CHAPTER VI.
A SHOT ACROSS THE BOWS.
The sensation of gliding through the air, entirely cut adrift fromsolid ground, is as novel as it is pleasant. The body seems suddenlyto have acquired an indescribable lightness, and the spirits becomeequally buoyant. Dizziness, or vertigo, is unheard of among a?ronauts.While on the ground a man may not be able to climb a ladder for adistance of ten feet without losing his head and falling, the same mancan look downward for thousands of feet from a balloon with his nervesunruffled.
Joe McGlory, now for the first time leaping into the air with a flyingmachine, was holding his breath and hanging on desperately to keephimself from being shaken off his seat, but, to his astonishment, hisfears were rapidly dying away within him.
The cowboy was a lad of pluck and daring; nevertheless, he had viewedhis projected flight in a mood akin to panic. Although passionatelyfond of boats, yet the roll of a launch in a seaway always made himsick; in the same manner, perhaps, he was in love with flying machines,although it had taken a lot of strenuous work to get him to promise togo aloft.
The necessity, on account of wet ground, of juggling for a start, hadthrown something of a wet blanket over McGlory's ardor. Once in theair, however, his enthusiasm arose as his fears went down.
Matt sat on the left side of the broad seat, firmly planted withhis feet on the footrest and his body bent forward, one hand on themechanism that expanded or contracted the great wings, and the othermanipulating the rudder that gave the craft a vertical course.
On Matt's quickness of judgment and lightning-like celerity in shiftingthe levers, the lives of all three of the boys depended. Every changein the centre of air pressure--and this was shifting every second--hadto be met with an expansion or contraction of the wings in order tomake the centre of air pressure and the centre of gravity coincide atall times.
Upon Matt, therefore, fell all the labor and responsibility. He had notime to give to the scenery passing below, and what talking he indulgedin was mechanical and of secondary importance to his work. But thisis not to say that he missed all the pleasures of flying. A greaterdelight than that offered by the zest of danger and responsibility inthe air would be hard to imagine. Every second his nerves were strungto tightest tension.
Ping sat between Matt and McGlory, his yellow hands clutching the rimof the seat between his knees. He was purring with happiness, like someovergrown cat, while a grin of heavenly joy parted his face as his eyesmarked the muddy roads over which they were passing without hindrance.
Up and up Matt forced the machine until they reached a height of fivehundred feet. Here the air was crisp and cool, and much steadier thanthe currents closer to the surface.
"Great!" shouted the cowboy. "I haven't the least fear that we're goingto drop, and I'd just as lieve go out on the end of one of the wingsand stand on my head."
"Don't do it," laughed Matt, keeping his eyes straight ahead, while hishand trawled constantly back and forth with the lever controlling thewing ends.
"Him plenty fine!" cooed Ping.
"Fine ain't the name for it," said McGlory. "I'm so plumb tickled Ican't sit still. And to think that I shied and side-stepped, when Imight have been having this fun right along! Well, we can't be so wiseall the time as we are just some of the time, and that's a fact. Howfar do you make it, Matt, to where we're going?"
"A little over a hundred miles, as the crow flies."
"As the _Comet_ flies, you mean. How fast are we going?"
"Fifty miles an hour."
"That clip will drop us near Burnt Creek in two hours. Whoop-ya!"
The cowboy let out a yell from pure exhilaration. Not a thoughtregarding possible accident ran through his head. The engine wasworking as sweetly as any motor had ever worked, the propeller waswhirling at a speed that made it look like a solid disk, and the greatwings were plunging through the air with the steady, swooping motion ofa hawk in full flight.
A huddle of houses rushed toward the _Comet_, far below, and vanishedbehind.
"What was that, pard?" cried the cowboy.
"Minnewaukon," answered Matt.
At that moment the young motorist shifted the rudder behind, which wasthe one giving the craft her right and left course, and they made ahalf turn. As the _Comet_ came around and pointed her nose toward thesouthwest, she careened, throwing the right-hand wings sharply upward.
McGlory gave vent to a hair-raising yell. He was hurled against Ping,and Ping, in turn, was thrown against Matt.
"Right yourselves, pards," called Matt. "That was nothing. When weswing around a turn we're bound to roll a little. You can't expect moreof an air ship, you know, than you can of a boat in the water. You keeptrack of the time, Ping. Joe, follow our course on the map. You canhang on with one hand and hold the map open with the other. We can'tsail without a chart."
Matt had secured his open-face watch to a bracket directly above Ping'shead. The boy could see the time-piece without shifting his position.
The map McGlory had in his pocket. Removing the map from his coat withone hand, the cowboy opened it upon his knee.
