He called Tom to the wheel, explaining his suspicions and clambered out on the rigging to see if he could find any holes in the balloon. It would have made a less steady boy dizzy and sick to stand on the edge of the Wondership, clinging to one of the supports that held the body of the craft to the gas-bag, while the whole affair plunged and swayed five hundred feet above the earth. But Jack, used as he was to navigating the air, felt none of these qualms.
His suspicions were speedily confirmed. There was a jagged hole in the underbody of the balloon, from which gas was rushing. Jack"s face grew grave. The situation was dangerous.
He knew, as does every balloonist, that out-rushing gas can make an electric spark in the atmosphere which, in turn, ignites the gas itself, sometimes with fatal results. Experts in aeronautics attribute the disasters befalling the long series of Zeppelins, the giant German dirigibles, to this cause.
"Tom, we must go down. Drop at once," he said. "That old fellow succeeded in blowing a hole in us all right."
The pumps were set to work and the Wondership fell rapidly. They dropped in a field by the roadside, landing on the running wheels as lightly as a feather, thanks to the shock absorbers, similar to those of an automobile, with which the Wondership was equipped.
"Now for the repair kit," said Jack, rummaging a locker.
He soon had balloon silk, big shears, a quick-drying gum solution and a pot of gasproof varnish, ready for the job of patching up the hole. But first they had to empty the big bag of gas. This was speedily done, for already enough had escaped to wrinkle the bag like a walnut, with hollows and creases.
Jack cut out a patch of balloon silk large enough to fit the hole and spread it with the adhesive gum solution. This he placed inside the hole, spreading it out so that when pressure was applied it would be pressed firmly against the aperture. Then he coated the patch with the gasproof varnish, and both boys sat down to give the job time to "set."
Their eyes turned idly to the high-road. It was about noon and there was a heavy sort of silence in the air. Far on the horizon they could make out great billowy ma.s.ses of white cloud. Piled and castellated against the sky they a.s.sumed all kinds of odd shapes.
"Thunder heads," said Jack. "We shall have a storm before to-night."
"It"s sultry enough for anything," said Tom, taking off his cap and mopping his forehead. "I"d hate to be walking in this weather like that fellow yonder."
A man had come into sight, plodding along with bent head and eyes on the ground as if he was very tired. The gray dust of the road coated him from head to foot. He walked with a kind of dragging gait.
Over his shoulder he carried some sort of a bundle on a stick. His hat was a broad sombrero, like a cowboy"s. It was a kind of headgear seldom seen in the east and attracted the boys" attention. Round the man"s neck was a red handkerchief, the only spot of color on his dust-covered person. He had a great yellow beard and rather long, unkempt hair.
"Tramp," hazarded Tom.
Jack shook his head.
"Doesn"t look like that to me somehow," he said. "I rather think----"
Round the corner whizzed a big red automobile. It was coming fast. The driver, a young man, had his head turned and was talking to three companions who sat in the tonneau. He did not see the dusty traveler in the road ahead.
The boys set up a shout.
"Look out! you"ll run him down. Look out----"
But their caution came too late. At top speed the auto struck the wayfarer, and before the boys" horrified eyes he was thrown high in the air, to fall, a confused sprawl of legs and arms, at the wayside.
CHAPTER XI.
BY THE ROADSIDE.
The boys ran forward across the few yards of meadow that intervened between the Wondership and the roadway. The autoists did not, apparently, notice them. They had stopped the car and were looking back.
"Come on and let"s get out of this quick," one of them, a hawk-faced youth, with a long motoring duster on, was shouting to the driver.
"Yes, let"s beat it while the going"s good, Bill," came from his companion as he addressed the driver of the car.
"I guess we"d better," said the man addressed as Bill.
Before the boys could intervene the car was on its way again, at top speed, leaving the unconscious form of its victim at the roadside.
"Of all the cold-blooded scoundrels!" gasped Jack, horrified at such callousness.
"Never mind them now," advised Tom. "Let"s see if this poor fellow is badly hurt. He may even be----"
He did not finish the sentence, but Jack knew what he meant. Hastily the boys scrambled down the low bank that separated the field from the road. They ran quickly to the man"s side. To their great relief, for they had feared that he might have been killed, the man was breathing. But his breath came pantingly from his parted lips and there was a bad cut on his forehead.
"Get some water from the creek yonder," said Jack, and Tom hastened up the road to where, beneath the small wooden bridge, there flowed a rivulet of water.
He was soon back, with his handkerchief well soaked, and with an old can, that he had been lucky enough to find, filled with water. They bathed the man"s wound and then bound it up as best they could. But he still lay senseless.
"Now what"s to be done?" asked Tom.
"We ought to get him over to the Wondership and rush him to the hospital at Nestorville," said Jack.
"Yes, that would be the thing to do. But he"s too heavy for us to carry," objected Tom.
"Why not fly over here alongside him. I guess we could lift him in; that patch ought to hold by this time," suggested Jack.
"That"s a good idea. What a pack of cowardly sneaks those chaps in that car were."
"I wish we could have stopped them. It would give me real pleasure to see a gang like that get its just deserts. They might have killed this poor fellow."
The unconscious man was powerfully built, with face tanned brown above a yellow beard, from exposure to sun and wind. As Jack had said, he did not look like a tramp. Suddenly the boy noticed lying near him an object which had evidently fallen from the man"s pocket when he was struck and flung through the air by the auto.
It was a small cylinder, apparently made of lead, and about three inches long. Jack picked it up, and for the time being did not attempt to examine it but thrust it into his pocket for safe keeping. Little did either of the boys think how much that little cylinder was to mean to them, and how it was to influence some of the most important adventures of their lives.
