The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone Part 9

Jack, with his hands firmly gripping the steering wheel, antic.i.p.ating every move of the storm-tossed Wondership like a skillful pilot, felt his pulses throb. There was something fine in battling with the elements like this in a stanch craft they had perfected. He felt that no other airship then in existence would have been able to keep up the fight.

All at once there came a crash that drove his eardrums in. The Wondership staggered and then seemed to leap into lambent flame. Blinded, Jack threw his hands before his eyes, utterly forgetting for the minute the steering wheel.

Tom gave a shout of alarm, as he felt the craft stagger as if dealt a mortal blow, and then begin to drop earthward.

"We've been struck!" he yelled in panic.

CHAPTER XX.

THROUGH THE AIR.

For the fraction of a second the faculties of both boys were paralyzed. A tingling sensation was in their limbs. Jack was the first to recover his wits. He s.n.a.t.c.hed his hands from his eyes and seized the wheel. In a jiffy the Wondership's earthward plunge was checked. Once more she regained an even keel.

"Wh-what happened?" stuttered Tom anxiously.

"We were hit by lightning," replied Jack.

"Goodness! I thought we were goners, for a minute."

"I confess that I did, too. But I guess the 'electric cage' worked. Everything seems to be shipshape."

Jack was right. Thanks to his ingenious invention, the lightning, which had struck the aircraft, had been diffused through the safety "cage" and safely convoyed to the earth by the ground chain made of light manganese bronze, which had been lowered when the storm broke.

"Just the same I don't want to get hit again," said Tom. "I thought for a minute the world had come to an end."

"My fingers are tingling yet," said Jack, "and I can see stars, but I think if it hadn't been for the cage we would have likely been blown to smithereens."

By this time they were almost over the doctor's house and extensive grounds. Jack manipulated the Wondership against the storm, flying in a circle, and snapped on the powerful searchlight. With the help of its rays he picked out a good landing place, and having set the pumps at work abstracting gas from the bag, they soon made a good landing.

Doctor Mays stood on his porch as they left the ship and ran through the downpour for the house.

"Gracious, boys!" he exclaimed, "but you certainly gave me a fright. I thought when that bolt hit you that you were going to be annihilated."

"How did it look from below?" asked Jack.

"As if you were enveloped in blue flame. Then suddenly a ball of red fire slid from the ship to the ground----"

"Down the conducting rope," put in Jack.

"And exploded with a loud bang when it struck the ground," continued the doctor. "But all's well that ends well, and now tell me what brings you here, for I know it must be urgent business or you'd never have ventured through such a storm."

Jack hastily told the doctor of his father's stroke. The medical man looked grave.

"I'll go with you just as soon as I can pack my bag," he said. "Your father had been overworking. I warned him of what would happen if he did not rest up, some time ago, but he has, seemingly, disregarded my advice."

In a few minutes the doctor, m.u.f.fled up in a raincoat, was ready to start. But he stipulated that the run to High Towers should be made by the road.

"I like excitement as well as anybody," he said, "and I've been up in your Wondership before----"

"When it was the Roadracer," interpolated Jack.

"Exactly; but I must confess that when I saw you a short time ago looking like a floating ball of fire, I lost my taste for aerial travel."

"We'll go back by road, then," said Jack, as through the rain, which was falling in torrents, they ran to the Wondership.

"My, but you have it snug in here," said the doctor, as he entered the tight, waterproof cabin.

"Hang up your coat, doctor," said Tom, and he took the physician's dripping mackintosh and slung it on a hook attached to one of the stanchions. Then the start was made, with the bag partially deflated and lying in limp, wet folds on its framework.

Through the night, under skies fretted with lightning, the Wondership shot forward. Out on the open road Jack ordered full speed, the great searchlights illuming the roadway as if it were day. He felt little apprehension of meeting other vehicles. The night was too bad to permit of any save emergency traveling.

The roads were deep in mud, and water spurted up from the wheels of the flying car as it raced through the storm. But seated snug and dry in the cabin none of them bothered about this. Little was said. Jack had to concentrate his mind on handling the Wondership, for driving under the conditions, and at such speed, required all the wheel-handler's attention.

On and on they flew, down hills and over bridges, under which, ordinarily, quiet streams flowed, but now swollen by the rains, they boiled and raced like angry torrents. They flashed through villages and past farmhouses without encountering a soul, while overhead the tempest roared and raged and flared.

They were shooting down a hill at top speed when Jack suddenly gave a gasp. Right in front of them, vividly outlined in the searchlight's glare, was an obstacle. A big wagonload of hay, covered with a tarpaulin, and deserted by its driver who, despairing of mounting the hill in the storm, had unhitched his horses and driven off till the weather cleared.

The wagon was in such a position that it blocked the road, which was sunken between high banks at that point. Jack ground down his brakes in chagrin.

"Blocked!" he exclaimed disgustedly.

CHAPTER XXI.

VAULTING TO THE RESCUE.

"What awful luck," muttered Tom.

"Isn't there any way we can get by?" inquired the doctor anxiously. "It's important that I should reach Mr. Chadwick as soon as possible."

Jack made no reply, but bent over the gas-valve. In an instant the gas was hissing into the balloon bag. Its wet folds swelled out, and presently Jack started the propellers. Like a racehorse leaping a barrier, the Wondership rose skyward.

