"Be careful, Mr. Parks!"
"Foh goodness sake, sah! Yo want to break dat arm ober again?"
Mr. Morse, the inventor, and Scipio, the cook, made a frantic rush for
the aeronaut. They were grouped together in the center of the space
occupied by their camp. The eyes of each had been fixed on an object
floating about in the air over-head. All had been pleased and excited,
but particularly Parks. Now as the object aloft made a skim that seemed
to beat a mile a minute dash, John Parks lost all control of himself.
He forgot the fractured arm he had carried in a sling for three days,
and actually tried to wave it, as he burst forth:
"Morse, you're a genius, and that boy, Andy Nelson, is the birdman of
the century!"
Andy deserved the praise fully that was being bestowed upon him. That
morning Mr. Morse had completed the _Racing Star_, his new airship. At
the present moment it was making its initial flight.
The relieved, contented face of Morse showed his satisfaction over the
fact that his work was done and done well. Scipio stared goggle-eyed. As
to John Parks, expert sky sailor that he was, his practiced eye in one
moment had discerned the fact that the _Racing Star_ was the latest and
best thing out in aviation, and he went fairly wild over the masterly
way in which Andy handled the machine.
Andy aloft, had eye, nerve and breath strained to test the splendid
device to its complete capacity. He was himself amazed at the beauty the
utility of the dainty creation just turned out from the workshop. What
the Airship King had taught him Andy had not forgotten. After five
minutes spent in exploiting every angle of skill he possessed, Andy
brought the superb aeroplane down to the ground, graceful as a swan.
John Parks ran up to him, chuckling with delight.
"You wonder! you daisy!" he roared, shaking Andy's hand with his well
arm.
Andy was flushed with triumph and excitement.
"If there's any wonder to talk about," he said, "it's that glorious
piece of work, the _Racing Star_, and the splendid man who made it."
Morse smiled, a rare thing for him. Then he said modestly:
"It will do the work, handled as you manage it, Andy."
"I feel like a caged lion, or an eagle with its wings clipped!" stormed
Parks, with a glance at his bandaged arm. "Why did I go trying to show a
bungling amateur how to run an old wreck of a monoplane, and get my arm
broken for my pains, and lose that five-thousand-dollar prize!"
"There is time to enter a substitute, Mr. Parks," suggested the
inventor.
"Who?" demanded the aeronaut scornfully. "Some amateur who will sell me
out or bungle the race, and maybe smash up my last thousand dollars?"
"Mr. Parks," said Andy, in a quick breath, and colored up and paused
suddenly. "I'd be glad to try it. Say the word, and I'll train day and
night for the race."
"Andy, win it, and half of that five thousand dollars is yours."
From excitement and incoherency, the little group got down to a serious
discussion of the situation during the next half hour.
"It's just one week from the race," said Andy. "What can't I do in
learning to run the _Racing Star_ in that time?"
"Andy, you must make it," declared Parks energetically. "It just seems
as if my heart would break if we lost this record."
Mr. Morse got out a chart he had drawn of the run to be made on the
twenty-first of the month.
"The course is very nearly a straight one," explained Parks; "from the
grounds here to Springfield, where the State fair is going on. Pace will
be set by a Central Northern train, carrying assistants and repairs. The
fleet will be directed by a large American flag floating from the rear
of the train. It's almost a beeline, Andy, and the _Racing Star_ is
built for speed."
They made another ascent the next morning. Air and breeze conditions
were most favorable for the try-out. Seated amidships, wearing a leather
jacket, cap and gloves, Andy had the motor keyed up to its highest
speed. The quick sequence of its exhaust swelled like a rapid-fire gun.
The machine rolled forward, the propellers beat the air, and the _Racing
Star_ rose on a smooth parabola. Andy attempted some volplane skits that
were fairly hair-raising. He raced with real birds. He practiced with
the wind checks. For half an hour he kept up a series of practice stunts
of the most difficult character.
"Oh, but you're a crack scholar, Andy Nelson," declared the delighted
Parks, as the _Racing Star_ came to moorings again, light as a feather.
"I think myself I am getting on to most of the curves," said Andy. "The
only question is can I keep it up on a long stretch?"
"Practice makes perfect, you know," suggested Mr. Morse.
Andy felt that he had about reached the acme of his mechanical ambition.
When he went to bed that night the thought of the coming race kept him
awake till midnight. When he finally went to sleep, it was to dream of
aerial flights that resolved themselves into a series of the most
exciting nightmares.
No developments came from Andy's experience with the Duske crowd. Once
in a while he worried some over the reference of Duske's companions to
seeing his name in the newspapers.
"Either it was about my trouble at Princeville, or some of these
reporters writing up the race got my name incidentally," decided Andy.
"Anyhow, I can't afford to trouble about it."
Andy rarely ventured away from the camp after dark. In fact, ever since
entering the employment of Mr. Parks he had not mixed much with
outsiders. He had his Princeville friends and the Duske crowd constantly
in mind. But one hot evening he went forth for some ice cream for the
crowd.
The distance to a town restaurant was not great. Andy hurried across the
freight tracks. Just as he passed a switchman's shanty, he fancied he
heard some one utter a slight cry of surprise. Two persons dodged back
out of the light of a switch lantern. Andy, however, paid little
attention to the episode. He reached the restaurant, got the ice cream
in a pasteboard box, and started back for the camp without any mishap or
adventure.
