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

It did not take fifteen minutes to accomplish this. One by one Professor Leblance told off his expert assistants to their duties. Dave and Hiram had been kept busy, but more than once the young aviator had glanced in the direction of the heroic figure on the rocks.

He saw the Frenchman say some quick words to Mr. King, and the latter then approach the stranger. Some conversation took place between them. As a signal for starting was sounded from the engine room, Mr. King turned towards the airship. He was accompanied by the person with the magazine rifle.

All hands got quickly aboard. When the young aviator reached the cabin he found their mysterious friend seated in a shaded corner of the place. Then the activity and excitement of the ascent engrossed all minds.

The magnificent Albatross arose in the air like a bird. It attained a high altitude. All the recent troubles of its crew faded away like light feather down.

Mr. King came into the cabin inside of half an hour, quickly followed by Professor Leblance. Both looked intensely curious. The Albatross safely started on a steady course, they had evidently hastened to explore the mystery of the strange friend who had aided them in their sorest need.

The airman approached the silent, timid-appearing figure in the corner of the cabin. He extended his hand warmly, grasping that of the shrinking stranger.

“My friend,” he said, “come up to the table. We want to have a talk with you. You asked to be taken aboard, and said you would then explain your being here.”

The stranger somewhat reluctantly took a chair at the cabin table. For all his recent heroic attitude, he acted rather embarrassed and frightened now.

He looked down. Then he trembled visibly. And then he made the remarkable statement:

“I am a stowaway.”

CHAPTER XX

THE STOWAWAY

The young aviator took a long, earnest stare at the mysterious person who had just stated that he was a stowaway. In a flash Dave seemed to get hold of one end of a long chain of circumstances and mysteries.

“A stowaway?” repeated Professor Leblance, incredulously. “You mean aboard the Albatross?”

“Yes, sir.”

“From the time when she first started?”

“And before.”

“You amaze me!”

“I am amazed at myself,” came the words, in rather a depressed way. The speaker dropped his head, and both of his interlocutors looked troubled and more puzzled than ever. “I’ll tell you, gentlemen, I’d rather not say much till I am sure your airship is out of the country. You know you promised I should stay aboard if I wanted to,” he added to Mr. King.

“I surely did,” assented the airman, heartily.

Dave had been studying the profile of the stowaway. He had noticed that his ebony hue was due entirely to soot or greased lampblack smeared over face and hands. Further, the keen glance of the young aviator had scanned closely the clothing, even down to the necktie of the stranger, and then – he was a stranger no longer to Dave.

“Mr. King, may I speak to you for a moment,” said Dave, moving out of the cabin into a passageway. In some surprise the airman followed him there.

“What is it, Dashaway?” he asked.

“The stowaway. I know him, Mr. King,” declared Dave, hurriedly. “There is a certain mystery about him he dares not explain just now, and you are embarrassing him dreadfully. Don’t ask him any more questions. Tell him to come to my stateroom. Later, I will explain everything to you about him.”

“Well, well,” commented the airman; “you seem to have the faculty for preparing surprises for your friends, I must say. I’ll do what you suggest, but I’m curious to understand what it all means.”

“You shall soon know,” promised the young aviator, and he went to the little partitioned-off space where he and Hiram slept. He sat down on one of the berths, placing a stool in the middle of the room for his expected guest.

“You will find a friend in there,” reached Dave’s ear, a little later, in the tones of the airman.

“Did – did you want to speak to me?” rather falteringly asked the stowaway, entering the stateroom. Mr. King retired and closed the door after him.

“Why, yes,” replied Dave pleasantly. “Say,” and he grasped the hand of his guest in a hearty way, “I am glad to see you, and doubly glad because you have made good, just as I knew you would. I once told a friend you were of the right kind. You’ve proved it, Elmer Brackett, and I’m proud of you.”

“Yes, I see you know me. Made good! Proud of me?” repeated the boy in a dazed, half-stunned way.

“Why, you saved the Albatross, didn’t you?” cried the young aviator, in a spirited tone, bound to rouse and buoy up his guest. “The lives, too, probably, of every person aboard. What are you crying for – joy?”

Sure enough, young Brackett was crying. He acted like a boy in such a tangle of circumstances that he was fairly crushed. Finally he blurted out:

“Joy? None of that for me, ever again, I guess.”

