Dave Dashaway and His Giant Airship: or, A Marvellous Trip Across the Atlantic

Roy Rockwood

Dave Dashaway and His Giant Airship; or, A Marvellous Trip Across the Atlantic

CHAPTER I

THE GIANT AIRSHIP

“Is that your airship?”

“Not exactly, but I am in charge of it.”

“The Gossamer, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Belongs to the Interstate Aero Company?”

“You’re pretty well posted, I see.”

“Ought to be. I’m close to the Interstate people, so I’d like to look the machine over. In fact, if you’ve got an expert aviator on hand, I think I’ll take a little flight.”

John Grimshaw, ex-balloonist and battered-up aeronaut, regarded the foppishly dressed young man before him quizzically.

“Oh, you do, eh?” he observed, very dryly. “Well, it won’t be on this occasion. As to an expert aviator, we’ve got Dave Dashaway.”

“Yes, I’ve heard of him.”

“Most everybody has, I reckon. He’s here on business though, and that sign is for outsiders, yourself included.”

Old Grimshaw pointed to a sign on the big gates of the high board enclosure outside of which he stood on guard. It read: “No Admittance.” The visitor had come strolling from the direction of some summer cottages near a pretty lake close by. Grimshaw surmised that he was one of the smart set spending an outing there.

“Humph!” observed the young man, with a shrug of his shoulders and a scowl. “Pretty independent, aren’t you? I think you’ll change your tune shortly.”

“Is that so?”

“I fancy. I’ll bring somebody with me who will do what he chooses with your precious old airship, and send you about your business, if he feels like it.”

The young man turned on his heel, mad as a hornet, as he spoke. Just then the gate was pushed open, and a bright-faced, athletic young fellow stepped into view.

“What’s the trouble, Mr. Grimshaw?” he asked, pleasantly.

“Another of those pestiferous nuisances, who want to pry into other people’s business, and think they own the world,” grumbled the veteran aeronaut.

“What did he want?”

John Grimshaw told his story.

“Oh, you might have gratified his curiosity and let him look around a little.”

“See here, Dave Dashaway,” bristled up Grimshaw, “you’ve seen in the past what taking in a stranger led to. You’re here for a special purpose, and no Jerry Dawson, or fellows of that stripe, are going to get a chance to trick us again.”

“That’s so, Mr. Grimshaw, we can’t be too careful, I will admit,” agreed the young aviator.

He was a rather unassuming young fellow for a person of his merits and record, was this active lad who inside of three months had made his way from humble circumstances to the very front rank of American airmen.

Dave Dashaway looked back over the past twelve weeks of his young career with pride, pleasure and satisfaction. There were dark spots, of course. The Jerry Dawson old Grimshaw had mentioned was one of them. Envious rivals there had been, too. Danger, scheming, cunning had more than once threatened.

That bright, breezy afternoon, however, the accredited pilot of the latest monoplane on exhibition, Dave Dashaway felt like a general who had won a hard-fought battle and was resting on his laurels.

Those who have read the first volume of the present series, entitled, “Dave Dashaway, the Young Aviator; Or, In the Clouds for Fame and Fortune,” will recall how humble and difficult was the start in life made by the bright young aeronaut. The father of Dave had been a noted balloonist. Dave was of tender age when he died. For years the boy was made a drudge by a miserly old guardian. The finding of a prize medal and other valuables accidentally lost from an airship, sent Dave on his travels seeking their owner, Robert King, a noted airman, who gave Dave a job.

It seemed as though air sailing was born in Dave. He took to aviation like a duck does to water. The youth did several helpful things at the various aero meets for Mr. King that won his confidence and friendship. Dave studied all the books he could get hold of on airships, and Grimshaw, a crippled and retired balloonist, took him into his school.

From the initial run made on a dummy aeroplane along the ground, to his first aerial flight in a monoplane with Mr. King, Dave showed intelligence, skill and ambition. Then came his first brilliant flight in the Baby Racer, a show biplane. So well did the young aviator manage the Racer, that its owner, the Interstate Aero Company, made a contract with him for regular exhibitions.

Dave did not disappoint his liberal employers in his efforts. He won several prizes, gave a big lift to a chum, Hiram Dobbs, in the aero field, and made old Grimshaw proud of so apt a pupil.

