Dave Dashaway and His Giant Airship: or, A Marvellous Trip Across the Atlantic

CHAPTER VIII
THE RIVAL AIRSHIP

“A rival in the field?” said the young aviator, with a good deal of interest and curiosity.

“Yes,” nodded Mr. King. “It isn’t that I didn’t expect it. We have no exclusive patent on building an airship and trying to cross the Atlantic. We do want to know what we have to fight against, though.”

“Yes, it is always best to find out what your competitors are doing,” agreed Dave.

“Well, there are several we have run down and dismissed from our minds. Two-thirds of them are cranks seeking notoriety. Some of the others are inventors who know all about mechanics, but nothing practical concerning aircraft. It would amuse you to go over some of the wild schemes they are getting up. One proposition has kept me busy thinking.”

“What is that, Mr. King?”

“You remember a man named Davidson?”

“Why, certainly,” responded the young aviator at once. “He is the fellow they ran out of the Springfield aero meet.”

“That’s the man,” assented Mr. King, “an unscrupulous trickster. He has been tabooed by all legitimate airmen, but he has bobbed up again with his old-time nerve and audacity. Look there.”

The aviator selected a bunch of newspaper clippings from a drawer in his desk, and pushed them over to his young friend.

Dave scanned them rapidly. An item hinted mysteriously at a grand exploit in aeronautics about to be undertaken by the “celebrated” airman, Roger Davidson. A later article purported to show the possibility of sailing a dirigible balloon across the Atlantic.

A column story followed. It referred to the great interest in the international exploit, and named the rich prize ready for the successful competitor. It was understood that Roger Davidson was preparing to enter the race, and a superb aircraft was being built for him at an aero plant at Senca.

“I suppose you remember that Jerry Dawson and his father were in the employ of Davidson for a time, Mr. King?” observed Dave.

“I recall it perfectly,” nodded the aviator.

“And Jerry being here to-night shows they are together again.”

“It looks that way. As long as they only try to steal our thunder I don’t so much mind,” remarked the airman. “It may be the start for something worse, you see. I am tied up here with Leblance. I want you to ferret out the Davidson crowd and find if they are really up to something.”

“I can do that,” assured the young aviator, confidently.

“None better, I know. Get their line-up, Dashaway. Find out if they are really in earnest, or only jockeying for notoriety, or fleecing some gullible promoter.”

“All right,” agreed Dave; and that settled it with Mr. King, who had full confidence in the shrewd wits and fidelity of the boy he had taught to fly.

Dave was to start for Senca the next evening. He passed a glorious morning at the aerodrome. The French inventor was one of the most interesting men he had ever met. Leblance was all business, but very enthusiastic and optimistic in his work. He took a fancy to Dave, and told him things about transatlantic aircraft and airmen that were part of an actual education to the young aspirant for aeronautic honors.

The construction of the Albatross had progressed far enough to show a practical form and substance. No expense was being spared. The men under Leblance were experts in their line, and Dave was amazed at the details they were working out.

“It’s money well invested,” declared Mr. Dale, “if it only serves to produce the most perfect airship ever built.”

“Why, if they put all the things in the Albatross they count on,” said Dave, “it will be like a trip on a high-class ocean steamship!”

“Wait till she’s done, my friend,” observed Leblance. “We shall see – and we shall cross the Atlantic; oh, never fear.”

Grimshaw and Hiram put in an appearance by noon. The latter went wild over the Albatross. He believed implicitly in Dave, and the young aviator believed in the giant airship under construction.

“If they let me go on that trip,” said Hiram, breathlessly, “I’ll be the proudest and the happiest fellow in the world.”

“You are going, if any of us do,” promised Mr. King, and the delighted Hiram moved about as if he was treading on air.

Mr. King went down to the train with Dave.

“Don’t run into any danger, Dashaway,” he advised. “You are going to deal with a wicked-tempered crowd, remember that.”

“I shall remember,” promised Dave; “and profit by your warning.”

Hiram was rather lonesome over the absence of his friend the next day. The ensuing one he got restless and anxious.

“I tell you what,” he said, confidently to Grimshaw the next afternoon; “if Dave don’t show up soon, I’m going after him.”

