CHAPTER V.
MOTOR MATT PROTESTS.
The parade was finished without further incident worthy of note, ahuge crowd following it back to the show grounds to see the a?roplaneflight. As soon as the grounds were reached, Ben Ali came for Haidee.There was a burning light in his black eyes, and he was shaking like aman with the ague.
"Just a minute, Ben Ali," said Matt, catching the Hindoo by the sleeveof his embroidered coat and leading him apart. "What's the matter withyour niece?"
"Salaam, sahib," chattered Ben Ali. "Haidee all right soon."
"She can't make an ascension with me, Ben Ali. She was the cause ofthat trouble, and it would be sheer madness to take her aloft on thattrapeze."
"Yis, sahib, _such baht_" (that is true). Ben Ali drew a quivering handover his forehead. "But she be well like ever soon, sahib."
Ben Ali whirled away, took Haidee by the hand, and vanished among thewagons.
Boss Burton strode to the scene.
"What ails that brown rascal?" he asked, staring after Ben Ali. "He'sin as bad a taking as the girl. What did he say about her? I've neverbeen able to get him to tell me anything about her spells."
"He tells me that she will be all right in a little while," answeredMatt.
"Then we'll delay the flight. It will be half an hour yet before allthe people get here."
Matt peered at the showman as though he thought him out of his senses.
"You don't mean to say that you want the girl to ride a trapeze underthe _Comet_?" he demanded.
"Why not?" Burton answered. "You said you'd take her, and she's willingto go--she wants to go."
"When I said I'd take her," returned Matt, "I didn't know anythingabout her spells. Suppose she were to have one while we're in the air?Why, Burton, she might throw herself from the trapeze."
"No," declared the other, "she wouldn't do that. After she has onespell, I understand she doesn't have another for days, or weeks. It'sbeen a month since she had the last. Why, in St. Paul, she had one tenminutes before she went to the ring for her trapeze work--and she neverdid better. If Ben Ali says she'll be all right in a little while heought to know."
"I protest against allowing her to go up in the a?roplane," said Mattfirmly. "When the machine is off the ground it has to have my wholeattention. I won't be able to look after Haidee without endangeringboth our lives."
A hard look came into Burton's face.
"I'm paying you five hundred a week for the stunt you pull off with theflying machine, ain't I?" he demanded harshly.
"You are," was the young motorist's calm response.
"And I'm giving the fifty on top of that for taking the girl up withyou?"
"That was your proposition."
"And you agreed to it?"
"That was before I knew Haidee was afflicted in this way, Burton."
"Bosh!" scoffed the showman. "The thing has got on your nerves."
"So it has," acknowledged Matt. "I'm not going to place Haidee in anydanger, if I can help it."
"And that shot goes as it lays, Burton," spoke up McGlory, who had beentaking a deep interest in the talk. "If you think Motor Matt is goingto risk the girl's neck, or his own, for a little fifty a week, you'vegot another guess coming."
Boss Burton had set his heart on that trapeze act. It was a decidednovelty, and he could not cut it out of his calculations.
"Am I to understand," he went on, taking a look at the gatheringcrowds, "that you'll break your contract rather than take Haidee upwith you?"
"That's what you're to understand!" snapped McGlory. "We'll not hem,and haw, and side-step, not for a holy minute."
"It's this way, Burton," continued Matt. "Haidee can't go up on thetrapeze--we have to take a running start, you know, and it would beimpossible. She'll have to ride up on the lower plane; then, after weare well clear of the ground, she'll have to drop from the footboardwith the trapeze in her hands. If she's not entirely herself, the dropfrom the footboard to the end of the trapeze ropes will be too much forher. She'll fall."
"But I told you that after she comes out of these things she's as fitas ever," cried Burton. "It's a still day--the best we've had forflying since you joined the show. I don't want to give up the idea."
"And you don't want to see Haidee killed before your eyes, do you?"asked Matt coldly.
"Oh, splash! There'll be nothing of that kind. Ah, look! Here shecomes, and she's just as well as ever."
Matt and McGlory turned. Haidee, ready for the ascent, was hurryingtoward the machine from the direction of the tent. She moved swiftlyand gracefully, and there was nothing mechanical in her actions--asthere had been during the parade. The pallor had left her cheeks andthe vacant look was gone from her eyes. Matt and McGlory were astoundedat the sudden change in her.
