Dave Dashaway, Air Champion: or, Wizard Work in the Clouds

CHAPTER IX
JUST IN TIME

“Who is that man, Hiram?”

It was two days after the stirring adventure among the burning haystacks. They were now under a new and changed environment. Outside of a roomy hangar on the training grounds near Chicago, they seemed to have passed from a zone of peril and trickery into an atmosphere of order and security.

The chums had been oiling the Scout, which had been shipped to them from the Midlothian grounds the day previous. Dave had noticed a thin wiry man standing outside of their hangar and studiously regarding the Ariel. Then the stranger had moved nearer to them, and transferred a steady, almost insolent gaze to the young aviator. Hiram had been so absorbed in his task that he had not noted what the keen observation of Dave, always on the alert, had taken in. Now he straightened up and shot a glance at the stranger, just turning away.

“Hello!” he exclaimed, “he’s familiar. Why it’s Valdec!”

“You don’t mean the crack cloud-climber, as they call him, the Syndicate champion?” questioned his companion.

“That’s him,” went on Hiram. “Yes, that’s ‘the great and only.’ I saw him down at the clubhouse last evening. Humph! I don’t like him any better than I do his backer, and that’s Worthington.”

Dave viewed the rival airman from head to foot. He was not only curious, but interested. The chums had met a variety of amateurs and professionals since their arrival at the present centre of attraction in the aviation world. A portion of them were a motley group. They ranged from expert balloon trapezists to acrobatic notables. They were essentially “stunt” men. The real professionals were a widely different crowd. There were men who had earned fame in their particular line of activity. Some were inventors, and there was a sprinkling of scientists. The name, Valdec, however, Dave had heard a great many more times than that of any professional on the grounds.

Valdec was an importation. He claimed some wonderful records made in France and England. His specialty was the handling of a machine in speed, gyration and novelty effects. He had been a public demonstrator and exhibitor at big fairs in Europe. His daring was notorious. He was a grim, unsocial specimen of humanity, and talked but little. His backers talked for him, however. These comprised the Syndicate, a group of old-time racehorse and baseball promoters and the like. They had taken to the aviation field as the newest and likeliest sport where their peculiar abilities would count.

A great many standard airmen besides Dave did not like this feature of the great International meet. It was not to be helped, however. The manager, Worthington, paid for his special entrants, who were able to qualify. It was his business to finance them, and he claimed that such a connection was legitimate. The Syndicate group formed quite a camp of their own at one end of the grounds. There were over half a dozen airmen in the combination, covering various phases of flying, all out for prizes, and selected by the promoter as likely to win.

“Yes, that’s Valdec,” resumed Hiram. “I don’t like him, nor his crowd, nor their hangers-on, but I will say the fellow can do things. When you were away yesterday he had half an hour’s practice on spiral work. It was not only pretty, but it took away your breath. I heard one of the bystanders say that before Valdec makes one of his sensational dives, he works himself up to such a point that he is perfectly reckless. That’s his crowd – running things just as they would for a track race.”

“Well, the steady nerve and the clear head counts in the wind up,” observed Dave philosophically. “This job is done. Now for some real work.”

It was not Dave’s habit to “show off” nor to advise his rivals of his prospective programme. The location of the practice grounds was ideal. The country about was level, and there was a lake area over which long distance flights would be unhampered. The day before, however, and on the present occasion, as soon as both aviators were in their places in the machine, its pilot started a course for a barren uninhabited reach among the sand dunes twenty miles south of the grounds. Here they were unnoticed and had free scope.

“No danger of collisions here,” observed the cheerful Hiram, as they landed and Dave sailed off alone. Then he sat down on a heap of brush and chucklingly announced himself as “an audience of one,” prepared to enjoy the spectacle of the occasion.

“Bravo!” voted the loyal and enthusiastic lad, as Dave made a superb sweep that vied with a sailing pigeon, fleeing in terror from this unfamiliar monarch of the air.

Then Hiram clapped his hands loudly, and kicked with his feet, as though in some auditorium, and bound to applaud, as Dave made a volplane that seemed destined to land the machine nose deep in the flickering sands. Suddenly, twenty feet from the ground, he balanced, even tipped, and went up, up, up – until machine and pilot were a mere speck.

“Hurrah!” rang out briskly, when the daring operator of the Ariel began a spiral drop. And then as Dave landed, his assistant, half wild with delight, was dancing from foot to foot. “Oh, I say,” he shouted, “it’s up to Valdec! Honest, Dave, it beats him. Yes, sir, it actually does!” and the faithful chum laughed, as though already he saw the capital prize of the meet safe in the hands of his friend.

