"An aeroplane! Good G.o.d, think o" that, will you?"
"An aeroplane? But it"s all to pieces, of course, and--"
"Come on in and look at it, I say!" Excitedly he lifted her through the window. "See there, will you? Isn"t that the eternal limit? And to think I never even thought of trying to find one in New York!"
He gestured at the dust-laden old machine that, forlorn and in sovereign disrepair, stood at the other end of the hangar. Together they approached it.
"If it will work," the man exclaimed thickly; "_if it will only work--_"
"But will it?" the girl exclaimed, her eyes lighting with the excitement of the find, heart beating fast at thought of what it might portend. "Can you put it in shape, boy? Or--"
"I don"t know. Let me look! Who knows? Maybe--"
And already he was kneeling, peering at the mechanism, feeling the frame, the gear, the stays, with hands that trembled more than ever they had trembled since their great adventure had begun.
As he examined the machine, while Beatrice stood by, he talked to himself.
"Good thing the framework is aluminum," said he, "or it wouldn"t be worth a tinker"s dam after all this time. But as it is, it"s taken no harm that I can see. Wire braces all gone, rusted out and disappeared.
Have to be rewired throughout, if I can find steel wire; if not, I"ll use braided leather thongs. Petrol tank and feed pipe O. K. Girder boom needs a little attention. Steering and control column intact--they"ll do!"
Part by part he handled the machine, his skilled eye leaping from detail to detail.
"Canvas planes all gone, of course. Not a rag left; only the frame.
But, no matter, we can remedy that. Wooden levers, skids, and so on, gone. Easily replaced. Main thing is the engine. Looks as though it had been carefully covered, but, of course, the covering has rotted away. No matter, we"ll soon see. Now, this carbureter--"
His inspection lasted half an hour, while the girl, lost among so many technicalities, sat down on the dusty concrete floor beside the machine and listened in a kind of dazed admiration.
He gave her, finally, his opinion.
"This machine _will go_ if properly handled," said he, rising triumphantly and slapping the dust off his palms. "The cha.s.sis needs truing up, the equilibrator has sagged out of plumb, and the ailerons have got to be readjusted, but it"s only a matter of a few days at the outside before she"ll be in shape.
"The main thing is the engine, and so far as I can judge, that"s pretty nearly O. K. The magneto may have to be gone over, but that"s a mere trifle. Odd, I never thought of either finding one of these machines in New York, or building one! When I think of all the weary miles we"ve tramped it makes me sick!"
"I know," she answered; "but how about fuel? And another thing--have you ever operated one? Could you--"
"Run one?" He laughed aloud. "I"m the man who first taught Carlton Holmes to fly--you know Holmes, who won the Gordon-Craig cup for alt.i.tude record in 1916. I built the first--"
"I know, dear; but Holmes was killed at Schenectady, you remember, and this machine is different from anything you"re used to, isn"t it?"
Beatrice asked.
"It won"t be when I"m through with it! I tell you, Beatrice, we"re going to fly. No more hiking through the woods or along beaches for us. From now on we travel in the air--and the world opens out to us as though by magic.
"Distance ceases to mean anything. The whole continent is ours. If there"s another human creature on it we find him! And if there isn"t then, perhaps we may find some in Asia or in Europe, who knows?"
"You mean you"d dare to attack the Atlantic with a patched-up machine more than a thousand years old?"
"I mean that eventually I can and will build one that"ll take us to Alaska, and so across the fifty-mile gap from Cape Prince of Wales to East Cape. The whole world lies at our feet, girl, with this new idea, this new possibility in mind!"
She smiled at his enthusiasm.
"But fuel?" asked she, practical even in her joy. "I don"t imagine there"s any gasoline left now, do you? A stuff as volatile as that, after all these centuries? What metal could contain it for a thousand years?"
"There"s alcohol," he answered. "A raid on the ruins of a few saloons and drug-stores will give me all I need to carry me to Boston, where there"s plenty, never fear. A few slight adjustments of the engine will fit it for burning alcohol. And as for the planes, good stout buckskin, well sewn together and stretched on the frames, will do the trick as well as canvas--better, maybe."
"But--"
"Oh, what a little pessimist it is to-day!" he interrupted. "Always coming at me with objections, eh?" He took her in his arms and kissed her. "I tell you Beta, this is no pipe-dream at all, or anything like it; the thing"s reality--we"re going to fly! But it"ll mean the most tremendous lot of sewing and st.i.tching for you!"
"You"re a dear!" she answered inconsequentially. "I do believe if the whole world fell apart you could put it together again."
"With your help, yes," said he. "What"s more, I"m going to--and a better world at that than ever yet was dreamed of. Wait and see!"
Laughing, he released her.
"Well, now, we"ll go to work," he concluded. "Nothing"s accomplished by mere words. Just lay hold of that lateral there, will you? And we"ll haul this old machine out where we can have a real good look at her, what do yore say? Now, then, one, two, three--"
CHAPTER XVII
ALL ABOARD FOR BOSTON!
Nineteen days from the discovery of the biplane, a singular happening for a desolate world took place on the broad beach that now edged the city where once the sluggish Providence River had flowed seaward.
For here, clad in a double suit of leather that Beatrice had made for him, Allan Stern was preparing to give the rehabilitated Pauillac a try-out.
Day by day, working incessantly when not occupied in hunting or fishing, the man had rebuilt and overhauled the entire mechanism.
Tools he had found a-plenty in the ruins, tools which he had ground and readjusted with consummate care and skill. Alcohol he had gathered together from a score of sources. All the wooden parts, such as skids and levers and propellers, long since vanished and gone, he had cleverly rebuilt.
And now the machine, its planes and rudders covered with strongly sewn buckskin, stretched as tight as drum heads, its polished screw of the Chauviere type gleaming in the morning sun, stood waiting on the sands, while Stern gave it a painstaking inspection.
"I think," he judged, as he tested the last stay and gave the engine its final adjustment. "I think, upon my word, this machine"s better to-day than when she was first built. If I"m not mistaken, buckskin"s a better material for planes than ever canvas was--it"s far stronger and less porous, for one thing--and as for the stays, I prefer the braided hide. Wire"s so liable to snap.
"This compa.s.s I"ve rigged on gimbals here, beats anything Pauillac himself ever had. What"s the matter with my home-made gyrostat and anemometer? And hasn"t this aneroid barometer got cards and spades over the old-style models?"
Enthusiastic as a boy, Stern shook his head and smiled delightedly at Beatrice as he expounded the merits of the biplane and its fittings.
She, half glad, half anxious at the possible outcome of the venture, stood by and listened and nodded as though she understood all the minutiae he explained.
"So then, you"re ready to go up this morning?" she asked, with just a quiver of nervousness in her voice. "You"re quite certain everything"s all right--no chance of accident? For if anything happened--"
"There, there, nothing can happen, nothing will!" he rea.s.sured her.
"This motor"s been run three hours in succession already without skipping an explosion. Everything"s in absolute order, I tell you. And as for the human, personal equation, I can vouch for that myself!"
Stern walked around to the back of the machine, picked up a long, stout stake he had prepared, took his ax, and at a distance of about twelve feet behind the biplane drove the stake very deep into the hard sand.
He knotted a strong leather cord to the stake, brought it forward and secured it to the frame of the machine.
"Now, Beatrice," he directed, "when I"m ready you cut the cord. I haven"t any corps of a.s.sistants to hold me back till the right moment and then give me a shove, so the best I can do is this. Give a quick slash right here when I shout. And whatever happens don"t be alarmed.