“Dashaway knows how to take care of himself – trust him for that,” insisted the old airman.

“Well, I can’t stand this worry. If he don’t come by to-morrow, I’m going to look him up.”

Grimshaw said nothing to this. He was, in fact, also a trifle disturbed over the prolonged absence of Dave. His grim face relaxed into genuine relief and gladness that evening, as, just after dusk, the young aviator broke in upon the airship group.

Dave was brisk and cheery as usual, and all hands gave him a cordial greeting. Mr. King and Leblance were eager to hear his report at once.

“Well,” said Dave, “I’ve found out about all there is to discover down at Senca.”

“Does it amount to anything?” inquired the aviator.

“That’s for you and Mr. Leblance to say.”

“Run across that fine specimen of humanity, young Dawson?” asked Grimshaw, in a kind of a growl.

“He had been sent to New York for some balloon material,” explained Dave, “so I got along finely, for Davidson doesn’t know me by sight. Sure enough, they are building a dirigible balloon,” continued Dave. “They’ve found a backer who has put up several thousand dollars. They talk big of how sure they are of reaching Liverpool in a week’s time,” and Dave smiled.

“What are you smiling at, Dashaway?” inquired Mr. King.

“You would smile if you saw the craft they are building,” declared Dave. “To tell you the truth, I can’t get away from the suspicion that the whole thing is what people call a fake.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I had no trouble in getting into their workroom. The way they act, the machine they’re getting up – well, I almost made up my mind that Davidson is doing all this to get some of the promoter’s easy money. If the Dictator ever sails a hundred miles, let alone a thousand, it will be doing well.”

“What kind of a craft is this Dictator?” inquired Leblance, with professional interest.

“I’ll show you,” said Dave, feeling in his pocket. “The fact is, I gave those fellows tit for tat.”

“As how?” questioned the curious Hiram.

“Well, they stole a photograph of the Albatross. I had the chance to draw a picture of the Dictator, and here it is.”

The young aviator produced a paper roll from his pocket. Dave was a natural draughtsman. As he spread out the paper a well-traced penciled outline was revealed.

“Let me see it,” spoke Leblance, eagerly. “Ah, you have done well.”

The keen eyes of the French inventor scanned the drawing intently. Then, suddenly and with great excitement of manner, he threw it upon the table.

“Preposterous!” he exclaimed. “Nonsense! Absurd! My friend King, we have nothing to fear. The Dictator is a botch, a farce. Whoever constructed it is a novice, a dabbler! That machine could not fly ten miles!”

CHAPTER IX
IN THE LEAD

“Someone here to see you, Dave.”

Hiram greeted the young aviator with this announcement one evening, two weeks after their arrival at Croydon.

“Is that so?” said Dave. “Who was it?”

“I can’t say, for he wouldn’t tell his name. I was walking along the fence around the aerodrome, and just as I neared the gates he popped out from behind a pile of boards, just as if he had been in hiding.”

“Did he ask for me?”

“Yes. I told him you were here quite regularly, and always evenings at the boarding house. The fellow looked peaked and scared, and backed away as soon as he saw someone coming down the street. He mumbled something about finding you.”

The young airman could not surmise who his strange visitor might be. He ransacked his mind, wondering if it could be some one of his old friends from his home town. Then he said:

“Describe him to me, Hiram, will you?”

“Why,” explained Hiram, “he was a trifle older than I am, and taller; yes, fully two inches taller. Oh, by the way, he wore a false mustache.”

“What’s that?” challenged Dave, half guessing Hiram was joking. But the narrator looked earnest enough. “You say he wore a false mustache?”

“Sure thing,” persisted Hiram.

“How did you know it was false?”

“Because it came partly off just as the boy turned his face away. Say, you couldn’t tell much about him. His face and hands were all grimed up, and he had his cap pulled way down over his eyes. It was funny, though, one thing.”

“What, Hiram?”

“For all his trampish looks, I noticed that his linen was fine and white, and the necktie he wore was one of those expensive ones you see in good furnishing shops.”

“Is that so?” observed Dave, musingly. Then a quick thought came to his mind. He put Hiram through a rapid course of cross-questioning.

