CHAPTER IX
JUST IN TIME
“Who is that man, Hiram?”
It was two days after the stirring adventure among the burninghaystacks. They were now under a new and changed environment. Outsideof a roomy hangar on the training grounds near Chicago, they seemed tohave passed from a zone of peril and trickery into an atmosphere oforder and security.
The chums had been oiling the _Scout_, which had been shipped to themfrom the Midlothian grounds the day previous. Dave had noticed a thinwiry man standing outside of their hangar and studiously regarding the_Ariel_. Then the stranger had moved nearer to them, and transferred asteady, almost insolent gaze to the young aviator. Hiram had been soabsorbed in his task that he had not noted what the keen observation ofDave, always on the alert, had taken in. Now he straightened up andshot a glance at the stranger, just turning away.
“Hello!” he exclaimed, “he’s familiar. Why it’s Valdec!”
“You don’t mean the crack cloud-climber, as they call him, theSyndicate champion?” questioned his companion.
“That’s him,” went on Hiram. “Yes, that’s ‘the great and only.’ I sawhim down at the clubhouse last evening. Humph! I don’t like him anybetter than I do his backer, and that’s Worthington.”
Dave viewed the rival airman from head to foot. He was not onlycurious, but interested. The chums had met a variety of amateurs andprofessionals since their arrival at the present centre of attractionin the aviation world. A portion of them were a motley group. Theyranged from expert balloon trapezists to acrobatic notables. They wereessentially “stunt” men. The real professionals were a widely differentcrowd. There were men who had earned fame in their particular line ofactivity. Some were inventors, and there was a sprinkling ofscientists. The name, Valdec, however, Dave had heard a great many moretimes than that of any professional on the grounds.
Valdec was an importation. He claimed some wonderful records made inFrance and England. His specialty was the handling of a machine inspeed, gyration and novelty effects. He had been a public demonstratorand exhibitor at big fairs in Europe. His daring was notorious. He wasa grim, unsocial specimen of humanity, and talked but little. Hisbackers talked for him, however. These comprised the Syndicate, a groupof old-time racehorse and baseball promoters and the like. They hadtaken to the aviation field as the newest and likeliest sport wheretheir peculiar abilities would count.
A great many standard airmen besides Dave did not like this feature ofthe great International meet. It was not to be helped, however. Themanager, Worthington, paid for his special entrants, who were able toqualify. It was his business to finance them, and he claimed that sucha connection was legitimate. The Syndicate group formed quite a camp oftheir own at one end of the grounds. There were over half a dozenairmen in the combination, covering various phases of flying, all outfor prizes, and selected by the promoter as likely to win.
“Yes, that’s Valdec,” resumed Hiram. “I don’t like him, nor his crowd,nor their hangers-on, but I will say the fellow can do things. When youwere away yesterday he had half an hour’s practice on spiral work. Itwas not only pretty, but it took away your breath. I heard one of thebystanders say that before Valdec makes one of his sensational dives,he works himself up to such a point that he is perfectly reckless.That’s his crowd—running things just as they would for a track race.”
“Well, the steady nerve and the clear head counts in the wind up,”observed Dave philosophically. “This job is done. Now for some realwork.”
It was not Dave’s habit to “show off” nor to advise his rivals of hisprospective programme. The location of the practice grounds was ideal.The country about was level, and there was a lake area over which longdistance flights would be unhampered. The day before, however, and onthe present occasion, as soon as both aviators were in their places inthe machine, its pilot started a course for a barren uninhabited reachamong the sand dunes twenty miles south of the grounds. Here they wereunnoticed and had free scope.
“No danger of collisions here,” observed the cheerful Hiram, as theylanded and Dave sailed off alone. Then he sat down on a heap of brushand chucklingly announced himself as “an audience of one,” prepared toenjoy the spectacle of the occasion.
“Bravo!” voted the loyal and enthusiastic lad, as Dave made a superbsweep that vied with a sailing pigeon, fleeing in terror from thisunfamiliar monarch of the air.
Then Hiram clapped his hands loudly, and kicked with his feet, asthough in some auditorium, and bound to applaud, as Dave made avolplane that seemed destined to land the machine nose deep in theflickering sands. Suddenly, twenty feet from the ground, he balanced,even tipped, and went up, up, up—until machine and pilot were a merespeck.
“Hurrah!” rang out briskly, when the daring operator of the _Ariel_began a spiral drop. And then as Dave landed, his assistant, half wildwith delight, was dancing from foot to foot. “Oh, I say,” he shouted,“it’s up to Valdec! Honest, Dave, it beats him. Yes, sir, it actuallydoes!” and the faithful chum laughed, as though already he saw thecapital prize of the meet safe in the hands of his friend.
