CHAPTER VIII
A NEW IDEA
Lucky it was for Joe Strong that Mr. Brader had taken the precaution to spread the life-nets under the platforms, for when the young wire-rider plunged off he landed safely, if not altogether comfortably, in the meshes below him. The motor-cycle also fell into the net, some distance away from Joe, so that he was not injured by it. And as the lad had shut off the power the moment he felt himself falling, no damage was done by the spinning wheels.
Mr. Brader and his men ran forward, but Joe was in need of no assistance. He leaped out of the net, as he had often done in the circus after a fall or a jump from a great height, and stood looking ruefully at the apparatus and at his motor-cycle, which some workmen were lifting to the ground.
"What happened, Joe?" asked the manufacturer.
"That's what I'm trying to figure out," was the answer. "It's more like what didn't happen. I couldn't get on the wire."
"What was the trouble?"
"I think I didn't get up speed enough," Joe replied. "You know the faster a motor-cycle or a bicycle goes the easier it is to keep it in a straight line. I've found that out by experiments. That was what enabled me to ride the rail that time—I got up speed in a hurry and my front wheel hit the steel true and stayed there.
"But now I couldn't get the front wheel to stay on the wire. I'm sure it was because I didn't get up speed enough. It's the platforms. I haven't the room to get enough speed in fifty feet."
"I don't very well see how you can have the platforms made any longer, Joe," observed Mr. Brader. "If you add twenty-five feet to each one—and adding less wouldn't be of much use—that will take fifty feet off your length of open wire. Besides, making the platforms bigger will make it necessary for you to carry a lot of weight. The platforms would have to be made heavier if we made them longer."
"That's right," admitted Joe. He was at a loss how to solve the problem. He had calculated that fifty feet would be room enough in which to get a flying start, but now it seemed that the calculation was wrong.
"The machine isn't damaged any," said one of the men, wheeling it up to Joe and supporting it by the rear wheel arrangement.
"That's good. And I'm not hurt either. I'm glad you had the nets in place, Mr. Brader."
"Safety first!" exclaimed the manufacturer with a smile.
Joe might have taken the fall on the ground without injury, for he was almost like a cat in his ability to land on his feet. Still it was best to have the nets in place.
"Well, we'll try it again," said Joe, after another inspection of his apparatus to make sure nothing had come loose when he had fallen.
"Try it again!" exclaimed Mr. Brader. "Surely you're not going to take another risk, Joe!"
"I've got to take risks in this business. And at that, with the nets, it isn't such a chance. I must find out where the error is. It may not be in the length of the platforms after all. I've got to keep on experimenting until I get it right, for I'm going to make this act a success. It can be done and I know it!" and Joe looked very determined as he said this.
Again he mounted to the platform and had his machine hoisted up to him. Before starting the engine this time Joe looked to make sure the wire was in the exact middle of the opening in the platform. He could find nothing wrong there, and he came to the conclusion that it was his speed wherein lay the trouble.
"I'll get her going good this time," thought Joe. "I'll hit the wire at my best speed and if I don't stay on—well, we'll see what happens."
Joe took his place in the saddle and started the motor. It hummed and throbbed with the power of the gas, and then Joe kicked up the rear support and started off, throwing the clutch in quickly.
He got off well and was steering straight for the wire where it emerged on a slant through a slot in the platform. But again the same thing happened. Joe could not get the grooved front wheel to take the wire strands and once more he saw himself approaching the edge of the platform.
"Another fall coming to me!" thought Joe grimly. "I'm glad the nets are there, for I'm going faster and I'll fall harder this time."
He proved a true prophet, for he went off the edge of the platform with considerable force. And this time he was not so lucky. He tried to kick the motor-cycle away from him, but failed, and when he fell into the net one of the long handles struck him in the side, making a painful bruise.
Joe did not jump out of the net this time. In fact, the breath was knocked out of him, and he had to lie still to recover himself. Mr. Brader ran up, and with some of his men lifted Joe to the ground.
"Are you badly hurt, Joe?" the manufacturer asked.
"No—no, I guess not," was the panting reply. "I—I'll be all right in a few minutes. Just let me get my breath."
