior parts, and on one occasion Andy saw his
employer substitute an old tire for one almost new.
Andy tried to remedy all this. He was at home with tools, and inside of
a week he was thoroughly familiar with every part of an automobile. He
induced Talbot to send to the city for many important little adjuncts to
ready repairing, and his employer soon realized that he had a treasure
in his new assistant.
He did not, however, manifest it by any exhibition of liberality. In
fact, as the days wore on Andy's tasks were piled up mountain high, and
Talbot became a merciless tyrant in his bearing. Once when Andy earned a
double fee by getting out of bed at midnight and hauling into town a car
stuck in a mud-hole, he promised Andy a raise in salary and a new suit
the next week. This promise, however, Talbot at once proceeded to
forget.
It was Andy who was responsible for nearly doubling the income of his
hard task-master. He heard of a big second-hand tourist car in the city,
holding some thirty people, and told Talbot about it. The latter bought
it for a song, and every Saturday, and sometimes several days in the
week, the car earned big money taking visitors sight-seeing around the
lake or conveying villagers to the woods on picnic parties.
Later Andy struck a great bargain in two old cars that were offered for
sale by a resident who was going to Europe. He influenced Talbot to
advertise these for rent by the day or hour, and the garage began to
thrive as a real money-making business.
This especial morning Andy had arisen as usual at five o'clock. He
cooked his own meals on a little oil-stove in the lumber room behind the
garage, and after a cup of coffee and some broiled ham and bread and
butter, went to work cleaning up three machines that rented space.
It was a few minutes before six o'clock, and just after the morning
train from the city had steamed into town and out of it again, when a
well-dressed man, carrying a light overcoat over one arm and a satchel,
rushed through the open door of the garage.
"Hey!" he hailed. "They told me at the depot I could hire an automobile
here."
"Yes, sir," replied Andy promptly.
"I want to cut across the country and catch the Macon train on the
Central. There's just forty-five minutes to do it in."
"I can do it in twenty," announced Andy with confidence. "Jump in, sir."
In less than two minutes they were off, and the young chauffeur proved
his agility and handiness with the machine in so rapid and clever a way,
that his fare nodded and smiled his approval as they skimmed the smooth
country road on a test run.
Andy made good his promise. It was barely half-past six when, with a
honk-honk! to warn a clumsy teamster ahead of him, he ran the machine
along the side of the depot platform at Macon.
"How much?" inquired his passenger, leaping out and reaching into his
vest pocket.
"Our regular rate is two dollars an hour," explained Andy.
"There's five--never mind the change," interrupted the gentleman. "And
here's a trifle for yourself for being wide-awake while most people are
asleep."
"Oh, thank you, sir!" exclaimed Andy, overjoyed, but the man disappeared
with a pleasant wave of his hand before the boy could protest against
such unusual generosity.
Andy's eyes glowed with pleasure and his heart warmed up as he stowed
the handsome five-dollar tip into his little purse containing a few
silver pieces. He had never had so much money all his own at any time in
his life. Once a tourist in settling a day's jaunt with Talbot in Andy's
presence had added a two-dollar bill for his chauffeur, but this Talbot
had immediately shoved into his money drawer without even a later
reference to it.
Andy got back to the garage before seven o'clock. He whistled cheerily
as he made a notation on the book of his fare and the collection,
unlocked the desk, put the five dollars in the tin cash box, and
relocked the desk.
Then he busied himself cleaning up the machine that had just made such a
successful spin, for the roads were pretty dusty. As he pulled out the
carpet of the tonneau to shake, something fell to the floor.
It was an old worn flat leather pocketbook. In a flash Andy guessed that
his recent passenger had accidentally dropped it in the car.
He opened it in some excitement. It had a deep flap on one side. From
this protruded the edges of a dozen crisp new banknotes. Andy ran them
over quickly.
"Two hundred dollars!" he exclaimed.
"What's that?" spoke a sharp, greedy voice at his ear.
It was Gus Talbot, his employer's son, who had just appeared on the
scene. It was pretty early for him, for Gus paraded as the cashier of
his father's business and stayed around the garage on an average of
about three hours a day. Most of his time was spent at a village
billiard room in the company of a bosom chum named Dale Billings.
Andy was somewhat taken off his balance by the unexpected appearance of
his employer's son. It was really the shock of recognizing in the face
of the newcomer the manners and avarice that he shared with his father.
Almost instinctively Andy put the hand holding the pocketbook behind
him. Then he said simply:
"I took a quick fare over to Macon to catch a train. He paid me five
dollars. It's in the cash drawer."
"Oh, it is," drawled out Gus, "and what about all the money I just
caught you counting over?"
"It's a pocketbook containing two hundred dollars," replied Andy
clearly, disdaining the slur and insult in the tones of his low-spirited
challenger. "It was dropped by the man I just took over in the machine.
I've got to return it to him some way. I might get to the station here
in time to notify him by telegraph before his train leaves Macon that
I've found the pocketbook."
"Hold on," ordered Gus Talbot. "Hand over that money, Andy Nelson."
And then followed the conversation that opens this chapter, and Andy had
barely announced that the pocketbook would go back to its owner and to
no one else, when Gus made a jump at him.
"Give up that money, I say!" he yelled, and his big, eager fist clutched
the pocketbook.