“Why not?” challenged Dave.

“Oh, you don’t know, you don’t know!” cried the young man. “It seems as I sit here, in the strangest position a fellow ever was in, I reckon, that I’m in some terrific dream. There’s only one clear idea I can cling to – to get out of the country, away – away – ”

“Away from that villain, Vernon? Am I right?” spoke Dave, quickly.

“Yes, that’s it,” assented Brackett, in a lost tone of voice.

“I thought so. Now then, see here, you are among the best friends any fellow ever had. You have just been the best kind of a hero ever was. Forget everything else for the present. Make up your mind that whatever your troubles may be, there’s a combination aboard the Albatross strong enough to help you fight your way clear out of the last one of them, and – tell me all about it.”

There followed the most interesting hour of Dave Dashaway’s life. The friend of everybody, he had been the confidant and helper of many a lad in difficulties. As bit by bit the strange history of Elmer Brackett came out, however, Dave conceded that it was the most remarkable case he had ever handled.

Briefly, the reckless, impetuous son of the big man in the Interstate Aero Company had become the helpless victim of the schemes of Vernon. Young Brackett did not tell Dave everything. He hinted that while in a muddled condition he had been induced by Vernon to forge a number of notes.

Once completely in the power of the schemer, the latter showed no mercy. He appalled Brackett by claiming that he could send him to the penitentiary, disgrace his family, and almost ruin his father’s business. These claims were, in a measure, exaggerations.

Elmer Brackett then lost his head completely. His one thought was to escape from Vernon. He disguised himself, after sending a letter to his father, warning him against the forgeries, and saying he was going to seek some foreign country where he could lose himself and be forgotten.

“I had no money, I dared not appeal to friends, for Vernon was seeking for me everywhere to tighten the chains of his power around me,” related the youth, bitterly. “I thought of you, and while tracing down the Albatross I ran across Davidson and young Dawson and their Dictator. Maybe it was a wild idea, but I thought how it would just suit me to get away from this country by airship, for Vernon had claimed that if I left him he would have the detectives looking out for me everywhere. Well, I hung around Senca. Then, as I didn’t think much of the way the Dictator showed up, I went to Croydon.”

“It was you, then, who asked my friend, Hiram Dobbs, about me, and wore a false mustache?”

“Yes, I was disguised,” admitted Brackett.

“And you were, too, the ghost who scared the watchman at the Albatross aerodrome nearly into fits!”

“That was me, too,” admitted Brackett. “The night before you started I sneaked aboard the airship. I stowed myself away behind the big boxes of provisions near the cabin here. I heard and saw what was going on. Then that crowd of outlaws came, I got the magazine gun from the arsenal, and – here I am.”

“And here you wish to stay till we get across the Atlantic?” said the young aviator. “Good! Now, then, take my advice; forget all this wretched fear and trouble that is part of your past. Help us win the great prize, and when this trip is over trust to it that Mr. King and Mr. Dale will find time and money to squelch this miserable Vernon, straighten out your affairs, and start you on a new career.”

Elmer Brackett, minus the lampblack and encouraged by Dave, was soon quite another person in appearance and spirits to the refugee stowaway. Dave imparted to his friends only as much of Brackett’s story as was necessary.

The following morning the boys awoke to find the Albatross out of all sight of land, fairly started on the great trip across the broad Atlantic.

CHAPTER XXI

THE HAUNTED AIRSHIP

“Say, fellows, this is life on the ocean wave worth seeing, isn’t it?”

Hiram Dobbs spoke the words, and his auditors and jolly companions were the young aviator and Elmer Brackett. It was the second evening out of sight of land. The Albatross had made splendid speed, and the machinery had acted like a charm. Just about dusk, however, Professor Leblance had ordered a drop to lower level.

“There is a low barometric pressure,” Dave Dashaway had heard him say to Mr. King. “There is bound to be a change in the air currents shortly, and I want to determine our course from the way they act. There are some repairs to make, also, and we will slow down for at least two hours.”

The boys were immensely interested in the manœuvers of their craft under the direct manipulation of the professor. The Albatross was brought to the surface of the water, resting on its floats as easily and gracefully as the great ocean bird it was named after. A hint from the cook sat Hiram thinking. Fresh fish would come in very acceptably for breakfast next morning, he told Dave, and the trio decided to take the lighter of the two boats and see what they could catch.