In the second volume of the present series, called, “Dave Dashaway and His Hydroplane; Or, Daring Adventures Over the Great Lakes,” is told how Dave advanced another important step up the ladder of fame and fortune. The company employing him started him at exhibiting their model hydroplane. This was a new venture for Dave, but he industriously mastered its details and made a great hit at an aero meet near Chicago.

All along the line Dave had been forced to oppose the envy and malice of unprincipled business rivals. By thinking straight and acting straight, however, he had won out on every occasion, as an honest, deserving lad always does. He and his young protege, Hiram Dobbs, by making a hundred mile record flight one dark and stormy night, got a big order for the Interstate Aero Company ahead of a competitor. Then Jerry Dawson, his father and a smuggler stole the hydro-monoplane, Drifter, and located across the Canadian border. Dave and his friends began a wonderful chase in another machine. They had some stirring adventures, ending in the discovery of the Drifter.

That incident shut out the Dawsons from later aero meets, but, as they had not been prosecuted, they became hangers-on at circus and county fair exhibitions. Dave heard of them once in awhile, but they seemed unlikely to injure him any farther.

Dave and Hiram were finely rewarded by the Interstate people for their success. The company wanted Dave to make a two-year contract to exhibit their machines. Dave, however, was obliged to decline the offer.

There was a strong reason for this – a reason that was enough to set on fire the enthusiasm of any live, up-to-date boy.

As related in the preceding volume, Dave had discovered an old friend of his dead father, one Cyrus Dale. This gentleman was wealthy, had no family, and had been a fellow balloonist of Mr. Dashaway, years before. A boy who had stolen some papers from Dave had succeeded in palming himself off on Mr. Dale as Dave Dashaway.

Mr. King had unmasked the imposter. The latter, with some friends, had then kidnapped Mr. Dale. The veteran aviator, Robert King, had rescued Mr. Dale from their clutches. The gratitude of the latter for this act, together with his warm interest in Dave, had led to the three coming together in a most friendly way. It was this ideal situation which had resulted in the carrying out of a long-cherished plan of Mr. King.

This was nothing less than a scheme for crossing the Atlantic in a giant airship. It had been the pet idea of the skilled aviator for years – the hope and dream of every ambitious airman in the world.

Of all men in the field, Mr. King had the ability to direct such a project. Mr. Dale was not only willing but ready to supply the capital. As to Dave and Hiram, they talked constantly of the enterprise daytimes and dreamed of it nights.

The plan of the veteran aviator, however, was one that involved time, skill and expense. His plans for building the great airship were very elaborate. A month had now gone by, and only the skeleton of the mammoth air traveler had so far been constructed.

A temporary aerodrome had been constructed on the edge of a large city about twenty-five miles from Lake Linden, where we find the young aviator at the opening of the present story. There Mr. King, Mr. Dale and some skilled workmen were energetically pushing forward their work. If their plans did not go awry, before the end of August the giant airship would start out on the strangest, grandest trip ever attempted in the field of aeronautics.

In the meantime the Interstate Aero Company had prevailed on Dave to give them a month’s special service. This comprised the exhibition of their latest hydro-monoplane, the Gossamer, at Lake Linden. The district was one visited every summer by men of wealth from New York, Boston and other large cities. The Interstate people had secured what had once been a small private park. Here Dave, Hiram and Mr. Grimshaw had been located for over a week.

The object of their exhibitions was to influence a sale of the Interstate machines among the rich men visiting Lake Linden. Many of them were aero enthusiasts. Besides that, the proprietors of the resort paid the company quite a large fee for making occasional flights as an attraction to popularize the lake.

Dave glanced after the man who had just had the verbal tussle with Mr. Grimshaw. He did not like his trivial looks any more than the old balloonist had. They had many curious visitors at the enclosure, however, and Dave forgot the strange brag of the latest one, as he looked down the road in the direction of the town of Linden.

“It’s strange Hiram doesn’t get back with the carryall,” remarked the young aviator.

“Yes, I heard the train come in half an hour ago,” replied Grimshaw. “Expecting quite a crowd, aren’t you, Dashaway?”

“Why, yes, according to the message the Interstate people sent me,” said Dave. “It seems there is a special party of foreign airmen our New York salesman has interested. Some of them have come over to take a try at the meets in the Southern circuit, and want to buy machines.”

“They’ll find ours the best,” asserted Grimshaw.

