by Joan Clark
CHAPTER XV
TWO ROADS TO FAME
Next thing Hal knew, he felt land grating against him. A strong hand hadhim by the collar dragging him out of the water, many voices beat intohis ears.
"Oh-h-h, by Jehoshaphat Jumping!" yelled Fuz McGinnis as he threw hisarms about Hal's dripping form. "We'd given up hope, never believed we'dfind you all in one piece!"
"It's a miracle." Colonel Wiljohn slid an arm around Hal's waist to helphim over to the waiting automobile. "That dashed faulty plane came downin shreds, spars gone here, wings drifted yonder. I couldn't tell inheaven's name where you were going to smash. I shot cars and stretchersout in every direction. And now I find you floating on our lake, calm assomebody on a bed of roses--"
"T-too bad I disappointed everybody by coming down all in onep-p-piece!" chattered the dripping Hal.
"Hush, boy! No joking! Never have I suffered such agony. I'm a thousandyears older." Colonel Wiljohn yanked off his coat and wrapped it aroundHal. "Never, my young friend, never shall I let you or any of myaviators test out such a machine as this again."
But Hal Dane did take up this same type of ship again. He did it at hisown risk, and at his urgent insistence. From his perilous performance inmid-air he thought that he knew what were the faults of constructionthat had caused the ship to shatter under strain. Previous work in hisdepartment, the risk department, had taught him to learn something ofreal value to flying from every accident. In this case, he asked for thechance to prove what he had learned. So weeks later, he took up the verysame type of ship, greatly strengthened, and put her through the sametest. This time he and the ship went up and came down together, none theworse for wear, and he could write O. K. on her examination sheet.
Testing other people's inventions did not fill all of Hal's time. Atnights, or whenever he could snatch a few hours to himself, he wasforever pottering with pieces of fabric and metal and wood. Table top,dresser top, every available surface in his sleeping quarters seemedcluttered with aviation trash. Only not all of it was trash. Mixed inwith wood shavings and screws and wire coils was a strange metal helmet,something like a diver's helmet, yet different,--light, graceful, notcumbersome in shape. A tube could be attached to the mouth-piece.Elsewhere in the litter sat a miniature oxygen tank. In these wasexpressed a forward thought for achievement in high flying. Littlemodels of engines rubbed noses with wing models in various stages ofincompleteness. Above a chifferobe was poised something that Hal Dane'seyes sought every time he entered his room--a completed model of aplane. It was a slim silver creation, all metal, and streamlined fromengine, through monoplane wing, back to tail. Slender, yet with strengthin every line! Smoke blown against this model did not eddy and swirl butslipped straight across her nonresistant lines. With her length of wing,she was built to ride the winds.
For a wonder, Hal Dane was not studying the beloved lines of his tiny,silvered wind bird tonight. Instead, his fingers were fiddling with alittle flying toy manipulated by a couple of twisted rubber bands tofurnish motive power. If he twisted the rubber tight enough, the littlewindmill fans of the toy shot it up to the ceiling. In the midst of oneof these flights, there came a sharp knock on the door, and while Halleaped to open it, the little wind toy drifted down from the ceilingabout as straight as it had gone up.
In the open doorway stood Colonel Wiljohn, his fingers gripping a foldedpaper, his eyes shining with an eager light as he watched the wind toywhirl down.
"You've got it--made a start on it anyway!" the Colonel slapped thepaper across his palm excitedly.
"Sir--I've got it--what?" Hal stammered in amazement.
"This thing," Colonel Wiljohn stooped to rescue the little wind toy fromwhere it had fluttered to the floor. "It seems like Fate that you shouldbe experimenting with such an idea just when I come to bring you acertain piece of news."
The Colonel cleared a space on the cluttered table, and spread open thepaper he had brought. Its black headlines announced:
"The great Onheim prize offer--twenty-five thousand dollars for the bestsafety device for airships."
"See," Colonel Wiljohn's finger emphasized the points, "twenty-fivethousand dollars--safety device. And already, without knowledge of themoney behind it, you were working on a safety device--helicopterprinciple, is it not?"
"Not exactly helicopter--more of a gyroscope," Hal caught something ofthe Colonel's fire. "It's been on my mind a long time that one of thegreatest dangers of aviation is the huge space 'most any ship needs tocome to earth on. I've looked death mighty straight in the eye someseveral times when forced landings smacked me down in a tree top or on agully edge--when if I could have come down zup! straight like the dropof a plummet, I could have landed with a safety margin in some smallclear spot--"
"A small space to rise from is sometimes as great a danger for a planeas a forced landing, too," interrupted the Colonel. "Say you're forceddown on a mountain ledge, or a tiny island--the average plane is donefor then. Has to be deserted to its fate for the lack of a long, smoothrunway needed for the forward glide before the rise. Were you figuringon the straight-up rise, as well as the straight-down drop, with thisheli--, I mean gyroscope business?"
