Frank Armstrong at College

by Matthew M. Colton

  CHAPTER XIII.

  THE FLYING MACHINE TO THE RESCUE.

  "Well, I'm glad that's over," said the luckless Codfish, as heslipped from behind the steering wheel and hurried out in front tosee what damage had been done. "Phew! we're lucky," he continued, "tobe alive. If that shoe had gone and busted itself on the bridge halfa mile back we would probably have been two bright little angels bynow; gone and done for."

  "By the looks of things, I'm done for anyway," said Frank. "We arelost some miles from Brighton and," looking at his watch, "the trainstarts in just seven minutes."

  "Maybe they'll wait for you."

  "Royal mail trains never wait, and that carries the mail. It's twentyminutes' work to put that shoe on."

  "Shoe, nothing. I put no shoe on. We'll pick up some wayside garageand till that happens I'll drive on the rim. No damage is done onour flight up the bank. Here we go, halting but steady."

  Frank was silent. He was thinking of the effect his absence wouldhave on his teammates. It hurt him to think that his captain wouldset his nonappearance down to carelessness, and so it had been in away. He should not have gone so far. He should have insisted thatGleason keep away from the steering wheel. Perhaps the need forhis presence would be desperate. His absence might mean, in someunaccountable way, the loss of the meet. These thoughts and manyothers pounded through his brain as the car limped along the road,but they all had the same refrain: "You've been a failure, you'vebeen a failure."

  Rounding a turn in the road, Gleason caught sight of a garage sign,and in a minute drew up at the door. "Ten shillings to put that tireon and put it on quickly," said he. Two workmen from the garagesprang at the wheel, but they had scarcely begun work when a clock ina neighboring church tower boomed the half-hour. The boys looked ateach other.

  "I know how you feel, Frank," said Gleason. "I was a double-barreledjackass to take you off this morning, and seventeen times a fool forgetting lost."

  "I'm in very badly with everyone," said Frank, "but growling will nothelp matters. Maybe there'll be a later train which will get me therein time."

  "I've got you into this, Frank, and I'll get you out of it somehow,don't worry. There must be another train."

  With the new shoe on the front wheel and the garage men the richer byseveral shillings more than the Codfish promised, the red runaboutwas again headed for Brighton, this time at a more moderate pace.It was just eleven o'clock when the car drew up at the railroadstation. Frank almost expected to see some of his teammates, but theplatform and waiting-rooms were deserted. Inquiries at the ticketoffice brought the information that the next London train was attwelve-fifteen and did not reach London till one-fifty.

  "One-fifty," groaned Frank. "I might as well take the next ship backto America. I've lost out. I'm disgraced." Both boys were the pictureof gloom.

  Suddenly Gleason's face lit with high resolve "Look here, Armstrong,I'll take you to London in this machine."

  "But it isn't ours, and you have no license to drive."

  "It's ours as long as we pay ten shillings an hour for it, license orno license."

  "You'd get lost again."

  "No, no, it's a straight road. I looked it up once. You follow therailroad. Look here," he added in great excitement, "the thing canbe done without a grain of doubt. Here it is a little past eleven.We can certainly average twenty-five miles an hour. That means thatwe can be there a little after one. Fortunately, the Club is but alittle ways out of our course, over in West Kensington."

  "I'm game for it," said Frank, "but just the same, I don't like theidea of your going off with a machine and no license. You'll getjugged for sure if anything goes wrong."

  "Nothing's going wrong. I got you into this trouble and I'm going toget you out somehow. Climb in and hold onto your headgear, we areonly going to hit the high places." He shot away from the stationand swung into the great north road, sign-marked "London," with themotor humming to the quickened pace.

  "Nothing to it, Frank," boasted the confident chauffeur. "This isthe way they all should have come up, plenty of ozone and action, nostuffy cars. We may even beat them to the club if we have luck," andhe pushed the gas lever a few notches higher, and neatly dodged a dogcurled up in the sand of the road.

  Now that he was headed for London, even Frank's spirits rose. Whatseemed no chance half an hour ago had been transformed into apossibility. Well he knew that Gleason was exceeding the speed limit,but the time was so short a chance had to be taken with tires, road,police and everything else. The stake was worth it.

