CHAPTER XIII. A STRANGE MEETING IN THE AIR.
"Hiram, it's only fair that you stay with us for a while this afternoon,"Rob mentioned as they were leaving the table.
"Oh! I expected to put in say an hour or so with you, Rob; and then lateron I hope you'll make your way over to the aviation field, where you'lljust as like as not find me hanging around, still picking up points."
"That's a bargain, then, is it?" demanded Rob.
"Just as you say," Hiram declared. "I guess now I c'n hit on the fustthing our chum Andy here'll be wantin' to do. I've been watchin' himstare at that old arm every time she rose up with the car; and I seewe're headin' that way right fast now."
"Yes, it's a good idea to take that trip the first thing," said Rob,"because you get a comprehensive idea of the lay of the land that servesyou better than any map you can buy. They don't stay up very long,though, because there are more dollars waiting to be picked up from thecrowd that's always in line to occupy the car."
"Three hundred and sixty-five feet up is going some," muttered Hiram. "Ihope now they don't have any accident to the machinery while we're takingour look. I must see how they work this trick; it ought to beinteresting."
He would have started to carry out this intention then and there onlythat Andy held on to his coat and would not let go.
"The machinery part can keep, Hiram," the impatient one declared. "Sometime when you're alone poke around all you like; but my tastes run inanother channel. You're like the geologists, with your nose pointedtoward the ground all the while; I'm built more after the style of theastronomers who keep looking up and see the glories of the firmament thatbeat the fossils all hollow."
"H'm! you don't say!" was all the remark Hiram made, but it containedconsiderable skepticism concerning Andy's sweeping assertion.
They fell in line, and were fortunate enough to be able to get aboardwithout having to wait, as they might have done later in the afternoon.
"This thing must have cost a raft of money to build; it beats the oldFerris Wheel to pieces, I should think; and that was a wonder in itsday."
"Yes," said Andy, "but think of the money they must take in, running itall the time from February up to December. Why, I should think they'dhave millions of passengers in that time, and at so much a head it wouldbe like a regular gold mine."
About that time the car was closed and locked, so that by no mischancecould any reckless passenger be tempted to jump when it was high in theair, so as to accomplish a spectacular suicide.
"And they've got the windows screened in, too," remarked Andy.
"They knew you were coming, I kinder guess, and wanted to make sure youwouldn't lose your head up there so as to fall overboard," Hiram toldhim.
The car was crowded, so that they could not see who all of their fellowpassengers were. There was also considerable shouting going on, some ofthose aboard bidding farewell to friends who had been unable to make thattrip, as though they fully expected to keep right on going up, once theygot started toward the blue heavens overhead, until they landed in Glory.
"Here she goes!" announced Andy, eagerly, as the car was felt to vibrate.
With that they left the ground and commenced to ascend. The motion wasfairly steady, as the weights on the other end of the great seesaw hadbeen adjusted to correspond to the number of those in the car, so thatafter all the engine did not have a great deal of hard work to do inlifting that load.
"Whee! I only hope none of the balancing weight slips off!" said Hiram,who appeared to be rather nervous.
"I'm surprised at you, Hiram," remarked Rob; "it seems queer for a fellowwho aspires to be a bold air pilot some of these fine days, and who haseven been up several times as high as three thousand feet, to beshivering with fear now, when at the most we're only going to get threehundred odd feet from the ground."
"Oh, well, that's a horse of a different color," Hiram explained; "whenyou're up in an aeroplane it depends on your own self whether you comedown safe, or have an accident. In this case you haven't got a singlething to do with it, but just trust to a mechanic, who may be as reliableas they make 'em, but could make a mistake just once. That's what gets mygoat; my efficiency don't count for a cent in this game."
"Well, there is something in that," Rob admitted; "but let's try to finda place and look out as we keep on rising. Already the view seems to begetting pretty fine."
There was more or less talking and laughing and all that in the car, forwhen there happens to be a spice of danger connected with any of theseamusements many people become half hysterical.
The view was, indeed, becoming grand, as Rob had said, and both boys weresoon copying Andy, who was staring first one way and then another, as seaand shore began to be spread out before him like a Mercator's chart.
Although the huge arm of the giant Aeroscope had by no means reached theupper limit of its sweep, the great buildings lying below had theappearance of squatty "ant-heaps," as Andy termed them; and the crowdsthat swarmed many of the walks of the Exposition looked so minute that itwas hard to believe they were human beings.
All at once, the working arm of the big seesaw stopped with a rude jerkthat caused a number of girls aboard to give vent to cries of alarm. Evenstrong men had a nervous look on their faces, Rob immediately noticed.
"What's this mean?" demanded Hiram, laying a hand on Rob's arm.
"We haven't reached the highest sweep yet, I'm dead sure," complainedAndy, in a petulant tone, just as though he believed the management meantto cheat those aboard out of the full benefit of their money. "We want abetter view than this. All the others went to the top, and I don't seewhy we shouldn't, too."
