On the Edge of the Arctic Part 2

"He wants to get a taste of the life the story books describe. I told him it might not be such an appetizing meal but I imagine he's set on it."

"So I believe," answered Mr. Zept, "although it isn't what I had planned for him.

"By the way," he added quickly, "you young men know how little there is in indulging this longing for wilderness adventure. I hope if you have a chance you won't fail to impress upon Paul the facts as we know them. I want him to live at home now, with his mother and me. I'm afraid he's been too long away from us."

That evening the two young men could not resist the temptation to visit the downtown district where the hotels were crowded with visitors and the city was resplendent with unusual activity. Norman left Roy with some friends at the King George Hotel and went home at an early hour. When Roy called at Norman's house the next morning, on his way to the Stampede Grounds, he spoke of some new information he had picked up the night before.

"I found out last night," he began at once, "that everything isn't as sunshiny in the Zept home as it might be. Our new friend, the Count, I was told by some friends, got a pretty early start in the fast life of Paris. Mr. Zept wants Paul to stay at home a while, as I get it, to make some changes in him if he can."

"What do you mean?" asked Norman. "But I can guess it--it's in his face.

And it isn't cigarettes either."

"Right," answered Roy. "We call it booze out here, but in the young man's circle in Paris I reckon it wouldn't be worse than wine. Anyway, they say, young as he is, that's one of his pleasures. He doesn't look to me as if drinking had ever bothered him much but, from what I hear, he's come to the point where his father thinks he's got to stop it if it's ever going to be stopped. He's only been in town a few days and they say he rides like a States' Indian. But this hasn't taken all his time. He's already in with the fast set here and you know, in a pinch there's people in Calgary who can give a pretty good imitation of high life in great cities."

"I can guess the rest," said Norman. "His father brought him out here to put him on a ranch. When he found that his son hadn't this idea, it rather upset certain plans."

"And he'd like us to put in a few knocks but I reckon that'll be some job. As far as I can see, it's young fellows like Zept who turn these hardships into glories. I've heard of kids like him who are really at home where there's no trail and whose idea of luxury is a canoe and a blanket and a piece of pork."

"Well," concluded Norman, "if I didn't have the aeroplane bug just now, I'd like to have a chance at the ponies and horses on one of Mr. Zept's big ranches. A canoe and a blanket are all right, but on a cold evening when the snow's spitting I don't think they've got anything on a chuck wagon and a good tent."

On the way to the show grounds, Roy went into further details of the gossip he had heard concerning young Zept's escapades, not only in Paris but in the south of France.

"One thing's sure," commented Norman at last, "wild as he may be about a lot of things, he ain't crazy about airships. That's saying something these days."

This remark was made because the Count, while showing a polite interest in the _Gitchie Manitou_, had not bubbled over with exuberance. The boys felt somewhat chagrined over this lack of enthusiasm until they recalled that to young Zept an airship was an old story, the young man having witnessed many flights by the most improved French monoplanes.

On this, the second day of the Stampede, about five o'clock Norman made a respectable if not very exciting flight. He was somewhat nervous and was glad when the exhibition was over, and had no sooner landed than he determined on the following day to attempt a more ambitious demonstration.

On Wednesday and Thursday he added some thrills to his evening flight, making on the latter evening a landing in the shape of a corkscrew spiral that got for him special notice in the newspapers the next morning. It also got for him an admonition from his father, when the latter read this story, that a repet.i.tion of it would result in a breaking of his contract with the Stampede authorities.

"All right, father," conceded the young aviator, "but that ain't a marker to the possibilities of the machine. I haven't put over the real stunt yet."

"And what's that?" demanded his parent.

"I had planned, on the last day of the show, to make an ascent as high as one reservoir of gas would take me--and that means so high that you couldn't see me--and then make a volplane back to the ground without using the engine."

"Are you going to try that?" demanded his father sternly.

The boy looked at him and laughed.

"Probably not--now," he remarked, "although the show'd be over then."

"Try it," snapped his father, "and that'll be the last thing you'll have to do with your _Gitchie whatever-you-call-it_."

The next evening, which concluded the big day of the Stampede, twenty thousand people attended the long afternoon's program. When the aeroplane appeared for its fourth flight, an army of people surrounded the starting field. Warned by his father, Norman made a less dangerous exhibit, but one that was on the whole more interesting to the eager spectators.

Having given ill.u.s.trations of many of the tricks of show aviators, including the roll and the banking of racing machines on short circular courses, he made a journey out over the hills until the aeroplane was lost to sight. The enthusiasm that greeted his reappearance and the approach of the machine like a bird through the blue haze of the endless prairies, stirred the crowd as the more dangerous maneuvers had not.

Before reaching the inclosure, the monoplane climbed about four thousand feet into the air and then volplaned gracefully toward one of the large exhibition buildings just in the edge of the grounds. When it seemed as if Norman was about to smash the _Gitchie Manitou_ against the big green-roofed building, even Roy started and held his breath. Then there was a quick spring upwards and, with the last momentum of the gliding monoplane, it lifted over the structure and settled upon the dust of the race track inclosure like a wide-winged bird.

When, escorted by ample police, the aeroplane had been wheeled into the aerodrome, the two boys immediately closed the doors and the officers dispersed the onlookers. It was late and there was not much trouble in doing this. When only a few persons were left in the vicinity, the doors were thrown open again and the car was trundled out to receive its after-flight examination. Norman, yet wearing his cap and jacket, had climbed into the c.o.c.kpit to overhaul the rudder wires and engine valves; Roy was inspecting the body of the car, when the attention of both boys was attracted by a cheery salutation from a stranger.

