CHAPTER VI--THE SKY RIDER
"Hold on, there!"
"Don't stop me--out of the way!"
"Why, whatever is the matter with you?"
"The comet has fallen----"
"What?"
"On our barn."
"See here----"
"Run for your life. Let me go, let me go, let me--go!"
The speaker, giving the astonished Andy Nelson a shove, had darted pasthim down the hill with a wild shriek, eyes bulging and hair flying inthe breeze.
It was the afternoon of the day Andy had said good-by to Mr. Pierce andhis friends. He was making across country on foot to strike a littlerailroad town, having now money enough to afford a ride to Springfield.
Ascending a hilly rise, topped with a great grove of nut trees, Andy gota glimpse of a farmhouse. He was anticipating a fine cool draught ofwell water, when a terrific din sounded out beyond the grove. There werethe violent snortings of cattle, the sound of smashing boards, a mixedcackle of all kinds of fowls, and thrilling human yells.
Suddenly rounding the road there dashed straight into Andy's arms aterror-faced, tow-headed youth, the one who had now put down the hill asif horned demons were after him.
Andy divined that the center of commotion and its cause must focus atthe farmhouse. He ran ahead to come in view of the structure.
"I declare!" gasped Andy.
Wherever there was a cow, a horse, or a chicken, the creature was inaction. They seemed putting for shelter in a mad flight. Rushing alongthe path leading to the farmhouse, a gaunt, rawboned farmer wassprinting as for a prize. He cast fearsome glances over his shoulder,and bawled out something to his wife, standing spellbound in the opendoorway, bounded past her, sweeping her off her feet, and slammed thedoor shut with a yell.
And then Andy's wondering eyes became fixed on an object that quite awedand startled him for the moment. Resting over the roof of the great barnat the rear of the house was a fantastic creation of sea-gull aspect,flapping great wings of snowy whiteness. Spick and span, with gracefuloutlines, it suggested some great mechanical bird.
"Why," breathed Andy, lost in wondering yet enchanting amazement, "it'san airship!"
Andy had never seen a perfect aeroplane before. Small models had beenexhibited at the county fair near Princeville, however, and he hadstudied all kinds of pictures of these remarkable sky-riders. The one onthe barn fascinated him. It balanced and fluttered--a dainty creation--sofrail and delicately adjusted that his mechanical admiration was arousedto a degree that was almost thrilling.
Blind to jeopardy, it seemed, a man was seated about the middle of thetilting air craft. The barn roof was about twenty-five feet high, butAndy could plainly make out the venturesome pilot, and his mechanicaleye ran over the strange machine with interest and delight.
A hand lever seemed to propel the flyer, and this the man aloft graspedwhile his eyes roved over the scene below.
How the airship had got on the roof of the barn, Andy could onlysurmise. Either it had made a whimsical dive, or the motive power hadfailed. The trouble now was, Andy plainly saw, that one set of wings hadcaught across a tin ornament at the front gable of the barn. Thisrepresented a rooster, and had been bent in two by the tugging airship.
"Hey, you!" sang out the man in charge of the airship. "Can you get uphere any way?"
"There's a cleat ladder at the side."
"All right, come up and bring a rope with you."
Andy was only too glad to be of service in a new field that fascinatedhim. The doors of the barn were open. He ran in and looked about busily.At last he discovered a long rope hanging over a harness hook. He tookpossession of it, hurried again to the outside, and nimbly ascended thecleats.
"Look sharp, now, and follow closely," spoke the aeronaut. "Creep alongthe edge, there, and loop the rope under the end of those side wings."
"I can do that," declared Andy. He saw what the man wanted, and it wasnot much of a task to balance on the spout running along the edge of theshingles and then climb to the ridge-pole. Andy looped the end of therope over an extending bar running out from the remote end of the lastpaddle.
"Now, then," called out the aeronaut in a highly-satisfied tone, "if youcan get to the seat just behind me, fetching the rope with you, we'llsoon be out of this tangle."
"All right," said Andy.
"And I'll give you the ride of your life."
"Will you, mister?" cried Andy, with bated breath and sparkling eyes.
The boy began creeping along the slant of the barn roof. It was slowprogress, for he saw that he must keep the rope from getting tangled.Another hindrance to rapid progress was the fact that he had to becareful not to graze or disturb the delicate wings of the machine.
About half the directed progress covered, Andy paused and looked down.The door of the farmhouse was in his range of vision, and the farmer hadjust opened it cautiously.
He stuck out his head, and bobbed it in again. The next minute heventured out a little farther. Now he came out on the stoop of thehouse.
"Hey, you!" he yelled, waving his hands up at the aeronaut.
"Well, neighbor?" interrogated the latter.
"What kind of a new-fangled thing is that you've stuck on my barn?"
"It's an airship."
"Like we read about in the papers?"
"Yes."
"Sho! and I thought----Who's afraid?" and he darted back again into thehouse. Immediately he reappeared. He carried an old-fashionedfowling-piece, and he ran out directly in front of the barn.
"IT'S AN AIRSHIP!"]
Andy read his purpose. He readily guessed that the farmer was one ofthose miserly individuals who make the most out of a mishap--the kind whothink it smart to put a dead calf in the road and make an automobilistthink he had killed it. At all events, the farmer looked bold enoughnow, as he posed in the middle of the road, with the ominousannouncement:
"I've got a word for you up there."
"What is it?" inquired the aeronaut.
"Who's going to settle for this damage?"
"What damage?"
"What damage!" howled the farmer, feigning great rage and indignation;"hosses jumped the fence and smashed down the gate; chickens so scaredthey won't lay for a month; wife in a spasm, and that there ornament upthere--why, I brought that clear from the city."
"All right, neighbor; what's your bill?"
"Two hundred dollars."
The aeronaut laughed.
"You're not modest or anything!" he observed. "See here; I'll toss you afive-dollar bill, and that covers ten times the entire trouble I've madeyou."
The farmer lifted his gun. He squinted across the long, awkward barrel,and he pointed it straight up at the sky-rider and his craft.
"Mister," he said fiercely, "my bill is two hundred dollars, just as Isaid. You pay it, right here, right now, or I'll blow that giddy-fangledcontraption of yours into a thousand pieces!"