SEATED on the broad veranda of his home at Mootsport, in the soft summer moonlight, with his father, mother, sister Mildred and Mr. Hartley grouped around him, Harvey Hamilton told the story of his aerial trip to Chesterton in eastern Pennsylvania. All listened intently to the account of the rescue of little Grace Hastings from the Black Hand kidnappers, followed by the strange disappearance of Bohunkus Johnson in the company of the cranky Professor Morgan.
They had read of the former event in the newspapers, but their interest naturally centered upon Bunk, for whom each felt a warm regard. It is not worth while to set down all that was said, the conclusion of which was summed up by the merchant:
“The advice of your detective friend is good, Harvey, and you must follow it to the letter. I shall set the clipping bureaus to work as soon as I reach the city to-morrow morning. You will go by train to the Ten Eyck House in Albany and wait there for a telegram from me. I feel sure you[21] will not have to wait long. The curious fact in this affair is that within the last two or three days I read an item about a wonderful inventor who traveled through the air without noise and could remain stationary as long as he wished.”
“Can you remember the particulars?” eagerly asked his son.
“I have been trying to do so but am unable. It was only one of the many references to flying machines with which the papers are filled. Whatever I might recall would be misleading, so it is better to let it go. Some of those wide-awake people will speedily unearth the facts, and I shall lose no time in sending them to you. I can telephone the agencies and have them begin at once.”
Thus it came about that the next evening found our young friend in the sitting-room of the Ten Eyck, the fashionable hotel in the capital of the State. The weather had turned chilly, with a drizzling mist which made the warmth within pleasant, even though it was the sultry season of the year. It is tedious to await the deferred coming of a friend or the happening of some expected event. Harvey had gaped and yawned and glanced through most of the metropolitan dailies in the reading-room, weakly hoping to run across reference to the subject that engrossed his mind, but[22] he found nothing and decided that he must depend upon his father for the information needed.
He finished his evening meal, returned to the sitting-room and a few minutes later received the expected message. It was so full that it is better to summarize what it said:
Professor Milo Morgan was referred to as the coming Edison of aviation. He had perfected a number of amazing inventions, such as a noiseless monoplane that could be held motionless at will, and was capable of a speed of nearly a hundred miles an hour. The Professor was able to remain above the earth for twelve hours. As soon as he could triple this period he would start on an aerial voyage from Quebec to Liverpool. He was not quite ready to do so, but was certain that a few days or possibly a week or two would see the marvelous feat accomplished. He had sailed over several of the States and gone as far south as the Carolinas. His first intention was to cross the Rockies and visit the Pacific coast, but he had decided to travel in the opposite direction. The Professor’s workshop was somewhere in Essex County, northern New York, but he kept the exact location a profound secret because he did not wish to be annoyed by visitors and reporters.
“In Essex County are the Adirondacks, where[23] brother Dick is camping out with his friends,” reflected Harvey; “it is the close season, so they daren’t disturb deer and other big game, but they are having plenty of fun. Now if I could locate the workshop of the Professor I should be able to do something for Bunk.”
Aye, there was the rub. As we know, the Adirondacks cover a large area, so large indeed that many a hunter has lost his way among the solitudes and died of starvation and exposure. A person might spend months in searching for another, and unless he had some clue never gain a glimpse of him. It would be the wildest folly for Harvey Hamilton to try to trace the Professor without more enlightenment than thus far he possessed.
The only information of value in the long telegram was that the inventor made his home in the large county, most of which lies to the westward of Lake Champlain. It seemed reasonable to believe that he was there at that time putting the finishing touches to his machine, but so far as finding him was concerned he might as well have been in the heart of Canada or far out over the boisterous Atlantic.
It will be recalled that Detective Pendar insisted that many of the most brilliant successes in his profession were due to accidental or trifling incidents. Never did this truth receive a more striking illustration than in the case of Harvey Hamilton, within the same hour in which he read the first telegram from his father. He had laid the yellow sheets on the table in front of him and was trying to figure out what he should do, when one of the bellboys, in obedience to an order of the clerk at the desk, handed him a second lengthy message, which like the former was from his parent. It said:
“A letter has just arrived from Bunk addressed to you. It is without town or date, but the postmark on the outside is ‘Dawson, N. Y,’, and it was stamped yesterday. You can readily locate the place as I haven’t the time to do so. I had to get Mildred to help me translate Bunk’s spelling and sentences, but we finally succeeded and here is the result:
“‘Dear Harv,—I hope you are well, because I am. Have had a bully time, but the Professor isn’t quite ready to start for Africa. He will do so in a few days. He treats me well, but sometimes he acts blamed queer. I guess that is because he feels sort of scared about meeting so great a man as my father, the Chief Foozleum. He told me not to write to anybody at all because he didn’t wish[25] any one to know where we are. He has gone off for a little while and I take the chance to write you, for I know you would like to hear from me and I can get a chance to mail it when he isn’t around. He must think I’m a chump not to know how to write a letter without blabbing a secret. I can keep things to myself as well as anybody. If you’d give me a thousand dollars I wouldn’t let you know that we have a cabin in the woods near Dawson. No, sir; you can’t fool me; I’m mum every time. My next letter will be from Africa and written in the palace of Chief Foozleum.
