Dave Dashaway, Air Champion: or, Wizard Work in the Clouds. Roy Rockwood
to be the work of an enemy,” spoke Dave, rather solemnly, after a moment’s deliberation. “Did you have a good look at the fellow you saw go through the window, Mr. Borden?”
“I should say, I did!” exclaimed the tramp. “When a fellow gets waked up suddenly and startled, like I was, everything hits his brain as if it were a photograph camera. Say,” and the speaker half closed his eyes, “I can see that rascal just as plain as day now. By the way, too, if I’m not mistaken I saw the very same individual hanging around the outside of the grounds when I sneaked in last night.”
“Dave, I call this serious!” cried Hiram, aroused and indignant. “It’s a queer thing if we can’t have protection from the cowards who steal in on us when we’re not watching, and try to wreck our aircraft! I’ll wager the stuff in that canister would blow a small mountain to pieces!”
“Guess I’d have gone up, too, if it was that bad,” remarked the tramp with a shiver.
Dave went to the window and examined it. The edges of the solid board shutter showed the marks of some chisel, or other tool, used to pry it open. Then the chums went outside. On the way Dave caught up a bundle of waste used in removing oil and grime from the machinery of the air crafts, and a newspaper.
The others watched him in silence as he carefully wound up what was left of the fuse, and placed it and the canister, to which it was attached, in the waste then, wrapping all in the newspaper, he said to Hiram:
“I’m going down to the manager’s office.”
“Going to find out if that’s a real explosive; aren’t you?” inquired Hiram.
“Yes, that’s my purpose. If we find that it is, we can make up our minds that the people we have had trouble with before are still on our trail. I fancied we’d beaten them off so many times they had now gotten sick of such doings.”
“Oh, if it’s Vernon, or any of his crowd, they’re the kind that will keep on pestering us to the last,” declared Hiram. “Be back soon, Dave. I’m all rattled, and anxious.”
The young birdman proceeded on his way. Hiram turned to the tramp, who had manifested a decided interest in all that had taken place.
“We didn’t wake you up when we went down to the restaurant for breakfast,” said Hiram. “You were sleeping so soundly it seemed a pity to disturb you.”
“You’re very good, both of you, to think of an old derelict like me,” was the reply, given with feeling.
“Why, you’ve done us a big turn,” responded Hiram, “so I guess you’ve squared things. I brought some eatables up from the café, and if you’re hungry – ”
“Say, friend,” interrupted Borden in a serio-comic way – “I’m always hungry!”
“Then start with what there is,” directed Hiram, always glad to make others comfortable, as he spread the food out upon the bench near by. He watched their guest devour the viands with a relish that made him almost wish for a second breakfast himself. The tramp bolted the last morsel, and breathed a sigh of genuine content.
“That fills a mighty hollow spot,” he observed. “Say, about the fellow that tried to blow you up here – got a piece of chalk?”
“Why, no,” answered Hiram, noting that the speaker was viewing the smooth side of the hangar as might an artist a blank canvas. “I suppose you want to draw something,” guessed Hiram, recalling the artistic efforts of the evening previous.
“That’s it,” assented Borden. “It might sort of satisfy your curiosity, and maybe give you a hint, if I can furnish you with an idea of how that blowing-up rascal looked.”
“Why, that’s a great idea!” cried Hiram. “Do it!”
“I want to get at it while the picture of the fellow is fresh in my mind,” went on Borden. “Here’s the very thing,” and he picked up the paper that had held the morning lunch. “If I only had a black crayon now, instead of my fine pencil – ”
“I’m pretty sure there’s a carpenter’s pencil in our tool box,” suggested Hiram.
“Good! Get it, and a few brads, or tacks. Just the thing,” he added, as Hiram, after a search in the hangar, brought out the articles named.
Borden proceeded to attach the sheet of manilla paper to the side of the hanger. He smoothed its surface with his hand, rubbed the broad end of the big pencil to a point on a brick he discovered, and rolled up one ragged sleeve with a certain affected, artistic twirl that set Hiram laughing.
“That’s all right,” nodded the tramp indulgently. “I don’t look much like a cartoonist, but all the same I once traveled as a lightning caricaturist. Heads are my specialty, and here goes for the fellow who came so near to blowing out the lights for a budding genius!”
Hiram watched eagerly, from that moment, for the space of a quarter of an hour. The faces Borden had quickly and crudely drawn on some cards, to amuse Dave and himself, and show off his accomplishments, the evening previous, had awakened the interest and admiration of the two lads. Now, however, Borden began to create, line by line, and curve by curve, as perfect a human face as Hiram had even seen done by an expert crayon artist.
“That’s him,” announced the artist, with a last touch of the pencil, and drawing back from the impromptu easel with a satisfied air.
He viewed his clever handiwork with a critical but gratified eye.
“Yes, it’s him,” went on Borden. “Thin, peaked chin, one wall eye. There you are! Just as good as if you’d got his picture from the rogues’ gallery – where he belongs, if I don’t miss my guess.”
“Pshaw!” exclaimed his audience of one, in so decidedly a disappointed way, that the amateur artist knit his brows, and looked hurt.
CHAPTER III
“TARGET PRACTICE”
“Why, I say!” exclaimed the tramp with a wondering stare at Hiram, “you don’t seem glad at all.”
“It isn’t him, you see,” responded Hiram dubiously. “Oh, yes,” he hastened to add, noticing the injured way Borden took it, “I’m glad you are here to draw a picture of the man who tried to blow us up, but I was almost sure it was – well, a fellow we know, and have every reason to fear. But it isn’t!”
“I see, I see,” murmured the tramp thoughtfully, and he ran his eye more critically than ever over his handiwork. “Ye-es,” he continued slowly, “it’s a pretty fair picture. He doesn’t seem familiar to you; eh?”
“No, I don’t remember ever having seen a face like that before,” answered Hiram, doubtfully.
“Just as well, I reckon. He’d be no advantage to anybody, that fellow wouldn’t. Well, that’s the fellow you want to go after, provided you intend to.”
“Dave will,” declared Hiram with vim. “There’s some mean hangers-on in our line, and lots of jealousy, and it’s led to danger and loss for us several times before this. The management here will take this matter up, if we make a complaint about it. Dave’s going to. I could see that from the look on his face when he went off just now. Thanks!” he shouted to a young fellow on a motor cycle who flashed by, flipping an envelope to Hiram. He had a gold braided “M” on his cap, indicating that he was a grounds messenger acting as postboy in distributing the mail to the various hangars. “Why,” added Hiram with increased animation of manner, as he scanned the printed words in one corner of the envelope, “it’s from Chicago, and the headquarters of the International Meet Association we were talking about not an hour ago. I wonder – ”
Hiram strolled off by himself, looking out for Dave, and building all kinds of air castles. In about five minutes his chum put in an appearance. Hiram ran towards him, waving the envelope, and placed it in his hands. Dave opened it. His assistant watched his face keenly, and was gratified to note that it assumed a pleased expression.
“It’s from the people offering all those prizes