CHAPTER XXVI.
LATHROP AS AN AIR PILOT.
"Dere she is, massa."
Quatty's dark figure standing up in the canoe was outlined against thedeep ultramarine blue of the night sky as he pointed to an indistinctblur on the horizon.
"She" both the boys instantly realized with a thrill was themound-builders' island on which the _Golden Eagle II_ had been left.They had been paddling hard all night and sometimes poling where themaze of streams they followed shallowed to a mere puddle. With thesudden nearing of their goal a new fear was borne in upon them.
Would the aeroplane be there? Or had the same mysterious forces thatheld the Boy Aviators captive wrecked their ship, too?
Silently--after the first flush of the excitement at Quatty's havingguided them right through a wilderness that it seemed impossible totraverse except at random--the boys paddled on. Their minds were bothbusy with the same question. What would they find when they got there?Perhaps after all their errand would prove to be in vain.
Lathrop was the first to voice the apprehension, they both felt.
"Suppose the _Golden Eagle II_ is gone?" he asked in a low voice.
"Then we will hunt up the _Tarantula_, get a detachment of bluejacketsand clean out the Everglades before we'll give up the search," was thedetermined reply of the young reporter. Billy was rising to theemergency.
The sun had already risen when the outlines of the distant island becamevisible in detail and Billy, after a long and careful scrutiny throughthe glasses, declared he could see something that might or might not bethe _Golden Eagle II_ perched on its summit. This was cheering news andput new strength into the paddlers' flagging arms. From that time ontill they reached the island and found that all was well the boys didnot speak a word, but put all their strength into the work of urging theboats through the water. It was aggravating work too, for at times theywould be only half a mile from the island and then they would find thatthey were compelled to follow another watery path that took them acouple of miles away from their destination. At last, however, the keelsof the little flotilla grated on the island and Billy and Lathrop ran upthe well-worn trail leading to the summit.
Their joy at finding the air-ship intact may be imagined. It was betterluck than they had dared to hope for. Speed was the main thing now andwhile they might have reached the island of the formula stealers by boatthe journey there and back to the coast again by water would have been atedious one and might indeed, by its very length, have defeated theirpurpose.
Lathrop's first care was to examine the gasolene supply. He found to hissatisfaction that the tank was more than half full and he immediatelydumped into it the contents of the two five-gallon cans of reservesupply that the boys had brought along and which were stored under thetransom.
For an hour or more the boy went over the machine carefully, striving tomaster to the minutest detail its working parts. Lathrop was an aviatorand next to the boys, perhaps was as skilled a navigator of aerial craftas the old school in New York had turned out, but he was a littledubious about his ability to run the _Golden Eagle II_. However, it hadto be done and after giving Billy careful instructions about keeping theoil cups filled and seeing to it that the condenser was in constantworking order, Lathrop decided that things were about ready for hisexperimental flight in the Chester boys' big aeroplane.
"And to think that in White Plains I'd have given my head to see it andhere I am going to run her," he could not help saying to himself as hestepped back and gave a final look over the craft.
Under Lathrop's direction the aeroplane was wheeled back to the furthestboundary of the top of the mound as he did not want to take chances onnot securing a good running start. Lathrop knew that aeroplanes are likehorses, they will go well for the man who is used to them under almostany condition; but when a new hand takes control accidents are likely tohappen unless the greatest care is used. As he well realized he knewnothing of the habits of the _Golden Eagle II_, which was a far biggeraeroplane than he had ever run or in fact ever seen.
The boy's heart beat a little faster as he clambered into the pilotsection of the chassis and adjured Billy for the last time to look wellto the engine.
"That's all right," Billy anxiously assured him, "I'm as good anengineer as Harry himself, or will be," he added.
"Don't holler till you're out of the wood," said Lathrop, "and obeyorders."
It is curious how circumstances will alter cases. Billy Barnes, byvirtue of his greater age and knowledge of the world was easilyLathrop's leader, ordinarily. Now, however, when Billy was about toenter upon a duty of which he knew nothing and the other boy a wholelot, their positions were readjusted and it was Lathrop who became theleading spirit.
Quatty, it had been agreed, was to be left behind, and was to make hisway back to the coast with the canoes as soon as possible and apprisethe _Tarantula_ people of what had occurred. He silently watched theboys' preparations with interest from a safe distance.