Mr. King warned them to keep within hailing range of the airship and provided them with trolling lines. The young aviator and Elmer plied the oars and Hiram did the fishing. He was gloating over the occasion with satisfaction, and made the enthusiastic remark which heads the chapter as he deposited a final catch, a fat codfish, in the bottom of the boat.

“That will do, Hiram,” directed Dave. “We have got more fish already than we can use in a week, and some of them look as if they were not in the eating class. The cook will know.”

“Yes, and see, we are quite a distance from the Albatross,” put in Elmer.

A weird warning wind sang about them just then. The boys had been so engrossed in their sport they had failed to notice that some scudding clouds had obliterated the stars.

“Get to work, Elmer,” ordered Dave, picking up the oars. “We must be a full mile from the Albatross.”

“Yes, and maybe that storm Professor Leblance told about is going to catch us,” remarked Elmer, he too getting in shape for a row back to the airship.

The minor headlight of the Albatross guided them, and for this, a dim spark in the distance, the little yawl was headed. The water had become choppy, but the oarsmen felt equal to the task of the moment.

“Just see that!” shouted Hiram, as a phosphorescent streak crossed their course. “It’s like a streak of fire.”

“There’s another one ahead,” said Elmer.

“Yes, and look! look!” exclaimed Hiram. “It’s a shoal of fishes. Big fellows, too. Say, see them leap out of the water.”

It was a stimulating sight and a novel one to the boys. They were now within less than a quarter of a mile of the airship. As Hiram spoke, the big searchlight of the Albatross suddenly flared up. It signalled the boys to return, as Dave understood it.

“Say, I’m going to make a throw for one of those big fellows,” declared Hiram.

“Don’t do it. Whew!” exclaimed Elmer. “They are big fellows. Did you feel that?”

Some object had landed against the side of the yawl, nearly tipping it.

“It’s a big fish, almost as big as a shark!” shouted Hiram. “They’re chasing the smaller ones. Whoop! I’ve caught something. Hurrah! Slow down! Oh, the mischief!”

All in a fleeting second the excited lad shouted out, tugged at the trolling line, bracing his feet against the bottom of the boat, and then – flop! splash!

“Stop the boat!” rang out the voice of the young aviator, sharply, for Hiram, his hand tangled in the trolling line, had been pulled clear over the end of the yawl. His startled comrades saw him disappear, and strove staunchly to put the boat about. As the craft half turned, there was a shock and a crash.

A giant fish, perhaps a shark, had struck the boat amidships. The craft was splintered in half as quick as a flash. The next minute the young aviator and his companion were struggling in the water.

The big marine monster had apparently gone straight on its way in pursuit of a disappearing phosphorescent mass. Dave grabbed out at the one floating half of the wrecked yawl.

“This way – Hiram! Elmer!” he shouted at the top of his voice.

“I’m here,” panted Elmer, as he reached Dave’s side and grasped the edge of the floating wreck.

“Where’s Hiram?”

“U-um! Thunder!” puffed the individual in question. “I’m safe, but my big catch got away, line and all.”

“Never mind that now,” replied Dave. “We’re in a serious fix, fellows.”

“And all the fish in the boat gone, too,” mourned Hiram, dolefully.

“See here, both of you,” ordered Dave, decisively, “don’t waste any time. We don’t know what kind of danger hovers about us. Yell!”

“Good and loud!” agreed Hiram, letting out a terrific warwhoop. The others chorused in. Dave believed that their forlorn hail might have some effect.

“They’ve heard us,” cried Hiram, joyfully.

“Yes, here she comes,” added Elmer, in a relieved tone.

The searchlight on the Albatross was suddenly shifted. Its broad, groping rays were focussed on the sea, searching for the castaways. The glowing pencils of light came nearer and nearer. Finally the full dazzling gleam swept the wreck and those clinging to it, and rested on it.

“They have seen us,” declared the young aviator, as the searchlight maintained a full focus directly upon them.

“And what next?” inquired Hiram.

“We will have to wait and see,” replied Dave.

Relief and rescue came almost magically quick. The larger yawl of the Albatross glided across the broad path of light, the veteran airman, the anxious Grimshaw and two others its occupants.

