The Air Ship Boys Part 25

From the top of a dead pine tree an eagle rose and soared lazily away.

"It's like the camping out places you read about," exclaimed Bob.

"That eagle nest completes the picture."

"It does," interrupted Ned, "and I hope you won't forget the picture. That high, barren tree is your landmark. Some day you may need it. Remember; from the valley below your camp can be found by locating the little waterfall on the cliff. From the timber line above you will know it when you see the eagle's nest. And now let go the anchor. We have no gas to spare, and can't afford to open the valve."

To make a landing in a balloon without throwing open a valve and wasting precious gas is almost impossible. The craft could only be kept near the ground by keeping it in motion or by causing the propeller fans to depress currents of air on the aeroplanes.

Therefore, as soon as the engine stopped, the Cibola would mount higher. But resourceful Ned had long since thought out this problem.

The engine's speed was reduced and the anchor was quickly lowered until it caught hard and fast in a strong pine tree. The contact shook the fragile car and sent the bag bounding, but when it was seen that the iron had fixed itself firmly three of the boys, pulling on the anchor rope, gradually drew the great buoyant car down until it floated just above the tree top. To drag it lower was, impossible, for one sharp branch might injure the bag beyond repair.

When the ship was safely anch.o.r.ed just above the tree, the twenty-five foot landing ladder was lowered and Ned himself made his way down its fragile rungs into the tree. .

"Hold on tight," he continued, "I'm getting off."

As he did so and found footing in the tree branches the Cibola tugged to free itself, as if, overjoyed to be rid of Ned's one hundred and forty-five pounds of weight. As soon as the young commander was safely on the ground he ordered the other boys to pay out the anchor rope and again the Cibola rose in the air.

"Now," ordered Ned, "start your engine and head the car over the opening."

While Ned stood below directing, with hands to his mouth, trumpet-wise, the Cibola strained at her anchor rope and then, obeying her rudder, moved directly over the open s.p.a.ce, her nose pointing skyward at an angle of forty-five degrees.

"Hold her," yelled Ned, "and haul back."

The boys again strained at the taut anchor rope until the car stood just clear of the trees and some two hundred feet in the air.

"Now lower your drag rope and an empty ballast bag," called Ned.

While this was being done the navigator of the Cibola was busy carrying chunks of broken rock from the margin of the little lake, and in a short time the boys above were hauling away on the rope and lifting aboard new ballast. With each bag of it the Cibola sank lower and lower, until finally, when it was almost balanced in the air, Ned easily drew the balloon to the ground.

But the landing was not yet finished. Not a pa.s.senger in the craft could step ash.o.r.e until Ned had added more stone. But when enough of this had been lifted up to the hands above, and Elmer could alight, the two willing workers on the ground soon made it possible for the other boys to spring overboard. Then the four of them loaded enough more rock on the bridge to take the place of the stores to be landed.

There were not many things that could be left: water, and half the provisions and, preserved goods; a few cooking utensils; blankets, an extra compa.s.s, two revolvers, a hatchet and saw; a light silk tent; matches and candles, a medicine case, ammunition, and, to make way for the gasoline that it was hoped might be recovered, all the extra oil on board--for the reservoirs yet contained an ample supply to make the trip back to the scene of Elmer's attack.

At a safe distance from the balloon Elmer had returned to his favorite occupation. He got a fire going and while the other boys replaced the rocks on board with bags of sand from the margin of the lake the colored lad made hot coffee and broiled some bacon. It was a luxury after the cold, dry food of the long night.

"When you come back this evening," exclaimed Bob jovially, "I'll try to have a juicy venison steak."

"An' hot biscuits," chimed in Elmer.

"And a good bed of balsam boughs," added Bob, "and a fine camp fire, and we can sit wound it and talk it all over."

"And if we don't get back to-night you'd better have your camp fire anyway," said Ned,

"Ain't you goin' to git back to-night?" ruefully interrupted Elmer, as he poured the smoking coffee.

"You never know what you are going to do in a balloon," answered Ned.

"If we can we will. If we can't we won't. If we are not back to-night we may not be here for several days. We've got work ahead now, and plenty of it."