With a ruler, Matt had drawn a line from Minnewaukon straight to thepoint where Burnt Creek emptied into the Missouri. This line randirectly southwest, crossing four lines of railroad, and as many towns.
"How are we going to know we're keeping the course, pard?" inquiredMcGlory. "We ought to have a compass."
"A compass wouldn't have been a bad thing to bring along," returnedMatt, "but we'll be able to keep the course, all right, by watching forthe towns we're due to pass. The first town is Flora, on the branchroad running northwest from Oberon. If I'm not mistaken, there it is tothe right of us. Hang on, both of you! I'm going to drop down close,Joe, while you hail one of the citizens and ask him if I've got thename of the place right."
There was plenty of excitement in the little prairie village. Men,women, and children could be seen rushing out of their houses andgazing upward at the strange monster in the sky. Everybody in thatsection had heard of Motor Matt and his a?roplanes, so the curiosityand surprise were tempered with a certain amount of knowledge.
"Hello, neighbor!" roared McGlory, as the air ship swept downward towithin fifty feet of the ground, "what town is this?"
"Flora," came the reply. "Light, strangers, an' roost in our frontyard. Ma and the children would like to get a good look at yourmachine, and----"
The voice faded to rearward, and "ma and the children" had to bedisappointed.
Having assured himself that he was right, Matt headed the a?roplanetoward the skies, once more.
Settlers' shacks, and more pretentious farmhouses, raced along underthem, and in every place where there were any human beings, intenseexcitement was manifested as the _Comet_ winged its way onward.
In less than fifteen minutes after passing Flora, they caught sightof another railroad track and another huddle of buildings. It was the"Soo" road, and the town was Manfred.
"How long have we been in the air, Ping?" asked Matt.
"Fitty-fi' minutes," replied the Chinaman.
"Manfred ain't many miles from Sykestown, pard," said Joe, "and we mustbe within gunshot of that place where we had our troubles, a few daysback."
"I'm glad we're giving the spot a wide berth," returned Matt, witha wry face. "We've got to make better time," he added, opening thethrottle; "we're not doing as well as I thought."
The _Comet_ hurled herself onward at faster speed. The air of theirflight whistled and sang in the boys' ears, and hills underneath leapedat them and then vanished rearward with dizzying swiftness.
"I'd like to travel in an a?roplane all the time," remarked McGlory."Sufferin' skyrockets! What's the use of hoofin' it, or ridin' inrailroad cars, when you can pick up a pair of wings and a motor and gogallywhooping through the air?"
The machine was well over the coteaus, now, and the rough country wouldhold, with only now and then an occasional break, clear to the Missouri.
Another railroad, and
a cluster of dwellings known as "Goodrich," werepassed, and the a?roplane slid along over the corner of McLean Countyand into Burleigh.
They were drawing close to Burnt Creek, and everything was goingswimmingly. Matt, notwithstanding the severe strain upon him, was notin the least tired. In a little less than two hours after leaving FortTotten they crossed their last railroad--a branch running northwardfrom Bismarck. The town, near where they winged over the steel rails,was down on the map as "Arnold."
"Speak to me about this!" cried McGlory. "There's a creek under us,Matt, and I'll bet it's the one we're looking for."
"We're finding something else we were not looking for," answered theking of the motor boys grimly.
"What's that?" queried McGlory.
"Look straight ahead at the top of the next hill."
McGlory turned his eyes in the direction indicated. A number ofrough-looking horsemen, evidently cowboys, were scattered over thehill. They were armed with rifles, and were spurring back and forth inan apparent desire to get directly in front of the _Comet_.
"Why, pard," shouted McGlory, "they're punchers, same as me. Punchersare a friendly lot, and that outfit wouldn't no more think of cuttingup rough with us than----"
The words were taken out of the cowboy's mouth by the sharp crack of arifle. One of the horsemen had fired, his bullet singing through theair in front of the _Comet_.
"That's across our bows," said Matt, "and it's an invitation to comedown."
The "invitation" was seconded by a yell the import of which there wasno mistaking.
"Hit the airth, you, up thar, or we'll bring ye down wrong-side up!"
"Nice outfit _they_ are!" grunted McGlory. "Get into the sky a coupleof miles, Matt, and---- Sufferin' terrors! What are you about?"
Motor Matt had pointed the air ship earthward, and was gliding towardthe hilltop.
"No use, Joe," Matt answered. "They could hit us with their bullets andwreck us before we got out of range. They want to talk with us, and wemight as well humor them."
"Mighty peculiar way for a lot of cowboys to act," muttered McGlory.
"No likee," said Ping.