Frank Walton - The Flying Machine Boys on Duty

Instead of doing this, they both made an effort to seize Ben. Now Ben had been in many a rough-and-tumble skirmish on the lower East Side, and knew how to protect himself against such clumsy assaults. One of the farmers cut a circle over the shoulder of the boy as he fell from a hip-lock, and the other went down from as neat a jolt on the jaw, as was ever delivered in the prize ring.

While this remarkable contest was in progress, Jimmie was whirling the machine, he had mounted, into the air. When he saw one of the farmers land in the ditch he came swiftly about with a jeer of defiance and thrust an insulting face toward the ground.

“Say, you feller!” he shouted. “That’s Billy Burley, the Bruiser. Don’t you go to getting into a mix-up with him!”

The man who had tumbled into the soft muck of the trench clambered slowly out and shook his fist at the freckled, scornful face bent above him.

“I’ll show you!” he shouted. “I’ll show you!”

By this time Ben had taken possession of the Bertha , and the motors were clattering down the road. In a second almost the flying machine was in the air, and the boys were off on their journey, leaving the two farmers chasing down the road after them, shouting and waving pitchforks desperately in the air.

It was now almost broad daylight, and the boys sent their machines up so as to attract as little attention as possible from the country below. A few miles from the scene of their encounter they shot off straight to the south, resolved to reach the Pacific coast by way of Kansas and lower California. It seemed to them that the aviator who had preceded them had purposely lingered in order that they might come up with him. This looked like trouble.

If it meant anything at all, it meant that if possible they were to be interfered with on their way across the continent. This prospect was not at all to their liking. They wanted to the get to the Pacific coast as soon as possible and begin the quest in the mountains.

Shortly after five o’clock they saw the city of Baltimore stretched out below them. Deciding that it would be much better to land some distance from the city and prepare breakfast out in the open country than to attract universal attention by dropping down in the city, Ben volplaned down on a macadamized highway some distance out of the town. Jimmie followed his example at once, and before long a small alcohol stove was in action, sending the fragrance of bubbling coffee out into the fresh morning air. Even at that early hour half a dozen loungers gathered about the machines, gazing with wondering eyes at the youthful aviators.

The boys explained the object of their journey in the first words which came to their lips, which, it is unnecessary to state, were highly imaginative, and the loungers stood about watching the boys eat and drink and asking questions concerning the mechanism of the motors.

After eating and inspecting the machines the boys started away again. At the time of their departure there was at least half a hundred people standing around, hands in pockets, mouths half open.

The boys passed over Washington in a short time and glanced down at the great dome of the capitol and at the towering shaft of the Washington monument. The machines, however, were going at a swift pace, and the many points of interest at the capital of the nation soon faded from view.

About every two hours all through the day and early evening the boys came to the surface at some convenient point and rested and examined their machines. The motors were working splendidly, and the lads were certain that if it should become necessary they could make five hundred miles without a halt. This was at least encouraging.

When night fell they found themselves not far from St. Louis. They dropped down in a lonely field about sunset and built a roaring camp-fire. There was not a house in sight, and the field where the machines lay was surrounded by a fringe of small trees. Ten or fifteen miles to the west rolled the Mississippi river and beyond lay the paved streets of St. Louis, where they were to meet Havens.

The day’s journey had been a most successful one. Jimmie was certain that at times the Louise had traveled at the rate of a hundred miles an hour. There had been no accidents of any kind.

“From New York to the Mississippi in one day appears to me to be going some!” declared Jimmie, “and I never was so tired in my life. We can’t go on to-night if we are to meet Havens in St. Louis to-morrow, and so I’m going to get out one of the oiled silk shelter tents and go to bed.”

While the boys planned a long night’s rest the whirr of motors came dully from the sky off to the north.

“What we ought to do now,” Doctor Bolt declared, as the night matron, indignant chin in air, turned toward the door of the private room, “is to notify the officers of Westchester county.”

“I don’t see the necessity for that,” Havens replied. “One may as well look for a pearl in a train-load of oysters as to look for that fellow in Westchester county to-night. Depend upon it, the men who sought employment at the hospital a few days ago were sent here because the hospital happened to be near my home.”

The night matron shrugged her shoulders and passed a scornful glance at the surgeon. The surgeon turned angrily away.

“That relieves me of a great responsibility,” she said. “Ordinarily one becomes responsible for the actions of employes, but when men are sent into your service by a criminal gang for a criminal purpose, responsibility ought to end there.”

“I don’t agree with your reasoning at all!” declared the surgeon. “One should know better than to employ strangers in positions of trust.”

“And when,” continued the night matron, glaring at the surgeon, “a country doctor takes it upon himself to override the rules of a hospital and keeps watch beside a patient to the exclusion of the regular attendants, one certainly should not be held accountable for the safety of that patient. And that’s all I have to say,” she added.

“Settle the responsibility as you will,” Havens broke in. “I have nothing to do with that. What I want now is a promise from each of you that nothing whatever shall be said regarding the matter until private detectives shall have an opportunity to recapture the escaped prisoner.”

“But why the secrecy?” asked the night matron.

“It is my duty as a surgeon to report the entire matter to the police,” shouted Bolt. “I shall do so at once.”

Havens argued with the two for a long time, and finally secured a promise that nothing would be said either of the capture or the escape for three days. The millionaire’s idea was to get the prisoner into his own hands if possible. He knew that the fellow would have a hundred chances of escaping without ever revealing the story of the crime he had committed that night with the police, where he would have not one if guarded by private detectives.

He was well satisfied from the incidents of the night that some person high up in the councils of the police department had leaked in the matter of the employment of the boys on the murder case. He believed, too, that the same influence which had been able to secure the carefully guarded information would be powerful enough to protect the escaped prisoner in case he should regain consciousness and, on promise of immunity, threaten to disclose the names of his accomplices in the incendiary act.

After exacting the promise from the surgeon and the night matron, Havens ordered every workman about the place to remain on guard until morning and, calling his chauffeur, departed for New York in a high-powered touring car. Worn out with the anxiety and exertions of the night, he fell asleep on the soft cushions of the machine, and awoke only when the chauffeur shook him gently by the shoulder and announced that they were at the Grand Central station.