The chums put in two hours about the flying field afforded by the sanddunes. They started back for the International grounds feeling dulysatisfied. Dave was more satisfied with the _Ariel_ than ever. Theperfect piece of mechanism had never “balked” yet. Hiram professed tosee new skill and expertness in his gifted chum with every succeedingflight.
“Let’s take a view of the city before we go home,” he suggested, andDave was nothing loth.
“Doll houses and pigmies; eh?” submitted Hiram, as they flew over thesouth end of the city. “A little flat patch of the world, down there.Those vessels on the lake look like play-ships. That big skyscraperdoesn’t appear much larger than a chicken house. There’s someexcitement!” and Hiram leaned over to get a better view of what hadattracted his attention. “Dave,” he cried suddenly, “it’s a fire!”
Dave made out smoke and flames about a very high structure located nearthe river that traversed the heart of the city. He was as muchinterested as his companion, for a mimic play seemed going on below.Everything appeared in miniature—the hurrying fire engines, the puffingfire-boats on the river, the great crowds, the giant building wreathedwith smoke. As they neared this Dave made out more clearly thesituation.
“It seems to be a storage warehouse, built solid from the sixth storyup,” he said. “The lower stories are all on fire. It will be a badblaze when it gets up into the closely sealed upper part.”
“Dave,” cried Hiram sharply—“look, look, on the roof!”
“Yes—a girl,” responded Dave. “Why, Hiram, she is alone, and imprisonedup there by the fire!”
It was not difficult to understand the situation. The sixth floor ofthe building was probably the office of the warehouse. Such concernshire but little help outside of the men who handle consignments forstorage. The girl, probably a stenographer, must have been alone on thefloor noted when the fire broke out.
She could not descend, for the five lower floors were all ablaze.Escape was cut off, except upwards. She had probably fled up the spiralstaircases without coming to a break in the solid masonry, in the dark,and groping her way, and driven to frenzy by the pursuing smoke.
Now she was plainly visible to the two chums. She stood near the edgeof the roof, waving her hands frantically. Below, the hook and ladderservice attempted to reach her point of refuge, but they could not getabove the eighth floor.
“Dave,” spoke Hiram in a muffled tone that trembled, “can’t we dosomething?”
Already the pilot of the _Ariel_ had received the same mentalsuggestion. His eye took in all the chances. All that was chivalrousand humane in him came to the surface.
“There’s just one way, Hiram,” he said. “That is to make a volplane anda landing on the roof.”
“Yes, yes,” agreed Hiram eagerly. “It’s a long narrow building, withplenty of room
for a stop and a start.”
“You’re willing to risk it?”
“Yes—surely!” cried Hiram. “Don’t delay, Dave. We’re safe to try it,before the flames reach her, or the building collapses.”
A great cry went up from the excited crowds in the streets below, atthe sight of what resembled some mighty winged bird coming on a missionof rescue and mercy, where other help seemed vain.
The girl on the roof saw the machine, and comprehended what it meantfor her. She ran towards it with a glad cry as Dave dexterouslydirected it. The _Ariel_ struck the smooth flat roof, and came to astop, Hiram leaped out.
“This way!” he called, and, taking her outstretched hand he guided herto the seat he had just vacated, and belted her in. “Don’t get scared,nor faint. You’ll be safe on solid land in a jiffy. Go ahead, Dave,”added Hiram. “The machine won’t stand my weight on the narrow marginstart we can give it.”
Onward went the _Ariel_. To the spellbound crowd below it seemed toslide off the roof. Dave made a spiral drop. A block away from the firethere was a lumber yard, only half stocked, affording a good landingplace.
The girl was out of the machine and safe in charge of two ladies whosupported her. She turned to Dave, her lips moving as if in gratitude,and then swooned. Dave got started before the onrushing mob got in hisway. It seemed to him as if the voices of thousands joined in athunderous cheer. There on the roof, as if in response to this mightytribute to daring heroism, stood Hiram, smiling and unconcerned asthough it were all an every day occurrence.
“Good for you, and quite in time,” he commented briskly, as Dave landedon the roof in safety. “The fire is eating up through the staircases.See, yonder!” and the speaker pointed to wreaths of smoke and cindersshooting out through a roof trap as if forced by an air compressor.
“Something wrong with the control,” said Dave, as they skidded intospace again. “The jar of that roof, I guess. It needs fixing,” and theyoung aviator was compelled to land again in the spot where he haddelivered the imperiled girl into friendly hands.
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