"We'll be here when you come," replied Bob earnestly, with a smoking bit of bacon in his fingers, "whenever that is."

"No," replied Ned, "if we are not here in six days you must make your way out to civilization. You have food enough but you can't wait longer than that. As for directions, all I can say is that from this ridge back of us you can see across the half desert valley to the higher range of mountains. Should you cross the valley bearing almost due east and be able to get over or through that second ridge you will be able to see the top of Mount Wilson, thirty miles further east. From Mount Wilson it is fifteen miles southeast to the camp Elmer made. There you should pick up the trail of Buck's wagon back to the railroad eighty-five miles south."

Bob's eyes opened.

"Is it as bad as that?" he said half laughing. "We'll certainly have to get busy if the Cibola breaks down."

"Or," went on Ned, "any strewn in the valley below here flows finally into the San Juan River to the north. If you can make your way to this river and then succeed in following its banks eastward until you reach the plains, some time or other you'll find a frontier settlement."

"Or Utes," interrupted Alan.

"Gib me de mountain road," exclaimed Elmer quickly.

"Nomo'Utesfo'me!"

"Yes," added Ned, "that's the trouble. The route to the San Juan is not only through a barren, broken mountain region, but it gets you finally right into the Southern Ute reservation. And, remember, too, that this is Navajo land. Your safety with them, should you be discovered, will be in diplomacy. And now good-bye--until we meet again."

"And if we don't," replied Bob, huskily, taking the hands of the two boys in turn, "I just want to say again that you boys have done for me what I can't forget and what I can't repay. I don't know why you are here, and I don't want to know. What I've seen will never be revealed, when I get back to Kansas City and the Comet, until you tell me I am free to tell it. And you'd know what that means to me if you knew what a cracking good yarn my experience has given me already. Good-bye and good luck!"

Ned and Alan clambered aboard; the rocks were cast overboard, and as the Cibola shot skyward the boys could hear Elmer calling:

"Member, boys--we all'll be at Camp Eagle an' supper will be awaitin'."

CHAPTER XXIV

A GRAVE IN THE DESERT

But Ned and Alan did not eat with their friends that night, nor for some days to come. And when they saw each other again one of Elmer's juicy venison steaks would have seemed to all of them the sweetest morsel ever eaten by man.

Ned only waited to help inflate the balloonet in the big balloon with the little hand blower for the Cibola showed quite perceptibly the loss of gas after her twenty hours of inflation. Then, the course having been laid, he left the wheel and engine to Alan's care and turned in for his long needed rest.

Alan had determined on a record flight. He allowed the Cibola to rise higher than it had yet flown, about 5,000 feet, and then setting the aeroplanes on a slight incline he headed the car on a down slant for Mount Wilson's just visible peak, thirty miles away.

There was no economy in half speed, for time and the utilization of their gas were more precious than gasoline. "We can always float without gasoline," the boys had said to themselves, "but we can't move without gas." Therefore the Cibola was soon at its maximum and the enthusiastic Alan knew that Ned would have a short sleep.

In an hour and twenty-one minutes the swift dirigible was abreast of the peak of Mount Wilson, and then, without slackening speed, Alan altered her course southeast toward the scene of the previous night's hair-raising experience. Long before he reached the place he was able to make the juncture of the two rivers his landmark, and the ship pointed her course as straight as a railroad train. After thirty minutes sailing from Mount Wilson, Buck's rendezvous could be made out, three miles beyond.

One glance told the whole sad story. Two dead horses alone marked the spot where their freight wagon had stood. Alan aroused Ned, and as the Cibola sailed low over the place the boys saw that the thieving Utes had gone--with the wagon, horses, freight and their dead companions.

Poor Buck's body was lying where the brave escort had fallen.

"We can't make two landings," suggested Ned. "We'll find the gasoline and then come back and bury our friend."

Disappointed, although they had really in their hearts expected nothing less, the young navigators turned the Cibola and sailed slowly down the river in the hope that the gasoline would be found where Elmer had described it as lying.

They were as richly rewarded here as they had been previously disappointed. The drift, a tangled jumble of small mountain wood, had caught and preserved seven of their eight tins of gasoline.