CHAPTER IV.
MATT EXPLAINS TO M'GLORY.
Joe McGlory sat in front of the Gladstone House wondering what hadbecome of his pard. Matt had been gone from the hotel for three hours,and when he left he thought he would be back in an hour. Just asMcGlory had made up his mind to go bushwhacking around the town, in thehope of picking up his pard's trail, the king of the motor boys turnedthe corner, carrying a telescope satchel, and walking rapidly.
"Thought you were lost, strayed, or stolen, Matt," sang out McGlory."What have you got there?" he added, his eyes on the grip.
"A flying machine," laughed Matt.
"Speak to me about that!" gasped the cowboy. "Has it come to this,pard, that every man can tote a flying machine in his grip, thenunpack, and hit a trail through the clouds whenever he takes theblessed notion? Go on!"
"It's only a model," went on Matt. "Come up to our room, and I'll tellyou about it."
"Let's sit in at grub pile first. The dinner gong was pounded half anhour ago, and I'm as hungry as a buck Injun on a diet of cottonwoodbark."
Matt took the satchel into the dining room with him, and kept itbetween his feet all the while he was eating.
"You act like that thing was full of gold bricks," remarked McGlory, ashe and Matt climbed the stairs to their room as soon as the meal wasdone.
"Not gold bricks," said Matt. "There's the biggest little thing in thisgrip, Joe, you ever saw in your life."
"Have you hired out to that Murgatroyd person as the human sky-rocket?"inquired McGlory, as he unlocked and opened the door of the room.
"I'm going to try out an a?roplane, up at Fort Totten, but not forMurgatroyd. A lot of things came up this morning, and that's what tookme so long. The only way for you to get the whole business straight isfor me to begin at the beginning. Now sit down, take it easy, and I'lltell you what I've found out, and what I've done."
The cowboy was anxious to see what was in the satchel, but Matt made nomove to gratify his curiosity, just then; instead, he launched into hisexperiences at Murgatroyd's office, at City Park, and, lastly, at Mrs.Traquair's. When he was through, McGlory rubbed his eyes, stared, thenrubbed his eyes and stared again.
"What's the matter with you?" inquired Matt.
"Dreamin'," answered the cowboy. "You're going to take a little fly forfame and fortune, and I'm in on the deal to the tune of two hundred andfifty cold plunks. It's all right, pard. I'd buy an interest in theNorth Pole if you thought there was any profit in icicles; but tell me:Will it be pleasant for your Uncle Joe to stand on the ground and watchyou taking flyers in a thing that killed one fellow, and is hungry towipe out another? Remember, I'm putting up two-fifty for the privilege.It's all very fine to help out a poor widow in distress, and to backcapa loan shark like Murgatroyd--that reads like a book, and I'm plumbtickled to help--but, son, there's your neck to think about."
"I'm not going to take any foolish chances, Joe," said Matt earnestly."I'm hungry to run an a?roplane with a gas engine--and this a?roplaneis the goods, don't forget that."
"Um-m! Suppose you let me look at the goods?"
Matt unbuckled the straps, and lifted the model of the a?roplane out ofits case.
"Oh, tell me about that!" jeered the cowboy. "Two strips of cloth, oneabove the other, with an engine between 'em and a propeller behind!Fine! You'd look pretty a mile high in that thing!"
"This," said Matt, taking the model on his knee, "is the fruit ofseveral hundred years of thought and study."
"Sufferin' buzzards! If I couldn't think up an arrangement like that intwo minutes, and make it in three, I'm a Piute."
"When you understand it, Joe, you'll think differently. An a?roplaneis like a kite, but instead of a string to pull it against the air, ithas a propeller to push it. It's easy enough to fly a kite, but whenyou put a man in the kite, and a gas engine and other machinery, andtake away the string that connects the kite with the earth, you'reconfronted with problems that it has taken centuries to solve."
"Keno!" spoke up McGlory. "And do you mean to say, Matt, that those twopieces of cloth have guessed the riddle?"
"They'll come pretty close to it," asserted Matt. "The thing thatbothered, you see, was keeping the centre of wind-pressure coincidentwith the centre of gravity so the machine wouldn't turn turtle, or----"
"Help!" fluttered McGlory, throwing up his hands.