"In a way," Hal answered as he began to fit together certain scatteredbits of miniature machinery, picking up the pieces out of the mixture onthe table. Under his hands grew a little short-wing airplane with amotor and a propeller on the nose. Above it were set fans like awindmill, only they lay horizontally a-top the wings.
"It's the position of balance that I've been working for," went on Hal,setting the little plane on his open palm and spinning the miniaturegyroscope with a motion of his other hand.
So far as a stationary plane was concerned, the principle of thegyroscope seemed to work out well. For no matter how Hal tilted his palmto throw the plane off its balance, the whirl of the wings above it wasable to apply power to the controls to steady it back into uprightposition.
Colonel Wiljohn took the model into his own hands, studied it eagerly,turning it about to examine minutely its tiny mechanism. "This row ofslot-like holes--in the air tube here," the Colonel held the thingcloser to the light, "what's the idea in that?"
"You'll laugh when you know what put that idea in my head." Hal grinneda little sheepishly as he thought about it. "I got it from watchingsomething that never was in any way intended to fly, something that noone ever thought of in connection with flying at all--a player piano!"
"A player piano--huh!" The Colonel turned about so sharply that henearly spilled the plane model out of his grasp. "How in the deuce didyou ever extract an idea on aviation out of one of those contraptions?"
"The thing just came to me all of a sudden one day when I was watchingone of those mechanical pianos pounding out that ghostly sort of musicwhere the piano keys press up and down, and the music blares out, but nohuman hand touches the keys. Through the glass front, I was watching thepaper roll in the piano, how it passed in front of a place where air wasapplied. The air was blown through the little holes in the paper, thusstriking the keys and playing the piano. Right then the idea got me thatwhen the airplane gets off the horizontal or longitudinal axis, a streamof air blowing through small holes in a gyroscopic instrument couldstrike the controls with the strength of a powerful hand, thus bringingthe plane back to its normal position--"
"Right O, that's just what it does, too!" The Colonel thoughtfully spunthe wind wheels of the toy and watched how the thing righted itself, nomatter how he tilted it. "You've got the biggest thing of the age here,boy, if it just works out right in real flying mechanisms! Bring yourplans out to the laboratories this week and let's work the thing out ina real powered model."
For weeks to come, Hal Dane was up to the ears in work on his gyroscope.And Colonel Wiljohn hung over him like a hen with one chick, as eager asany boy over the outcome of this revolutionary scheme of applyingplayer-piano principles to airships.
At last a model was done,
an all-metal miniature, perfect as any realservice-flight plane, even to the engine on its nose. But in many phasesit ignored the known rules for making the regulation type plane. It hadsmall, fixed wing surfaces, without even an attempt at ailerons. Therear spread into an unknown fantasy of a biplaned tail. On a metalframework above the body of the plane were affixed four limber metalrotor blades that hung with a flimsy droop when the plane was still.
Colonel Wiljohn's countenance drooped somewhat when he saw the finishedproduct. This model, so much larger than the tiny creation he hadbalanced on his palm that night in Hal's room, had an awkward, fearfullyflimsy look. Was this the thing he had pinned such faith to a few weeksago?
Then the motor of the big toy was warmed up. Flimsy blades, that amoment ago had hung limp, now stiffened with the whirl of rotor force toa firmness that would withstand a hundred horse power. Centrifugal forcedid it! When the whir of its blades gathered power, the thing rose--notwith a glide, or a slanting run to take the air, not at all--it rosestraight up.
"Beautiful, beautiful!" shouted Colonel Wiljohn, his face tensing withexcitement. "I did not believe she could do it!"
Now the little plane was coming down. A mechanism cut the motor dead.The thing stopped in its "tracks," so to speak, began to drift down in aperfect vertical, the gentle whir of the rotor blades holding the bodybalanced to every air-bump or current of wind that tended to shift theaxis.
"You've got it all there, boy--goes straight up, comes straight down,it's a wonder--" Colonel Wiljohn's excited voice croaked to a dismayedgasp.
She was coming down--but in pieces. So great was the power of thegyroscopic whirl that the wings of the plane beneath them broke asunderunder the force of the air streams hurled down. The whole little modelcrashed downward in a wrecked mass.