  One cannot race along the roads of south-east England and race veryfar. So the inevitable happened. Ten miles outside of Brighton,when Gleason was doing something better than forty miles an hour,he pretended not to hear a hail from the side of the road, and keptstraight on, but he could not help hearing the sharp spatter of amotorcycle behind him a minute later, and instinctively knew it wasthe police. He slowed down till he was running at about fifteenmiles an hour. The officer came alongside. He was plainly angry. "Whydidn't you stop when I called to you?" demanded the officer.

  "Oh, did you call?" asked the Codfish innocently.

  "We are in a great hurry," explained Frank. "We have to be there byone o'clock or one-thirty at the latest."

  "Now maybe you will and maybe you won't. Turn that car around andcome along with me."

  "Look here, this chap here," indicating Frank, "is in that track meetup at Queen's Club at two o'clock this afternoon. He lost his trainby accident and I promised to get him there. Now, let us go through."

  "Can't be done. You Americans all try to tear through the country atbreak-neck speed. You can't do it here, I tell you. Let's see yourlicense."

  The Codfish began fumbling in his pockets. "Great Scott! I haven'tgot the thing anywhere about my jeans, the chauffeur must have it,bad luck to him."

  "Another thing to explain to the magistrate. Come along now."

  The Codfish reluctantly tacked the car around and followed his guideto the little hamlet where the officer first hailed him from theroadside.

  To the disgust of the two American youths the magistrate could not befound, a piece of news imparted to them by the officer after a tenminutes' search around the little court building off the main street.

  "Well, now, let us go along," insisted the Codfish. "We've made ourcall, the magistrate isn't in. We've done our duty, now let's callit off. When you come to America I'll get you a job on the policeforce of Syracuse. Come on, be a good scout and let's be hitting thegravel. This fellow here with me has to jump in the track games atQueen's Club grounds, and it will be a great disappointment to hisfriends if he can't be there, to say nothing about his own feelings.Think how it would be if he were your own offspring and was jumpingfor the English to help lick the Yankees." His cross-fire on theofficer might possibly have had some effect if affairs had not takena new and sudden turn for the worse. As the Codfish was making hisarguments, a messenger came up and handed the officer a note. Heread it, looked over our friends who were still seated in the car andran his eye over the car.

  "You're a pretty slick young fellow," he said, "but both of you willstay with us for a while. You are in pretty deep."

  "How so?" inquired Frank.

  "As if you didn't know! Perhaps you never heard of this," and he readthe message he had just received: "Stop and hold two young men in redrunabout Number 1664B. Stolen from chauffeur near Brighton, known tohave started for London shortly after eleven o'clock." The messagewas signed by the Chief of Police of Brighton.

  "A lovely kettle of fish," commented Gleason. "Do you remember onceof telling me that I could get into trouble in a desert island?"

  "I do and it's true."

  "It would be still true if I were alone in the middle of the Pacific.But there's one thing about this business which cheers me: you arenow a member of the Criminal Club at Yale in good standing."

  "I'd rather be in good standing up at Queen's Club. Do you realizethat the team is at London now and we are
in the lock-up?"

  For the greater part of an hour Frank and Gleason were held indurance vile as automobile thieves, and as a secondary count,breaking the speed limit. But all things finally come to an end. Themagistrate was found, and sat with great dignity on the case. Oneof his first acts was to fine Gleason the sum of five pounds forexcessive speed and then to declare him still liable to the chargeof theft. Fortunately for the Codfish and Frank, who momentarilyexpected to be thrown into the village jail, the chauffeur, who hadbeen overcome with the desire to see his parents that morning and whohad been the innocent cause of most of the trouble, appeared withthe proprietor of the garage where the little red runabout had beenobtained.

  Explanations soon followed. The garage proprietor verified all thatthe boys said about their being a part of the American team andfollowers, and his hand being properly greased with American dollarsfrom the plethoric purse of Gleason, was perfectly willing that thecar should go on to London, driven by his own chauffeur.

  "But remember," said the magistrate, "not over twenty miles an houror you'll be brought in before you get to your journey's end."

