_ CHAPTER XI. A MID-AIR MIRACLE
Jerry had a hard time next morning explaining just why he couldn't go along on the proposed fishing trip. Tod was inclined to accept his excuses at face value, but Dave and Frank could not understand why Jerry should so suddenly about-face in his notions. Just the day before he had talked as if he was prepared to stay a week. But his promise of a speedy return--with his own fishing tackle--finally silenced their grumblings, especially when he agreed to make their peace with two mothers who would be asking some pretty hard questions on their own return.
But Jerry was not to get away without taking part in an incident that almost provided a disagreeable end for the adventure. It was while they were all at breakfast. Tod had been giving a glorious account of the thrilling sport he had enjoyed on his last trip to the bass lake he promised to guide them to. Suddenly, in the midst of a sentence, he stopped dead. His jaw dropped. He positively gasped.
"
There she is!"
Then his face became blank. After a hasty glance about the circle of astonished faces, he went on with his fish story. But he was not allowed to go far.
It was Phil, taking a cousin's rights, who put the sharp question.
"Is your mind wandering, or what? 'There she is!' Who is
she--and where? We don't want to hear your old fish yarn anyway."
"I guess he's still thinking of that island girl," suggested Jerry, realizing that Tod had put himself into some kind of a hole, and wishing to help his chum out. But Phil was not to be so easily satisfied.
"There's something mighty queer about this whole proposition. That yarn of yours last night, Jerry, didn't sit very easy on my pillow, and it doesn't rest very easy on my breakfast, either. What's the idea? What you trying to hide, you two?"
"Nothing," said Tod, and Jerry repeated the word.
"Nothing! You make me tired. Now, out with it. I swam across that creek last night in my clothes on account of you, and I figure you've got a right to tell me why."
"And I figure you've got a right to believe me when I told you why last night."
"You didn't. You left it to Jerry to cook up a story that would keep us from asking questions. And now you yell out, 'There she is!' and sit there gaping at the sky, with your mouth wide open as if you expected a crow to lay an egg on your tongue. What does it all mean?"
"It means I'm still capable of taking care of my own business!" snapped Tod.
"Oh--very well. After this I'll let you."
It was an uncomfortable group that sat about the rest of the breakfast, even after Tod had begged his cousin's pardon for ungrateful loss of temper, and Phil had said that it was "all right."
Jerry was afraid for awhile that the fishing trip would be called off, but in the boisterous horseplay that went with the washing of the scanty dishes, all differences were forgotten, especially when Phil, scuffling in friendly fashion, put Tod down on his back and pulled that squirming wrestler's nose till he shouted "Enough!"
It was with feelings of mingled amusement and relief that Jerry watched the noisy crowd pile into the two boats, the Scout boat and the
Big Four, and paddle downstream, soon to be lost sight of behind Lost Island. His satisfaction was somewhat lessened by the fact that Phil had felt it necessary that one of their number remain behind to stand guard over the camp, but Jerry was sure that he would have no great trouble in keeping away from Frank Willis, trusting that "Budge" would live up to his reputation.
He began well, for hardly was the camp deserted before he went back to his blankets. "Now some folks like fishing," he yawned, "and I do too when the fish don't bite too fast; but I like sleep. It's good for what ails you, and it's good if nothing ails you. Take it in regular doses or between meals--it always straightens you out."
Jerry did not argue with him. A few minutes later his regular breathing told the world at large and Jerry in particular that so far as one Budge was concerned the coast was clear.
As a matter of fact, Jerry did not feel that there would be anything to see until late in the afternoon at best. The conversation between Mr. Fulton and the man Billings had seemed to indicate that nothing out of the ordinary was to happen that day, but Mr. Fulton's parting words to Tod gave Jerry hope. "This is the day!" he had said.
At any rate, he slipped out of camp and scouted about for a comfortable spot in which to keep an eye on Lost Island. But after he had sat there a half hour, he began to have twinges of the same disease that afflicted Budge and he saw that it would be necessary for him to move about a bit in order to stay awake. He regretted having left the camp without a fishing pole; that would at least give him something to do to pass the time away. With something like that in mind he started back toward the shady place where he had left Budge snoozing.
But as the walk started his blood circulating again, and his brain became active once more, he had a new idea. "Old Tod's a sly fox," he said to himself. "He's not going to be among the missing when the fun is on. He's going to take them down to his bass lake, and then he's going to slip away. He'll have to come back by land, so he'll probably take them to Last Shot Lake. It'll take them an hour to get there, but he can come back afoot in half that time if he's in a hurry--and I guess he is. He most likely will hang around half an hour before he thinks it's safe to make his getaway. That's two hours all told. In some fifteen or twenty minutes he ought to come skulking along through the woods.
"There's that hill yonder--it ought to make a good spy-post. Little Jerry bids these parts a fond adieu."
Something like a strong quarter of a mile down the river, and perhaps that much inland, stood a lonesome hill, almost bare of trees save a clump of perhaps a dozen on the very summit. It was an ideal hiding place. Leaving the road after cutting through the river timber and following it a few hundred yards, he plunged into a dense growth of scrub oak and hazel brush that extended almost to the base of his hill.
He came to one bare spot, perhaps an acre in extent, and was about to leave the shelter of the brush for the comparatively easy going of the weedy grass, when, almost opposite him, he saw a figure emerge from the trees.
At first he thought it was Tod, and he chuckled to himself as he thought how quickly his guess had been proved true. But when a second stepped out close behind the first, Jerry realized that neither one was his friend, even before he noticed that both were carrying rifles.
A pair of hunters, no doubt, Jerry surmised, although he wondered idly what they would be hunting at this season of the year. Rabbits were "wormy" and the law prohibited the shooting of almost everything else. But "City hunters," Jerry derided, "from their clothes. They think bluejays and crows are good sport."
