“Hey, Harry, come up here, will you? Gordon’s having a fit.” “Honest, Harry, you ought to see him—he’s wound up!”
“On the level, Harry, he’s doing a hornpipe in the cabin—come on up, don’t miss it!”
“Say, Harry, come up here till we get hold of you! How did you ever manage to do that, anyway? It was great! Gordon’s waving the field glass round his head—we can’t stop him!”
“Red Deer’s waiting to get his hands on you, old man—he’s got a scout smile a yard long! You ought to get a special award for that! It was great!”
“That was wonderful, Harry! You deserve a vote of thanks for licking those college fellows, but I don’t see how you did it single-handed!”
The voices came from a group of scouts as they crowded at the yacht’s rail. A rival group dragged him into a large, broad, dilapidated fishing-smack, furnished with a gasoline engine.
“I want all you boys to get out of that thing and come aboard here,” called Mr. Danforth, seconded by the half dozen of the troop whose presence he had already secured.
Harry was literally pushed up the steps, the rest following him.
“How are you?” said Dr. Brent, grabbing him with one hand and pounding his shoulder with the other. Mr. Danforth very cheerfully pushed Dr. Brent out of the way. “Harry, my boy, how are you? It was magnificent! You’re a wonder! How do you feel?”
“Fine and dandy,” smiled Harry.
“You must be all played out,” said Morrel. “Do you feel like a cup of coffee?”
“Do I look like a cup of coffee?” Harry laughed. “Where’s the Kid, anyway?”
“The Kid went up in the air when you touched the finish line and hasn’t come down yet. He told us all not to speak to you till he’d seen you first—didn’t he, Tilford?”
“Sure, they’re all crazy about you here, Harry. You’ve got them hypnotized. Gordon’s applied for a patent on you.”
“Say, Harry,” said Charlie Greer, the Beavers’ corporal, “we’ve been writing to Oakwood. Where’ve you been, you old tramp? Gordon says you’ve been doing light housekeeping on the top floor of old what’s-its-name mountain.”
“Yes, I’ve been cooking for the Kid,” Harry answered. “He’s a whole famine in himself.”
“Harry, those were regular rowing oars, weren’t they? How did you manage ’em, anyway?”
“Yes, they were as long as a spelling lesson. I believe it was that placard those fellows had that helped me. I just couldn’t stand for that. Hel-lo, Langford, old boy! Well, it’s good to see your pudgy face!”
“Sh-h-h, here he comes,” cried Roy Carpenter, the Hawks’ patrol leader, as Gordon’s head became visible above the companionway.
“Dearie me!” said Waring. “Let’s get from under!”
Gordon made a dive for Harry, and grabbed him. “Come down, come down!” said he.
“Hello, Kid, down where?”
“Downstairs—she—she—”
“Go ahead, Harry boy,” said John Walden, knowingly. “By all means, go!”
But Harry had no choice.
“I thought I would wait until you had seen your friends,” said Miss Crosby, shaking hands with him, “to congratulate you for your perfectly wonderful—”
“Did you have a good view, Miss Crosby?”
“Saw everything. And your friend explained things to me. Oh, he’s such an interesting little fellow, and he isn’t a bit bashful, is he?”
“Well, not so you’d notice it,” said Harry.
All of Mr. Danforth’s party had now to congratulate him, and in the midst of it Raymond Vinton, corporal of the Hawks, appeared in the doorway of the cabin.
“Mr. Arnold,” said he, with a profound air of mock deference, “Goodwin, the daring aviator, has just sent a special message aboard asking if the victor of the boat-race would like to take a little joy ride with him over to Vermont. What shall I say?”
“Oh, isn’t that just lovely!” said Miss Antoinette.
“Great,” answered Harry. “Things are certainly coming my way. Here, Raymond, have you met Miss Crosby? Miss Crosby, Mr. Vinton is corporal of the Hawk Patrol, such as it is, and he’s great on deducing. You just waste a few minutes talking to him, won’t you, while I go on deck and see if they’re trying to guy me.”
But they were not “guying” him. Sure enough, there in a boat at the foot of the yacht’s steps sat a young man in a pair of greasy overalls. It was Goodwin’s mechanic.
“Harry,” said Dr. Brent, “go by all means. It’s a chance not to be lost. It isn’t every one who has such a dramatic opportunity of breaking his neck. And when you return, if you do, you’ll find the troop up at the float. If you are inclined to accept the poor hospitality of our humble camp after all this,” he added with a humorous smile, “you’ll find us waiting for you with the Swan.”
“The how?” asked Harry.
“The Swan, my boy, the boat you just saw. It is ours till September first—ours and paid for. Harry, my boy, I can see by the look in your eye that you are going to call your scoutmaster down for getting the troop mixed up in this racing affair—but we couldn’t resist the invitation, and your corporal, acting for you, voted to see it through. But as for the Swan, Harry, I will not hear one word against her.”
