Dave Dashaway the Young Aviator: or, In the Clouds for Fame and Fortune

CHAPTER XVII

KIDNAPPED

If Hiram Dobbs had not pronounced so serious a warning only a few hours previous, Dave would not have paid much attention to the incident of the moment.

Hiram had spoken of two rough looking characters in the company of Jerry Dawson. Here were a couple who filled the bill, strangers to Dave, and yet speaking his name in a way that was sinister.

“They’re gone, whoever they are,” said Dave a few moments later, and dismissed them from his mind for the time being.

He walked down the row of automobiles and other vehicles lining the main entrance road. There was quite a crowd. General admission to the grounds was free to any one respectable that day and evening.

Outside of the curious visitors who had gone the rounds of the hangars, there were groups of airmen and others discussing the features of the morrow’s flights.

Dave passed along through the crowds, interested in all he saw. When he got to that part of the broad roadway where the booths and crowds were sparser, he deviated to cross towards the hangars at one side of the great course.

He met a few people and here and there came across tents given to the exhibiting of some new model, or occupied by employees who worked about the field. Most of those who ate and slept on the grounds, however, were down at the center of animation near the big gate, and Dave’s walk was a rather lonely one.

“It’s going to be the week of my life,” thought the youth. “I wonder if there’s any hope at all of my taking a flight, as Hiram hinted. Not but that I believe I could manage a biplane as well as any amateur. Hello!”

Dave was rudely aroused from his glowing dreams as he passed a tent where a man with a lantern was tinkering over a motorcycle. Happening to glance back, Dave saw two stealthy figures in the dim distance.

“They are the men I noticed at the entrance,” decided Dave. “There, they’ve split up. One has gone out of sight around the tent, and the other has made a pretence of stopping to watch the fellow mending that motorcycle.”

Dave hastened his speed, making straight for the hangars. The row in which Mr. King housed his machine was quite remote from the others. It was bright starlight, and glancing over his shoulders several times Dave was sure that he made out the two men he was suspicious of following in his tracks.

They neared him as he passed a row of temporary buildings. Dave had a mind to stop at one of these until his pursuers, if such they were, had made themselves scarce. Then, however, as he glanced around, he caught no sight of them.

“Pshaw!” said Dave, “what am I afraid of? Perhaps I’m making a mystery out of nothing. If those fellows intended to do me any harm, they’d have got at me long since. They’ve had plenty of chances. I’ll make a bee line for home and forget all about them.”

Dave put across an unoccupied space. At its edge were three temporary buildings. Two he knew held airships. One was quite famous. It belonged to a wealthy man named Marvin, who made aeronautics a fad. His machine was a splendid military monoplane of the latest model, and was listed to do some heavy air work in the next day’s programme.

All the buildings were dark. Nobody seemed in their vicinity until Dave neared the larger one of the three where the military machine was housed. Then suddenly around one corner of the canvas house two men came into view.

“We’ve run him home, I guess,” spoke the quick voice of one of them.

“Yes, there he goes, making for the tent,” was the retort given in a breath.

Dave recognized the men as the fellows who had been so persistently following him. They had run ahead, it seemed, and waited for his coming. As they made a move towards him, showing that they intended to reach and seize him, Dave started running around the other side of the building. At this the men separated. One circled the building and headed him off. Dave ran back ten feet out of sight. Then, hearing the other fellow running on from the opposite direction, Dave crowded through a half open sliding door.

“He’s gone,” sounded on the outside, a minute later.

“No, he’s slipped into that shed. I tell you we’ve run him home, and if nobody else is around we can soon finish up our business neat and quick.”

Dave did not know what that “business” was. He stood still in the darkness and listened. His hand had touched the bamboo edge of a machine wing. He was thinking of seeking a hiding place, or some other door or window outlet from the shed, when a sudden flash blinded and confused him.

His pursuers had followed him into the place. One of them carried a portable electric light. Pressing its button, and focussing its rays first on one spot and then on another, its holder soon rested a steady glare on Dave.

“There he is,” sounded out.

“Yes, grab him.”

“All right.”

“Got him?”

“Sure and safe.”

Dave’s captor had great brawny hands and handled the youth as he would a child. The men had come prepared for rough and ready action. The ruffian had felled Dave with a jerk and a slam, kept beside him, and in a twinkling had his hands and feet bound tightly. Dave set up a sharp outcry.

“We’ll soon settle that,” said his captor grimly.

Dave’s lips were muffled with a gag so tightly fastened that for a few minutes he could scarcely breathe. The man who had dealt so summarily with him arose to his feet.

“What now?” asked his companion.

“Go out and see if the coast is clear.”

“I know it is – our way. We’re to make direct for the high fence behind the hangars. Near the freight gate, you know. We can open it from the inside.”

