CHAPTER VI
GO!
It was the day before the date on which the Army Board of Aviation would meet at Washington—a Monday in August. Hike Griffin sat with Poodle and Martin Priest at the Hustle’s shed. Lieutenant Adeler was still up at Benicia Arsenal.
Captain Willoughby Welch had not come back to Monterey, before starting for Washington to report on the best model of aeroplane for the Army to purchase. He had never even looked at the tetrahedral, and it was certain that he would declare to the Army Board that the Jolls—the P. J. Jolls Company’s—biplanes and monoplanes were the only possible sort for the Army to purchase. The Army Board would not hear a word about the tetrahedral.
Lieutenant Adeler and Hike had both written to Welch, but he had answered merely that he would try to get back to Monterey.
Hike was talking, and Martin Priest was listening with great respect, for he had heard of Hike’s rescue of the shipwrecked yacht crew. Poodle had thus described what happened after the affair:
“Well, as soon as he gets back to Pacific Grove, Mr. Man puts on a clean pair of pants and, says he, ‘I will now beat it over to Monterey and call on the angel wot saved me—that angel named Geerawld, and ask him will he let me give him a toy cart to play with.’ He finds Priesty here, and, says he, ‘Priest,’ says he, ‘young Hike is a’ angel.’ Priesty, knowing him better, ’lows that Hike ain’t a angel, but a chimpanze-faced spoon-cat, as orders his pleasant young friend Torrington Darby around something scandalous. Also he ’lows that it was li’l Torry that really saved the wrecked crew, like he was in a moving picture show.
“But Mr. Man tells Priesty that Hike done it all, and now that horrid Hike had cer-tain-ly got Priesty going.
“‘Stick your engine out on the end of your um-dee-diddle,’ says Hike, ‘so’s it’ll get more purchase on the bizangus.’ ‘Yessir, right away, sir,’ says Priesty and—”
That was as far as Poodle ever got with his description of the meeting between the yacht-owner and Martin Priest, for one Hike Griffin rose, just then, with a strut in his hand, and Poodle found pressing business elsewhere. No doubt Poodle’s description didn’t follow the facts exactly, but it is certain that after that meeting with the yacht-owner, Martin Priest declared Hike could handle the tetrahedral as well as he—Priest—could ever hope to.
Now Priest was listening eagerly, while Hike said:
“Well, if Wibbelty-Wobbelty has gone to Washington, the only way we can get a hearing before the Army Board is to take the tetrahedral there. Even then Wibbelty will try to spoil the game, but we can show the goods.”
“Gee, you talk awful ungrammatical-like,” yawned Poodle, from a comfortable position on the grass.
“The Lieutenant’s tried his best to get an opening to report before the Board,” Hike went on, “but Dad’s still got the idea the tetrahedral won’t work, and he won’t recommend the Lieutenant’s application for a chance to talk and so I guess the Loot’s got pretty sore, and is just planning to put all his own money behind our—your, I mean—tetrahedral, and let the government’s money go hang. I don’t think we ought to let him do that, do you, Mr. Priest?”
“No, I don’t,” said Martin Priest, sadly, shaking his head.
“Well, then,” said Poodle, “why don’t you take the Hustle to Washington, Mr. Priest, and show her to the Board?”
“No, no. I couldn’t do that,” Martin Priest exclaimed. “I’d be—oh, I don’t know. I suppose it was my experience in prison, but I’d be afraid of all those gold-laced kings. I feel that if they want my machine—it’s a good machine, I’ve done my work on it—it’s up to them to come and inspect it. If your Captain Welch wouldn’t even look at it—why, what chance would I have with a general?”
“Rats!” sniffed Poodle. “I’ll bet the General’s twice as easy a man to talk to as that snortling Willoughby-Walloughby.”
“He sure is,” said Hike. “He stayed with Dad for two days once, at Rock Island Arsenal. Old friend of Dad’s. He’s awf’ly nice, General Thorne is.”
“No, no, no!” insisted Martin Priest. “I couldn’t face that Board. They’d get me angry, and I’d spoil all my chances for—”
He ceased. All three kept silent. Outside the aerodrome, the sunset glowed. Hike was tramping about uneasily, looking at the reflection of the gold and crimson, in the east. Suddenly he said to Poodle:
“See that light. Pretty, ain’t it?”
“Classy sunset,” declared Poodle, dreamily. Hike suspected that, in spite of Poodle’s slang, he was planning a poem. Poodle had once had a poem in the Santa Benicia school paper, and no one knew but that he might break out that way again.
Suddenly Hike said, “Sure is great. And we’ll see it nearer. Pood’, we’re going to sail right into that light there in the east. We’re going to take the Hustle to Washington! Do you hear, Mr. Priest? Poodle and I are going to go and interview that Army Board. Thirty hours from now we’ll be there. Got enough gasoline and oil for three thousand miles?”
“Yes!” Priest was shouting with excitement.
“Fill her tanks. Poodle, I’ll write a note to Father saying where we’re gone—you take it up to the house. I’ll get the grub for the trip and pack her aboard.”
Hike was the only calm one of the three.
“All right. Great!” Poodle yelled, while Martin Priest hurried to fill the Hustle’s fuel-tank.
In half an hour, Martin Priest stood at the door of the aerodrome, looking to the east at a moving black spot. The tetrahedral was disappearing into the gray sky, with Hike at the levers.
Poodle was used to aviating, now. He was whistling quite carelessly and busily packing the food snugly away, and lighting the tetrahedral’s search-light, like a sailor coiling ropes as a schooner pulls out from her moorings, as the Hustle soared up to pass over the Coast Range.