They brought him some water, and Mr. Brader insisted on his lying down on a pile of excelsior in the factory yard to rest.
"Well, it seems to be the same trouble," Joe said, when he had almost recovered. "I can't get going right somehow or other up on the platform. I know I can ride that wire if I once get on it, but the trouble is to get on. I can't get off except with a flying start, as the motor-cycle won't remain upright unless it's in motion."
"Better give it up and go back to the circus," suggested Mr. Brader. "You can fix up some motor-cycle act there, Joe, that won't be as hard as riding the wire."
"No, sir!" was the vigorous reply. "I started out to perform on the high wire with my motor-cycle and I'm going to do it."
"Well, I like your grit," said the manufacturer, "but it's a good thing you weren't on a high wire just now. If this happened at five feet from the ground, what would have happened at fifty feet?"
"That's a problem in arithmetic I don't want to try to solve," Joe said with a smile. "I'm glad I started low down. I'll keep it at this height until I've perfected it."
"Then you're not going to give up?"
"No indeed! But I've got to study this thing out a bit more. There's something wrong, that's evident."
"Suppose you try it with a bicycle," suggested Mr. Brader. "Take a light wheel and remove the tires. That will give you grooved wheels just as you have now. And a bicycle will be much lighter to experiment with—and fall with, if you have to."
"I believe I will," decided Joe. "I'll quit for to-day and take up the bicycle to-morrow."
The apparatus was left standing, except that the tension was taken off the wire rope, for it had a tendency to stretch, and the young acrobat did not wish this to happen, as it would if left tight all night.
Joe found himself so lame and stiff the next day that riding the bicycle was out of the question. However, he bought a light wheel and had the tires removed in readiness. Two days later he made the simpler experiment.
He found that it was easier to work with the bicycle, but the same trouble developed, and Joe fell off the platform as before, though without getting in the least hurt. He could not get up speed enough to hit the wire in the right way with the front wheel, and when he reached the edge of the platform there was nothing to do but to go over. Had he been able to get on the wire, of course, he could have ridden across the open stretch to the other platform.
"There's something wrong, and I've got to find out where it is," the boy mused as he did some hard thinking over the matter. "I'm not going to give up, that's one sure thing."
For three or four days Joe experimented, trying out different arrangements of the wire and the platform. Sometimes he used the motor-cycle, managing to avoid injury by skillfully getting out of the machine's way in his falls. The lad did not mind simple falls, for they were part of the game in circus trapeze work. Sometimes he would use the bicycle, but every time, either with the light or heavy machine, he came a cropper.
"It's the platforms," Joe decided. "That's where all the trouble lies, and yet, as Mr. Brader says, I can't very well make them any longer. I wonder how I'm going to manage it?"
Joe drew different sketches on paper, showing new arrangements of his apparatus. Some of these sketches he showed to Mr. Brader, and the manufacturer at once decided against them as impracticable, either from a mechanical or a safety standpoint.
Joe Strong was almost in despair, but he kept his grit and nerve and did not give up.
"The platforms! The platforms!" he kept saying over and over to himself. "If I could only make them longer, and at the same time keep them short enough to take about with me. I'd need a sort of collapsible platform for that. Collapsible! I wonder if that would solve the problem. I must ask Mr. Brader."
This he did, suggesting a sort of sliding platform, that could be made in several parts; telescopic, the mechanical term would be.
"It can't be done, Joe," said the manufacturer. "It would be altogether too heavy."
And again Joe was almost in despair.
Then, suddenly, a new idea came to him one day. He was rather idly making a pencil sketch of his wire apparatus when he seemed to see in his mind a picture of it as he wanted it.
"Do away with the platforms altogether!" exclaimed Joe aloud. "That would solve the puzzle. Slant the wire from the anchorages up over the shears, but have them so arranged that I could ride up the slanting wire on one side, along the level stretch and down the slant on the other end. The slants can be made long and gradual, and I can get as long a flying start as I want, right on the ground. The wire will rise out of the ground at the anchorages, and I can get the required tautness by slanting the shears back.
"By Jimminity! I believe I've got it!"