Complete Works of L. Frank Baum

by L. Frank Baum

  She was quite right in declaring that Orissa alone could approve or condemn Tyler’s statement. If he spoke truly he was entitled to a degree of mercy at their hands; if, knowing that a girl was operating the Kane Aircraft, he had still persisted in his frantic attempt to wreck it and send her to her death, then no punishment could be too great for such a cowardly deed.

  This was instantly appreciated by all present. Even Tyler, seeing that his fate hinged on Orissa’s evidence, ventured to raise his head and cast at her an imploring glance. Chesty Todd dropped his flippant air and earnestly watched the girl’s face; the others with equal interest awaited her decisive statement.

  As for Orissa, the gravity of the situation awed her. Recalling the dreadful moments when she battled in the air for her life she saw before her the scowling, vicious face of her enemy and remembered how his eyes had glared wickedly into her own time and again as he attacked her aeroplane, determined to destroy it at all hazards. There was no question in her mind as to the truth of Tyler’s claim; she knew he had recognized her and still persisted in his purpose. She knew the accident to his machine was caused by his own carelessness and its faulty construction, and not by any desire of his to arrest its speed. Tyler had deliberately lied in order to condone his cowardly act, and she experienced a feeling of indignation that he should resort to such an infamous falsehood, knowing as he must that her evidence would render it impotent.

  Orissa contemplated her erstwhile assailant with reflective deliberation. She noted his miserable appearance, his abject manner, the moods of alternate despair and hope that crossed his withered features. An enemy so contemptible and mean was scarcely worthy of her vengeance. It seemed dreadful that such a despicable creature had been made in man’s image. Could he possess a soul, she wondered? Could such an one own a conscience, or have any perception, however dim, of the brutal inhumanity of his offense? Being in man’s image he must have such things. Perhaps in his nature was still some element of good, dormant and unrecognized as yet, which might develop in time and redeem him. To send him to prison, she reflected, would not be likely to correct the perversity of such a nature, while generous treatment and the forbearance of those he had wronged might tend to awaken in him remorse and a desire to retrieve his past. Without knowing it the girl was arguing on the side of the world’s most expert criminologists, who hold that to destroy an offender cannot benefit society so much as to redeem him.

  Whether Tyler’s ultimate redemption was probable or not, Orissa did not care to assume the responsibility of crushing him in order to avenge the shameful attempt, made in a moment of frenzy, to destroy her life. While those assembled hung breathless upon her words she said with assumed composure:

  “The man knows better than I whether he speaks the truth. Could one be so utterly vile as to try to murder a girl who had never injured him? I think not. It is more reasonable to suppose that in his excitement he forgot himself — his manhood and his sense of justice — and only at the last moment realized what he was doing. I believe,” she added, simply, “I shall give him the credit of the doubt and accept his statement.”

  Tyler stared at her as if he could scarcely believe his senses, while an expression of joy slowly spread over his haggard face. Radley-Todd gave Orissa a quiet smile of comprehension and approval. Cumberford said, musingly: “Ah; this interests me; indeed it does.” But Stephen exclaimed, in an impatient tone:

  “That does not clear Tyler of his attempt to murder Mr. Cumberford and destroy the aircraft. He admits that such was his design and that Burthon paid him to do it. He is not less a criminal because Orissa happened to be in the aeroplane. Therefore it is Mr. Cumberford’s duty to prosecute this scoundrel and put him in prison.” Tyler cast a frightened look at the speaker and began to tremble again. Said Chesty Todd, leaning back in his chair with his hands thrust into his pockets:

  “That’s the idea. The prisoner belongs to Mr. Cumberford.”

  Cumberford sat in his characteristic attitude, stooping forward and thoughtfully stroking his grizzled mustache.

  “Did I hurt you very much when I kicked you, Tyler?” he meekly asked.

  “No, sir!” protested the man, eagerly.

  “Would you have thought of such a revenge had not Burthon suggested it, and paid you to carry it out?”

  “No, sir!”