"Are you all ready for me, Motor Matt?" she asked eagerly.
The trapeze was ready. That had been attached to the under plane of the_Comet_ and the bar lashed to the foot-rest before the parade. But Mattwas not ready.
"How are you feeling, Haidee?" asked Matt kindly.
"Fine!" she declared.
"Do you remember what happened during the parade?"
A puzzled look crossed her face.
"I can't remember a thing about that," she declared. "In fact,everything has been a blank almost from the time I left the calliopetent, where I was talking with you, until I came to myself in themenagerie tent with Uncle Ben."
Matt bowed his head thoughtfully.
"What's the matter?" asked the girl, in a quivering voice. "Aren't yougoing to take me up with the _Comet_?"
"He's afraid you'll have a spell while you're in the air, Haidee, anddrop off the bar," jeered Burton.
The girl stepped forward and caught Matt's sleeve.
"Oh, it can't be true!" she exclaimed tearfully. "Motor Matt, you'renot going to keep me from making that extra money? I need it! I musthave it!"
The girl's earnestness made Matt waver.
"It won't do," spoke up McGlory decidedly.
"Joe!" and Haidee turned on him. "Why can't you understand that I'mjust as able as ever to do my trapeze work? I'll not have another ofthose queer spells for a long time."
"That's what you think, sis," answered McGlory, "but if anythinghappened to you my pard would remember it as long as he lived. He hasjust protested to Burton against taking you up. And he had a bean onthe right number when he said what he did."
"_I'm_ taking the chances," said Haidee, "and nothing will happen."
The a?roplane was at rest on the hard roadway running across theshow grounds. For a distance of twenty feet on each side of the roadstrong ropes were stretched to keep back the crowd. The throng was nowpressing against the ropes, clamoring for the a?roplane to make itsflight.
"If this performance don't come off," said Boss Burton, "it will be atough blow for the Big Consolidated. I advertised this trapeze stunton the flying machine in the morning papers, wiring it ahead fromIndianapolis. It's _got_ to be done, that's all. Every promise made inour bills is always carried out. That's what has given this show ahold with the people. I don't say one thing and then do another."
"Circumstances alter cases," returned Matt.
"If you don't want to take Haidee, will you take Archie le Bon?"
Archie le Bon was one of the Le Bon Brothers, iron-nerved men whoperformed wonderful flying feats on the trapeze.
"Certainly I'll take Archie le Bon," replied Matt, glad to find sucha way out of the disagreement. "Bring him here while I'm getting themachine ready."
Haidee began to cry, but Burton took her by the arm and led her away,talking earnestly and in a low voice.
A trick was worked on the king of the motor boys that morning, and itwas something for which he never forgave Boss Burton. And it was atrick carried to a successful conclusion almost under the very eyes ofMcGlory and Ping. Matt, being busy with the a?roplane and the motor,did not discover it until too late.
Matt went over the machinery of the _Com
et_ with the same care heexercised before every flight. A loose bolt or screw might spell deathfor him if it escaped his attention.
When he was through with his examination, and had taken his seat readyfor the flight. Le Bon appeared. He was in his shirt sleeves, nothaving had time to exchange his everyday clothes for ring costume.
"I'll run with the machine," said Le Bon, "and climb over the lowerplane from behind when it gets to running too fast for me."
"That will do," answered Matt.
Amid the breathless silence of the crowd, Matt set the motor to working.
"Ready!" he called.
The machine started along the road, gaining in speed with every foot ofits progress.
At the end of fifty feet it was going faster than a man could run; andat a hundred feet it was darting along at thirty miles an hour. Thiswas the gait that enabled the wing to pick the machine off the ground.
As the _Comet_ slid upward along its airy path, the astounded McGlorysaw Le Bon far back toward the point from which the machine hadstarted. Thinking that, through some mistake, Le Bon had been leftbehind, McGlory turned toward the mounting a?roplane.
Then the trick dawned upon him.
Haidee was climbing over the lower plane toward Motor Matt, now andagain turning to wave her hand at the cheering crowd!
And McGlory saw something else--something that had a fearfulsignificance in the light of later events.