Hike and the aeroplane

Lieutenant Adeler and Poodle Darby had not received a single word from Hike, even by noon of the day after his disappearance.

General Thorne grew alarmed. The police were quietly notified, without letting the newspapers know; and two police detectives were put on the case. Besides them, two operatives from a good private detective-agency were employed. The great Poodle had to box his own ears, to keep from feeling conceited at the way in which these private detectives consulted him; and the anxious respect with which they hinted that they knew how Poodle had aviated with Hike across the country.

Poodle talked the case over with Lieutenant Adeler; suggesting that Captain Willoughby Welch must have something to do with the matter; but this the Lieutenant, good army-man as he was, refused to listen to. Then Master Poodle took a long walk with himself, and thought the whole thing over thoroughly. He decided: “Here’s where I become a grand little detective.”

He felt very certain that Mr. P. J. Jolls and Captain Welch knew a great deal about the matter. He found, by telephoning, that Captain Welch, who was staying at the New Willard, had been seen loafing about the lobby, talking to acquaintances and reporters, all day. That, Poodle decided, was for the sake of appearances. Captain Welch was not, he believed, so clumsy a rascal that he needed to be doing mischief himself, in order to get it done; and, anyway, it was good Mr. Jolls who was likely to be causing the real trouble.

Where was Mr. Jolls? He was supposed to be in Chicago. There his factories were located. But suppose he were in Washington? His name had not been mentioned in the newspapers; he had not been seen about the State, War, and Navy Building, where the Board of Aviation had been holding its meetings. But Poodle felt sure that the man was here; that his fat hand had something to do with the disappearance of Hike.

He described Jolls to one of the private detectives. He had seen the airship magnate at Captain Welch’s house, in Monterey. He mentioned Jolls’ sausage-roll neck, his red little eyes, the four gaudy rings he wore.

The detective started his search, without confiding in any one except Poodle. He searched through several of the larger hotels.

Poodle waited in the anteroom of General Thorne’s office.

There was a telephone call for him. Over the wire, he heard the detective reporting, “Hullo. Darby? Well, there’s a guy here at the Hotel de Suisse that—”

“Hotel de Suisse?”

“Yuh, it’s a small hotel but very swell—lot of rich people that are here lobbying use it. Well, there’s a guy here named Jolls. He ain’t registered. But I got wise to him through a bell-hop. And he looks just like you said the right Jolls did.”

“A’ right. Be right there. Meet me in lobby. Say, just kill Jolls for me, while you’re waiting, will you?” exclaimed Poodle, and, jamming the receiver on the hook, dashed out of the telephone booth.

“Call me a taxi!” he shrieked at an orderly. The soldier jumped to obey. Poodle waited for the taxi on the walk, and swung into it before it had stopped.

“Hotel de Suisse—quick—big tip if you hustle!” he hissed at the chauffeur, slammed the door to himself, and was off.

Though he had just been the busy detective, it was the real Poodle that curled up on the cushions in a most undignified way, and poked fun at himself for the way he had been ordering people about. And he grinned. “Gee, I sure am glad Papa Darby is rich—but I don’t know’s he will be, for long, if he has to back his little Poodle in this search for Hike.” Rejoicing at being able to pay bills at this important time, he clinked the gold coins he had brought from California (where very little paper-money is used).

As the taxi whirled up to the Hotel de Suisse, Poodle jumped out, threw a gold piece to the astonished chauffeur, then sauntered into the hotel as though he were bored to death and wishing he had something to do.

The detective was seated in a big leather armchair in the lobby, looking oh! so lazy and careless. But there was no laziness in his sharp whisper to Poodle:

“Jolls upstairs. In his room. Ain’t been out since he came—two, three days ago—but gets lots of ’phone calls. He’s ordered an early breakfast for to-morrow—six o’clock; in his room. And a touring car for six-twenty.”

“Do you know any of the night-clerks here?” asked Poodle.

“Yuh. Sure. A little. Why?” The detective threw out the four remarks as though they were so many hard rocks.

“Look here. I’ll watch here till midnight. Then you watch till morning, and get me up at a quarter to six—I’ll get a room here, you know. Will you?”

“Yuh. Sure. Quarter to six.”

“And say,” added Poodle, “get me a suit of clothes so’s I can make up as a kind of a tough kid.... Now you look here—if you say, ‘You won’t need much disguise for that,’—why, I’ll bite you.”

“You’ve got me,” grinned the detective. “I was going to make some fool crack like that!”