  “M — m. Would you like to murder me now?”

  “No, sir!”

  “What will you do if I set you at liberty?”

  “Clear out, sir,” said Tyler earnestly.

  “Ah; that interests me,” declared Mr. Cumberford.

  “It doesn’t interest me, though,” Stephen said angrily. “The brute tried to wreck my aircraft.”

  “But he failed,” suggested Mr. Cumberford. “The aircraft is still in apple-pie order.”

  “My son,” said the boy’s mother, in her gentle voice, “can you afford to be less generous than Mr. Cumberford and — your sister?”

  Stephen flushed. Then he glanced toward Sybil and found the girl eyeing him curiously, expectantly.

  “Oh, well,” he said, with reluctance, “let him go. Such a fiend, at large, is a menace to society. That is why I wished to make an example of him. If aeroplanes are to be attacked in mid-air, after this, the dangers of aviation will be redoubled.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about that,” carelessly remarked Todd. “This fellow is too abject a coward to continue a career of crime along those lines. He’s had his lesson, and he’ll remember it. I don’t say he’ll turn honest, for I imagine it isn’t in him; but he’ll be mighty careful hereafter how he conducts himself.”

  “I — I’ll never step foot in an aeroplane again!” growled Tyler, hoarsely but with great earnestness.

  “Suppose you meet Burthon again?” suggested Steve, distrustfully.

  “If I do,” said the man, scowling and clinching his fists, “I — I’ll strangle him!”

  “A nice, reformed character, I must say,” observed Steve, with fine contempt.

  “But he interests me — he interests me greatly,” asserted Cumberford. “Let him go, Steve.”

  Radley-Todd looked round the circle of faces with an amused smile, which grew tender as his eye rested upon the placid features of Mrs. Kane. The boy loved to study human nature; it had possessed a fascination for him ever since he could remember, and here was a fertile field for observation. Reading accurately the desire of those assembled to be rid of the abhorrent creature he had brought before them, the young man slowly rose and opened the door.

  “Tyler,” said he, “you’ve saved your skin. Not by your whining falsehoods and misrepresentations, but because these people are too noble to be revenged upon one so ignoble and degraded. But I’m not built that way myself. I’m longing to kick you till you can’t stand, and there’s a mighty power to my hamstrings, I assure you. I refrain just now, because ladies are present, but if I ever set eyes on your carcass again you’ll think Cumberford’s kick was a mere love-pat. Get out!”

  Tyler cringed, turned without a word and shuffled through the doorway.

  Orissa came forward and took the young fellow’s hand in her own, impulsively.

  “Thank you, Mr. Todd!” she said.

  He held the hand a moment and looked admiringly into her upturned face.

  “It is I who should give thanks, and I do,” he answered reverently. “I thank God to-day, as I have had occasion to do before, for his noblest creation — the American girl.”

  “Good!” cried Cumberford, with approval. “That interests me.”

  CHAPTER XXVI

  OF COURSE

  Orissa did fly the next day, as she had declared she would. The morning papers were full of her achievement, with columns of enthusiastic praise for her beauty, her daring, her modesty and skill. The attempt of a rival aeroplane to interfere with her flight and her clever rescue of her enemy when he came to grief made a popular heroine of the girl, yet no one seemed to know the true history of the astonishing
affair. The Tribune had glowing accounts of the day’s events from the pen of Mr. H. Chesterton Radley-Todd, but this astute correspondent refrained from making “a scoop,” as he might have done had he bared his knowledge of the conspiracy that ended with Orissa Kane’s aerial adventure.

  One of the other papers suspected Burthon of being the instigator of the wicked plot to wreck Miss Kane’s airship and, discovering the fact that he had fled from the city, openly accused him. Tyler could not be found, either, for the little ex-chauffeur had wisely “skipped the town” and his former haunts knew him no more.