“I am satisfied it is young Brackett,” said Dave, to himself. “But why in that trim, and acting like a fugitive? Hiram,” he added aloud, “keep your eye out for that boy. I am sure he is in some kind of trouble, and wishes to see me very much.”

“All right,” nodded Hiram, carelessly. “He won’t get away from me next time.”

“Don’t use any force and scare him,” directed Dave. “Tell him that I guess who he is, and want to see him very much.”

“Very well. There’s Professor Leblance just going into the aerodrome. Isn’t it famous what he says about the Albatross being nearly finished and just as perfect as money and skill could make it.”

Both boys hurried their steps to overtake the genial, accommodating Frenchman. For the time being Dave’s recent visitor drifted from his mind.

The past two weeks had been the busiest and most engrossing in all the career of the young airman. Dave’s report on the Davidson balloon and the drawing of it he had showed to Leblance had convinced the expert that the Dictator could not make even a start in the race across the Atlantic.

Dave had told him the gas bag of the Dictator was conspicuously made of tri-colored fabric. Its promoter, Davidson, had made a great claim. The propelling power of the Dictator, he declared, would be built on the monoplane principle. When traveling the gas bag would collapse, except when they wanted to float. A gas-generating machine was among the adjuncts of the hull, and was placed just above the framework attaching the airplanes to the balloon.

“It is nonsense, ridiculous,” insisted Leblance, over and over again. “They are inviting sure death if they venture a hundred miles away from land.”

“All the same, they are going to try it,” proclaimed Hiram, a week later, holding up a newspaper. “Here is a great account of the machine and the plans, and Davidson and Jerry Dawson, who are going to fly the Dictator.”

These two latter individuals did not trouble the Albatross people any further. A constant guard, however, was kept on duty in the aerodrome. There were a great many curious and interested visitors. Day by day the giant airship approached completion. Now, as Hiram had announced, it was practically ready to essay its initial flight.

Professor Leblance smiled indulgently at them, as with considerable professional pride he walked around the mammoth structure his skill and efficiency had devised. Dave never tired of surveying the splendid machine. To him it was a marvel how Leblance had assembled the parts of the airship so speedily. There were three engines, and from the wooden ribs and metal bracing, socketed to withstand collisions, to the passenger cabin almost as sumptuously furnished as a Pullman palace car, every detail fitted into a mammoth scheme never before attempted in aeronautics.

“The Albatross will do what no aeroplane could accomplish,” said Leblance to his companions, who were admiringly regarding the great machine.

“What is that, Mr. Leblance?” inquired the young aviator.

“It can be perfectly handled in a storm exceeding thirty-five miles an hour velocity. It is as much of a ship as any that can travel the ocean. An iron ship is sustained on the water by the air inside of her hull, air being eight hundred times lighter than water. The Albatross will be sustained in the air by hydrogen gas, which is sixteen times lighter than air.”

“And sixteen to one is as good as unlimited to one,” remarked Dave, who had been studying aeronautics.

“That’s it. The Albatross is a ship sustained by displacing more than its own weight on the air. Its gas chambers are inflated to about three-fourths of their capacity, to allow for the full expansion of gas after the ship has been driven up dynamically by the action of the engines and propellers, the flat top and under surface of the hull acting as an aeroplane.”

The Albatross was a flexible gas bag, just like the ordinary drifting balloon, except that in shape it was long and pointed, instead of round. Otherwise, Leblance explained, it could not be driven through the air. The gas was contained in twenty-two separate chambers inside of the rigid hull, which performed the same functions as the air-tight compartments inside an ocean liner.

“It will sink only if it leaks badly,” explained Leblance. “The sustaining compartments are always closed. Even if several compartments should burst, the loss of the lift is compensated by the aeroplane action of the hull whenever driven at full speed. When thus driven it burns its own fuel so rapidly that this, acting the same as the casting of ballast, is continuously lightening the ship. This is what is called balancing the ship. The air balloonets maintain the rigidity of the bag whenever it loses gas through the action of the sun or change in elevation. The breeze passing through the ventilators at the bow prevents the gas from expanding on the hottest days of the year. I tell you confidently, my young friends, to my mind the Albatross is practically unsinkable.”