"Hold fast!" cried the boy in a triumphant voice.

"Wow!" yelled Tom, "there are more ways of killing a cat than by choking it with cream."

The next moment the Wondership was in the road on the other side of the hay wagon, having hurdled it like a high jumper, and was once more on her way.

"Jove, you boys are marvels!" exclaimed the doctor. "Is there anything you can't do with this craft, or auto, or whatever it is, of yours?"

"Lots of things, I guess," said Tom, "but we haven't found many of them yet."

At uninterrupted speed the journey was resumed. At times so swift was the pace that the Wondership seemed to be half flying. Thanks to her shock absorbers, but little motion was felt, although in places the roadway had been washed out by the torrential downpour and was very rough.

"Whereabouts are we?" shouted Tom, as they rushed along.

"Near the c.o.o.n Creek Bridge," flung back Jack over his shoulder. "We ought to sight it at any moment now."

He peered through the blackness ahead. The searchlights failed to show any bridge. But the young driver saw an abandoned cottage by the roadside which had formerly been used as a toolhouse. Just beyond it he knew the bridge should loom up with its white railings.

But there was not a sign of it.

Not till it was too late to stop did Jack realize what had happened. The bridge had been washed away by the rising waters of the creek and he was tearing at top speed for the steep banks.

It was a moment for lightning thinking. Right ahead loomed a black pit which he knew marked the water course.

Suddenly it flashed into Jack's mind that in former times, before the bridge had been built, there had been a ford at the point.

The banks, steep elsewhere, almost wall-like in fact, were still graded at the place where the old crossing spot had been.

He jerked over the steering wheel with a suddenness that threatened to overturn the Wondership. The auto-craft plunged wildly to one side and then rushed downward.

Before he realized it, Jack had steered her into the rushing waters of the swollen creek.

"All the power you've got," he cried to Tom, as the Wondership careened and tipped madly and then recovered an even keel. Jack headed her up stream while Tom, who hardly knew what had happened, blindly obeyed orders.

Jack's chief fear was that the rush of the torrential water would carry him too far down to make a landing on the opposite side of the old ford. In that case they would be in a bad fix, for the creek ran for some distance between steep walls of limestone rock.

It was a hard struggle. The twin propellers beat the air furiously, clawing the Wondership up stream, while the water hissed and roared all about her, and the engine labored with a noise like that of a giant locust.

And then, almost before he knew it, and before either Tom or the doctor realized in the least what had happened, they found themselves safe on the other side. They had gained the opposite slope of the ford with hardly an inch to spare, but that was enough.

The Wondership sped up the bank as if glad to be free of the battle with the swollen creek, and not half an hour afterward they rolled up to High Towers.

Dr. Mays was met almost tearfully by Mrs. Bagley.

"How is he?" was his first question.

"He seems to be better, doctor, but something is worrying him," said the worthy woman.

"I'll go up to him at once. You boys had better stay here," said the doctor.

The physician was upstairs a long time. When he came down he looked grave.

"Is dad any better?" asked Jack anxiously.

"He is suffering from a nervous breakdown due to overwork," said the doctor. "The cut on his head is a mere flesh wound. But he appears to have something on his mind. Do you know what it is?"

Then, and not till then, for in the rush of events he had completely forgotten it, Jack remembered the letter from the brokers.

"Dr. Mays," he said, "you are an old friend?"

"I hope so, my boy. You may confide in me freely if you know any reason for your father's disquiet."

"If you will read this, doctor, you will understand," and Jack handed him the letter.

Dr. Mays read it with knitted brows.

"So this explains it," he said as he returned it to Jack. "Your father kept muttering about foolish speculations and ruin, but would not tell me what he meant. Now it is all clear. Poor Chadwick, I'm afraid from what he said that his fortune, all but a small amount, is wiped out."

"But will he get better, doctor?" asked Jack anxiously, disregarding the monetary aspect of the affair.

"That all depends," said the doctor seriously, "on his freedom from anxiety."

"You mean that he must not worry over money matters?"

"Precisely; but, as that letter states he is ruined, it will be hard to set his mind at rest. If there were only some way of meeting the situation!"

In the crucible of that moment an idea was borne to Jack that was destined to lead him into strange paths.

"I think I know of a way," he said quietly, "that is, if the brokers' message is not exaggerated."

But it was not. The next day confirmatory reports arrived of the wreck of Mr. Chadwick's fortunes. In his room, attended constantly by Dr. Mays, his friend as well as physician, the inventor raved of his losses.

"We have got to think of some way of easing his mind," said Dr. Mays, who had placed his regular practice in the hands of another doctor so that he might be with Mr. Chadwick. "If only his fortune could be won back."

"I think I know of a way," said Jack quietly.

The doctor stared at him as if he thought the boy had taken leave of his senses.

"You know of a way?" he questioned incredulously.

"Yes, sir. At least if the information Tom and I have on the subject is correct."

"I don't follow you," said the puzzled doctor. "Your father has lost thousands."

Jack nodded.

"I know all that," he said.

"And yet you are prepared to get it back?"

"I said I thought there was a possibility," was Jack's quiet reply.