That the hunters were looking for birds was evident, for they kept their eyes turned toward the tree-tops. Thus it was that they did not see Jerry crouching in the brush a scant dozen feet from where they broke into the woods again. He was near enough to overhear them perfectly, but not a word could he understand, for they were talking very earnestly together in some outlandish tongue that, as Jerry said, made him seasick to try to follow. But as they talked they pointed excitedly, first toward the sky and then straight ahead, and that part of their conversation was perfectly understandable to the boy.
A sudden wild thought entered his mind. Here were two hunters out in the woods at a time when no real sportsmen carried anything but rods and landing nets. The mystery of their purpose reminded him of another mystery, and immediately his mind connected the two, even before he noticed the constant recurrence of a word that sounded much as a foreigner would pronounce "Lost Island." Jerry realized, even as the thought passed through his mind, that it was the wildest kind of guess, but it was enough to set him stealthily picking his way through the brush in the wake of the two.
He saw, just in time to avoid running smack into them, that just before they reached the road, although now out of the heavier woods, they had stopped and were talking together more excitedly than ever. Something had happened, Jerry realized at once, but he could not puzzle out what it was, although he looked and listened as intently as they seemed to be doing. He was about to give it up in disgust, when he became conscious of a queer droning noise, as of a swarm of bees, or a distant threshing machine. Strangely, the sound did not seem to be coming from the woods or fields about him, but from the blank sky itself.
Then he remembered how Tod had acted at breakfast--how he too, like these men, had been apparently staring into space. Jerry read the newspapers; he was an eager student of one of the scientific magazines; he had sat in Mr. Fulton's basement workshop and listened to many a discussion of the latest wonders of invention. But even then he did not at once realize that the sound he had been hearing really came from the sky, and that the purring noise was the whir of the propellers of an aeroplane.
He looked for a full minute at the soaring speck against the blue sky before he exclaimed aloud. "I'll be darned--an airship!"
Fortunately, the two men were too engaged to pay any attention to sounds right beside them. But Jerry glanced hastily in their direction as he dropped back into the shelter of a big clump of elderberry. Then he looked again. There could be no doubt the two were following the flight of the aeroplane. They stepped off a few feet to the right and Jerry could see only their shoulders and heads above the bushes. He was curious to see better what they were doing, but he dared not cross the open ground between. So instead he turned his attention again to the soaring man-bird.
It was coming closer. It swung down lower and circled in over Lost Island, barely a hundred feet above the tree-tops. A sudden cry from the two men drew his eager eyes away from the approaching aircraft, but he looked back just in time to witness a wonderful sight.
Motionless, poised like a soaring hawk, the aeroplane, its propeller flashing in the sunlight, hung over Lost Island. For fully six seconds it remained there, not moving an inch. Suddenly it lurched, dropped half the distance to the trees, the yellow planes snapping like gun-shots. It looked as if it would be wrecked, and Jerry started forward as if to go to the rescue. In the half instant he had looked away, the machine had righted and purring like an elephant-size pussy, was darting out over the water. A cheer sounded faintly from Lost Island; Jerry wanted to cheer himself.
Now he heard another kind of sound, but this time there was no doubt in his mind as to its source. There could be no mistaking the put- put-put of a single cylinder motor boat. It was coming up Plum Run, probably from the "city"--Chester. He could see it swinging around into the channel from behind Lost Island. It crept close along shore, and with a final "put!" came to a stop just where the boat had landed the night before with Mr. Fulton. Three men crowded forward and jumped to shore; one of them, Jerry could have sworn, was Mr. Fulton himself.
As if the pilot of the aeroplane had been waiting for their coming he circled back toward the island. He had climbed far into the blue, but came down a steep slant that brought him within two hundred feet of earth almost before one could gather his wits to measure the terrific drop. Out across Plum Run he swept in a wide circle, and Jerry saw that the aeroplane would pass almost directly overhead.
He had forgotten all about the two men by this time, so keen was his interest in the daring aviator. He certainly had nerve, to go on with his flight after the accident that had so nearly ended his career only a minute back.
And then Jerry was treated to a sight that made him rub his eyes in amazement. The accident was repeated--it had been no accident. Now only a hundred feet up, directly above him, the big machine seemed to quiver with a sudden increase or change of power. A rasping, ear- racking sound--a spurt of blue vapor--and the aeroplane did what no other flying machine had ever done before; it stopped stock-still in mid-air.
Jerry could see every detail of the big machine, its glistening canvas, its polished aluminum motor and taut wires and braces. He could even see the pilot, leaning far over to one side, a smile of satisfaction on his face. Jerry could hardly resist shouting a word of greeting to the bold aeronaut.
He did shout, but it was a cry of horror, for all in a moment, a streak of flame seemed to leap out of the motor, there was a fearful hiss of escaping gas, a report that fairly shook the tree-tops, and with planes crumpling under the tremendous pressure of the air rushing past as it fell, the aeroplane plunged to earth. Yet, even in his intense excitement, Jerry, as he raced to where the flaming machine had fallen, caught at a fleeting impression: There had been two explosions, and the first seemed to come from close beside him.
The aeroplane had come to earth a good hundred yards away, and Jerry made all speed in that direction. He passed the spot where the two men had been standing--they were still there, and seemed in no hurry to go to the rescue. One of them, Jerry noticed as he rushed by, shouting "Quick!" had just thrown his gun under his arm, but the action did not impress the boy at the time as having any significance.
He raced on, the flaming wreck now in sight. He fairly flew through the last dense thicket and jumped out, just in time to collide with another hurrying figure. When the two picked themselves up, Jerry saw that it was Tod.
"Hurry, Jerry," he cried. "I'm afraid that poor Billings is killed!" _