“Let’s be in a hurry, then. Remember there’s something else to do.”

“I haven’t forgotten it. The job’s easy this far. Come ahead.”

“We’ll have to carry him?”

“Yes.”

Dave was lifted up and swung along by the two men as if he were a bag of grain. They made straight for the high rear fence of the grounds. This they followed for a few hundred feet.

“Here’s the gate,” announced one of the men, and they dropped Dave to the ground.

There was a jangling of chains and hasps. From where he lay Dave could see the open country beyond the gateway. He was carried through. Several vehicles were in view, and the horses attached to most of them were hitched to trees or the fence supports. Their owners, Dave judged, were up at a place some distance away. Here there were lights and animation. Dave knew that the building was located there, outside of the grounds, where the supplies from farmers and by rail were received.

“Say,” spoke one of the men carrying him, “there’s half a dozen horses and wagons here.”

“Well, it’s a light wagon with a white horse we were directed to.”

“There it is – see that white horse yonder?”

“I guess you’re right. Toddle along. This is no light lump of a youngster.”

The men reached a light wagon. Its box was littered with straw and a lot of empty bags. It looked to Dave as if its owner had brought a load of potatoes to the aero meet.

“Give him a hoist,” ordered one of the men.

Dave was lifted, swung, and dropped. He sank down among the bags and the straw almost out of sight.

“Now where’s the man we were to meet, the driver of the wagon?” inquired the fellow who had bound and gagged Dave.

“Oh, he’ll probably be here soon. You stay and wait for him and give him his orders. I’ll go back and finish up the job.”

“You can’t do it alone. It won’t take but a few minutes. You may want me to hold a light, or something.”

“Got the tools?”

“Yes” – and the last speaker jangled something metallic in his pockets.

“All right. Let’s waste no time. This is pretty neat, I call it – the lad settled, and the machine no good. I’m thinking old King will do some storming, when he tries another flight.”

“I think so, too. Come on,” was the retort, and the two men disappeared through the gateway of the aviation field.

CHAPTER XVIII

AN ALL-NIGHT CAPTIVITY

Dave sank down in his soft bed of bags and straw, unable to move hand or foot.

The men who had made him a helpless prisoner had done their work well. Dave could not use a muscle. As to dislodging the gag or shouting, that seemed entirely out of the question.

The youth had lots of time to think. He blinked up at the stars, kept his ears on the alert, and waited for further developments.

“There’s something to Hiram’s warning, sure enough,” he reflected. “If this is the work of Jerry Dawson, he must be a pretty desperate fellow.”

Then Dave began to worry. The last overheard words of his captors were enlightening. They had spoken as if it was fully intended to get him away from his present pleasant employment and keep him away from it. What affected Dave most seriously, however, was the hint of the two men that they had some evil designs against the Aegis.

“I think I guess it out,” mused Dave, very much wrought up mentally. “Jerry Dawson and his father are bent on getting me out of the way, and at the same time getting even with Mr. King, as they call it. I don’t see what they hope to gain. Mr. King wouldn’t take Jerry back in his employ in a thousand years, and they wouldn’t dare to do me any real harm. It would cost them money to have me shut up anywhere for any length of time, and the Dawsons haven’t got any too much of that. Besides, they won’t hold me long,” declared Dave doughtily, “if I get a chance to slip them.”

Dave counted the minutes, quite curious as well as anxious to find out what the next step in the programme would be. Then he heard voices approaching.

“They’re coming back,” decided Dave, “no,” he corrected himself, “those are not their voices.”

“Unhitch him, Jared,” spoke unfamiliar tones.

“All right,” responded a boyish voice. “Straight for home, father?”

“Yes, we’ll be late as it is, and mother will be uneasy. Give me the lines. I’ll drive.”

Two persons, apparently father and son, lifted themselves up into the front seat of the wagon, and the horse started up.

“That’s queer,” ruminated Dave, “mighty queer. Why, they don’t act as if they cared if I was smothering or already smothered. Why don’t they wait for the two men who put me in this awful fix?”

The wagon crossed a patch of open ground. Then a smooth country road was reached and the horse jogged along his way.

“Pretty good price for the stuff you got, wasn’t it, father?” asked the boy.

“Yes, these shows pay us well,” was the response.

“Oh, I’m nobody and nothing, it seems,” thought Dave. “Wish I had the use of my tongue for about two minutes. I’d ask these people what they intend to do with me. They don’t appear like very bloodthirsty fellows. Maybe, though, they’re hired to dump me into the first river they come to, and don’t mind it so long as they get the money.”

Not a word was spoken by either father or son that showed the least interest on their part in their helpless passenger. Finally the boy said:

“It’s going to rain, father. I felt a sprinkle just then.”