Poodle hastened out to get a couple of sandwiches and a cup of coffee, engaged a room, and settled down for his six-hour wait till midnight, in the lobby, telephoning his whereabouts to the Lieutenant.

He did not expect to see Mr. P. J. Jolls that evening, but he did—once. The man came down in an elevator, crossed the lobby, bought some papers, and returned to his room. He went quickly, as though he were in hiding. He glanced about the lobby, with an anxious expression in his fat, mean face, but he didn’t notice the cheerful youngster who was so deep sunk in the big chair nearest the elevator.

Next morning, at a quarter to six, one Poodle Darby was very busily engaged in sleeping, with his head deeply buried in a pillow. The detective, entering by means of a pass-key, stood by the bed, grinned, then began to tickle Poodle’s happy red ears till Poodle awoke and stared up, wondering why and where and what.

“Hawlf awfter steen, me lud, and the bawth waits,” announced the detective.

Poodle’s first reply was a remarkable combination of a yawn, a stretch, a sigh, and “Gee, I’m sleepy,” all of which, taken together, sounded very much like “Ughff—F!” Then he regarded the detective with extreme disfavor and added, “You talk like a little green wagon. Oh, say, has the motor car come yet?”

“No. It ain’t due yet. Jolls didn’t order it to come till six-twenty.”

“I mean the one for me.”

“For you? You didn’t say anything about that.”

“GEE! Did I forget it? I’ve got to have one—to follow him.”

“Yuh. That’s what I thought. So I ordered one for you—a touring-car. Now who talks like a little green wagon?” The detective smiled infernally.

While hastily dressing in the rough coat, trousers and shirt of his “disguise,” Poodle reflected that he hadn’t the best of it, for once. So he loved the detective. Poodle was built that way—he liked people who could do things better than he.

Poodle was in the tonneau of his car, waiting in front of the hotel, when Mr. P. J. Jolls pompously came down and entered a second automobile. Poodle was wilted down in the corner, with a large steamer-rug concealing nearly all of him except an extra large and ferocious pair of goggles, and the tip of his merry upturned nose.

He ordered his chauffeur to follow the Jolls car; and away they hustled, out through old Georgetown, across the Aqueduct Bridge into Virginia, then northeastward, through little towns and past farms, in which Poodle took about as little interest as a sailor would in a horse. For he was attending strictly to this question: did Mr. P. J. Jolls know that his car was being followed?

At first, so many cars were touring that Jolls noticed nothing. But as Poodle’s car kept on taking the same turns as he did, even after they had left the highroad, Jolls began to look back, anxiously. Finally, they reached a hilly country, and from hilltops Jolls looked down on the pursuing car anxiously.

They approached a great hill, and Jolls’ car slowed down.

Poodle ordered his chauffeur, “Pass that car, and take me just over the top of the hill. I’ll jump out there, but you go ahead, and wait for me at the next town. You may have to wait all day.”

The chauffeur had been told by the detective that this lad was really a great young sleuth, and there was keen respect in the “Yes, sir” with which he answered Poodle.

They shot by the Jolls car, Poodle keeping way down in the tonneau. As soon as the car passed the top of the hill, where it was hidden from the Jolls car for an instant, Poodle sprang out. He looked like a jolly country-boy, certainly not like a motorist who followed other people’s cars. He strolled to the top of the hill, and over it, toward the approaching Jolls car, without attracting the slightest attention from Jolls.

He ambled down till he was just behind the Jolls car, which was taking the hill very slowly. Poodle was sure that Jolls would never go to his real destination, where Hike was, unless he got rid of the car that seemed to be pursuing him. He had been sure that Jolls would slow up, to let the other car get ahead. He chuckled cheerfully to find that he had guessed right.

Once behind the car, the loafing country-boy suddenly changed to a panting runner. Poodle dashed up behind the Jolls car, caught at the back-thrust hood, and swung up beneath it, clinging to the springs and back of the car with his toes. As the car, passing the top of the hill, increased its speed a little, Poodle settled himself, not into a comfortable position, but into a safe one, crouching on the trunk rack. As he had expected, the Jolls car took a side road at the bottom of the decline, to escape the “pursuing car” ahead; then let out speed.

They rode about seven miles, with Poodle swaying behind, then, in a small town they stopped. Poodle dropped from behind, and vaulted upon a fence, looking as rustic as he could.

Mr. P. J. Jolls climbed stiffly out of the car, his fat legs objecting to exercise; and said to Poodle:

“Say, boy, where’s Smith’s Livery-Stable?”