Neither Dave nor Hiram had thus far been inside the cabin and other living apartments of the Albatross. They had, however, watched their construction. The big airship could carry twenty passengers, if necessary, and in providing for the comfort of those making the first trip no detail for their welfare had been overlooked. There were washrooms, provision apartments, a cook’s galley; and the engineer’s quarters, Leblance explained, would be perfect in appointment and equipment. The main point he had striven for was to maintain absolute control of the gas at all times. As this depended upon reliable engines, motors had been built that ran for thirty-six hours at full speed. The machinery could not break down, as every part had been duplicated.

“That means,” said Leblance, “that if the carburetor gets out of order, a duplicate enables it to go right on working. The engine has a great number of automatic devices, among them two pumps which force the fuel to exactly the right places, even if the ship is standing on its beam ends, running up into the air or coming down at an angle of forty-five degrees. You won’t have to sit sandwiched in small quarters, my young friends. You can walk up and down the cabin and go all over the ship, without disturbing the balance of the huge float overhead. To-morrow the last touch will be put on the engine, and then practically we will be all ready.”

Hiram went down to the post-office for the mail after supper that day. Mr. King and his party were downstairs in the living room of the boarding house, entertaining two airmen who had come to Croydon to look over the Albatross that afternoon, when Hiram returned.

The young aviator’s impetuous assistant burst unceremoniously in upon the group, stumbled over a rug and went flat, but flushed and breathless tossed the evening newspaper to Mr. King.

“Read, read!” panted the excited lad.

“Why, what’s all this commotion, Hiram?” questioned the astonished veteran airman.

“It’s all in – the paper,” gasped Hiram in jerks. “The Dictator– has – got – ahead of us.”

“What’s that!” fairly shouted Mr. Dale, springing to his feet.

“Yes,” declared Hiram. “The Dictator started from Senca this afternoon – on her trip across the Atlantic!”

CHAPTER X
THE HAUNTED AERODROME

The excitable Leblance was on his feet in an instant. Dave reached the side of Mr. King and glanced quickly at the paper he had opened out.

“Impossible – so poorly equipped! Incredible – so quickly!” almost shouted the Frenchman.

“The Dictator has sailed, just the same,” announced the veteran airman, conclusively. “I’ll read it to you.”

Every word of the article in the newspaper was taken in absorbedly by the persons in the room. According to it, the Dictator had made a splendid ascent from Senca at two o’clock that afternoon. The red, white and blue appearance of the great gas bag had evoked the most patriotic enthusiasm, and cheers and flag-waving had accompanied the flight.

The Dictator, according to the report, would float southward overland till a point near Baltimore was reached. Here a descent would be made to learn its condition, the machinery carefully scanned, and the ocean course begun. Then followed an interview given out by Davidson on the superiority of his double monoplane apparatus. There was, too, a portrait of Davidson and one of Jerry Dawson. The article wound up with a reference to the Albatross, which it stated, would soon be hot on the heels of the Dictator.

“They have got the lead,” observed Mr. Dale, in an anxious tone, the one of the group most disquieted by the newspaper article.

Professor Leblance shrugged his shoulders. He waved his hand to express ridicule. His long, waxed mustache curled up in disdain.

“It is absurd,” he said. “Do I not know? An egg shell like that – no science, no reserve force. Bah! I laugh at it.”

All the same the volatile Frenchman beckoned Mr. King to the next room. In low, serious tones they held quite an extended conversation. At its end Leblance hurried from the house. Mr. King returned to his friends with a serious face.

“The ball has been set rolling,” he spoke, “there is no doubt of that. No matter what we think or guess about the Dictator, it seems certain that the craft has made a start. Leblance has gone to set his men at night work. The Albatross must be gotten in trim for its flight within forty-eight hours.”

“As quickly as that!” exclaimed Dave.

“Leblance assures me he will have the Albatross all ready for its flight by day after to-morrow,” said the airman. “Make preparations, my friends. There must be no delay.”

“Hurrah!” whispered Hiram, into the ear of his young friend.

The guests of Mr. King saw that his mind was seriously on his business, and arose to depart.

“Some of our crowd will be here to give the Albatross the right send-off,” one of them declared.

The airman saw the visitors to the door. When he returned he snatched up his hat quickly.

“Come with me, Dashaway; you too, Hiram,” he directed.