“This ends all experiments in the fishing line,” declared Mr. King. “It is a wonder some of those sharks did not attack you.”

“The searchlight probably scared them away,” suggested Grimshaw.

The adventure furnished a fruitful theme for discussion when the boys were once more back in the comfortable cabin of the airship. Hiram, however, continued to expatiate on his great catch and greater loss.

“I’ll bet it was a dolphin pulled me out of the boat,” he declared. “Just think of it, fellows – catching a dolphin! That’s something to brag about.”

A storm set in within the hour and the Albatross speedily sought a higher level. All the boys knew about it was what Mr. King told them the next morning. The pleasing swaying motion of the giant craft had lulled them to sound and refreshing slumber.

It was again after dark the next evening when the cook came into the cabin, and looked at Mr. King in a manner that made the airman inquire curiously:

“What’s on your mind, Demys?”

“Why, I found a window broken in the room just beyond the larder,” reported the cook.

“Hailstone, maybe,” said Mr. King, casually; “you know we had some last night.”

“Yes, I know that,” replied the man. “Later to-day I noticed two more panes of glass cracked right across.”

“Perhaps the big strain of the wind in the storm last night weakened them,” suggested the airman.

“Maybe,” assented the cook, vaguely. “Funny thing, though. I set a pan of beans in the room to cool before supper. When I went after them just now I found nearly half of them gone.”

“Is that so, now?” questioned Mr. King, beginning to get interested.

“Say, don’t you suppose it was rats?” propounded the quick-thinking Hiram.

“No, sir!” declared the cook definitely. “I have never noticed a trace of rats in the Albatross.”

“Then I’ll bet it’s another stowaway – say, just like Elmer here was.”

All hands laughed abruptly at this unique piece of guesswork.

“I reckon I was the only intruder aboard, Hiram,” remarked Elmer, good-naturedly.

“Well, the beans are gone and somebody ate them,” said the cook. “It couldn’t be anybody of the crew, for no one has passed through the galley but myself, and the room I speak of is beyond it.”

“Suppose we investigate?” suggested the young aviator.

“That’s it,” agreed the impetuous Hiram. “Come on, fellows.”

All hands followed the cook to his quarters. They inspected the galley and then entered the room beyond it. Sure enough, there was the dish of beans, nearly half its original contents missing.

Hiram and Elmer explored every nook and corner of the place where there was the least opportunity for a stowaway to hide. Their search was without results.

“It’s certainly something of a mystery,” decided the young aviator. “Those cracked windows, too. Why,” he added, examining them closely, “it looks as though some one had deliberately hammered on them until they gave way, as you see.”

There was another sensation the next evening. The cook came rushing into the cabin. Mr. King happened to be on hand.

“I’m getting superstitious and scared,” declared the cook.

“What’s up now?” interrogated the airman.

“Enough for anybody’s nerves,” reported the man. “Sounds, scrapings, sort of low groans. I’m beginning to believe the airship is haunted.”

“Nonsense!” said Mr. King. “When did you hear these strange noises you describe?”

“Just now. See here, some of you come with me and see if you can figure this thing out.”

The boys were ready enough for the investigation. The cook led them to the galley, and they sat down as he put out all the lights.

“Now keep perfectly quiet and listen patiently,” directed the young aviator.

“There’s something,” spoke Hiram in a hoarse whisper, as a queer cooing sound came from the watched room. “Gently, now,” he added and crept through the doorway.

There was a fluttering sound. Dave traced it to a corner of the room where there were some boxes. The noise came from behind them. He groped with his hand, and his fingers finally grazed a feathery, shrinking object.

“Flare a light,” he called out instantly. “I’ve caught the stowaway.”

“Who is it? what is it?” cried Hiram, rushing forward as the electric lights were turned on.

“Why, it’s a bird – a pigeon,” announced Dave, dragging into view a ruffled, timid dove. “Here’s your mystery explained. The bird must have been driven through the broken window during that storm the other night. The poor thing was famished and ate the beans. Then it cracked the window panes trying to get out again.”

“You’ve got it, Dave,” declared Hiram, “only, say, what is that fastened under its wing?”

“Why, sure enough,” said Dave, observing what looked like an oilskin package fastened with silk cord under the wing of the bird. “Fellows, this must be a carrier dove. We must see Mr. King about this.”