The chums put in two hours about the flying field afforded by the sand dunes. They started back for the International grounds feeling duly satisfied. Dave was more satisfied with the Ariel than ever. The perfect piece of mechanism had never “balked” yet. Hiram professed to see new skill and expertness in his gifted chum with every succeeding flight.

“Let’s take a view of the city before we go home,” he suggested, and Dave was nothing loth.

“Doll houses and pigmies; eh?” submitted Hiram, as they flew over the south end of the city. “A little flat patch of the world, down there. Those vessels on the lake look like play-ships. That big skyscraper doesn’t appear much larger than a chicken house. There’s some excitement!” and Hiram leaned over to get a better view of what had attracted his attention. “Dave,” he cried suddenly, “it’s a fire!”

Dave made out smoke and flames about a very high structure located near the river that traversed the heart of the city. He was as much interested as his companion, for a mimic play seemed going on below. Everything appeared in miniature – the hurrying fire engines, the puffing fire-boats on the river, the great crowds, the giant building wreathed with smoke. As they neared this Dave made out more clearly the situation.

“It seems to be a storage warehouse, built solid from the sixth story up,” he said. “The lower stories are all on fire. It will be a bad blaze when it gets up into the closely sealed upper part.”

“Dave,” cried Hiram sharply – “look, look, on the roof!”

“Yes – a girl,” responded Dave. “Why, Hiram, she is alone, and imprisoned up there by the fire!”

It was not difficult to understand the situation. The sixth floor of the building was probably the office of the warehouse. Such concerns hire but little help outside of the men who handle consignments for storage. The girl, probably a stenographer, must have been alone on the floor noted when the fire broke out.

She could not descend, for the five lower floors were all ablaze. Escape was cut off, except upwards. She had probably fled up the spiral staircases without coming to a break in the solid masonry, in the dark, and groping her way, and driven to frenzy by the pursuing smoke.

Now she was plainly visible to the two chums. She stood near the edge of the roof, waving her hands frantically. Below, the hook and ladder service attempted to reach her point of refuge, but they could not get above the eighth floor.

“Dave,” spoke Hiram in a muffled tone that trembled, “can’t we do something?”

Already the pilot of the Ariel had received the same mental suggestion. His eye took in all the chances. All that was chivalrous and humane in him came to the surface.

“There’s just one way, Hiram,” he said. “That is to make a volplane and a landing on the roof.”

“Yes, yes,” agreed Hiram eagerly. “It’s a long narrow building, with plenty of room for a stop and a start.”

“You’re willing to risk it?”

“Yes – surely!” cried Hiram. “Don’t delay, Dave. We’re safe to try it, before the flames reach her, or the building collapses.”

A great cry went up from the excited crowds in the streets below, at the sight of what resembled some mighty winged bird coming on a mission of rescue and mercy, where other help seemed vain.

The girl on the roof saw the machine, and comprehended what it meant for her. She ran towards it with a glad cry as Dave dexterously directed it. The Ariel struck the smooth flat roof, and came to a stop, Hiram leaped out.

“This way!” he called, and, taking her outstretched hand he guided her to the seat he had just vacated, and belted her in. “Don’t get scared, nor faint. You’ll be safe on solid land in a jiffy. Go ahead, Dave,” added Hiram. “The machine won’t stand my weight on the narrow margin start we can give it.”

Onward went the Ariel. To the spellbound crowd below it seemed to slide off the roof. Dave made a spiral drop. A block away from the fire there was a lumber yard, only half stocked, affording a good landing place.

The girl was out of the machine and safe in charge of two ladies who supported her. She turned to Dave, her lips moving as if in gratitude, and then swooned. Dave got started before the onrushing mob got in his way. It seemed to him as if the voices of thousands joined in a thunderous cheer. There on the roof, as if in response to this mighty tribute to daring heroism, stood Hiram, smiling and unconcerned as though it were all an every day occurrence.

“Good for you, and quite in time,” he commented briskly, as Dave landed on the roof in safety. “The fire is eating up through the staircases. See, yonder!” and the speaker pointed to wreaths of smoke and cinders shooting out through a roof trap as if forced by an air compressor.

“Something wrong with the control,” said Dave, as they skidded into space again. “The jar of that roof, I guess. It needs fixing,” and the young aviator was compelled to land again in the spot where he had delivered the imperiled girl into friendly hands.

CHAPTER X
A FRIEND IN DISGUISE

“Dave, I’m famous!”

Hiram Dobbs burst into the little space just beyond the threshold of the hangar, which he had called “the office.” The partitioned-off corner held some chairs and a table. Dave was busy glancing over a catalogue of aeroplane accessories, and he looked up with an inquisitive smile at his excitable assistant.