“I dunno, sir; I don’t belong in this here town,” Poodle drawled as ignorantly as possible.

Mr. Jolls looked at him with haughty scorn, and trotted down the street. To Jolls’ chauffeur Poodle said:

“What’s the trouble with you and the old man? What’s he dropping you for, and taking to a livery-stable? My, you must be a bum shuffer. If I was driving a man and he ditched me—”

“Ditched nobody,” growled the chauffeur. “I’m to wait. I suppose if you was chauffeur you’d be so good he just couldn’t lose you,” Jolls’ driver sneered in a highly superior manner.

“You go eat your hat,” ordered Poodle, very impudently perhaps, and dropped on the further side of the fence to escape the wrench which the chauffeur was going to throw at him.

He strolled through the little town, and watched Mr. Jolls groaningly hoist himself up on horseback, and ride painfully away.

Then Poodle’s loafing manner disappeared. Holding out a gold piece, he said to Smith of Smith’s Stables, “Give me your best saddle-horse. Quick. But without a saddle. And I want that big straw-hat, there on the wall.”

The proprietor started to quiz him, but Poodle abruptly, curtly, cried, “Quick, I said. This five bucks is for you.”

As soon as he was out of the stable-yard, Poodle pulled off his shoes and socks and tucked them under his coat. He pulled his straw-hat down on his head. Then he loped round a corner, and was soon going at a lazy country pace, along the dusty, hot road, behind Mr. P. J. Jolls. He stuck out his bare feet, and slouched all over his horse’s back. Jolls took only one look back at him, then paid no further attention.

Poodle rejoiced to see from the way Jolls shifted in his seat that the manufacturer was good and uncomfortable. He needed a little cause for rejoicing like that, for Poodle was not any too comfortable, himself. He had got used to the hard slippery McClellan army-saddles, at Monterey. But this clinging to the sides of a sweating horse, without a saddle, was not pleasant.

He rolled and slid, but he followed closely enough, till Jolls turned in at a private road, which led by a marsh up a wooded hill, where stood a lonely old shack.

Poodle rode by, round a bend, slid off his horse, hitched it back in a thicket, and darted across the road into a field of the abandoned farm which Jolls had entered. He slipped on his shoes and hid the huge straw hat. Running with his head and shoulders low, taking shelter behind shrubs, he approached the hill from behind. Suddenly, his feet sank in mud. A marsh was before him. He ran along its edge, and found that the boggy land surrounded all the hill, except where the road entered, in front.

He jerked off his shoes and rushed into the marsh on the jump. Mud soaked through his socks. Briers scratched him. But he went at the bushes as though they were open doors. He didn’t have time to notice he was being scratched and soaked.

He reached the hillside and sneaked up it on hands and knees. For he had been startled by the sight of a tall, vicious-faced man, strolling about the top of the hill, with a rifle under his arm, as though he were guarding the cabin toward which Poodle was heading.

Once he had to lie flat for three minutes, while mosquitoes covered him. But he didn’t care. Hike must be up there in the cabin!

The guard passed out of sight. Poodle rushed to the cabin. He found a rubbish heap—old shoes, bottles, a couple of boards, damp straw—at the back of the house, and slipped under this ill-smelling but concealing heap. Putting his ear against a crack in the old logs, he almost cried out with joy, for he heard Hike’s voice within. Hike was saying:

“There’s no use talking to me, Mr. Jolls. I haven’t got anything to say about the Priest aeroplanes. You ought to know that. All I do is to drive them. And if you did anything to me, you’d have just as much trouble.”

“Now I know, my boy—” came P. J. Jolls’ greasy voice, soothingly.

“Now I know,” Poodle heard Hike interrupting, in there, in the cabin, “I know that you and Captain Welch are trying to steal Priest’s rights from him and get the army-appropriation for your old machines. I’m sorry I haven’t got any final say about the thing, because if I did have I’d fight you to the end. But I haven’t got the least bit to say. So you’re only wasting your time trying to get me to keep away from Priest. Why, can’t you see for yourself, I’m only a kid, and—”

“Yes, my boy, I can see you’re ‘only a kid.’ Not so much because of your appearance, but because you won’t listen to reason. Now you listen to me.” Poodle felt that Mr. Jolls was getting rather angry. “I know, from inside sources, the Army Board is going to throw out the Priest aeroplane entirely, because it isn’t practical for use in war.”

“You’re a liar,” Hike was heard to state, wearily and most impolitely.