“She looks as if she might do a mile or so an hour—with the current. Is it your joke, Doctor?”
“I hired her from a country youth after scouring the country. If you choose to join the mockers, do so. I stand by the Swan, Harry, I’m afraid it’s going to be a job to drag the boys off this yacht, but it’s got to be done. Your friend Mr. Danforth is great!”
“They’re moving to Oakwood this Fall.”
“So I hear—that’s fine. Well, my boy, you’d better be off for your joy ride.”
It was hard for Harry to say good-by to his genial host and the party on the yacht, but he made the rounds of the cordial group, promising to see them in the Fall—at least, the Danforths and Miss Crosby, who told him that she would surely be in Oakwood to see little Pen win the aero contest.
With many expressions of good-will from Mr. Danforth, and a good deal of mock deference from the troop, he got into the little boat and was rowed ashore. The man in the greasy overalls led the way to a spacious green near by, around which a rope fence had been stretched. The enclosure was already lined with people. Others, more anxious to witness the flight than to examine the machine, were comfortably seated on rocks or sprawled on the grass outside. The man’s greasy overalls acted as a password, and the crowd opened to let him cross the rope with Harry.
“That’s the fellow,” said some one, alluding to Harry, who gave no heed to the comments on himself, for his interest was fixed on the center of the field, where a perfect whirlpool of dust was rising, almost entirely obscuring the aeroplane.
“They’re trying out the motor,” the man explained.
“Jiminy!” said Harry. “She goes some, doesn’t she?”
“Four hundred and seventy turns a minute,” said the man.
“How fast will that send her?” Harry asked.
“Forty miles an hour against a brisk wind.”
“How fast do you suppose that would send a small boat?”
“Now you’ve got me—they don’t have to figure so much for slip in the water. Water’s a dense medium; but the air’s thin; you’ve got to remember that. You interested in air work?”
“Why, yes,” said Harry, “but I’m not very well posted. What’s the pitch of a propeller, anyway?”
“That’s its angle—you can’t get two aviators to agree about that. Mr. Goodwin uses an eight-foot fan. You see, if we got the full benefit of those four hundred and seventy turns we could make a streak of lightning look like a snail, but you understand it’s like walking up a treadmill,—you’ve got to walk like the mischief to keep ahead of the game. Mr. Goodwin saw you win that race. Well, here we are.”
It surprised Harry a little to hear this grimy-faced, besmirched, greasy young man talk so intelligently. But the experience is not uncommon for those who interest themselves in aviation. A machinist or electrician who lays down his ordinary work to devote his skill to the conquest of the air, usually does so by reason of an ardent love of the science; and there is not a more scientific and competent set of mechanics than those who have attached themselves to successful aviators.
Goodwin, an active little man, with keen black eyes, came forward from the little group surrounding the machine to welcome Harry.
“Ah,” said he, “that was a splendid race. I congratulate you. It occurred to me that you might like to go up with me—eh?”
“Indeed, I should,” said Harry. “It was good of you to ask me.”
“Not at all, there’s an empty seat, if you’re not afraid.”
“Not much,” laughed Harry. “I’d have come a long way for this chance.”
“We haven’t got much air to stand on,” said Mr. Goodwin. “We’ll have to speed a bit, I think.”
“We won’t get arrested for speeding, anyway,” suggested Harry.
“True enough,” laughed the aviator, as he went about his machine, trying the wire bracing as one tries the strings of a harp. “If there’s anything you want to know, my boy, just fire away. These reporters have got me worked up so I’m a regular ‘Questions and Answers Column’ in a newspaper. Now’s your chance—any posers?” He glanced whimsically at Harry, who was already absorbed in an inspection of the graceful medley of wing and wire and polished struts.
The machine was a biplane of forty-two feet lateral extent, with forward stability planes similar to the Wright model. Instead of the tips of the main planes being flexible, however, which is a chief feature of the famous Wright machine, the lateral stability of the craft was controlled by hinged wings, midway between the upper and lower planes at each extremity, more after the fashion of the Van Anden device. Harry noticed the curve of the main planes, for he had heard that here lay one of the elusive secrets of aviation and a rule which would apply as well to a boy’s model as to a man-carrying craft. The cross-ribs rose rather abruptly from the front an inch or more above the forward horizontal framing, then curved evenly back. The curve of the canvas was not the arc of a circle at all, but a sort of humpback shape, cleverly designed to catch the air in front, imprison it for the fraction of a second, and pour it slowly out under the rear to make room for more. Many a stick had been steamed and bent and dried and thrown away before that ugly, but efficient, curve had been decided on.
“I must see that Pe............