"A German named Lilienthal tried and failed, and so did an Englishmannamed Pilcher. It remained for the Wright brothers to work out theconundrum. Lilienthal and Pilcher shifted weights to keep their machineright side up in the air, but the American scientists shift the ends ofthe wings, or planes. Traquair's invention does away with the shiftingof weights or planes. Look here, Joe."
Matt pulled a diminutive lever affixed to a platform in the middle ofthe lower plane. The ends of the left-hand wings drew in, and the endsof the right-hand wings simultaneously extended. By pulling the leverthe other way, a contrary movement was effected.
"Sufferin' blockheads!" muttered the cowboy, pushing his fingersdesperately through his thick hair. "I'm only in the primer, pard, andyou're leading me through the hardest part of the fifth reader. Shucks!"
"You can understand, can't you," went on Matt patiently, "that closingor opening the wings distributes the air pressure on each side of themachine and holds it level?"
"Never mind me, pard," said McGlory. "Keep right on."
"These bicycle wheels," and Matt indicated three wheels under thea?roplane, "give the machine its start."
"It's got to have a running start, eh?"
"Sure. When a bird begins to take wing it has to have some kind of astart. A small bird jumps into the air, and a big bird, like a condor,has to take a run before its wings take a grip on the atmosphere. It'sthe same with an a?roplane. A speed of twenty-eight miles an hour isrequired before the air under the planes will lift the flying machine.The motor of this machine is geared to the bicycle wheels, at thestart. When the machine is running fast enough, the power is switchedto the propeller--and up we go!"
"Mebby we do," muttered the cowboy, "but I wouldn't bet on it. Then,again, if we go up will we stay up? And how can you guide the bloomingthing skyward, or on a level, or come down?"
"Why," continued Matt, "these two little planes in front of the bigones attend to that." He shifted them with a lever to show McGlory howthey worked. "This upright rudder behind," he added, "shifts the courseto right or left."
"I'll take your word for it, Matt," said the cowboy. "I've taken a goodmany slim chances in my life, but you'll never catch me taking a chanceon one of those things."
"I don't intend to ask you to take any chances, Joe," proceeded Matt."All I want you to do is to trail along and attend to the work belowwhile I'm in the air. Traquair has invented something here that'sscientific and valuable, and I'm sure we can make a winner out of it,and not only help Mrs. Traquair, but ourselves, as well. That workof ours in Madison netted us more than twelve hundred dollars. Thequestion is, do you want to put in two hundred and fifty dollars withme on the chance of raking in seven thousand five hundred up at FortTotten?"
"You couldn't keep me from takin' that bet with a shotgun," averred thecowboy. "If you're in on the deal, then that means me, too, any oldday you find in the almanac. We'll go to Fort Totten, Matt, and whileyou're paddlin' around in the air I'll hunt up soft places for you to'light. Your head's pretty level on most things, and it's a cinch youmust have this business figured out pretty straight, but----"
At that moment, a hullaballoo came up from the street. The roomoccupied by the boys was at the front of the building, and the twowindows were open.
"Sufferin' cats," cried McGlory, starting for one of the windows, "Iwonder if that's a fire? Ever since we had that close call at theburnin' boathouse on Fourth Lake, I'm scared of a fire."
But it wasn't a fire. A Chinese boy was rushing down the street like awhirlwind, his silk blouse and baggy trousers fluttering and snappingin the wind of his flight, and his pig
tail standing straight out behindhim.
Back of the Chinaman came a bear. The bear was muzzled, and there wasa collar about its neck and some six or eight feet of chain rattlingaround its legs. The bear was going after the Chinaman like a brownstreak, and a whopping crowd of onlookers was gathering on thesidewalks.
"Great jump sparks!" cried Matt, astounded; "Why, it's Ping!"
"Ping it is, pard, and no mistake!" gasped McGlory; "and we left Pingin Madison, workin' for Lorry. How did he get here? And how in Sam Hilldid that bear pick up his trail?"
But Matt was already out of the room, and halfway down the stairs on arun for the street.