“Will you listen to me, or not?”

“Oh, yes, I suppose I’ll have to—tied up like this. And it was you that made ’em tie me again. I won’t forget that.”

When he heard the words “tied up,” Poodle’s flesh prickled coldly all over. Hike—tied up! He felt that any punishment he could devise for Jolls would be too easy. Well, he’d try to hit Jolls in the pocketbook. That would hurt more than anything else! Meanwhile, Jolls was continuing:

“I wish you could understand me, Griffin. I don’t believe I’ve ever admired any young man so much as I admired you when I heard of the magnificent way in which you handled that rotten Priest tetrahedral in your cross-country flight. Why, I want you to be one of my chief aviators, my boy. At a great big salary. I’ve met your father—I have the keenest—”

“You let my father alone, will you?” snapped Hike.

“—the keenest admiration for him, and I hate to see his son mixed up with a swindler and fake inventor like Priest. Why, my boy, what few things there are that’re good about Priest’s tetrahedral are stolen! Stolen from other devices that are patented. Mr. Priest will land in jail inside of one week—”

“That’s another lie,” Hike remarked.

“It is, eh? Well, do you want to go to jail with him? Er no, I’ve got something better for you. Now listen.” Mr. Jolls made his voice to be very soft and purring. “If you’ll just sit down and write a little note like this, I’ll give you a thousand dollars—in coin. Write like this: ‘My dear Mr. Priest: I have decided that the tetrahedral is taking up too much of my time, and I shall have to drop it. You can run the thing yourself. Also, I know that you have stolen all your patents, and I don’t want anything to do with you, or your thefts, I might add.’

“Now a note like that won’t hurt anything—you must see that yourself—if he hasn’t stolen them; and, if he has, why it will be only just. If the cap fits, let him put it on.”

“Sure,” Hike could be heard sniffing, “it won’t hurt him—merely break his heart—just when he’s getting over the feeling that the whole world is conspiring against him. He’s pretty fond of me. All that note will do will be to send him out into the mountains again, and probably make him give up the game entirely.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Jolls snarled, the politeness in his nasty voice wearing very thin. “That isn’t the only way we’re going to get at your precious Priest. There’s plenty of other strings that we’re pulling, already. Your note won’t be more than a drop in the bucket. It won’t hurt Priest a quarter so much as some of the other things we’re going to do. Don’t let that hurt your sweet young conscience. You might just as well take the thousand dollars I’m giving you, and be easy.

“Think, son, just think of the things you can do with that thousand.” Jolls’ voice was soft again, in there. “Why, you can make aeroplane experiments of your own. See here. I haven’t stated the other side, yet. If you don’t write that note, there’ll be two less boys by to-morrow night—not only you, but your young friend Torrington Darby—what is it you call him? Poodle, is it? I won’t tell you what will happen to him, except that we have him in a trap, too. But as for you—”

“You make me tired,” Hike could be heard yawning, apparently not much impressed.

“I’ll make you much tireder before I get through with you if you don’t write this note,” Jolls roared. “Look here. You ought to know, by this time, after the way you were brought here, and the way you’re guarded, that I can do whatever I want to with you. I might as well admit that I won’t stop short of anything, to land this contract for aeroplanes. I’m going to have it, and if you think a brat like you can put any hindrances in my way, you might just as well get over that idea right now! You might as well take this thousand dollars that I’m simply giving you, and be easy.

“And if you don’t write that note, let me tell you what will happen to you. I’ll let you have till to-morrow to make up your mind. If you won’t write this note—which I’ll telegraph to your dear friend Priest, signed with your name, in any case, whether you write it or not, so you might just as well—”

“Gee, you’ve got a nice little brain,” Hike could be heard laughing. “You just thought of that, didn’t you? Why didn’t you think of it before? You can go ahead and telegraph, all right—so what’s the use of my writing the note? Course you were going to send it by mail, with my writing but—”

“Well, the note will be handy for proving you sent the wire,” Jolls declared. “I want it, that’s all you need to know. And if you don’t write it, here’s what I’ll do. I’ll have my men dig out a nice little hole in the marshes below here. You know what they’re like—my men told me about that fool attempt to escape that you made last night. You may remember that there’s one or two mosquitoes there. Well, you will be tied there, and left—without a drop of water to drink. Nothing to eat—your stomach will draw up its sides, you’ll feel faint—oh, you’ll have a nice time. You’ll get weaker and weaker till you can’t lift a finger to chase away the mosquitoes. They will cover you!”

