"I have something important to tell you, Mr. Barr."
"What is it?" demanded the magnate, not without impatience.
"I cannot tell you here, somebody might overhear us. I"ll take a ride with you in your car."
"But it won"t do for the Chester boys to see us together."
"They won"t be back for some time. They are off on a long flight. I can tell you my proposition and be back at the aerodrome by the time they return."
"Very well, I will hear what you have to say."
As the car moved slowly off, the chauffeur steering it carefully among the scattered crowd, the two occupants of the tonneau were engaged in a conversation that must have been deeply interesting, judging from old Barr"s gestures and exclamations. If one could have penetrated behind his mask they would have seen his thin lips curled in a delighted smile and his eyes glisten with cupidity at the proposition Sanborn was craftily unfolding.
CHAPTER IV.
EBEN JOYCE APPEARS.
Hardly had the automobile containing the old man and the machinist vanished down the road in a cloud of dust before a shout from the crowd proclaimed that the Golden Eagle was once more in sight. At first a mere speck against the blue, she rapidly a.s.sumed shape and was soon circling above the heads of the onlookers, her engine droning steadily, as if she had been some gigantic beetle.
"I say, Frank, this is glorious. How much better she flies than when she was laden down with her cabin and fittings."
Billy shouted this comment at the top of his voice, so as to be heard by the others above the roar of the engine.
Far below them--spread out like the figures on a carpet--they could see the plain; with its big crowd ma.s.sed in one corner and dozens of tiny figures scuttling about so as to get a better view of the air-craft by getting right underneath it.
"Watch, I"m going to give them a scare."
It was Frank who spoke, and, as he did so, he shoved forward his control-wheel post till the front elevating planes were dropped at an acute angle. There was a sharp snap as he opened the circuit and the roar of the propellers came to a sudden stop.
"Good Lord, Frank, what are you going to do?" gasped Billy, to whom floating in the air with the engine cut out was a new and somewhat terrifying sensation.
"Glide," was the reply.
"Hold on tight now!"
Suddenly the great craft began to descend in a quick dropping rush that sent the air tingling against Billy"s cheeks as though they had been plunging through a hailstorm. There was a mighty buzzing in his ears, and every stay and wire on the big craft sang its own song, as the wind rushed through them as if the Golden Eagle had been converted into a monster Aeolian harp.
Down and down they dropped.
A sudden fear shot into Billy"s mind.
What if Frank couldn"t start the engine again?
They would be dashed to death to a certainty.
And now it seemed that instead of the aeroplane gliding down on the earth that the earth was rushing upward with terrific velocity to meet them.
Just as Billy was about to shout aloud in actual terror at the disaster that seemed unavoidable, there was a sharp "click" as Frank closed the circuit with his emergency foot pedal and the engine began to revolve once more.
Her two propellers shoving her ahead with a mighty push, the big aeroplane began to shoot upwards again in a long swinging arc. She had dropped to within twenty feet of the ground.
It was a hair-raising feat and the crowd that had scattered in terror, as the monster craft bore down on them, quickly rea.s.sembled and sent up a cheer.
There was an even heavier scowl than his habitual frown on the face of Malvoise as, having completed his repairs on the engine that had caused him to make such an abrupt descent, he prepared to go up once more.
"Sacre!" he muttered, "those pigs of American boys would certainly get the cup if it wasn"t for my foresight in providing against such an emergency."
The crowd scampered across the field to the Frenchman"s side as it was seen he was about to take the air again, and a dozen volunteers laid on to the rear frames of his craft and held her back while he started the engine. The Frenchman took his seat with deliberation and adjusted his gloves with care. It was easy to see that he fairly reveled in the admiration he excited.
Just as the Frenchman was about to start his engine, preparatory to giving the word to let go, there was a shout from the crowd and cries of:
"Let him through."
"No, keep him out."
"Who is he, anyhow?"
"Aw, he"s an old man; let him get through."
"He"s crazy."
"No, he isn"t."
"I am not crazy," came in a shrill, cracked voice, "unless it is with my wrongs."
Malvoise looked up quickly.
He saw an old man with long, flowing gray hair and clothes of the shabbiest making his way toward him. Close behind followed a young woman of unusual beauty, who seemed to be endeavoring to stop the aged man from going further. But he was not to be restrained. In a few strides he was at the side of the Buzzard, and gazing with piercing eyes into the French aviator"s face.
"Well, what do you want, old man?" asked Malvoise sharply.
"I want the world to know that the Buzzard is my invention, my design, the child of my brain from her top-plane to her landing wheels;"
shrilled the old man, who seemed beside himself with excitement.
"Father, do be calm, I beg of you," entreated the young woman.
"Calm, child! how can I be calm when I realize that I have been robbed of the work of years by the craftiness of this old man, Barr?"
"Hush!" exclaimed the Frenchman, as the old man voiced the name of his employer, "don"t talk so loud. I know who you are now. You are Eben Joyce, the inventor."
"Yes, I am," replied the old man in a lower voice, for he too saw that the more curious members of the crowd were pressing so close to them that every word of their conversation must have been audible. "I am indeed Eben Joyce, the unfortunate inventor from whom Luther Barr by trickery secured my working drawings and specifications for the Buzzard. For a paltry five hundred I sold them all to him on the understanding that I was to have a share in the business. There will be millions in it--millions in it for him, but not a cent for me; for the agreement that I foolishly signed contains a clause that resigns all my interest in the Buzzards. Fool that I was, in my lack of knowledge of business trickery, I did not realize what the cunningly-worded sentence meant till it was too late. The five hundred went to pay my debts, and my daughter and I now face starvation."
"Well, that"s none of my business," was the brutal reply. "I simply am here to drive the Buzzards, not to talk about them."