“Where are you going?” inquired Mr. Dale.

“To the aerodrome. There is going to be a lot of rush work to do, and perhaps we can help.”

“Count me in,” said the old man, cheerily, “although I haven’t been very useful so far outside of gaping at the wonderful work of our gifted friend, Leblance.”

“Day after to-morrow is the twenty-first,” spoke up Grimshaw. “Two days’ start for the Dictator crowd.”

The group left the boarding house. They crossed the street and walked along the fence of the aerodrome enclosure. Dave and Hiram were in the lead. They were chatting animatedly as they turned the corner of the building, when Dave was thrust violently to the side and Hiram was knocked head over heels to the street.

A frenzied yell accompanied the collision with them of a wild, scurrying form, which recoiled at the unexpected impact, a hat bobbing from its head.

“Hi! what’s all this?” challenged the astonished Mr. King.

“Why, it’s the night watchman!” declared Grimshaw.

“Oh, Mr. King!” panted the man, and then, pale, shaking, and gasping for breath, he fell against the wall of the building from sheer weakness.

“Here, brace up,” ordered the aviator, seizing the arms of the fellow and shaking him. “What’s the trouble?”

“Ghost!” choked out the watchman, in thrilling accents.

“Where – what do you mean?”

“Aerodrome.”

“A ghost in the aerodrome?” questioned Mr. King, derisively. “Is that what you’re trying to say?”

“Yes.”

“Nonsense! Here, Grimshaw, help me get this fellow back to his post of duty.”

Between them they forced the man along the walk. He gurgled, quaked, and held back as they neared the gates of the enclosure. They found these locked, as also the door to the old factory, when they reached it.

“I locked it in,” quavered the frightened watchman. “Don’t – don’t let it out!”

“You’re a fine guardian of property, you are,” censured the airman, severely. “Here we are,” and as he opened the door, Mr. King snapped on the electric lights. The watchman sank to a chair and crouched as he directed a scared glance around the place.

“Where’s your ghost?” derided the aviator quickly.

“I – I don’t see him now,” grunted the watchman.

“I guess you don’t,” scoffed Grimshaw. “You must be a weak one to fly into a tantrum like this over nothing.”

“Nothing!” fairly bellowed the watchman. “I saw it plain as the nose on my face. See here, I had the door ajar about a foot to let in a little of the cool evening air. Here I sat in my chair right near it. I must have half snoozed and woke up suddenly. Not five feet away, right near that oil tank yonder, was a horrible shape. It was all white and unearthly. As I started up it let out an unearthly scream and waved its arms. Say, it was curdling! I bolted for the door, locked it, and scooted.”

“Yes, you scooted all right,” grumbled Hiram, rubbing a bump on his head.

Mr. King, with a glance of impatience at the great booby of a watchman, proceeded briskly the length of the building, peering into every odd nook and corner. When he came back he held in his hand a long cotton sheet that had been used to cover some of the machinery.

“That is what you saw,” he declared. “Somebody has been playing a trick on you.”

“Why, how could that be,” chattered the watchman, “seeing nobody was in the building but me?”

“How do you know that?” demanded the aviator; “when you say you had the door open? I tell you some one slipped in, wrapped in the sheet, and half scared the life out of you.”

“Then he must be here now,” insisted the watchman, “for when I bolted I locked the door after me.”

“It all looks rather queer,” remarked Mr. Dale.

“Hi!” suddenly shouted the watchman.

“What’s the matter now?” asked Mr. King.

“My dinner pail – that I bring my night lunch in.”

“What about it?”

“Gone! It was right here near my chair. It’s been taken.”

Dave had followed the progress of the incident of the hour with curiosity, ending in positive interest.

“Come on, Hiram,” he said.

“What for?” inquired his comrade.

“To do some investigating. Don’t you see that if the watchman’s story is straight some one really was here?”

“And if the door was locked when the watchman ran away he couldn’t very well get out.”

“Exactly.”

The two lads made more than one tour of the length and breadth of the place. Their quest proved a vain one. There was no one hiding about the aerodrome, as far as they could discover.

“We’ll have to give it up,” said Hiram at last, “although it’s something of a mystery.”

It was, indeed, but a mystery soon to be explained in a startling way to the young aviators.