In his hiding place, Poodle was raging, but he kept quiet, as Jolls went on:

“And you’ll keep sinking—I don’t know which’ll get you first, mud or starvation or mosquitoes. You’ll enjoy it. Just think of last night, and how much you liked the mosquitoes, in the marsh.... Now will you write that note? Or, maybe, do you think I’m just talking to hear myself talk? Do you think that I wouldn’t be glad to have you tied up, down there in the marsh?”

Poodle waited with painful eagerness for Hike’s answer. Hike had seen what Jolls’ men could do—what did he believe—did he think that Jolls would really do this thing, or not? He was so anxious for the answer that he half withdrew himself from the concealing pile of rubbish; then plunged down again, and listened from below the crack in the wall, for he heard the leisurely step of the guard with the rifle.

“Well,” Hike could be heard saying, after a pause, “I guess you’re just about enough of a skunk to do that. It won’t do you any good though. I won’t write that note, and that’s all there is to it. Besides, a great uncle of mine died in the swamps during the Civil War.... I don’t see where I’m any better than he was.... I’m sleepy now. I don’t think I’m very anxious to talk to you, any longer.”

Poodle heard Hike pretend to snore. Jolls swore. Then the cabin door slammed. Some one yelled, “Come here, you fellows, Mr. Jolls wants to talk to you.”

Poodle was frightened. He believed that Hike thought he was going to be killed. Never had he loved and admired Hike so much as he did then.

He crawled near a corner of the shack, and saw a group of five toughs, surrounding Jolls and listening to him. Their voices were not loud. They were talking things that men do not want heard, ever. The droning burr of the locust in the golden haze of noon was louder.

In a few minutes, Jolls stalked off, down the hill, and the thugs took their former places, two of them on guard, the others loafing under the trees, smoking, laughing, carelessly talking.

Poodle wasn’t doing any of these three things. He hastened back to his rubbish heap, to get hidden before the guard came ’round back of the cabin.

He pulled the damp straw as far up over him as it would go, and slanted a couple of stray boards over the pile, so that it hid him. Making himself as small as he could, under the rubbish, he picked at the crack at which he had been listening.

The mud-filling between the logs had never been put on very well, and now it was crumbling badly, dry and flaky. He worked at it with his fingers till they bled, then poked it with his little penknife. Gradually, he made a hole clean through. Twisting about, he could look into the cabin.

He was startled, at first, for he was looking right at a guard, who stood in the open doorway, across from him. Then he saw the dirty floor, the broken window, and the heap of old furniture. Finally, he located Hike, lying not over five feet from him, on the floor. Hike’s ankles and wrists were tied, and a rope bound about his waist was hitched to a ring in the wall. He looked very tired, but his lean jaw was firmly set. He seemed to be going off to sleep again, instead of worrying.

“Hike!” whispered Poodle, after two or three minutes, when the guard for the back and sides of the cabin had passed by, and the guard in front had moved out a little from the door. “Hike! It’s Pood’!”

Hike started up, then lay back, with closed eyes. Hadn’t he been able to believe his own ears? Did he think he had dreamed that whisper?

But Hike crossed his fingers, twice. It was the sign of the Santa Benicia fraternity to which the two boys belonged! And Poodle was sure that Hike had heard, and was making the signal for him.

“Out back,” whispered Poodle, a word at a time, cautiously, peeping out from his rubbish heap now and then, to be sure the guard was not near him. “I’ll come in Hustle—rescue. When’s Jolls coming back?”

Suddenly a strange sound came from within the cabin. Hike was singing, as though to amuse himself. Poodle wondered, as he heard:

Hadn’t Hike heard him, then, after all?

He saw the guard in front look into the cabin, and heard him sneer, “Call that singing? I’d kill my dog, if he howled that way.” The guard strolled still farther out from the cabin.

Hike sang on, through two verses, mumbling the words badly. Poodle started, as he made out words among the mumblings. He listened intently, and got this message out of what sounded like nonsense:

“To-night. Meeting here. Heard Jolls. Heard him talking. In front of cabin. Captain Welch will be here. Have him arrested. Come in Hustle. God bless you, old Poodle!”

“I’ll be here,” whispered Poodle. As the guard, passing the back of the cabin, turned the corner, Poodle slipped out of his rubbish heap, and crept toward the nearest bushes.

Running, stumbling, hurrying till his panting heart pained him, he rushed down the hill, toward the marsh, bound for Washington.