CHAPTER IX
IN THE LEAD
“Someone here to see you, Dave.”
Hiram greeted the young aviator with this announcement one evening, twoweeks after their arrival at Croydon.
“Is that so?” said Dave. “Who was it?”
“I can’t say, for he wouldn’t tell his name. I was walking along thefence around the aerodrome, and just as I neared the gates he popped outfrom behind a pile of boards, just as if he had been in hiding.”
“Did he ask for me?”
“Yes. I told him you were here quite regularly, and always evenings atthe boarding house. The fellow looked peaked and scared, and backed awayas soon as he saw someone coming down the street. He mumbled somethingabout finding you.”
The young airman could not surmise who his strange visitor might be. Heransacked his mind, wondering if it could be some one of his old friendsfrom his home town. Then he said:
“Describe him to me, Hiram, will you?”
“Why,” explained Hiram, “he was a trifle older than I am, and taller;yes, fully two inches taller. Oh, by the way, he wore a false mustache.”
“What’s that?” challenged Dave, half guessing Hiram was joking. But thenarrator looked earnest enough. “You say he wore a false mustache?”
“Sure thing,” persisted Hiram.
“How did you know it was false?”
“Because it came partly off just as the boy turned his face away. Say,you couldn’t tell much about him. His face and hands were all grimed up,and he had his cap pulled way down over his eyes. It was funny, though,one thing.”
“What, Hiram?”
“For all his trampish looks, I noticed that his linen was fine andwhite, and the necktie he wore was one of those expensive ones you seein good furnishing shops.”
“Is that so?” observed Dave, musingly. Then a quick thought came to hismind. He put Hiram through a rapid course of cross-questioning.
“I am satisfied it is young Brackett,” said Dave, to himself. “But whyin that trim, and acting like a fugitive? Hiram,” he added aloud, “keepyour eye out for that boy. I am sure he is in some kind of trouble, andwishes to see me very much.”
“All right,” nodded Hiram, carelessly. “He won’t get away from me nexttime.”
“Don’t use any force and scare him,” directed Dave. “Tell him that Iguess who he is, and want to see him very much.”
“Very well. There’s Professor Leblance just going into the aerodrome.Isn’t it famous what he says about the _Albatross_ being nearly finishedand just as perfect as money and skill could make it.”
Both boys hurried their steps to overtake the genial, accommodatingFrenchman. For the time being Dave’s recent visitor drifted from hismind.
The past two weeks had been the busiest and most engrossing in all thecareer of the young airman. Dave’s report on the Davidson balloon andthe drawing of it he had showed to Leblance had convinced the expertthat the _Dictator_ could not make even a start in the race across theAtlantic.
Dave had told him the gas bag of the _Dictator_ was conspicuously madeof tri-colored fabric. Its promoter, Davidson, had made a great claim.The propelling power of the _Dictator_, he declared, would be built onthe monoplane principle. When traveling the gas bag would collapse,except when they wanted to float. A gas-generating machine was among theadjuncts of the hull, and was placed just above the framework attachingthe airplanes to the balloon.
“It is nonsense, ridiculous,” insisted Leblance, over and over again.“They are inviting sure death if they venture a hundred miles away fromland.”
“All the same, they are going to try it,” proclaimed Hiram, a weeklater, holding up a newspaper. “Here is a great account of the machineand the plans, and Davidson and Jerry Dawson, who are going to fly the_Dictator_.”
These two latter individuals did not trouble the _Albatross_ people anyfurther. A constant guard, however, was kept on duty in the aerodrome.There were a great many curious and interested visitors. Day by day thegiant airship approached completion. Now, as Hiram had announced, it waspractically ready to essay its initial flight.
Professor Leblance smiled indulgently at them, as with considerableprofessional pride he walked around the mammoth structure his skill andefficiency had devised. Dave never tired of surveying the splendidmachine. To him it was a marvel how Leblance had assembled the parts ofthe airship so speedily. There were three engines, and from the woodenribs and metal bracing, socketed to withstand collisions, to thepassenger cabin almost as sumptuously furnished as a Pullman palace car,every detail fitted into a mammoth scheme never before attempted inaeronautics.
