CHAPTER XVII
ALL ABOARD FOR BOSTON!
Nineteen days from the discovery of the biplane, a singularhappening for a desolate world took place on the broad beach that nowedged the city where once the sluggish Providence River had flowedseaward.
For here, clad in a double suit of leather that Beatrice had made forhim, Allan Stern was preparing to give the rehabilitated Pauillac atry-out.
Day by day, working incessantly when not occupied in hunting orfishing, the man had rebuilt and overhauled the entire mechanism.Tools he had found a-plenty in the ruins, tools which he had groundand readjusted with consummate care and skill. Alcohol he had gatheredtogether from a score of sources. All the wooden parts, such as skidsand levers and propellers, long since vanished and gone, he hadcleverly rebuilt.
And now the machine, its planes and rudders covered with strongly sewnbuckskin, stretched as tight as drum heads, its polished screw of theChauviere type gleaming in the morning sun, stood waiting onthe sands, while Stern gave it a painstaking inspection.
"I think," he judged, as he tested the last stay and gave the engineits final adjustment. "I think, upon my word, this machine's betterto-day than when she was first built. If I'm not mistaken, buckskin'sa better material for planes than ever canvas was--it's far strongerand less porous, for one thing--and as for the stays, I prefer thebraided hide. Wire's so liable to snap.
"This compass I've rigged on gimbals here, beats anything Pauillachimself ever had. What's the matter with my home-made gyrostat andanemometer? And hasn't this aneroid barometer got cards and spadesover the old-style models?"
Enthusiastic as a boy, Stern shook his head and smiled delightedly atBeatrice as he expounded the merits of the biplane and its fittings.She, half glad, half anxious at the possible outcome of the venture,stood by and listened and nodded as though she understood all theminutiae he explained.
"So then, you're ready to go up this morning?" she asked, with just aquiver of nervousness in her voice. "You're quite certain everything'sall right--no chance of accident? For if anything happened--"
"There, there, nothing can happen, nothing will!" he reassured her."This motor's been run three hours in succession already withoutskipping an explosion. Everything's in absolute order, I tell you. Andas for the human, personal equation, I can vouch for that myself!"
Stern walked around to the back of the machine, picked up a long,stout stake he had prepared, took his ax, and at a distance of abouttwelve feet behind the biplane drove the stake very deep into the hardsand.
He knotted a strong leather cord to the stake, brought it forward andsecured it to the frame of the machine.
"Now, Beatrice," he directed, "when I'm ready you cut the cord. Ihaven't any corps of assistants to hold me back till the right momentand then give me a shove, so the best I can do is this. Give a quickslash right here when I shout. And whatever happens don't be alarmed.I'll come back to you safe and sound, never fear. And this afternoonit's 'All Aboard for Boston!'"
Smiling and confident, he cranked the motor. It caught, and now achattering tumult filled the air, rising, falling, as Sternmanipulated throttle and spark to test them once again.
Into the driver's seat he climbed, strapped himself in and turned tosmile at Beatrice.
Then with a practiced hand he threw the lever operating thefriction-clutch on the propeller-shaft. And now the great blades beganto twirl, faster, faster, till they twinkled and buzzed in thesunlight with a hum like that of a gigantic electric fan.
The machine, yielding to the urge, tugged forward, straining at itsbonds like a whippet eager for a race. Beatrice, her face flushed withexcitement, stood ready with the knife.
Louder, faster whirled the blades, making a shiny blur; a breezesprang out behind them; it became a wind, blowing the girl's hair backfrom her beautiful face.
Stern settled himself more firmly into the seat and gripped the wheel.
The engine was roaring like a battery of Northrup looms. Stern feltthe pull, the power, the life of the machine. And his heart leapedwithin him at his victory over the dead past, his triumph still to be!
"All right!" he cried. "Let go--_let go!_"
The knife fell. The parted rope jerked back, writhing, like a woundedserpent.
Gently at first, then with greater and greater speed, shaking andbouncing a little on the broad, flat wheels that Stern had fitted tothe alighting gear, the plane rolled off along the firm-beaten sands.
Stern advanced the spark and now the screw sang a louder, higherthrenody. With ever-accelerating velocity the machine tooled forwarddown the long stretch, while Beatrice stood gazing after it in raptattention.
Then all at once, when it had sped some three hundred feet, Sternrotated the rising plane; and suddenly the machine lifted. In a longsmooth curve, she slid away up the air as though it had been a solidhill--up, up, up--swifter and swifter now, till a suddenly acceleratedrush cleared the altitude of the tallest pines in the forest edgingthe beach, and Stern knew his dream was true!