“Well, we’ll be home in ten minutes.”

Dave had noticed that the sky had clouded up. A few drops of rain spattered his face. Then the horse took a turn, entered a farm yard, and was halted.

“You go into the house, father,” said the boy. “I’ll put up the horse.”

“All right, give him his feed, and say, Jared, you needn’t bother pulling the wagon in.”

“Just as you say, father.”

“Throw a hay tarpaulin over the box, so the bags won’t get soaked, that’s all.”

“The mischief!” reflected Dave. “Are they thinking of leaving me out in a rainstorm all night?”

Apparently this was just what the farmer boy was going to do. He unhitched the horse and led him into the stable. Then he came out carrying a great cover, whistling carelessly. He gave the tarpaulin a whirl, and it flopped over the box of the wagon, shutting Dave in snugly. Then, as there came a dash of rain, the boy ran for the house, and Dave could hear him run up a pair of steps and slam a door after him.

“Well!”

Dave nearly exploded with wonder, dismay and disgust. He wrenched at his bonds, and gave it up. He tried to bite the gag in his mouth free, and abandoned that futile attempt also.

“I’m certainly booked for a spell right where I am,” decided Dave. “Maybe those two fellows who captured me are to come here to get me or perhaps when the farmer and his son get their supper they’ll come out and move me somewhere else.”

Nothing of the kind, however, happened. All Dave could do was to rest snugly in one position and listen to the rain patter down on the protecting tarpaulin. An hour went by very slowly. Once in a while Dave could catch the echo of a voice singing inside the farm house. Finally he heard some windows shut down. Then everything became still. He knew now that the people in the house had gone to bed.

Dave got tired of listening to the ceaseless piping of the crickets in the grass and the croaking of the frogs in a pond near by.

“I might just as well try to go to sleep myself, too,” he told himself. “If I don’t, I’ll be in no shape for the big day to-morrow.”

There Dave faltered, with a pang that sent his heart way down into his shoes. To-morrow! It would an anxious day for him, if he was kept in captivity. And Mr. King! Dave writhed as he feared the worst.

He quieted himself finally by thinking out a new theory, and this made him feel somewhat hopeful as to himself.

“There’s been a miss in the plans of those scoundrels,” flashed into his mind. “It’s probable, it’s possible, yes, that’s it, I’ll bet!” decided Dave.

He felt more patient and satisfied now. The boy concluded that the two men who had captured him had picked out the wrong white horse. There had been more of that color among those hitched near the freight gate at the aviation grounds.

“They put me in the wrong wagon,” thought Dave, “and here I am. What will they do when they learn of their terrific blunder?”

Dave chuckled over this. If it had not been for his active fears as to some designs against Mr. King and the Aegis, Dave would have felt quite jubilant.

“It will be all right in the morning,” he tried to believe, and finally went to sleep.

The loud barking of a dog aroused our hero. The tarpaulin was shaking, and as its edges flapped about Dave could tell that it was broad daylight.

“Here, Tige, what are you up to?” shouted a familiar voice.

It was that of the farmer boy who had covered Dave up in the wagon box the evening previous.

Dave could trace the movements of the dog, probably just released from his kennel by his early rising young master doing his chores about the barn yard. The animal barked unceasingly, circled the wagon and tore at the dangling ends of the tarpaulin. Dave could hear the paws of the dog as in his excitement he tried to clamber up into the vehicle.

“What is it, Tige – a cat under there?” spoke the farm boy, his voice apparently nearer.

Just then, under the dog’s pulling, the tarpaulin slid clear off to the ground. Dave was dazzled by a blinding glare of sunlight.

The farmer boy sprang upon a wheel hub and looked down into the wagon box, the dog clawing and panting at his heels. The eyes of the amazed lad fell upon Dave.

“For goodness sake!” shouted the farmer boy. “Where did you come from?”

CHAPTER XIX

ANOTHER MISTAKE

Dave Dashaway’s limbs were stiff and his lips were sore. He could not move nor speak. He tried to smile to reassure the farmer boy, who looked startled and scared.

The latter swept aside the loose litter of straw and bags. The minute he got a view of Dave’s condition he turned pale, jumped down from the wheel hub and shouted out wildly:

“Father, father – come here quick!”

The dog kept running around the wagon making a great ado. Finally some one seemed to come from the house in response to the call of the farmer boy, for a voice inquired:

“What’s the row here?”

“A boy in that wagon box.”

“Some tramp, I suppose.”

“But he’s all tied up with ropes. There’s even something tied in his mouth, so he can’t talk – only stare and grin.”

“You don’t say!”

“Yes, I do. Look for yourself.”

“Well! well! well!”