“The _Albatross_ will do what no aeroplane could accomplish,” saidLeblance to his companions, who were admiringly regarding the greatmachine.
“What is that, Mr. Leblance?” inquired the young aviator.
“It can be perfectly handled in a storm exceeding thirty-five miles anhour velocity. It is as much of a ship as any that can travel the ocean.An iron ship is sustained on the water by the air inside of her hull,air being eight hundred times lighter than water. The _Albatross_ willbe sustained in the air by hydrogen gas, which is sixteen times lighterthan air.”
“And sixteen to one is as good as unlimited to one,” remarked Dave, whohad been studying aeronautics.
“That’s it. The _Albatross_ is a ship sustained by displacing more thanits own weight on the air. Its gas chambers are inflated to aboutthree-fourths of their capacity, to allow for the full expansion of gasafter the ship has been driven up dynamically by the action of theengines and propellers, the flat top and under surface of the hullacting as an aeroplane.”
The _Albatross_ was a flexible gas bag, just like the ordinary driftingballoon, except that in shape it was long and pointed, instead of round.Otherwise, Leblance explained, it could not be driven through the air.The gas was contained in twenty-two separate chambers inside of therigid hull, which performed the same functions as the air-tightcompartments inside an ocean liner.
“It will sink only if it leaks badly,” explained Leblance. “Thesustaining compartments are always closed. Even if several compartmentsshould burst, the loss of the lift is compensated by the aeroplaneaction of the hull whenever driven at full speed. When thus driven itburns its own fuel so rapidly that this, acting the same as the castingof ballast, is continuously lightening the ship. This is what is calledbalancing the ship. The air balloonets maintain the rigidity of the bagwhenever it loses gas through the action of the sun or change inelevation. The breeze passing through the ventilators at the bowprevents the gas from expanding on the hottest days of the year. I tellyou confidently, my young friends, to my mind the _Albatross_ ispractically unsinkable.”
Neither Dave nor Hiram had thus far been inside the cabin and otherliving apartments of the _Albatross_. They had, however, watched theirconstruction. The big airship could carry twenty passengers, ifnecessary, and in providing for the comfort of those making the firsttrip no detail for their welfare had been overlooked. There werewashrooms, provision apartments, a cook’s galley; and the engineer’squarters, Leblance explained, would be perfect in appointment andequipment. The main point he had striven for was to maintain absolutecontrol of the gas at all times. As this depended upon reliable engines,motors had been built that ran for thirty-six hours at full speed. Themachinery could not break down, as every part had been duplicated.
“That means,” said Leblance, “that if the carburetor gets out of order,a duplicate enables it to go right on working. The engine has a greatnumber of automatic devices, among them two pumps which force the fuelto exactly the right places, even if the ship is standing on its beamends, running up into the air or coming down at an angle of forty-fivedegrees. You won’t have to sit sandwiched in small quarters, my youngfriends. You can walk up and down the cabin and go all over the ship,without disturbing the balance of the huge float overhead. To-morrow thelast touch will be put on the
engine, and then practically we will beall ready.”
Hiram went down to the post-office for the mail after supper that day.Mr. King and his party were downstairs in the living room of theboarding house, entertaining two airmen who had come to Croydon to lookover the _Albatross_ that afternoon, when Hiram returned.
The young aviator’s impetuous assistant burst unceremoniously in uponthe group, stumbled over a rug and went flat, but flushed and breathlesstossed the evening newspaper to Mr. King.
“Read, read!” panted the excited lad.
“Why, what’s all this commotion, Hiram?” questioned the astonishedveteran airman.
“It’s all in—the paper,” gasped Hiram in jerks. “The_Dictator_—has—got—ahead of us.”
“What’s that!” fairly shouted Mr. Dale, springing to his feet.
“Yes,” declared Hiram. “The _Dictator_ started from Senca thisafternoon—on her trip across the Atlantic!”