Just as Andy crossed a patch of ground covered with high rank weeds, he
became aware that somebody was following him. A swift backward glance
revealed two slouching figures. They pressed forward as Andy momentarily
halted.
"Now then!" spoke one of them suddenly.
Andy dodged as something was thrown towards him, but not in time to
avoid a looped rope. It was handled deftly, for before he knew it his
hands were bound tightly to his side.
One of the twain ran at him and tripped him up. The other twined the
loose line about Andy's ankles.
"Got him!" sounded a triumphant voice.
"Good business," chirped his companion, and then Andy thrilled in some
dismay, as he recognized his captors as Gus Talbot and Dale Billings.
"Hello, Andy Nelson," said Gus Talbot.
Gus's voice was sneering and offensive as he hailed the captive. His
companion looked satisfied and triumphant as he stood over Andy, as if
he expected their victim to applaud him for doing something particularly
smart.
"See here, Gus," observed Dale, "I'd better get, hey?"
"Right off, too," responded Gus. "If there's the ready cash in it, all
right. If there isn't we'll get him on the way to Princeville ourselves
some way."
"Can you manage him alone?"
"I'll try to," observed Gus vauntingly, "I'll just have a pleasant
little chat with him for the sake of old times, while I sample this ice
cream of his--um-um--it ought to be prime."
Dale sped away on some mysterious errand. Gus picked up the box of ice
cream that Andy had dropped and opened it. He tore off one of its
pasteboard flaps, fashioned it into an impromptu spoon, and proceeded to
fill his mouth with the cream.
"Don't you get up," he warned Andy. "If you do, I'll knock you down
again."
"Big Injun, aren't you!" flared out Andy, provoked and
indignant--"especially where you've got a fellow whipsawed?"
"Betcher life," sneered Gus maliciously. "Things worked to a charm. Got
a hint from some airship fellows that you was somewhere around these
diggings. Watched out for you and caught you just right, hey?"
The speaker sat down among the weeds in front of Andy. The latter
noticed that his face was grimed and his hands stained with dirt. His
clothes were wrinkled and disordered as if he had been sleeping in them.
From what he observed, Andy decided that the son of the Princeville
garage owner and his companion were on a tramp. They looked like
runaways, and did not appear to be at all prosperous.
"Say," blurted out Gus, digging down into the ice cream, as if he was
hungry, "you might better have turned up that two hundred dollars for
dad."
"Why had I?" demanded Andy.
"It would have saved you a good deal of trouble. It's a stroke of luck,
running across you just as we'd spent our last dime. How will you like
to go back to Princeville and face the music?"
"What music?"
"Oh, yes, you don't know! Haven't read the papers, I suppose? Didn't
know you was wanted?"
"Who wants me?"
"Nor that a reward was out for you?"
"Why?"
"Say, are you so innocent as all that, or just plain slick?" drawled
Gus, with a crafty grin.
"I don't know what you are talking about."
"Farmer Jones' barn."
"Oh----" Andy gave a start. He began to understand now. "What about Farmer
Jones' barn?"
"You know, I guess. It was set on fire and burned down. They have been
looking everywhere for the firebug, and offer a fifty-dollar reward."
"Is that the reason why you and Dale have left Princeville?" demanded
Andy coolly.
"Eh, well, I guess not," cried Gus. "Huh! Everybody knows how you did it
out of spite against Jones because he hindered you running away from
dad. Why, they found your cap right near the barn ruins."
"Is that so?" said Andy quietly. "How did it get there?"
"How did it get there? You dropped it there, of course."
"Purposely to get blamed for it, I suppose?" commented Andy. "That's
pretty thin, Gus Talbot, seeing that you know and your father knows that
my cap was taken away from me when he locked me up at the garage, and I
had no chance to get it later. You left the cap near the burned barn,
Gus Talbot, and you know it."
"Me? Rot!" ejaculated Gus, but he stopped eating the ice cream and acted
restless.
"In fact," continued Andy definitely, "I can prove that both you and
Dale were sneaking about the Jones' place a short time before the fire
broke out."
"Bosh!" mumbled Gus.
"Further than that, I can tell you word for word what passed between you
two. Listen."
Andy remembered clearly every incident of his flight from the haystack
in Farmer Jones' field. He recited graphically the appearance of Gus and
Dale, and the remark he had overheard. Gus sat staring at him in an
uneasy way. He acted bored, and seemed at a loss to answer.
It was more than half an hour before Dale returned. He acted glum and
mad.
"Is it all right?" inquired Gus eagerly.
"Right nothing!"
"Get the money?"
"No."
"What's the trouble?"
"I saw a constable and told him I could give him a chance to make a
fifty-dollar reward, us to get ten. He heard me through and said it
wouldn't do."
"Why wouldn't it?" demanded Gus.
"Because this is in another county, and he'd have to get the warrant.
Said it was too much trouble to bother with it."
"Humph! what will we do now?" muttered Gus in a disgusted way.
"That's easy. Get Andy over the county line, and find someone else to
take the job off our hands," replied Dale Billings.