only willing but ready to supply the capital. As to Dave and Hiram, they talked constantly of the enterprise daytimes and dreamed of it nights.
The plan of the veteran aviator, however, was one that involved time, skill and expense. His plans for building the great airship were very elaborate. A month had now gone by, and only the skeleton of the mammoth air traveler had so far been constructed.
A temporary aerodrome had been constructed on the edge of a large city about twenty-five miles from Lake Linden, where we find the young aviator at the opening of the present story. There Mr. King, Mr. Dale and some skilled workmen were energetically pushing forward their work. If their plans did not go awry, before the end of August the giant airship would start out on the strangest, grandest trip ever attempted in the field of aeronautics.
In the meantime the Interstate Aero Company had prevailed on Dave to give them a month’s special service. This comprised the exhibition of their latest hydro-monoplane, the Gossamer, at Lake Linden. The district was one visited every summer by men of wealth from New York, Boston and other large cities. The Interstate people had secured what had once been a small private park. Here Dave, Hiram and Mr. Grimshaw had been located for over a week.
The object of their exhibitions was to influence a sale of the Interstate machines among the rich men visiting Lake Linden. Many of them were aero enthusiasts. Besides that, the proprietors of the resort paid the company quite a large fee for making occasional flights as an attraction to popularize the lake.
Dave glanced after the man who had just had the verbal tussle with Mr. Grimshaw. He did not like his trivial looks any more than the old balloonist had. They had many curious visitors at the enclosure, however, and Dave forgot the strange brag of the latest one, as he looked down the road in the direction of the town of Linden.
“It’s strange Hiram doesn’t get back with the carryall,” remarked the young aviator.
“Yes, I heard the train come in half an hour ago,” replied Grimshaw. “Expecting quite a crowd, aren’t you, Dashaway?”
“Why, yes, according to the message the Interstate people sent me,” said Dave. “It seems there is a special party of foreign airmen our New York salesman has interested. Some of them have come over to take a try at the meets in the Southern circuit, and want to buy machines.”
“They’ll find ours the best,” asserted Grimshaw.
“I think that, too,” agreed Dave. “That’s why I’ve got everything spick and span inside there. The Gossamer looks as if she was just waiting to float like an eagle at the word.”
“She’s a beauty, and no mistake,” declared Grimshaw, and like some ardent horseman gazing at a fond pet, he pushed open the gate, and fixed his eyes on the hydro-aeroplane in the middle of the enclosure. “She’s the last word in airships,” boasted the old enthusiast. “That trial flight of yours yesterday, Dashaway, was the prettiest piece of air work I ever saw.”
Intimate as the young aviator was with the Gossamer and every detail of her delicate mechanism, he could not resist the fascination of looking over the most beautiful model in the airship field.
The Gossamer had proven a revelation, even to skilled airmen. It had been constructed in strict secrecy. The public had known nothing as to the details of the craft until it was taken out on Lake Linden to test its balance and speed.
It was equipped to carry four passengers, was driven by a forty horse-power motor, and made the tremendous speed of fifty miles an hour in the water and sixty miles an hour in the air. With its two propellers driven by clutch and chain transmission, and its new automatic starter and fuel gauge, it was a marvel of beauty and utility, as readily sent up from the confined deck of a warship as from the broadest aero field.
“She’s a bird, sure enough,” declared old Grimshaw, admiringly.
“Wasn’t she sort of built for a bird?” challenged Dave, with a smile.
“That’s so. Ah, I hear the wagon. Hiram is coming.”
The two went outside the enclosure, and the man looked keenly down the road in the direction of the village.
“Why Dashaway,” he exclaimed, “it’s Hiram, but he isn’t bringing the party you expected.”
“That’s queer,” commented the young aviator.
“He’s all alone – oh, no, he isn’t. He’s got one passenger aboard – a girl.”
“A girl?” repeated Dave, staring somewhat mystified at the approaching vehicle.
“Yes.”
“That’s queerer still,” remarked the young aviator.
CHAPTER II
“FOR MOTHER’S SAKE”
“Whoa!” sang out Hiram Dobbs, bringing the team to a halt and beckoning to Dave.
“Why, what’s the trouble, Hiram?” inquired the young aviator.
“Crowd didn’t come, that’s all.”
“And no word from them?”
“Why, yes, there was a wire,” and Dave’s friend and assistant handed a yellow sheet to Dave with the explanation: “Operator at the station gave it to me that way. A rush, so I read it.”
“That’s all right,” returned Dave, and he also read the brief dispatch in his turn.
It stated that there had come an unexpected hitch in the arrangements of the New York agent of the Interstate people, and that the party he had in tow would not visit Lake Linden until the following day.
“That’s good,” said Dave. “It will give us a chance to go to the city and see how our giant airship scheme is coming on.”
“Fine!” applauded Hiram. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about first, though, Dave.”
“What’s that, Hiram?”
“Wait a moment, Miss.”
Hiram interrupted with these words, addressed to the only passenger in the carryall. For the first time Dave glanced at her closely. She was a plainly-dressed, modest-looking girl of about sixteen. Her eyes were red with weeping. She held a handkerchief in her hand, and was pale and seemed greatly distressed.
“Oh, I must make you no farther trouble,” she said, in a broken tone. “I will get out of the carryall here and walk the rest of the way to the seminary.”
“I want to speak to my friend here first, Miss,” said Hiram. “You just wait. Maybe he can suggest some way to help you out.”
“You have been so kind to me already,” murmured the girl.
Dave wondered what was up. The carryall was a hired one, and he had supposed at first that Hiram had given the girl a lift, finding she was going his way. Hiram was always doing such kindly things.
The forlorn appearance of the girl, however, and the rather serious manner of Hiram as he jumped from the wagon seat and beckoned Dave out of earshot of his passenger, made the young aviator surmise that he had something of particular moment to impart to him.
“Now