“‘No more at present. Your loving friend,
“‘Bunk.’”
Yielding to his first impulse Harvey Hamilton threw back his head and laughed till the tears came.
“Bless your heart, Bunk! What should I do without you? No more loyal heart ever beat than yours. I can’t blame you for giving me the slip as you did, and it is natural that you should be filled with the scheme of an aerial voyage across the Atlantic. If I can succeed in saving you from the attempt, it will be through the help which in the innocence of your heart you gave me.”
Manifestly the first thing to be done was to find where the town of Dawson is situate. Harvey[26] had never heard of it, and in his perplexity he applied to the clerk, who was not only courteous but well informed. Pondering a moment, he replied:
“Dawson is a small town, though large enough to support a newspaper, two churches and a public school. It is in Warren County, well up to the north and not far from Essex.”
“Then it is near the Adirondack region?”
“It may be said to be in it. Mount Gore, a part of Schroon Lake, and several spurs of the Adirondacks are in Warren, though you must travel pretty well up into Essex to reach the heart of the mountain district. Do you think of visiting the section?”
“That is my purpose.”
“Don’t forget that the open season for deer is from September 16 to November 1, with the chances that half a dozen amateurs will take you for big game and plug you before you get a hundred yards from camp.”
“I have no thought of hunting except for a person who I have reason to believe is near the town of Dawson. Can you tell me how I can best reach the place?”
“Go by rail to Beelsburg, where you will meet a stage that makes the daily trip from and to Dawson.”
“How long is the stage ride?”
“It is called ten miles, but it is more. The road is rough with a good many hills and bad places. The journey takes nearly three hours each way.”
“Can you inform me when I should leave Albany to reach Dawson on the same day?”
The clerk had to consult the time tables before answering this question. It took only a brief while to fish out what he sought.
“It is eighty-four miles by rail with one change of cars at Thurston, where you have to wait twenty minutes. Leaving Albany at eight-thirty, you reach Beelsburg in time for a midday dinner, after which comes a jolt of a dozen miles to Dawson. The doctors tell us that a vigorous shaking up is good for digestion, so when you reach Dawson you ought to be ready for another square meal.”
Harvey could not ask for more explicit directions, and thanking the clerk for his kindness, he went to his room. In the morning he sent a telegram to his father’s office explaining his plans and expressing hope of success. The programme as outlined in the conversation between Harvey and the hotel clerk was followed. Arriving at Beelsburg on time, Harvey ate his noon meal at that station, after which he and two passengers had a tedious wait for the stage which ought to have arrived from Dawson an hour before the train. When at last the lumbering vehicle swung round the corner and drew up at the station platform, the explanation of the delay was prosaic. An axle had broken and the driver had patched it up until he reached the wheelwright shop at the other end of the village, where a longer time was needed to mend the fracture.
Harvey’s fellow-passengers were middle-aged men and neighbors who had much to say to each other. What he overheard was of no interest to him. Once or twice he was on the point of asking questions about Professor Morgan, but they showed no sociability toward him, and a feeling of distrust held him mute upon the one subject that filled his thoughts. He decided that it was prudent to await his arrival in the country town.
Harvey found the dozen-mile ride all that was pictured by the hotel clerk of the Ten Eyck House. For most of the way the gaunt horses walked, except when going down-hill, and in many places it was hard pulling for them. But nothing of note happened, and as it was growing dark, the stage halted in front of the Washington House and Harvey, with traveling bag in hand, sprang out. The others remained in order to ride to their homes farther down the street.
The hotel, with its rather high-sounding title, was a small, modest structure, as was to be expected where the guests were scant and far between. The young aviator had no trouble in obtaining a comfortable room. Had he been accompanied by a dozen friends, they would have been accommodated with the same promptness.
He had decided upon doing as he did in Albany, that is, question the clerk of the hotel, who it might be reasonably supposed would have a wide acquaintance with the affairs of the neighborhood. But a difficulty appeared at the outset: the primitive hotel had no clerk. The landlord, a large, beefy, slow-witted man, who wheezed when he waddled about and seldom spoke unless spoken to, and not always then, managed affairs, and sat at the head of the table during meals. He showed not the slightest interest in his solitary guest, but filled and sent his plate to him by the hands of a tidy young woman who evidently was his daughter.
Since, however, the Boniface seemed to be the only available source of information, Harvey wasted no time. The dining-room being empty of all except the two, he finished his meal first, and walking beside the table to its head, sat down in a[30] chair near the phthisical landlord, who glared at him from under his shaggy brows as if he failed to understand the meaning of the movement.
“If you please,” opened the guest, “I should like to ask you a few questions.”
The host kept on eating, but grunted a response which the young man accepted as permission to proceed.