“Well, what now, Hiram?” he questioned.

“Look – your picture, my picture, the burning building, the Ariel. ‘Daring aeronaut’ – that’s you. ‘Heroic assistant’ – that’s me. See, isn’t it great!”

The impetuous speaker had just come in from breakfast. He spread out a morning newspaper. Its first four columns held a vivid description of the warehouse fire. There had certainly been reporters at the scene, and photographers also, for four excellent pictures illuminated the printed page.

There was one scene of the swoop of the Ariel to the roof of the building where the stenographer had stood, with clasped hands gazing helplessly down at the awed crowd, fourteen stories below.

Then there was a view of the ruins after the fire, showing a low smouldering heap, all that remained of the skyscraper.

When the Ariel had last landed, the photographer had made a close snap shot of pilot and assistant. The aeroplane, Dave, and Hiram were all clearly shown. The final picture was a view of thousands of persons waving hats and handkerchiefs in enthusiastic adieu to the machine disappearing over their heads.

“It’s a smart fellow who did that story,” declared Hiram. “Regular poet, too. ‘Nervy young aviator,’ ‘heroic lone figure of the handsome young fellow who ran the risk of his life to save a poor frenzied girl.’ Hum! I’ll have to look out if I’m in that list. How they learned who we were, and got your whole history, Dave, shows positive genius.”

“We were not interviewed,” responded the young airman, “so I suppose they naturally traced us here, and got their information from the manager. It makes quite a pleasant thrill, to see ourselves pictured as doing some good in the world; doesn’t it?”

“I know some folks who didn’t have any pleasing thrills over the affair,” remarked Hiram.

“Who is that?” questioned his chum.

“The Syndicate crowd. I came past there from the restaurant. One of them had a morning paper. Valdec saw me and scowled. Worthington looked up, and I saw his lips move as if he were wishing us up at Halifax. They don’t wish us any good luck I’m sure. But at headquarters the manager was delighted. He came up to me when I was eating breakfast, clapped me on the shoulder and smiled all over. ‘Tell Dashaway he’s given the meet a capital advertisement,’ he said. You see, it mentions that you will be one of the contestants in the International, Dave.”

Hiram was in good humor over the event. He whistled and sang in his routine work about the hangar. Dave was his friend and he was proud of him, and not for a moment doubted that he would “scoop up every prize in sight,” as he expressed it. When his chum sent him after some frame tape, down to the supply depot on the grounds, Hiram purposely took a detour by way of the Syndicate camp.

“Guess I’ve got a bad streak in me somewhere,” he chuckled, “for it sort of satisfies me to think we’re making that crowd wriggle. Hello – well, never! Oh, say, hello!”

Hiram walked on with sudden activity. He was passing the central hangar of the Syndicate people, when he noticed a man twenty feet ahead of him. This individual chanced to turn his face sideways. In an instant Hiram recognized him, and the youth came to a sudden stop for he ran squarely into the man.

“Mr. Borden!” Hiram cried. “Say, I’m awful glad – ”

“Hush!” came the caution.

It was the tramp artist. He was now neatly dressed. The frowsiness he had shown at the Midlothian grounds was gone, and he seemed prosperous. As he evidently in turn recognized his friend of the past, a glad gleam came over his face, and then he became flustered. He seized Hiram by the arm, turned his back to the people near the hangar, and whispered quickly:

“Not a word! No names! Act out what I start in on.” And then in a tone of affected ferocity he gave Hiram a vigorous shake. “Who are you running into, clumsy!” he shouted at the top of his voice. “Get away from here, and stay away!”

He gave Hiram a swing and a push. For only a moment was the latter bewildered. Then he was almost stunned. Amid the jeers of the Syndicate crowd near the hangars he went spinning almost twenty feet, stumbled and slid flat on the ground for a yard or two.

“I’ll get even with you!” he yelled at Borden, shaking his fist at him, affecting a boylike rage at his mistreatment, and then setting off on a run as his pretended assailant made a feint of pursuing. “Oh, say,” continued Hiram to himself, “Dave must know about this right away. ‘Acting,’ Borden called it. Good! Great! I see through it now!”

Hiram forgot about his errand for the time being. He was a quiet thinker, and he fancied he had made a big discovery. He rushed in on his chum, flustered, perspiring and gasping for breath.

“Dave,” he almost shouted, “that man – the tramp down at the Midlothian – you know – ”

“Yes,” answered his chum, “Mr. Borden – what about him?”