“I think that, too,” agreed Dave. “That’s why I’ve got everything spick and span inside there. The Gossamer looks as if she was just waiting to float like an eagle at the word.”

“She’s a beauty, and no mistake,” declared Grimshaw, and like some ardent horseman gazing at a fond pet, he pushed open the gate, and fixed his eyes on the hydro-aeroplane in the middle of the enclosure. “She’s the last word in airships,” boasted the old enthusiast. “That trial flight of yours yesterday, Dashaway, was the prettiest piece of air work I ever saw.”

Intimate as the young aviator was with the Gossamer and every detail of her delicate mechanism, he could not resist the fascination of looking over the most beautiful model in the airship field.

The Gossamer had proven a revelation, even to skilled airmen. It had been constructed in strict secrecy. The public had known nothing as to the details of the craft until it was taken out on Lake Linden to test its balance and speed.

It was equipped to carry four passengers, was driven by a forty horse-power motor, and made the tremendous speed of fifty miles an hour in the water and sixty miles an hour in the air. With its two propellers driven by clutch and chain transmission, and its new automatic starter and fuel gauge, it was a marvel of beauty and utility, as readily sent up from the confined deck of a warship as from the broadest aero field.

“She’s a bird, sure enough,” declared old Grimshaw, admiringly.

“Wasn’t she sort of built for a bird?” challenged Dave, with a smile.

“That’s so. Ah, I hear the wagon. Hiram is coming.”

The two went outside the enclosure, and the man looked keenly down the road in the direction of the village.

“Why Dashaway,” he exclaimed, “it’s Hiram, but he isn’t bringing the party you expected.”

“That’s queer,” commented the young aviator.

“He’s all alone – oh, no, he isn’t. He’s got one passenger aboard – a girl.”

“A girl?” repeated Dave, staring somewhat mystified at the approaching vehicle.

“Yes.”

“That’s queerer still,” remarked the young aviator.

CHAPTER II

“FOR MOTHER’S SAKE”

“Whoa!” sang out Hiram Dobbs, bringing the team to a halt and beckoning to Dave.

“Why, what’s the trouble, Hiram?” inquired the young aviator.

“Crowd didn’t come, that’s all.”

“And no word from them?”

“Why, yes, there was a wire,” and Dave’s friend and assistant handed a yellow sheet to Dave with the explanation: “Operator at the station gave it to me that way. A rush, so I read it.”

“That’s all right,” returned Dave, and he also read the brief dispatch in his turn.

It stated that there had come an unexpected hitch in the arrangements of the New York agent of the Interstate people, and that the party he had in tow would not visit Lake Linden until the following day.

“That’s good,” said Dave. “It will give us a chance to go to the city and see how our giant airship scheme is coming on.”

“Fine!” applauded Hiram. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about first, though, Dave.”

“What’s that, Hiram?”

“Wait a moment, Miss.”

Hiram interrupted with these words, addressed to the only passenger in the carryall. For the first time Dave glanced at her closely. She was a plainly-dressed, modest-looking girl of about sixteen. Her eyes were red with weeping. She held a handkerchief in her hand, and was pale and seemed greatly distressed.

“Oh, I must make you no farther trouble,” she said, in a broken tone. “I will get out of the carryall here and walk the rest of the way to the seminary.”

“I want to speak to my friend here first, Miss,” said Hiram. “You just wait. Maybe he can suggest some way to help you out.”

“You have been so kind to me already,” murmured the girl.

Dave wondered what was up. The carryall was a hired one, and he had supposed at first that Hiram had given the girl a lift, finding she was going his way. Hiram was always doing such kindly things.

The forlorn appearance of the girl, however, and the rather serious manner of Hiram as he jumped from the wagon seat and beckoned Dave out of earshot of his passenger, made the young aviator surmise that he had something of particular moment to impart to him.

“Now then, what is it, Hiram?” he asked.

“You see that girl?”

“Of course.”

“I never felt so sorry for anyone in my life as I do for her.”

“Who is she?”

“A poor girl working her way through the young ladies’ seminary up at the other end of the lake.”

“Oh, I see.”

“It seems she got a telegram about an hour ago. It is from her home, a hundred miles west of here. It stated that her mother was in a critical condition, and if she expected to see her alive she must take the first train for Easton. She hurried to the depot. I found her there crying as if her heart would break.”

“Poor girl! she had missed the train.”

“By just four minutes, and no other until eight o’clock this evening.”

