CHAPTER XXI
A MESSAGE FOR HELP
“What sort of stunts are you going to try, Jerry?” asked Ned, as the tall lad hurried here and there about the Comet, looking to see that all the machinery was properly adjusted.
“Oh, I don’t know. We’ll go up quite a distance—higher than any of the craft they have here, I guess, and we’ll do some aerial evolutions. Then I thought we might show them how we can change from a dirigible to an aeroplane and back again, in mid-air, by letting the gas out of the bag, and filling it again.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“Why don’t you demonstrate the hydroplanes, too?” asked Bob, who, for some time now, had not mentioned eating.
“Where’s the water?” inquired Jerry.
“I saw a little lake over in that direction as we were coming down,” announced the stout lad, pointing toward the left. “It looked big enough to land on, and even if you can’t scoot across it, and rise from it, we can go up as a balloon.”
“All right, we’ll do it,” agreed Jerry. “Better tell the secretary that if the crowd wants to see that stunt they’ll have to hustle over.”
Bob took this information to the official, who came hurrying over from his office, greatly delighted at the prospect of having some attraction to take the part on the program that was to have been filled by the biplane. The secretary had announcements made through megaphones, concerning the prospective flight of the motor boys, and telling of the hydroplane feature.
Matters were soon in readiness, and, after a vain search for Professor Snodgrass, who, the boys thought likely, was off gathering bugs, it was decided to go up without him.
Up shot the Comet as Jerry turned on the gas. Straight up into the air she went, for it was as a dirigible balloon that the owners decided to show their craft’s ability. Then, after doing some intricate figures at a comparatively low elevation, Jerry went out after a height record.
It is needless to say that he got it, for the barograph registered a little over three miles when they started to descend. They would not have had to come down then, only they ran into a cold snowstorm in the upper regions, and they did not want to take any chances.
When they landed, and the officials gave out the verified figures of their climb into space there was a hearty cheer. Jerry, with the aid of his chums, next showed what their craft could do as an aeroplane. She was sent skimming along the ground on the bicycle wheels, and, when enough momentum had been acquired, the steersman tilted the elevation rudder and up soared the Comet again.
This time the stunt of sailing along as an aeroplane, suddenly stopping the propellers, and changing to the form of a dirigible balloon was successfully accomplished, to the delight of the watching throng.
“Now for the hydroplanes!” Jerry announced to Bob and Ned, giving the signal agreed upon to those below. The press of people made a rush for the little lake about half a mile distant, and the boys waited until most of the crowd lined the shores before starting toward it.
Then, after sailing swiftly above the surface of the water Jerry suddenly began a descent. While Bob and Ned managed the craft Jerry stood ready at the hydroplane levers.
“Tell me when to shunt them into place,” he called to Bob who was on the lookout.
“Now!” suddenly shouted the stout lad.
The lever snapped forward, the floats on the toggle-jointed arms went downward, while the bicycle wheels came up and, a moment later, the Comet was afloat.
A cheer went up from the crowd, and there was continued hearty applause for a feat that has seldom been seen, save very recently in airship circles.
Jerry put the craft slowly about on the lake, and then as it was drawing toward noon, when other aeroplane “stunts” would be the order of the day, and as they were anxious to see if they could sight Mr. Jackson returning, it was decided to go back to the aviation park.
Another cheer greeted the ability of our heroes, as they headed their craft for the park, and the crowd streamed back below them.
“See anything of the dirigible?” asked Jerry, as Ned was anxiously scanning the air all about them.
“No,” was the somewhat despondent answer. “Mr. Jackson’s machine doesn’t appear to be in sight.”
“Try with the glasses,” suggested the tall lad, passing to the merchant’s son a pair of powerful binoculars. “Maybe you can pick him up with those.”
Ned swept the horizon, and pointed the glasses to the zenith, taking in all the intervening space as well as he could. But the sight of a black speck, which could be focussed into a dirigible balloon, did not greet his eyes.
“Oh, well, he’ll come back sooner or later,” declared Jerry. “Perhaps he went farther than he intended to.”
“Sure, he’ll come back,” added Bob. “We do seem to have the greatest luck missing that man. Everywhere we go we are just too late.”
“I hope not this time,” said Ned in a low voice. “The only thing that’s worrying me is that he may have met with some accident, and——”
“Oh, nonsense!” exclaimed Jerry. “If there had been an accident we’d have heard of it. The grounds here are connected by telegraph with New York City and the whole country for that matter. In fact we’re only a few miles from New York. We must try a trip across it before we go back to Cresville.”
“That’ll make the people in the skyscrapers look out of the windows and get stiff necks,” predicted Bob with a laugh.
As they landed and made fast their craft, in a sheltered space set aside for them by the secretary of the meet, the boys were aware of some excitement around a small building near the committee offices.
“What’s going on over there I wonder?” asked Ned, as he saw a crowd running toward it, and surrounding a man in his shirt sleeves, who held a paper in his hand.
“We’ll go over and see,” suggested Jerry. “Maybe Professor Snodgrass has just discovered a pink flea on a yellow dog, or has picked some new kind of July bug from a lady’s hat.”
As they neared the place they saw by a sign on the temporary wooden building that it was a telegraph office, and also one where wireless messages could be received and sent.
“It’s news from somewhere, evidently,” commented Ned.
They pushed their way through the press of people.
“What is it?” cried several. “Read it to us!”
“I will, if you’ll be quiet,” answered the man with the fluttering paper in his hand. “This is a wireless message I just received from Mr. Wescott Jackson. It was sent from his dirigible balloon Manhattan.”
“Read it!” cried the impatient throng.
“Here it is!” went on the man, and read as follows:
“‘We are disabled and are being blown out to sea in the grip of an upper-air hurricane! Send help, if possible!’”