The airman inspected the oilskin package. He read a written enclosure it contained.

“This is a trained passenger pigeon,” he said. “Started from Rio de Janeiro and carrying a message to its former home in Washington. Feed up the bird, boys, and we’ll send the brave little thing again on its journey.”

The next morning when the carrier pigeon was set free, started landwards, it bore a second message. This told the world that the giant airship was eight hundred miles on its trip across the broad Atlantic.

CHAPTER XXII

FIRE AT SEA

“Well, Dave, they stole a march on us last night.”

“How is that, Hiram?” questioned the young aviator.

“Landed. Yes, sir, the Albatross made a landing about midnight on the beach of some island – Bermuda or Bahama, or something like that. Last point of land this side of Europe, the professor says. Took on a fresh supply of water. Mr. King visited the town nearby and got some papers, and sent a message to the aero association.”

Hiram had just come from the cabin, preceding his comrade in waking up by a few minutes. When the two friends went to the cabin they found young Brackett waiting to take breakfast with them.

A few days had made a marked change in the new passenger of the Albatross. Everybody was pleasant and encouraging to him. He had become greatly interested in the workings of the airship. Dave had suggested to him that, owing to the fact that his father was a foremost manufacturer in the aeroplane line, he had a splendid opportunity to begin business life in the same field.

The Albatross had started out on its real voyage in fine shape, weather conditions being perfect. So far, except for the adventure among the mountain men of North Carolina, not one adverse incident had marred the flight.

The three friends chatted and joked buoyantly while dispatching their appetizing meal. Young Brackett had picked up one of the newspapers brought to the airship from the island just after midnight. He was looking it over casually, when he uttered a quick cry as of startled amazement.

“It’s not true!” he almost shouted, and he brought his fist down upon the table to emphasize the remark with such force that the dishes rattled.

“What’s not true, Brackett?” inquired the young aviator, in some surprise.

“Listen!” called out the lad in considerable excitement, and then he read from the newspaper:

“Another red, white and blue float was picked up three hundred miles from land by the steamer Royale. It proved to contain a dispatch with the readings: ‘Aug. 21, altitude one thousand feet, course due east, making splendid time. Airship Dictator: Signed, Roger Davidson, Perry Dawson, on board.’”

“That sounds like business,” exclaimed Hiram. “The twenty-first. That’s the day we started. They were forty-eight hours ahead of us.”

“Not true!” again declared young Brackett, sharply.

“You mean?” asked Dave, in wonder.

“Davidson and Dawson are not aboard of the Dictator.”

“Oh, pshaw, now how can you say that,” challenged the impetuous Hiram, “when here is the clear evidence?”

“You seem to know something we don’t know,” remarked Dave, with a close glance at Brackett. “The public prints announced that Davidson and Dawson started with the Dictator on the trip across the Atlantic on the afternoon of the nineteenth.”

“They did,” nodded Brackett. “I saw them. But they came back.”

“What’s that?” cried Hiram.

“Yes, they did.”

“In the Dictator?”

“Oh, no, and that’s the queer part of it. They may have lost their nerve – it looks that way. They may have hired someone else to take the risk of the trip. Anyhow, they got out of the Dictator after leaving Senca, and came back there at midnight. I slept that night in the place where they had built the Dictator. I saw them come, I saw them go away.”

“Brackett, you astonish me,” said Dave, bluntly. “Are you sure of what you say?”

“Perfectly,” declared the lad, with positiveness. “Davidson and Dawson came secretly to the old aerodrome. They had a big automobile, and loaded into it a long box. Both were disguised, and I recognized them only by their voices. I heard them speak of getting to the steamer. How to explain these dispatches, apparently dropped from the Dictator into the ocean, I don’t know. I’ve only told you what I do know.”

“Mr. King must know of this,” said Dave, thoughtfully.

No plausible solution of the tangle was arrived at, however. Amid the sheer exhilaration and activity of their own superb flight, the crew of the Albatross soon forgot the incident surrounding the rival airship with new mystery.

For two days and nights the giant airship made an even, steady run, true as a needle to a set course. There was a slight mist over the waters the next evening. So fair and promising was the weather, that Professor Leblance had deviated from the route he had first laid out. He had made an aerial short cut. The result was that they were somewhat out of the regular path of ocean travelers.