  "At twenty miles an hour," said Frank, "it is no more good to us thanan ox-cart. It is nearly one o'clock now and two hours on the roadwould bring us there too late. I guess it's too late all right," andhe turned away, deeply moved by the thought that his hard work, thethree thousand-mile trip across the water, the ambitions of himselfand of his friends, all went for naught. Tears of chagrin came to hiseyes.

  "Nothing on earth can save us now," acquiesced the Codfish. "O Lord,if I only had an aeroplane with about a hundred horse-power motor init," he wailed.

  "Guess they could accommodate you down at Burtside," said the officerwho, now the incident was closed, showed a friendly interest in thetwo young men.

  "What do you mean?" Frank burst out.

  "Oh, there's a flyin' school down at Burtside, 'bout half a mile fromhere. Perhaps they'd rent one to you young chaps for the afternoon."

  "Great Peter!" cried the Codfish, "let's try. Here's a chance. Here,"to the returned chauffeur, "drive us down to that aeroplane place ifyou know where it is. I'm going to buy one."

  "Yes, sir," said the chauffeur, thinking that the young Americanshad better be favored for they were very likely mad as March hares.How could they be otherwise, having first run away with his machineand then, being deprived of that, willing to buy an air craft tocontinue the journey. But he piloted the boys to Burtside whichproved to be a flying school of some importance with biplanes andmonoplanes in the hangars, and two or three beginners at the flyinggame, receiving instruction. The boys quickly explained their errand.They wanted to get to London in desperate haste, trains couldn'taccomplish it, automobiles at the rate they let them run overEnglish roads couldn't and there was no other way but the air. Thedirector of the school was not sure whether it could be done or not.Money, Gleason told him, was no object, which played its part in thedecision. By good fortune one of the aviators in the school was ayoung American who had been flying with great success in England fora year. He heard of the plight of his compatriots, and readily agreedto take Frank up. He would take one or the other, but not both.

  "I'm willing to pay $200 if you will take Frank Armstrong to theQueen's Club, or as near to that point as you can get, and I'll giveyou an equal amount not to take me."

  "You needn't be afraid," said Butler, "I have no machine that willcarry more than one passenger. It will have to be only one of you."

  "That suits us both. Armstrong, here, wants to go and I don't, sowe're all satisfied."

  "Have you ever been up?" inquired Butler of Frank.

  "Never, but I'm determined to get to London if I can, and I don'tcare how it is."

  "All right," said Butler. "We have no time to lose. I'll get out thebig biplane." The plane was run out of the hangar, examined closelyby the attendants, looked over in a cursory manner by the aviatorhimself. "Now," he said to Frank, "hop up here alongside of me, tothe right. Take hold of that wooden support and put your feet on thiswire. Don't look down or you may get dizzy. I'm going about fivehundred feet high. Keep your eyes straight ahead and forget you'reflying."

  "Good-by, old fellow," said the Codfish, half in fun and half inearnest, as Frank climbed to his precarious place alongside theaviator, and then to Butler, "Where do you come down?"

  "One can never tell in this business, but I will try to land inHendon, which is only about three miles from the Club."

  "And how long will it take?"

  "Somewhere about thirty minutes if the wind aloft is as steady andstrong as it seems to be down here."

  "Frank, that will get you to Hendon at one-forty-five, and a taxiwill do the rest. I'll come as fast as I can in the motor, and if wedon't get pinched again I may get to dear old London in time to seethe finish."

  "All ready," sang out Butler. A half dozen attendants clung fast tothe trail of the big biplane while another spun the propeller. Theengine immediately sprang into noisy life, the roar of the exhaustdrowning out all human speech in the neighborhood. Gleason saw thehands of the aviator drop off the steering-wheel in a downwardsweeping signal which meant "let go," a signal instantly obeyedby the attendants, who dropped flat on the ground while the greattail of the birdlike monster swept over their heads with an everincreasing rush. For fifty or sixty feet the running gear of themachine kept on the ground, but, as the velocity increased and Butlerelevated his plane, the machine gradually cleared the earth andsoared aloft. The Codfish watched it as it rose and followed it inthe vastness of the sky vault until there was but a mere dot againstthe fluffy clouds in the northern sky.