“I am dreadfully sorry for her,” said Dave, glancing with genuine sympathy at the girl in the carryall.

Hiram fidgeted about. He dug the toe of his shoe into the dirt. Then he looked Dave daringly in the eye. Then he dropped his glance. Dave was quick to read his impetuous and open-hearted comrade’s thoughts.

“I fancy I guess what’s in your mind, Hiram,” he said.

“I hope you do, anyhow. Say, if I knew how to run an airship like you – ”

“You’d run it to Easton, I suppose?” intimated Dave.

“Yes, sir, that’s just what I would do. See here, Dave, suppose you had a sister in the trouble that young girl is in?”

Dave put up his hand interruptingly. His face was earnest and serious.

“I’d get her to her mother if I had to sell the shoes off my feet. You’re a grand-hearted fellow, Hiram Dobbs, and, as I’ll not let you beat me in the doing-good line, why – ”

“You’ll take her to her mother in the Gossamer?” fairly shouted Hiram, dancing from one foot to the other in his excitement over such a prospect.

“I’ll try and make it out that way,” responded Dave. “Let me think for a minute or two, Hiram.”

The young aviator took another look at the mournful face of the young girl in the carryall. Then he made up his mind. He was a fully-trusted employe of the Interstate Aero Company, and pretty nearly at liberty to do as he pleased. Dave looked up at the sky, made some mental calculations, and said finally:

“Tell her who I am, Hiram – I want to have a little talk with her.”

“This is my best friend, Dave Dashaway, Miss – ”

“My name is Amy Winston,” spoke the girl, a trifle shy and embarrassed.

“Hiram Dobbs has told me about your trouble, Miss Winston,” said Dave. “He is a fine fellow and feels sorry for you, and so do I. We are going to try and get you to your home within the next three hours.”

“Oh, if you only could!” exclaimed the young girl, anxiously. “But there is no train until this evening.”

“That is true,” replied Dave.

“You see, Dave is a great aviator, Miss,” broke in Hiram, in his usual impulsive, explosive way. “He’s taken lots of prizes. He won the – ”

“That will do, Hiram,” laughed Dave. “The truth is, Miss Winston,” he continued to the puzzled girl, “we have only one way of getting you to your home. Please step down and I will show you what it is.”

Dave helped the girl down the steps at the rear of the vehicle. He led her to the gates of the enclosure and drew one of them wide open.

“Why, it is an airship!” exclaimed Amy Winston. “I saw it yesterday from the seminary grounds.”

“Dave was running it, and I was aboard,” boasted Hiram, proudly.

“How beautifully it sailed,” murmured the girl.

“Miss Winston,” spoke Dave, “I can make Easton in about three hours in that machine. It may be something I should not propose, considering the possible risk, but the Gossamer is at your service.”

“Oh,” exclaimed Amy, her eyes filling with tears of gratitude and hope, “I would dare any danger to once more see my dear mother before she dies.”

“You are willing to try it?” asked Dave, definitely.

Amy was trembling, but she answered bravely in the affirmative.

“Tell Mr. Grimshaw,” said Dave to his friend, who at once started off to obey the order. “Now, Miss Winston,” continued the young aviator, “I will help you to a seat in the machine.”

When the girl had been disposed of in the most comfortable seat in the Gossamer, Dave gave her a strap to draw her dress skirt tightly about her feet. Other straps bound her in the seat so that by no possibility could she fall or be thrown out.

The girl had grown a shade paler and was all in a flutter, but she did not show the least inclination to draw back from an exploit that would start most people into hysterics.

Dave went into the tent where he and Hiram and Grimshaw ate and slept, and came out in aviation garb. He took some time looking over a guide book. Meanwhile his two helpers had been working about the Gossamer, getting everything in order.

Grimshaw made no comment on the occasion. While he always resented any intrusion of outsiders at aerodrome or meet, he had long since made up his mind that Dave knew his business and was just about right in everything he did. The old expert went over the Gossamer as thoroughly as if the machine was bound on a long distance non-stop flight. He saw to it that nothing was lacking that an air navigator might need. He even set the green lantern on the right side and the red to the left, steamship code, in case of some delay or accident, whereby the Gossamer might drift up against night work.

“Look out for a change in the wind,” was Grimshaw’s parting injunction.