"Now, then, crank her up," shouted Lathrop, as he threw in the spark onthe control wheel and waited patiently for results as Billy turned andsweated at the self-starting apparatus.
"What's the matter?" he demanded, as there was no answering explosionfrom the engine.
"I don't know," stammered Billy wiping his brow, "there doesn't seem tobe anything doing, does there?"
"What can be the matter?" exclaimed Lathrop, throwing out the switch andcoming aft.
He examined the spark plugs in turn and found that they were sparking inperfect order. Next came an inspection of the carburettor--that, too,was in good trim. Evidently the reason for the failure to start was notthere. Lathrop was puzzled, he had never known an engine to behave insuch a mystifying way before. He went over it again part by part,carefully, and cranked it and rocked it till his arms were ready to dropoff.
Suddenly an idea struck him--not so much for the reasonableness of it,but because he had examined about every other likely cause of failure tostart.
"Well, Billy, you are a wonder," he exclaimed in a vexed tone, when tohis surprise he found that what he tried in desperation proved correct.
"What's the trouble?" asked Billy cheerfully.
"Why you only forgot to open the gasolene valve, that's all."
For the first and last time in his life the reporter was fairly takenback.
"Well, Lathrop, I will admit that I am a first-class,blown-in-the-bottle chump," he exclaimed contritely. The next crankingproved successful and after the engines had settled down to a quiet easypurr, Lathrop with a warning cry of:
"Hold tight, I'm going to throw in the clutch!" started the bigaeroplane on its flight of rescue.
With a swift, wobbling motion that threw Billy from side to side of thecar the _Golden Eagle II_, under the direction of her unskilled pilot,skidded across the top of the mound-builders' island while Quatty wavedhis arm in farewell.
Unaccustomed as he was to the _Golden Eagle II_, Lathrop made his firstmistake when he tried to raise her after too short a run. To his despairand amazement she refused to rise when he raised his upward planes. Theywere traveling over the ground at a rapid speed, now with the two bigpropellers threshing the air at a rate of 1200 revolutions a minute; theroar of the exhaust was like the discharge of a score of gatling guns.
Lathrop set his teeth desperately and jerked the planes at an evenacuter angle in his effort to get her to rise. They were only a fewyards from the edge of the mound now and if she refused to rise by thetime they reached it they would be inevitably dashed down to death inthe ruins of the big sky-skimmer. With that desperate determination thatcomes in the face of crucial emergency, Lathrop threw in another speedon the engine and they attained a velocity of 1500 revolutions a minute.
"I'll make her rise or bust," he said grimly to himself.
But the end he feared did not come; under the added impetus of herincreased speed and the acute angle at which the boy had set the risingplanes the
_Golden Eagle II_ shot into the air, as abruptly as asky-rocket, as she reached the edge of the mound. The result for aninstant, however, threatened to be almost as serious as if she had goneover the edge without rising.
In his excitement Lathrop had set the rising planes at such an abruptangle that when the ship shot up she reared like a horse, hurling BillyBarnes back among the engines and almost overboard and causing Lathropto let go of his steering wheel for the fragment of a second to grasp astanchion. At the same instant the aeroplane, left unguided for asecond, gave a sickening plunge sideways, like a wounded hawk. Lathropin his agitation seized the wheel and gave it a twist that brought herround, it is true, but as her starboard propeller was working in directopposition to the curve he wished her to describe, he almost twisted herrudder off and made her careen at just as alarming an angle in theopposite direction.
To Billy it looked as if they were gone but Lathrop, who was fastlearning the peculiarities of the craft he had under his control,managed by a skillful manipulation to right her and the next minute withher propellers beating the air at top speed the big craft dashed forwardas steadily as an ocean liner. It had been a narrow escape, though, andtaught Lathrop something about navigating a twin screw air-ship. In acraft of this kind, in a maneuver executed to port, the course of theship is bound to receive a backward pull from the starboard propellerand vice versa. It is necessary for the operator, then to swing in aneasy curve to avoid pulling his steering gear out by the roots and beingdashed to death.
"That's only the overture," cried Lathrop, exhilarated by the rapidmotion as they rushed toward the island, "wait for the big show."