"Rob, this stop wasn't meant, was it?" demanded Hiram, insistent asusual.
"Don't talk so loud, Hiram," he was advised. "You'll only frighten thosegirls all the more if they happen to hear you. No, I don't believe it wasintended that we stop this far up, and with such a bump, too."
"But is there any real danger of an accident? I wouldn't care so much ifI had my new-fangled parachute with me, and could only get outside; foreven if the old car did drop, I'd be able to sail down like a feather."
"Danger--of course not a bit," Rob told him sternly. "You don't supposethe managers of this big Exposition would allow a mechanical affair likethis Aeroscope to be run day after day unless the owners had made itabsolutely accident proof. Just hold your horses and we'll soon be movingagain."
"Yes, and Hiram," said Andy just then, "don't put yourself on a par withthose silly screeching girls over there, who are hugging each other so.Poor things, they don't know any better! But you're a scout, Hiram, andhave been taught never to show the white feather. Brace up! You'rewearing khaki right now, and for the sake of the cloth show yourself aman!"
That brought Hiram to a realization of the fact that he was indeed hardlyproving himself a worthy scout. He pretended to be indifferent.
"Shucks! who cares?" he exclaimed. "I do wish them girls'd let up ontheir racket; it gets on a feller's nerves to hear 'em shriek that way."
"Well, I know what ails the old thing!" suddenly announced Andy, with agrin on his face that told how his love for joking exceeded any faintfeeling of alarm that may have seized upon him.
"Let's hear it, then!" demanded Rob.
"Oh, if you had only guessed it before we started it would have savedlots of bother!" called out Hiram.
"They miscalculated the weight, you see!" continued Andy. "Some fellowsare so deceptive in their looks. Now right across from us there's a fatboy with his back turned this way, and staring hard out of the window. Ibet you they figured wrong on him, and that's why we've got stuck up herefour-fifths of the way to the top."
The other two now looked, and owing to some of the passengers in the carcrowding together an opening was made like a little lane. At the end ofthis they discovered, just as Andy had said, an exceedingly fat boyoccupying more than his share of space, with his chubby legs braced und
erhim, and his face pressed against the heavy wire netting that covered theopen windows.
Rob stared, and looked more closely. He half opened his mouth to makesome sort of remark, and then as though seized with a second thought,refrained.
"Do you really think so, Andy?" asked Hiram, in a half-awed way, asthough he actually took some stock in the ridiculous assertion made bythe other.
"Well, tell me a better explanation if you know one!" demanded Andy,which was a queer way of clinching an argument.
"Then the quickest way to mend matters would be for you to go over thereand toss the heavy-weight overboard, don't you think, Andy?" asked Rob,entering into the spirit of the joke, especially since he really believedhe held the whip-hand over the fun-loving Andy.
"Huh! think so, do you, Rob?" said Andy, making out as though he felt ina fighting humor. "Well, now, perhaps that would be the easiest way tofix things. I've got a good mind to try it. Watch my smoke, Hiram!"
With that he actually squared himself, rolled up the sleeves of his coat,and even started across the car. Hiram turned pale. He seemed to forgetthat there was no possible way in which any one inside the car couldmanage to effect their escape so long as the great arm of the giantseesaw was elevated in the air.
"Rob, are you going to stand for that?" he burst out.
"No use trying to stop him now, Hiram," he was told.
"But look at him squaring off, Rob, like he really means it!" criedHiram. "It would be just like Andy, he's so rash, you know, to get us allarrested. What if he did knock that fat boy off the car! Why, Rob, don'tyou see the sudden jolt when the weight was changed might make us fly up,and bring about a catastrophe?"
"That's so, it might, Hiram," said Rob, trying hard to keep a straightface.
"Oh! it's too late to stop him, Rob!"
"Yes, I see it is," replied the scout leader, and somehow there was notmuch of excitement about either his voice or his manner, only an apparentinane desire to grin, Hiram thought as he looked at his chum.
"There, he's actually grabbed hold of the fat boy, and is trying to lifthim up so as to get him out of the window."
"You're a little off there, Hiram. Seems to me I would say Andy wastrying to hug the poor fat boy, because he's certainly thrown his armsaround him, and acts as if he might be glad to meet him!"
"Why, Rob, whatever can that mean! He is acting just as you say, and itseems to me Andy isn't doing all the hugging, either."
At that Rob broke into a hearty laugh.
"You know what it stands for, and you won't tell me a thing, which Ithink is a mean job," complained Hiram.
"Look again," Rob told him. "Now the fat boy happens to have his faceturned this way. Don't you think you've seen that same moon phiz before,Hiram? Doesn't it somehow take you back to dear old Hampton, and the manyjolly times we've had on our camping trips? Say, you ought to know thatboy, Hiram."
As soon as he could catch his breath, Hiram gave a shout.
"Why, consarn my picture if it isn't our chum, Tubby Hopkins!"