“He’s here! He’s with the Syndicate crowd. I saw him. Listen,” and the words piled over each other recklessly as he recited his recent adventure. “Now what do you think of that? Plain as the nose on your face. ‘Acting,’ see? I took him unawares. He’s playing a part – for our benefit!”

“I believe you’re right,” agreed Dave thoughtfully. “It looks that way, anyhow. I don’t know why he should be so interested in our affairs and go to a lot of trouble to help us – ”

“I do,” pronounced Hiram energetically. “I saw more of him than you did. He’s no ordinary tramp. You treated him like a gentleman and he appreciated it. You have a way of making everybody like you, Dave.”

“Thank you,” answered the young aviator, “but how about Valdec and the Syndicate outfit, Hiram?”

“I meant everybody good,” corrected Hiram. “That proves my argument. Borden is good. He shows it, good all over and all the way through. I think he has some track of the fellow whose picture he drew and that the trail led him straight to the meet here. Don’t you see? Vincent is in with Worthington and his crowd and Borden has found it out.”

Dave did not reply to the suggestion, but in his own mind he secretly sided with the views of his imaginative assistant. From the manner in which Borden had just acted, it would seem that his being with the Syndicate crowd was no accidental connection. If its motive lay in a friendly move on behalf of the airship chums, it was certain that the tramp artist had discovered something of value.

“If things are as you say,” spoke Dave, “we will be sure to hear from Borden in some way before long. It is evident that he does not want us to recognize him as a friend. That being so, he will act with caution in getting word to us.”

“You’ll find out I’m guessing right,” asserted Hiram, “you’ll find out that this Vernon, out of revenge, and because he’s paid, is working for Valdec to get us out of the contest.”

Hiram was much excited the rest of that day, expecting word from Borden, which did not come. The episode of the morning had somewhat disturbed Dave. If there was a systematic plot on foot to keep the Ariel out of the lists, extreme vigilance was necessary.

The management had a night patrol, but more to look after things in general than each individual hangar. Dave had known one Dennis Rohan at a former meet he had attended, a man who traveled about selling favors and souvenirs. He was an old man with one limb, crippled, not very active in getting about, but sober and reliable. Until the meet opened he had nothing particular to do. Dave sought him out. He arranged that Rohan was to act as watchman of the hangar, coming on duty at dusk, and remaining until daylight.

The usual practice of the day was gone through that afternoon. Hiram showed a good deal of restlessness, however. Just before supper Dave came up to him where he sat on a bench near the hangar looking in the direction of the Syndicate camp.

“See here, Hiram,” spoke the young aviator, “you’re letting this Borden affair get on your nerves, and it won’t do. I’m looking out for tricks, and things will develop of themselves. Get your mind in a new rut. What do you say to a flight out over the lake? It will be moonlight shortly after dark and the air spin will make us sleep soundly.”

“That suits me,” proclaimed Hiram, his usual animation restored – “you mean in the Ariel?”

“Why, just as you choose. If you want to take the Scout, it will give you fine practice.”

“That will be fine,” said Hiram, and just at dusk, after their evening meal, he ran the Scout out of the hangar near the high fence surrounding the grounds, and busied himself seeing that the machine was in perfect trim for the flight.

Dave was similarly employed with the Ariel, inside the hangar. He was ready to start out, but glancing at his watch and discovering that Rohan would be due on his night duty within a few minutes, he decided to await his arrival to give him some instructions.

“She’s in prime trim,” voiced his young assistant outside, as he climbed into the pilot seat and ran his hand over the various wheels, levers and buttons, to see that everything was in order. “Why doesn’t Dave come?” and he was about to give a customary signal whistle when he exclaimed with a start “Hello! what’s that, now?”

It was a shot, just outside the fence, and it was followed by shouts. Then there was a scraping sound on the surface of the outside of the boards.

“I declare!” cried Hiram, as a human head bobbed into view over the top of the fence. There was another shot. “Hi, you! what’s up?” challenged Hiram.

In a great hurry, the owner of the head pulled himself into view. He dropped to the inside, stumbled, recovered himself and then glared all about him. His glance lit on the machine and then on its pilot.

Whoever he was, whatever his purposes, the sight of the outfit seemed suddenly to infuse him with an idea. He gave the machine a push, sent it spinning ahead, ran around to its side and leaping up began climbing over the planes.

“Here! here!” shouted the astonished Hiram, “get off there. You’ll smash things.”

“Start her up,” ordered the intruder, “do it quick, without a word, or – ”

The speaker must have known something about flying machines, for with a dexterous move he landed in the cockpit. As he did so, he completed his menacing words by holding a pistol close to the head of the startled Hiram Dobbs.