island, but they hunted me out. I’ve been fighting them off for nearly an hour.”
“Who are they, anyway?” asked Hiram.
“That old man claims to be my uncle. The other fellow he sent to town to get a constable, and hunt me out, is one of the half a dozen bad men he’s in with. Oh, he’s led me a terrible life! I just had to break away from him. I couldn’t stand it any longer. Oh, is there any way to keep me out of their hands?”
The speaker looked up in a beseeching way. The tears were running down his wasted cheeks. Hiram was much stirred.
“Say, I’ll do anything, any time, for a fellow in the fix you’re in, if I believe he’s right!” he cried valiantly. “I think you are. That old man has seen us now. Look at him rage.”
By this time the older man, on the mainland, had caught sight of the newcomer and of the machine that had brought Hiram to the rescue. He leaped to his feet, and seized his cane. He ran, brandishing it, to the edge of the water.
“Hey, say; you there!” he yelled. “Whoever you are, don’t you dare to interfere. The law will soon be here, and attend to that young rascal.”
“Yes, it will be all over for me when the constable comes,” choked out the lad by Hiram’s side. “Please, please help me, if you can! I don’t care for myself. It’s my little sister. They could hammer me, and I’d grin and bear it, but when they began on her I simply had to get away.”
“Little sister – what? Where?” inquired Hiram, in perplexity.
“Look there,” was the response, and the boy parted some bushes. Hiram uttered a wondering and a pitying cry, as he looked over the shoulder of his guide and saw a little girl, not more than four years of age. She was lying asleep on the dry grass, her head pillowed on a coat, evidently belonging to the lad, her brother. Her attire was as torn and threadbare as his own. Her face showed tear stains and exhaustion.
“Oh, dear! Dear!” murmured the pitying Hiram at the sight of such forlorn misery.
“If you don’t think I’m telling you the truth, just look there!” cried the lad brokenly, and he leaned over and gently pulled loose the poor thin dress covering the child. Across her shoulders were half a dozen dark welts.
“That man over there did that,” sobbed the barefooted boy. “Wouldn’t you run away for that? Wouldn’t you want to hit that mean man over yonder, if he treated a sister of yours that way?”
Hiram Dobbs fired up in a flash. He ran forward and shook his fist at the man in view. Then he looked in the direction of the town. The messenger sent thither was out of sight. Hiram cooled down.
“That fellow will soon be back with the officers of the law,” he said. “We mustn’t lose any time, I suppose. Do you know what that is?” he questioned his companion, pointing to the Scout.
“It’s an airship; isn’t it?” asked the boy. “I’ve seen one or two of them before.”
“Yes, it’s a biplane,” explained Hiram. “There’s a second seat in it, but it can’t carry a very heavy load, but I am sure, though, it will hold you and your sister. Pick up that poor little thing and I’ll show you how to get aboard. You’re not afraid?” he questioned.
“Me? No. I’d jump aboard a balloon if it would get little Lois safe out of the clutches of old Martin Dawson!” cried the lad.
The little girl stirred and moaned, as her brother lifted her in his arms. Hiram piloted him with his burden to the side of the Scout. He helped him step over the controls, eased him back into the seat and strapped him in, the little one in his lap.
“Snug and safe,” he spoke. “All you’ve got to do is to shut your eyes if you get dizzy. Now then, you old tyrant!” added Hiram speaking in the direction of the storming stamping man across from them, “we’ll set you a pace you couldn’t follow with all the constables in creation.”
The young aviator had to make three different efforts to clear the ground. It was not a very good spot for a start. Finally, however, the Scout gained enough momentum and made a graceful dart up into the air.
“Law! – stop! – arrest!” – fuming, and shaking his cane, the old man cried in disjointed fragments frantic threats after the vanishing air craft.
“Look there!” chuckled Hiram to the passenger behind him. Then he laughed outright, and, notwithstanding his anxiety and his miseries, the boy laughed, too.
His persecutor, eyes fixed aloft, following the vanishing Scout, had not heeded his steps. Coming too near the slimy edge of the swamp he lost his balance. With a splash he went flat, face first, into a bed of black sticky mud.
CHAPTER V
THE BIG EVENT
Not a word was spoken by either Hiram or his passenger as the Scout took its average altitude. The former was busy at his post. As to the other, holding the sleeping child in his lap, he sat like one entranced. The rescue from unfriendly hands, the odd situation in which he found himself, the novelty of a flight he had never before anticipated, fairly overcame him.
The able young pilot set out on a glide of easy progress. Then he had time to speak a few words to his fellow passenger.
“Comfortable?” he inquired.
“I could stay here forever!” ardently breathed, rather than spoke, the boy. “I never dreamed of such a wonderful thing as this airship. Oh, but you must know a lot, to be able to fly around up here in this way!”
“Huh! you’d ought to see what my chum, Dave Dashaway, can do,” vaunted the loyal Hiram. “Well, we’ve got away from that old rascal back there, anyhow.”
“I hope I may never see him again,” replied the lad with a shudder. “I don’t think I’ll ever forget what you’ve done for us in all our troubles.”
“What’s your idea now?” inquired Hiram in an off-handed way. “I suppose you had some plan when you gave that old man the slip?”
“Well, yes, I had,” was the reply. “I was thinking of poor little Lois only, though. I was trying to get to a place called Benham.”
“Where’s that?” asked Hiram.
“It’s about fifty miles from the town near the island where you came across me,” explained the boy. “I was making for the railroad when Mr. Dawson and the man with him came up with me. I thought if I could do that, and get into an empty box car, or something like that, with little Lois, we might get a ride clear to Benham. Then I would know what to do.”
“And what is that?” inquired Hiram, with interest.
“There’s a children’s home there. I’ve heard all about it. I don’t know anybody there, but I’m sure they would take in Lois. If I can only get her in a safe, comfortable place for a time, I’ll soon find work, and earn a home for her,” he said eagerly.
“You’ve got some good ideas,” commented Hiram, “and I can see you are of the right sort. I’ll take you to Benham. I don’t exactly know where it is, but it will not be hard to find out. You just forget all your troubles, and take it easy back there, and I’ll do the rest.”
After