  The judges awarded the Kane Aircraft the ten thousand dollar prize, and singularly enough not a word of protest came from the competing aviators. Those who had attended the meet the day before, and thousands who read of Orissa Kane in the newspapers, eagerly assembled at Dominguez to witness her further exhibitions on the next day. It was estimated that fully fifty thousand people were in attendance, and when the Kane Aircraft appeared, decked with gay banners and ribbons, and made a short flight above the field, the girl aviator met with a reception such as has never before been equaled in the annals of aviation.

  Later in the day Orissa took part in the contest for speed and although she did not win this event the girl aeronaut managed her biplane so gracefully and pressed the leader in the race so closely that she was accorded the admiring plaudits of the spectators.

  Steve was a little disappointed in the result, but Mr. Cumberford reminded him that his employment of crossed planes was sure to sacrifice an element of speed for the sake of safety, and assured him it was not at all necessary for his invention to excel in swiftness to win universal approval.

  In other events that followed during the progress of the meet Orissa captured several of the prizes, with the final result that the Kanes were eighteen thousand dollars richer than they had been before. Crowds constantly thronged the Kane hangar, inspecting the wonderful machine and questioning the attendants as to its construction and management, while so many orders for the aircraft were booked that Mr. Cumberford assured Stephen they would be justified in at once building a factory to supply the demand.

  Throughout the meet Orissa Kane remained the popular favorite and the wonderful performances of the young girl were discussed in every place where two or more people congregated. Had Stephen been able to operate his own machine he would not have won a tithe of the enthusiastic praise accorded “The Flying Girl,” and this was so evident that Orissa was instantly recognized as the most important member of the firm.

  Naturally she was overjoyed by her success, yet she never once lost her humble and unassuming manner or considered the applause in the light of a personal eulogy. Devoting herself seriously and with care to every detail of her work she strove to exhibit Steve’s aircraft in a manner to prove its excellence, and considered that her important aim.

  There was nothing reckless about Orissa’s flights; her success, then and afterward, may be attributed to her coolness of head, a thorough understanding of her machine and a full appreciation of her own ability to handle it. The flattery and adulation she received did not destroy her self-poise or cause one flutter of her heart, but when anyone praised the merits of the Kane Aircraft, she flushed with pleasure and pride. For Orissa firmly believed she basked in the reflected glory of her brother’s inventive genius, and considered herself no more than a showman employed to exhibit his marvelous creation.

  “You see,” she said to Chesty Todd, who stood beside her in the hangar on the last day of the meet while she watched Mr. Cumberford and his assistants preparing the aircraft for its final flight, “Stephen has a thorough education in aeronautics and knows the caprices and requirements of the atmosphere as well as a gardener knows his earth. The machine is adjusted to all those variations and demands, and that is why it accomplishes with ease much that other aeroplanes find difficult. A child might operate the Kane Aircraft, and I feel perfectly at ease in my seat, no matter how high I am or how conflicting the air currents; for Steve’s machine will do exactly what it is built to do.”

  “The machine is good,” observed Chesty, “but your sublime self-confidence is better. You’re a conceited young lady — not over your own skill, but over that of your brother.”

  She laughed.

  “Haven’t I a right to be?” she asked. “Hasn’t Steve proved his ability to the world?”

  The boy nodded, a bit absently. He was thinking how good it was to find a girl not wrapped up in herself, but unselfish enough to admire others at her own expense. A pretty girl, too, Chesty concluded with a sigh, as he watched her prepare to start. What a pity he had lived all of twenty-one years and had not known Orissa Kane before!

  By some sleight-of-hand, perhaps characteristic of the fellow, Chesty had attached himself to the “Kane-Cumberford Combination,” as he called it, like a barnacle. At first both Steve and Cumberford frowned upon his claim to intimacy, but the boy was so frankly attracted to their camp, “where,” said he, “I can always find people of my own kind,” that they soon became resigned to the situation and accepted his presence as a matter of course.

  Sybil treated this new acquaintance with the same calm indifference she displayed toward all but her father and, latterly, Stephen Kane.