Making the man as comfortable as they could, by rolling up their coats and placing them under his head, the boys hurried back to the Wondership. When they arrived there they saw that a feature of the radio "phone, which has not yet been mentioned, was working in urgent appeal. This was a tiny red electric light attached to the top of the case containing the sensitive parts of the apparatus.
By an ingenious device, worked as a call signal from the transmitting station, the electric waves converted a lighting circuit for this purpose.
It was winking and twinkling, and Jack knew that his father was trying to call them.
He sent out some flashes by starting the dynamo going and pressing a key devised for the purpose. This, he knew, would cause a similar light attached to his father"s apparatus to flash a reply. This done he waited a second and then adjusted the receivers to his ears.
"What"s the matter?" came his father"s voice.
Jack gave him a rapid account of the accident, not stopping just then to say anything about the incident of the farmer and his barn.
"What are you going to do about it?" asked his father.
"He appears to be seriously hurt," said Jack. "I was thinking of rushing him to the hospital at Nestorville."
"That seems to be the best plan," said his father. "By the way, did those autoists get clear away?"
"I"m afraid so. They never even waited a second to see if the man was badly injured. They----"
Jack suddenly stopped short. An inspiration had come to him. The accident had happened on a road that, as he knew, led straight through Nestorville. He had thought of a plan to bring the autoists to book for their callousness and negligence.
"Dad--oh, dad!" he called.
"Yes, what is it?" came back Mr. Chadwick"s voice.
"Those fellows will pa.s.s through Nestorville. I had a flash of the number of the car. It was 4206 Ma.s.s. It"s a red car and a powerful one, with three men in it."
"What do you want to do?" asked Mr. Chadwick.
"Can"t you "phone to the Nestorville police, telling them what has happened and have those fellows stopped. I"m not vindictive, but they ought to be brought to book for running down a man and then speeding off and leaving him like that."
"I agree with you," replied Mr. Chadwick. "I"ll do so at once. Good-by."
"Good-by," said Jack and "rang off."
"That was a great idea of yours, Jack, old boy," approved Tom. "I hope they land those fellows."
"Of course it was an accident," said Jack, "but that fellow who was driving was too busy talking to watch the road, and then going off like that--they deserve all they get."
Examination of the patch showed that it would hold fast and the bag was refilled. As soon as it was sufficiently inflated, the Wondership sailed over to the road and was brought down alongside the still unconscious man.
"Looks as if he"s badly hurt," said Tom with some anxiety.
"It does. His skull may be fractured," agreed Jack. "If he is seriously injured those fellows may get into trouble."
It required all the boys" strength to raise the man and get him into the Wondership. Here they laid him out on the floor of the rear section. They had just done this when the red light signaled Jack again. It was Mr. Chadwick. He had notified the Nestorville police force, consisting of a chief and two men, and they were on the lookout for the offending auto.
"Good," said Jack. "Say, dad, the radio telephone has shown its usefulness on the first day out, hasn"t it?"
They were soon in the air once more. The run to Nestorville was made quickly. On the outskirts of the town they came to earth and deflated the balloon bag, since the hospital stood in a group of trees and it would have been impossible to make a landing there. The Wondership was converted into an auto and sent speeding toward the main street of the village.
Suddenly they heard a whir of wheels behind them and an impatient tooting of a horn. They looked back and uttered a simultaneous cry of astonishment.
The red auto that had run down the yellow-bearded man was behind them. Its occupants were shouting and sounding their horn impatiently for the right of way.
CHAPTER XII.
MAKING ENEMIES.
The road was narrow where they were, and unless the boys" machine was run to one side of the road there was no chance for the red machine to pa.s.s. Jack made it clear that he didn"t intend to let them.
He paid no attention to the shouts that came from behind.
"Hey, you kids, with that queer-looking car, get off the road and give a real machine a chance to get by," shouted the driver, he who had been addressed as Bill.
Jack did not turn his head.
"I"ll knock your head off if you don"t turn out--and turn out quick!" came another shout.
Still the boys did not pay any attention. In this order they came into Nestorville. Lined up, with a look of stern determination on his face, and with his nickel star of office newly polished, was Chief Biff Bivins. Behind him were Lena Hardy and Joe Curley, his "force."
"Say, boys," hailed Chief Biff, as the boys rolled up abreast of him and his men, "hain"t seen hair nor hide of that car your dad was arter "phonin" me about."
"Well, you soon will, chief," said Jack.
"Haow do yew know that?" asked the chief, his little eyes blinking curiously.
"Because it"s right behind us now," declared Jack. "It"s that red one."
"Ther d.i.c.kens you say. How"d you come ter git erhead of "em?"
"They must have stopped to fix a tire or something," said Jack.
But Biff was paying no attention to him. The majesty of the law was strong upon him. Calling his minions to his side he stepped into the middle of the road in front of the red car.
"Get out of the way!" shouted the man who was driving.
"Not much I won"t," declared Biff valorously. "Halt that gasoline gadabout o" yourn instanter."
"What for, you old Rube?"
"Old Rube am I?" sputtered Biff, feeling that the law had been insulted in his person, "jes" fer thet yer under "rest."
"What for?" demanded the driver of the red car angrily.
"Fer running daown and grievously wounding a man and then speedin" off without stoppin" ter see if you"d killed him dead or what all. That"s what fer."
The driver of the red machine lost his bl.u.s.tering tone.
"Why, there"s some mistake," he stammered, his face very pale, "I--er--we--er--that is, we didn"t run anybody down."
"Oh, yes, you did," said Jack. "We saw you, and what"s more we"ve got the man you struck right here in our car. You"re a fine pack of cowards to run off like that. If we hadn"t happened along he might have lain there for hours before help came."