“It looks like a coming squall in the northwest,” replied Dave; “but I think this head wind will hold till we get out of range. All ready, Miss Winston?”

“Yes, sir,” fluttered the little lady, holding tightly to the arms of her seat behind the operator’s post, although she was securely tied in.

“All free,” said Dave simply, and his helpers stood aside as the self-starter was set in motion.

The Gossamer rose lightly as a bird. Just above the fence line, however, Dave slightly turned his head at an unusual sound. He had just a glimpse of two figures acting rather wildly immediately beyond the enclosure.

One was the foppish fellow who had recently been repulsed by Grimshaw, and who had made the strange threat that he would bring somebody with him who would settle affairs.

Apparently this vaunted individual was now in his company. He was a richly dressed lad, somewhat older than Dave. He seemed to be a good deal excited about something; acted, as Grimshaw had described it, as if he owned the world.

His companion was waving his cane angrily as the airship shot skyward. The boy himself shook his fists toward the Gossamer, and shouted out furiously some command or threat the young aviator could not make out.

Dave wondered what this second visit meant. He had no time nor thought to spare, either staring or guessing, however. Eye, hand and brain were centered intently upon his task. Dave for the moment forgot everything, except that he was directing to a safe, steady course a mechanism as delicate and sensitive as the works of a fine chronometer.

He caught the echo of a low, quick respiration from the girl behind him. The suddenness of the ascent had acted on her as it did on every novice, producing a startled feeling. Then, as the Gossamer whirled three hundred feet high, and the swaying, gliding exhilaration of perfect motion followed, a long-drawn breath told of relief and satisfaction.

“Don’t be frightened, Miss Winston,” called out Dave, venturing a quick glance at his passenger, whose wide-open eyes surveyed the panorama beneath them in speechless wonderment.

“Oh, I am not, indeed,” cried Amy Winston. “It is only the strangeness.”

“You are perfectly safe,” assured the young aviator. “We have made a splendid start. Just think of home – and your mother,” he added very gently. “I feel certain that we can make Easton inside of two hours.”

“I am so glad; oh, so glad,” replied Amy, with grateful tears in her eyes.

Dave was pleased that his course towards Easton took him due southwest. A six-mile breeze was coming from that direction. This was a perfect condition for even, stable progress. Over towards the northwest a bank of ominous black clouds were coming up, threatening a gale and a deluge of rain. The young pilot of the Gossamer planned and hoped to dodge this storm by fast flying.

The southern edge of the big cloud began to cover the sky ahead of Dave. Once or twice there were contrary gusts, and he had to do some skillful engineering to preserve a safe balance. He felt considerably relieved to observe that the Gossamer was safely out of range of the real storm center. Some ragged-edge masses thrown out from the main body were, however, scudding ahead of him. There were one or two spatters of rain.

To the far right of him Dave could tell that a momentary tornado was sweeping the tops of the trees. He set the lever to the limit notch, made a long volplane and then a wide circuit to the south.

“I believe we are out of range,” Dave told himself, hopefully.

Then, as a sudden and unexpected shock announced the meeting of two powerful forces, he sat motionless and helpless.

The young aviator faced a mishap most dreaded of all that threaten the safety of the expert aeronaut.

CHAPTER III

A NARROW ESCAPE

The Gossamer had struck “a hole in the air!” “We are lost!” thought Dave Dashaway.

The young aviator was not prone to arrive at senseless conclusions. He had made a practical study of aeronautics, in a way; from the first time the pioneer airman harnessed a gasoline engine to a kite and called it a flying machine, down to the loop-the-loop somersault trick in aviation.

A “hole in the air” to the sky traveler is what a yawning chasm is to a speeding automobile or an unexpected cataract to a hydroplane. It is worse than a “killed” motor or even a threatened “turn turtle.” Every part of the machine suddenly goes useless. The heavy mechanism simply drops. In a word, the Gossamer had been caught in a dead void caused by two opposing air currents colliding, and shutting the machine into an absolute pocket, or vacuum.

If Dave had remained inert, or had hesitated for a single instant of time, the Gossamer would have been doomed. A slender thread of hope presented itself and he was quick to utilize it to the limit. “Feeling” the air with one cheek, he noticed the tail of the machine give a quick switch. This he at once understood indicated that the master air current was from the north. Dave hoped there was power enough left in the propellers to make a sharp, quick turn. He set the apparatus for the speediest whirl he had ever attempted.