"Good evening, young gentlemen," exclaimed a man who was unmistakably from the States. "I've been trying to have a look at your machine but I've only just now succeeded in evading the police. I hope I'm not in the way?"

Since there were few persons about, the boys smiled.

"Glad to see you," answered Roy. "Glad to see anyone if he comes alone.

It's only the mob that bothers us."

The stranger smiled and lifted his hat in renewed greeting.

"I've been watching your flight to-day," he went on, directing his remark to Norman, "and I judge it must require some nerve."

"It requires a good machine and some little experience," responded Norman deprecatingly.

The man was a well-set-up, ruddy complexioned individual somewhat beyond middle age. His clothes might have been made anywhere in the East and yet, in spite of certain smart touches in them, the man wore a negligee shirt, a flowing black necktie and an abundance of hair that indicated an acquaintance with the freer costumes and manners of the West. A large diamond ring on his weatherworn and sinewy finger suggested that this jewelry was probably only worn on occasions. He had a good-natured countenance which unquestionably could easily show decision and force of character.

"Come in," remarked Roy, good-humoredly. "Sorry I can't offer you a chair."

"Seriously," retorted the stranger, "I've been watching you with more than mere curiosity. I have a special desire to know something about your airship if you can give me a few minutes."

Without questioning the man further, the two boys, glad enough of the opportunity, at once began an explanation of the craft that had in the last few days demonstrated its practicability. The stranger followed them intently, interrupting them now and then with questions, and showed a surprising interest in the elaborate description given him by the young aviators. Considering its origin, the aeroplane was a more than ingenious piece of work. In general it followed the stream lines of the modern French monoplane. Its distinguishing variation was a somewhat wider bulge in the forward part of its birdlike body.

While in most monoplanes this framework, to which the planes are attached, is made only wide enough to accommodate a narrow c.o.c.kpit and the compact engine located in its apex, in this car the c.o.c.kpit was almost double in size that of the average machine. So wide was it that two pa.s.sengers might sit side by side. The flying planes of the car and its five-foot body gave the aeroplane an entire width of thirty-seven feet.

The planes were attached to the body proper by rigid f.l.a.n.g.es, reinforced by wires running from tip to tip of the planes, pa.s.sing directly over the body, and not elevated on bracing chandelles. These wires were taut and made a part of the planes, much like reinforcing ribs. Beneath the planes three heavy wires ran from their forward tips to the bottom of the car.

There were no flexing devices to manipulate the rear edges of the planes, but on the rigid frames of each plane was a lateral rudder manipulated by one lever standing in the forward part of the c.o.c.kpit.

The stream lines of the body tapered birdlike to the horizontal rudder twenty feet in the rear. The truss work of the body was covered with diagonally crossing strips of veneer, so that, as a whole, with the rigid planes, the monoplane had a substantial appearance. This frame, covered with waterproof canvas, made the body of the car impervious to rain.

The two rudders at the rear of the body resembled in all ways the steering devices of the best modern air vehicles. A difference was found at once, however, in the fact that the rudders were heavily waterproofed and in that the steering wires pa.s.sed the pilot's c.o.c.kpit through the protected body of the car. There was nothing new in either the big single propeller fixed to the front of the body, nor in the Gnome engine that afforded motive power.

"We didn't make the engine," explained Norman. "It represents all the money Moulton and I have ever saved, some we haven't saved but expect to save, and all that we could borrow of our fathers. It's eighty horse power, came all the way from France, and if anything happens to it, we're bankrupt for life."

The stranger smiled with a curious sparkle in his eyes, rubbed his chin, and without direct answer, remarked:

"It doesn't seem an ordinary machine--looks more substantial than most of 'em."

Roy had secured a box, and placing it alongside the car he motioned their guest to mount.

"There is a difference," he began at once with new enthusiasm. "This machine is made for wind and weather. If any airship can make its way through blizzards, the _Gitchie Manitou_ can. If it doesn't, it's a rank failure."

The guest gave a look at each boy, as if this was what he suspected.

"Look!" went on Roy. Springing into the c.o.c.kpit, the two boys caught the sides of the c.o.c.kpit framework and in a moment had drawn above their heads four light but strong frames of wood. When these met above their heads, they formed a curved and tightly-jointed canopy. The four frames were filled with small panes of gla.s.slike mica. Within the canopy the inmates were as well protected from the elements as if they had been under a roof.

While the stranger's face flushed and his eyes grew wider, the boys unsnapped the frames and they fell back into place, disappearing within the sides of the c.o.c.kpit.

"That isn't all," exclaimed Norman, and he pointed to two small, dark, metal boxes just in the rear of the two seats. "Look," he went on, as he also pointed to a small dynamo mounted just in the rear of the circular engine. "As long as the car's moving, these two little car heaters will not only keep us from getting frost bites but, in a pinch, we can cook on 'em."

"And here," added Roy, as he tapped a chestlike object on which the seats were mounted, "is where we get the stuff to do the trick. We can put gas enough in there to carry us three hundred miles. Back here," he went on, pointing to a nest of skeleton shelves adjoining the rear of the c.o.c.kpit, "we can carry extra supplies of oil, gas, and food to carry us five hundred miles, if we ever get that far from home."