Week after week, Hal Dane pursued his patient experimenting. He triedtwo rotors, one above the other and traveling in opposite directions,with the idea of equalizing balance to the nth degree. It did not work;it only complicated matters more. He made shorter, the already short,fixed under-wings, and tipped up their ends. Still the strain wasunrelieved, still the mechanism tore to pieces under that whirlingforce. At last Hal got at the root of the matter--it was too much powerhurled down by the gyroscope. By degrees, he learned to decrease thesize of the air slots in the gyroscopic instruments, learned to shootthe air stream in a more gradual manner until he achieved just theamount to power the controls, and yet not break them.
When Colonel Wiljohn watched Hal's final model make its beautifulstraight ascent, and settle down with an equally beautiful verticaldescent, this veteran of aviation manufacturing stood long, gazing outwith dreamy eyes. Finally he turned. "Hal Dane," he said, "I've beenseeing a dream picture in the sky; it's the dream city all our artistshave been painting ever since the Wrights flew their first plane offKill Devil Hill. In this pictured city-to-be, airplane terminals arebuilt right upon the roofs of high down-town buildings; every littlehome has its private landing field upon its own rooftop; big planes,little planes swoop straight up without ever a wasted acre of runway.Until this minute, we have never been an inch nearer that marvelous goalthan we were twenty-seven years ago. Suddenly you open up a new world inaviation. Come over to the office and let's talk business."
Behind his familiar desk with its papers strewn comfortably to hand,Colonel Wiljohn took up the conversation again.
"This gyroscope idea is all your own, you have worked it out well inmodel. To put it into a practical, working-sized plane will take money.In fact you will need a great deal of money--which you haven't got. To adegree, I am a man of wealth. But at present, my factories need astirring advertising campaign, something to turn the eyes of the worldtowards us. The Bojer Works, and others that turn out planes inferior toours, are by their daring advertisements deflecting part of our naturalbusiness to themselves." The Colonel's hands crumpled some papers in atense grasp. He paused a moment, as though to get a grip on himself,then went on. "For our plant to build the plane that wins the greatOnheim Prize--ah, that would be unexcelled advertising for us! We willput up the money and the factory experience to build your model into itscompleted practical form. You will fly it and win the prize. Your modelmust win--it's the biggest idea born in the last twenty years! TheOnheim twenty-five thousand dollars will be yours! The right to buildplanes after your model will be ours, but with a per cent of the profitscoming to you. Do you agree?"
"I--yes--no--" Hal Dane was struggling with eagerness and hesitation."You are more than generous in your offer. Build the gyroscope plane andI will fly it for you in the Onheim Contest--fly it to win for you. Butthe Onheim Prize is not what I want--I, oh,--this is what I want--" Halpulled from his inner pocket a ragged clipping. The newspaper date thatheaded it was three years old. "This is what I want to win, the VallantPrize for the first non-stop flight across the Pacific--"
"That," Colonel Wiljohn rose to his feet, his face hardening, "thatoffer ought to be forced into a recall by the government of thiscountry. It is a feat, not only impractical, but impossible ofaccomplishment. Already the Vallant twenty-five thousand has lured anumber of our best flyers to their deaths. There was young Orr, and JimHancock, and--"
"It was lack of preparation that killed those flyers." Hal was on hisfeet, too, defending his most cherished plan, his dream of a greatWestern flight. "They tried to do it in a mere average land plane,over-weighted with nonessentials, not enough space for extra fuel andthe like. They hadn't planned and dreamed an ocean-flight plane foryears and years. Wait, just a moment--" and Hal Dane slipped out of theoffice.
When he came back, breathless from running, he bore in his hands thelittle model of the long-winged silver ship that had hung in his roomwhere he could lay eyes on it the minute he opened his door.
"This is something like what I'd need." He laid the model in ColonelWiljohn's hands. "Body cut down to its slenderest, a greater stretch ofwing for speed, but part of the wing interior could be used for storagepurposes to carry emergency rations, a still to condense water, extrafuel. I've got a lighter engine in mind too, and higher-powered fuelthan any of the rest used."
For the better part of the night, Hal Dane and Colonel Wiljohn clashedverbal swords over the boy's proposed ocean flight.
No matter how well prepared for, it was a wild undertaking. The Colonelpleaded for this young flyer whom he had come to love as his own kin tostay on in America, to put his talents to work for aviation safety, notfor aviation madness of ocean flights.
But the call of the winds was in Hal Dane's blood. Even as his ancestorsin frail boats rode the currents of the sea to seek a far continent, sowas the Norse blood in his veins urging him on to ride the rivers of thewind on some far exploration.
In the end, Colonel Wiljohn gave down before Hal Dane's adamantdecision.
"Boy," he said, "you win! Fly the safety model for me at the OnheimContest, and I'll build you the finest plane ever sent out on an oceanflight--but I fear that ocean flight like death."