Airship Andy Or The Luck of a Brave Boy Part 7

"What kind of a new-fangled thing is that you've stuck on my barn?"

"It's an airship."

"Like we read about in the papers?"

"Yes."

"Sho! and I thought--Who's afraid?" and he darted back again into the house. Immediately he reappeared. He carried an old-fashioned fowling-piece, and he ran out directly in front of the barn.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "IT'S AN AIRSHIP!"]

Andy read his purpose. He readily guessed that the farmer was one of those miserly individuals who make the most out of a mishap-the kind who think it smart to put a dead calf in the road and make an automobilist think he had killed it. At all events, the farmer looked bold enough now, as he posed in the middle of the road, with the ominous announcement:

"I've got a word for you up there."

"What is it?" inquired the aeronaut.

"Who's going to settle for this damage?"

"What damage?"

"What damage!" howled the farmer, feigning great rage and indignation; "hosses jumped the fence and smashed down the gate; chickens so scared they won't lay for a month; wife in a spasm, and that there ornament up there-why, I brought that clear from the city."

"All right, neighbor; what's your bill?"

"Two hundred dollars."

The aeronaut laughed.

"You're not modest or anything!" he observed. "See here; I'll toss you a five-dollar bill, and that covers ten times the entire trouble I've made you."

The farmer lifted his gun. He squinted across the long, awkward barrel, and he pointed it straight up at the sky-rider and his craft.

"Mister," he said fiercely, "my bill is two hundred dollars, just as I said. You pay it, right here, right now, or I'll blow that giddy-fangled contraption of yours into a thousand pieces!"

CHAPTER VII-JOHN PARKS, AIRSHIP KING

"Keep right on," ordered the aeronaut to Andy in a low tone.

Andy squeezed under a bulge of muslin and wood and reached what looked like a low, flat-topped stool.

"Do you hear me?" yelled the farmer, brandishing his weapon and trying to look very fierce and dangerous.

The aeronaut, Andy noticed, was reaching in his pocket. He drew out two small bills and some silver. He made a wad of this. Poising it, he gave it a fling.

"There's five dollars," he spoke to the farmer.

The wad hit the farmer on the shoulder, opened, and the silver scattered at his feet. He hopped aside.

"I won't take it; I'll have my price, or I'll have the law on you, and I'll take the law in my own hands!" he shouted.

Snap!-the fowling-piece made a sound, and quick-witted Andy noticed that it was not a click.

"See here," he whispered quickly to the aeronaut; "that man just snapped the trigger to scare us, and I don't believe the old blunderbuss is loaded."

"All ready," spoke the aeronaut to Andy, as the latter reached the seat.

"Yes, sir," reported Andy.

"When I back, give the rope a pull and hold taut till we clear the barn."

"I'll do it," said Andy.

"Go!"

There was a whir, a delicious tremulous lifting movement that now made Andy thrill all over, and the biplane backed as the aeronaut pulled a lever.

Andy gave the rope a pull and lifted the entangled wing entirely clear of the weather-vane.

"Now, hold tight and enjoy yourself," spoke the aeronaut, reversing the machine.

"Oh, my!" breathed Andy rapturously the next moment, and he forgot all about the farmer and nearly everything else mundane in the delight and novelty of a brand-new experience.

Andy had once shot the chutes, and had dreamed about it for a month afterwards. He recalled his first spin in an automobile with a thrill even now. That was nothing to the present sensation. He could not a.n.a.lyze it. He simply sat spellbound. One moment his breath seemed taken away; the next he seemed drawing in an atmosphere that set his nerves tingling and seemed to intoxicate mind and body.

The aeronaut sat grim and watchful in the pilot seat of the glider, never speaking a word. He had skimmed the landscape for quite a reach.

Then, where the ground began to slant, he said quickly:

"Notice my left foot?"

"I do," said Andy.

"Put yours on the stabilizing shaft when I take mine off."

"Stabilizing shaft," repeated Andy, memorizing, "and the name of the airship painted on that big paddle is the _Eagle_. Oh, hurrah for the _Eagle_!"

"When I whistle once, press down with your foot. Twice, you take your foot off. When I whistle twice, pull over the handle right at your side on the center-drop."

"'Center-drop'?" said Andy. "I'm getting it fast."

Z-zip! Andy fancied that something was wrong, for the machine contorted like a horse raising on his rear feet. Toot! Andy did not lose his nerve. Toot-toot! he grasped the handle at his side and pulled it back.

"Good for you!" commended the aeronaut heartily. "Now, then, for a spin."