As the farmer lifted himself up on the wagon box and took a look at Dave, his eyes grew big as saucers. He felt along the cord coming tightly across Dave’s cheeks and of the rope binding his body.

“Jared, run into the house, quick, and get your mother’s scissors,” he ordered.

The old man hoisted himself to the edge of the wagon box, and simply gaped at Dave, as if too puzzled to figure out how his strange situation had come about.

“Here’s the scissors, father,” finally reported the boy, who had hurried into the house and out of it again.

The old man went to work on Dave as tenderly as if he had been a kitten. He carefully snipped the gag cords.

“Bless me!” he said, as he noticed the big red welts across Dave’s face. “This is mighty cruel I tell you. Now then,” as he cut the ropes at hands and feet, “get up and tell us what this means.”

Dave tried to and failed. His tongue was so dry and swollen that he could not articulate. His whole body was numb and spiritless. The farmer saw his helplessness, ordered his son to let down the high tailboard of the wagon, and they gradually slid Dave to the ground and held him up.

Gentle mannered people these, Dave decided, and he was ashamed of himself for ever thinking that they were parties to the kidnapping plot of the two men who had captured him the night previous.

“Walk him a bit, Jared, softly now, softly,” the farmer said. “He’s in a mortal bad fix, circulation nigh stopped and weak as a cat. I reckon we’d better get him into the house.”

The farmer’s wife looked surprised as her husband carried Dave to a couch in the family sitting room and placed him upon it.

“Why, what’s this?” she exclaimed.

“It’s either a measly trick or attempted killing,” replied the old man indignantly. “Speak up, lad, how did you come in that plight?”

“Water!” was all that Dave could choke out, and the good housewife soon had a glass at his lips.

“Don’t stand gawking at the poor fellow and pestering him with questions,” cried the farmer’s wife. “He needs some good hot coffee and some strengthening food to brace him up,” and the speaker hurried to the kitchen, where Dave could hear the sizzling of bacon.

“I can talk to you now, sir,” he said, but weakly, taking another gulp of the reviving water. “I was kidnapped.”

“Hey!” ejaculated the farmer, with a start.

“Yes, sir.”

“In my wagon?”

“That was a mistake, I believe. Two rough men were hired to tie me up and gag me and put me in a wagon in waiting outside of the aero grounds. They mistook yours for the one they should have put me in.”

“Gracious!”

“They went back into the grounds, and you came along and drove me off with you before they returned.”

“You don’t mean to say you’ve been lying in that wagon ever since last evening?”

“I do,” replied Dave.

“Why didn’t you kick and holler?”

“How could I?”

“That’s so. Well, you just get a bit of breakfast and mended up, and I’ll drive you back to town. I hope you intend to get those critters arrested.”

“I certainly shall try and find them,” said Dave.

In a very few minutes our hero was as good as ever, as the saying goes. He was young, healthy, active, and as soon as his blood got to circulating, the stiffness and soreness began to go away.

He was better than ever, he told himself, after a breakfast so elegant, home-like, and plentiful, that he made the farmer’s wife flush with pleasure over his compliments.

The farmer’s boy took particular interest in Dave, when he learned that he was employed among “the balloon men.” Dave did not go into details or mention names, for he did not want anything to get out about his kidnapping until he had consulted Mr. King.

He was anxious and glad, when two hours later, the farmer drew up his horse at the main entrance to the aero grounds. Dave made the man accept a dollar for all his trouble, which the farmer took reluctantly, saying he would invest it in kitchen aprons for his wife. Dave also told him how to send word to him, if he wished to visit the meet any day during the week.

“You can count on free passes,” said Dave.

“Thank you, that will be fine,” nodded the delighted farmer as he drove off.

Dave dashed breathlessly through the big gateway. He had simply to lift his hand to the gatekeeper, who passed him in with a nod, knowing him and not requiring him to show his entrance ticket. Then Dave ran down the course, heading in the direction of the hangars. All his former anxieties came back to him. He was safe and free himself, but what had happened after his two captors had disposed of him?

“They had tools, they talked of the Aegis,” soliloquized Dave. “They were up to some harm for Mr. King, just the same as myself. Oh, dear, I hope nothing has happened to the monoplane!”

Dave passed the building where Hiram made his headquarters. That friend would of course know of his strange spell of absence. Hiram could probably relieve his present worry or heighten it, but Dave felt that his first duty was to his employer.

“Hold on, there. Hi, stop, Dave – Dave Dashaway!”

This call was bawled out from a window in the building Dave had just passed. At once he recognized the voice of his friend. Turning and half halting, Dave made out Hiram waving his hand frantically.

“Can’t stop – see you later,” shouted Dave.

“Must stop.”

Hiram never waited to make for a door. He jumped recklessly from the window, ran down the road, and overtook his friend.