  Chesty found in her the most puzzling character he had ever met, but liked her and studied the girl’s vagaries from behind a bulwark of levity and badinage. Perhaps the reporter’s most loyal friend at this time was Mrs. Kane, who had promptly endorsed the young man as a desirable acquisition to their little circle. In return Chesty was devoted to the afflicted woman and loved to pay her those little attentions she required because of her helplessness.

  Mr. Cumberford celebrated the closing day of the meet by giving a little dinner to the Kanes in his private rooms at the hotel that evening, and Chesty Todd was included in the party. Stephen attended in a wheeled chair and was placed at one end of the table, while Orissa occupied the other. The central decoration was a floral model of the Kane Aircraft, and before Orissa’s plate was laid a crown of laurel which her friends tried to make her wear. But the girl positively refused, declaring that Stephen ought to wear the crown, while she was entitled to no more credit than a paid aviator might be.

  The next morning’s developments, however, proved that she had been too modest in this assertion. A telegram arrived from the directors of the San Francisco Aviation Club asking Orissa Kane’s price to attend their forthcoming meet and exhibit her aeroplane. Accounts of her daring and successful flights had been wired to newspapers all over the world and public interest in the girl aviator was so aroused that managers of aerial exhibitions throughout the country realized she would be the greatest “drawing card” they could secure.

  Mr. Cumberford, as manager for Orissa as well as for Stephen and the aircraft, telegraphed his terms, demanding so large a sum that the Kanes declared it would never be considered. To their amazement the offer was promptly accepted, and while they were yet bewildered by this evidence of popularity, a representative of the New Orleans Aero Club called at the hotel to secure Miss Kane for their forthcoming meet. Mr. Cumberford received him cordially, but said:

  “Unfortunately, sir, your dates conflict with those of the San Francisco meet, where Miss Kane has already contracted to appear.”

  “Is there no way of securing her release?” asked the man, deeply chagrined at being too late. “Our people will be glad to pay any price to get her.”

  “No,” replied Mr. Cumberford; “we stand by our contracts, whatever they may be. But possibly we shall be able to send you a duplicate of the Kane Aircraft, with a competent aviator to operate it.” The man’s face fell.

  “We will, of course, be glad to have you enter the Kane machine, on the same terms other aeroplanes are entered; but we will pay no bonus unless ‘The Flying Girl’ is herself present to exhibit it. To be quite frank with you, the people are wild to see Orissa Kane, whose exploits are on every tongue just now, but all aeroplanes look alike to
them, as you can readily understand.” When the emissary had departed, keenly disappointed, Mr. Cumberford turned to Orissa and Stephen, who had both been present at the interview, and said:

  “You see, Orissa should have worn the laurel crown, after all. ‘The Flying Girl’ has caught the popular fancy and I predict our little heroine will be in great demand wherever aviation is exploited. As a matter of truth and justice I will admit that she could not have acquired fame so readily without Steve’s superb invention to back her. In coming years your principal source of income will be derived from the Kane Aircraft; but just now, while aviation is in its infancy, Orissa will be able to earn a great deal of money by giving exhibitions at aviation meets. If she undertakes it there is, we all know, much hard work ahead of her, coupled with a certain degree of danger.” He turned to the girl. “It will be for you to decide, my dear.”

  Orissa did not hesitate in her reply.

  “I will do all in my power to exhibit Steve’s machine properly, until he is well enough to operate it himself,” she said. “Then he will become the popular hero in my place, and I’ll retire to the background, where I belong.”

  Even Steve smiled at this prediction.

  “I’ll never be able to run the thing as you can, Ris,” he replied, “and you mustn’t overlook the fact that your being a girl gives you as great an advantage over me, as an aeronaut, as over all other aviators. I think Mr. Cumberford is right in saying that the advertising and prestige you have already received will enable you to win a fortune for us — provided you are willing to assume the risk and exertion, and if mother will consent.”

  “I love the moil and toil of it, as well as the pleasure,” exclaimed the girl. “It will be joy and bliss to me to fly the aircraft on every possible occasion, and if you’ll leave me to manage mother I’ll guarantee to secure her consent.”