With a great shout of joy, he leaped the plane aloft! Its rise had allthe exhilarating suddenness of a seagull flinging up from thefoam-streaked surface of the breakers. And in that moment Stern feltthe bliss of conquest.
Behind him, the spruce propellers were making a misty haze of hummingenergy. In front, the engine spat and clattered. The vast spread ofthe leather wings, sewn, stretched and tested, crackled and boomed asthe wind got under them and heaved them skyward.
Stern shouted again. The machine, he felt, was a thing of life,friendly and true. Not since that time in the tower, months ago, whenhe had repaired the big steamengine and actually made it run, had heenjoyed so real a sense of mastery over the world as now; had hesensed so definite a connection with the mechanical powers of theworld that was, the world that still should be.
No longer now was he fighting the forces of nature, all barehanded andalone. Now back of him lay the energy of a machine, a metal heart,throbbing and inexhaustible and full of life! Now he had tapped thevein of Power! And in his ears the ripping volley of the exhaustsounded as sweetly as might the voice of a long-absent and belovedgirl returning to her sweetheart.
For a moment he felt a choking in his throat, a mist before his eyes.This triumph stirred him emotionally, practical and cool and keenthough he was. His hand trembled a second; his heart leaped, throbbinglike the motor itself.
But almost immediately he was himself once more. The weakness passed.And with a sweep of his clear eyes, he saw the speeding landscape,woods, hills, streams, that now were running there beneath him like afluid map.
"My God, it's grand, though!" he exclaimed, swerving the plane in along, ascending spiral. All the art, the knack of flight came back tohim, at the touch of the wheel, as readily as swimming to an expert inthe water. Fear? The thought no more occurred to him than to you,reading these words.
Higher he mounted, higher still, his hair whipping out behind in thewild wind, till he could see the sparkle of Narragansett Bay, there inthe distance where the river broadened into it. At him the wind tore,louder even than the spitting crackle of the motor. He only laughed,and soared again.
But now he thought of Beatrice; and, as he banked and came about, hepeered far down for sight of her.
Yes, there she stood, a tiny dot upon the distant sand. And though heknew she could not hear, in sheer animal spirits and overwhelming joyhe shouted once again, a wild, mad triumphant hurrah that lost itselfin empty space.
The test he gave the Pauillac convinced him she would carry all theload they would need put upon her, and more. He climbed, swooped,spiraled, volplaned, and rose again, executing a series of evolutionsthat would have won him fame at any aero meet. And when, after half anhour's exhaustive trial, he swooped down toward the beach again, hefound the plane alighted as easily as she had risen.
Like a sea-bird sinking with flat, outstretched wings, coming to restwith perfect ease and beauty on the surface of the deep, the Pauillacslid down the long hil
l of air. Stern cut off power. The machine tookthe sand with no more than vigorous bound, and, running forwardperhaps fifty yards, came to a stand.
Stern had no sooner leaped from the seat than Beatrice was with him.
"Oh, glorious!" she cried, her face alight with joy and fineenthusiasm. All her spontaneity, her love and admiration were aroused.And she kissed him with so frank and glad a love that Stern felt hisheart jump wildly. He thought she never yet had been so beautiful.
But all he said was:
"Couldn't run finer, little girl! Barring a little stiffness here andthere, she's perfect. So, then, when do we start, eh? To-morrowmorning, early?"
"Why not this afternoon? I'm sure we can get ready by then."
"Afternoon it is, if you say so! But we've got to work, to do it!"
By noon they had gathered together all the freight they meant tocarry, and--though the sun had dimmed behind dull clouds of a peculiarslaty gray, that drifted in from eastward--had prepared for the flightto Boston. After a plentiful dinner of venison, berries andbreadfruit, they loaded the machine.
Stern calculated that, with Beatrice as a passenger, he could carryseventy-five or eighty pounds of freight. The two rifles, ammunition,knives, ax, tools and provisions they packed into the skin sackBeatrice had prepared, weighed no more than sixty. Thus Stern reckonedthere would be a fair "coefficient of safety" and more than enoughpower to carry them with safety and speed.
It was at 1:15 that the girl took her place in the passenger's seatand let Stern strap her in.
"Your first flight, little girl?" he asked smiling, yet a triflegrave. The barking motor almost drowned his voice.
She nodded but did not speak. He noted the pulse in her throat, alittle quick, yet firm.
"You're positive you're not going to be afraid?"
"How could I, with you?"
He made all secure, climbed up beside her, and strapped himself in hisseat.
Then he threw in the clutch and released the brake.
"Hold fast!" cried he. "All aboard for Boston! Hold fast!"