The Flying Machine Boys on Duty. Frank Walton
thick and damp, bearing the odor of long confinement in filthy quarters. Opening his eyes, directly, he saw that the walls were dark, but not with paint or paper. They were stained with the mold and unsavory accumulations of many years.
The light which shone in his face came from an electric contrivance which seemed at that moment to be a long distance off. Finally, after much study and many smarting examinations, he saw that it was a light nodding and swaying on a mast, and that it shone through the dirty panes of a window before entering the gloom where he lay.
It was plain to the millionaire, then, that, in some mysterious manner, he had been taken from the stateroom and conveyed to one of the disreputable resorts on the river front. He had no idea as to whether he was looking out on the East river or the North river. All he knew was that his hands and feet were tied; that his head ached furiously, and that his lips and tongue were parched with thirst. In a moment he heard a door open and then an old woman, toothless and shrunken of shoulders, stood before him, bearing in her hand a smoking kerosene lamp.
“Well, dearie,” she said with a wicked leer in her watery old eyes.
Havens indicated by motions of his lips and tongue that he needed a drink of water. The old woman had undoubtedly been prepared for this, for she drew a flask of spirits from a capacious pocket in her clothing and held it exultantly before the eyes of the captive.
Havens shook his head.
“It will give you strength,” pleaded the hag. “Strength for what you’ve got to endure. Better take a drop or two!”
In a moment the young millionaire managed to say that he wanted water, and the old hag, with the air of one who considered that a weak-minded man was turning away a blessed boon, restored the bottle to her pocket and brought water in as filthy a tin cup as Havens had ever set eyes on.
The woman eyed him curiously as she held the cup to his lips.
After draining the cup Havens found strength to ask:
“How did I come here?”
“The boys brought you,” was the reply.
“The boys?” repeated Havens. “What boys?”
“The boys always will be having their sport!” the old woman answered indefinitely. “Very bad boys, I’m sure.”
“Why?” demanded the millionaire.
“Oh, my, oh, my!” exclaimed the old hag. “You mustn’t ask so many questions. I’m not here to answer questions.”
“How much do they want?” demanded Havens, coming at once to the point, as there was no doubt whatever in his mind that he had been abducted purely as a financial speculation. “How much?”
The old hag shook her head gravely.
“After a few days,” she said, “the boys will listen to talk of money. Just now,” she went on, “your society is what they desire.”
Then, for the first time since his rude awakening, the events of the night before flashed across the brain of the millionaire. He remembered the pursuit of the Louise, the act of arson at the hangar, the shooting of the stranger, and the escape from the hospital. To his mind, also, came with double force and meaning of the story the chauffeur had told of the pursuing car. With all these memories in his mind he had little difficulty in associating his present situation with the efforts which had been made to prevent the departure of the boys for the Pacific coast.
“How long do you intend to keep me here?” he asked in a moment.
Again the old woman shook her head.
“I’ll give you ten thousand dollars,” he said, “if you’ll set me down at the Grand Central station in an hour.”
“Not near enough, dearie,” the old hag replied, a greedy gleam coming into her watery eyes. “Not near enough, dearie!”
“Twenty thousand!” exclaimed Havens.
The old woman glanced about the apartment cautiously.
CHAPTER VI
“Now,” suggested Ben as the purr of the motors came softly on the evening air, “do you suppose Havens has really caught up with us?”
“Impossible!” cried Jimmie, “we’ve stopped a good many times on the route, but he couldn’t overtake us, for all that, for the reason that he wouldn’t leave New York before afternoon. According to that we would have at least ten hours the start of him.”
“That’s right!” Ben agreed. “Perhaps the motors we hear belong to the flying machine of some sport out for a twilight ride. There are a good many aeroplanes passing between St. Louis and the east at this time of the year. We may hear other machines before morning.”
“Suppose,” Carl suggested, with a startled expression in his eyes, “that the clatter in the sky is caused by the flying machine operated by the fellow who chased Jimmie up New York bay?”
“Then that would mean trouble,” Jimmie grinned. “But, say!” he went on in a moment. “I wouldn’t mind meeting that fellow where the going was good. I’d show him that his machine is a back number.”
The boys searched the sky eagerly for a light which would indicate the position of the aeroplane. After a long time they saw a faint gleam almost directly overhead. The airship seemed to be descending.
“I wish we hadn’t built this fire,” Ben suggested.
“Suppose we put it out!” Carl advised.
“No use now,” Ben put in. “The fellow knows exactly where we are. Besides,” he went on, “if we should attempt to leave our present location, the clatter of the motors would show him exactly where we landed.”
“Then all we’ve got to do,” Jimmie explained, “is to remain right here and watch our machines all night. That’s what I call a downright shame!”
“We don’t have to all watch at the same time,” Ben advised. “You boys go to sleep after we get our supper and I’ll stick around until midnight. Then one of you can go on guard until four in the morning and the other watch until we get ready to leave.”
“That’s about the way we’ll have to do it,” Jimmie responded, “only,” he went on, “if the fellow makes his appearance at the camp and tries any funny business, the one on watch must wake the rest of us.”
This being agreed to, the boys ate a hearty supper and Jimmie and Carl crawled into a hastily set up shelter-tent and were soon sound asleep. Ben did not remain by the camp-fire after that. Instead, he took a position beyond the circle of light, from which the machines were in full view, and watched and listened for the appearance of the mysterious aviator.
Directly the whirr of the motors came louder, and the boy saw the bulk of an aeroplane outlined against the field of stars above.
It was quite evident that the stranger was seeking a place to land, and Ben, resolving to take the initiative, hastened out into the field swinging an electric searchlight.
“Now,” he thought, “we’ll see if this fellow wants to meet us face to face, or whether he wants to sneak about in the darkness in order to work mischief to our machines.”
After the boy had waved his searchlight for a moment a shout came from above, and a machine every bit as large and as finely finished as the Louise came volplaning down to the field.
The rubber-tired wheels had scarcely ceased revolving in the soft earth when Ben stood by the side of the machine, from which a man of about thirty years—a tall, slender man, with very blue eyes and a very blond head—was alighting.
“Hello, son!” the man exclaimed, as he came up to where the boy was standing, “are you out on a trip for your health, too?”
“That’s about the size of it,” answered Ben.
“Where from?” was the next question asked.
“New York city,” was the reply.
“Good