The Boy Scouts of the Flying Squadron Part 4

But thank goodness, these things must all have an end, and Bud heaved a sigh of profound thanksgiving when finally he saw signs of dawn appear through the open window.

"Day's coming on, and we're all on deck with nothing gone wrong!" he observed loud enough for the others to hear him. This chanced to be one of Bud's ways of informing his chums that he thought it high time they turned out for "reveille."

As there was no use in trying to sleep any longer with the anxious Bud on deck, since this was to be looked upon as his particular day, Hugh and Ralph followed the other's example, and were soon hustling out to wash in water that nearly froze their fingers it was so cold.

The sun was nearing the horizon, and from all indications it promised to be just such a day as the one before had proved; which fact delighted Bud immensely.

"Because," he explained after giving an exhibition of a Highland Fling to allow some of his pent-up enthusiasm to escape, "this is the day a Morgan is going to win fame or else make the grandest foozle you ever saw."

CHAPTER V

THE "FOOL-PROOF" AEROPLANE

"That was a good breakfast, all right, but I'm glad it's over," Bud remarked some time later.

Ralph, of course, did not exactly understand what this meant, but Hugh knew. He was in the confidence of the young inventor far enough to appreciate his eagerness to be at work. He knew what had brought Bud all the way up to this lonely spot, in order that none of the town boys might spy upon him while trying out his latest wonderful invention.

Truth to tell, Bud had taken a most intense interest in aviation of late. Everything that bore upon the subject fascinated the boy, and he dreamed of making the name of Morgan famous through some remarkable invention connected with the work of the daring airmen.

He had confessed to Hugh in strict confidence that he had managed to fashion a little model aeroplane that he believed to be uncapsizable.

Many more mature minds than that of Bud Morgan had been wrestling with this important question for years, because it was pretty generally understood that when this condition had been really attained, the sport of aviation would advance with great bounds. Make navigating the upper air currents practically safe, and thousands would take up flying just as they had the driving of automobiles when the road racers had been perfected as they are to-day.

The huge packages which the two scouts had staggered under during their weary hike from the road where the accommodating farmer had dropped them, really contained the said model. It was not of very large size, and the little engine which was to drive it really weighed as much as the rest of the thing; but Bud declared that it would answer all his purposes, and prove whether he had been wasting his time and spending money uselessly of late or not.

Once the breakfast had been disposed of, Bud was trembling with eagerness to get started. He could not understand why the others should delay so, when time was slipping away.

Presently they left the cabin, closing the door behind them. All of the blankets, as well as their food supplies, had been left inside, and they did not want any wandering wild animal like a 'c.o.o.n or a fox to make way with the latter during their absence at the proving grounds. It was this same caution that urged Hugh to cover up the aperture through which they had obtained fresh air during the night just past, and which went by the name of a window.

The open field which Bud had once before mentioned as the very place for the trial spins with his aeroplane model was not very far distant.

The man who had originally started to make a farm away up here had diligently cut down trees for a s.p.a.ce of several acres. He had also grubbed the ground so thoroughly that it had remained clear all these years, save for an annual crop of gra.s.s, now withered and dead.

"If we can help any, Bud, just tell us what to do," Hugh said to the inventor, after the three boys had come to a halt on the border of this open s.p.a.ce.

"That's the kind of talk I like to hear, Hugh," the other replied, looking up with a smile on his anxious face. "Just wait till I get these covers off, and then you'll see what I've been doing all these months when some of the fellows were kidding me on being a regular old book worm and not wanting to come out and play even football with them. It was the hardest kind of work, but if she even goes a little, I'll think it wasn't time wasted. All I want is encouragement; I've got the bull-dog grit to carry it on all right."

"I reckon you have, Bud," was the only comment Hugh made; and he ought to know, because Bud was a member of the Wolf patrol and the leader had watched him work many a time as though there were no such word as "fail" in his lexicon.

So Bud busied himself in undoing stout cords and opening both bundles.

When Hugh saw the nature of the load he had been packing up the side of Stormberg Mountain, he shook his head and laughed.

"What did you think I was, Bud, a mule, or a Chinese porter used to carrying as much as half a ton on his back?" he demanded. "Why, that engine would have given me a bad scare if I'd seen it beforehand.

And I toted that all the way up here from the road, did I? Well, anyway, I've earned the right to boast after this. A motor is no light load, I don't care how small it may be. Don't you agree with me, Ralph?"

Ralph was chuckling to himself, seemingly much amused.

"I should say yes," he replied; "and I don't wonder you complained of feeling a touch of pain in the muscles of your back last night, Hugh.

But really the load Bud took himself was larger and just about as heavy as yours, you see."

"Oh! he gave me my choice. I saw it was six of one and half a dozen of the other, so I took the smaller one. I reckon I'll be ready to tackle a house next time, after having a motor on my back."

Bud set to work a.s.sembling the various parts of his model. In some respects it was rather a crude imitation of a monoplane, but for practical purposes no doubt it would answer just as well as the most elegant model. What Bud wanted to find out most of all was whether he had been working on the right principle. If that turned out to be correct he could afford to have a better model made; then he could take up the idea with some of those capitalists who were interested in building airships of all kinds.

For once Bud was supreme. He gave his orders and the others obeyed.

Even Hugh, accustomed to being the leader, willingly a.s.sumed the air of a novice, though Bud knew very well that the other had studied the subject of aviation very thoroughly and was competent to advise in a pinch.

By slow degrees Bud managed to get his planes adjusted and the tiny motor installed. Hugh, in a quiet and unostentatious way, often a.s.sisted him to overcome some difficulty that arose; so that Bud declared he did not know how he could have managed without the other's help in tightening wire stays and installing the motor.

At last the work seemed to have been accomplished. Bud said he could fix the rudder of the model so that when once it was in the air, it would continue to make revolutions for a certain time. He declared it would actually fly around the field slowly until the measured stock of gasoline had been exhausted, when of course it would drop to the ground as the engine ceased to work.

"You see I expect to manage by means of this cord," he explained.

"I'll chase along below, and every once in so often try to upset the thing by giving a savage jerk. Then you'll discover whether my device is going to work. If it does half way decently in this clumsy model, it'll pay to install it on a real aeroplane and either go up myself or else have an air pilot do it for me. But say, let me tell you right now that I'm shivering all over as if I had the ague! 'Cause why? In half an hour or so I'm going to know whether I'm IT, or else a lunkhead that ought to be smothered before his fool notions get him into a peck of trouble."

"Oh! I wouldn't put it that way, Bud," advised Hugh. "You mustn't call yourself hard names, even if this invention fails to work. They say Edison has lots of rank failures that the public never hears about; only his brilliant successes become known. Suppose this scheme doesn't do all that you expect it to, why, perhaps you'll see where it falls short and be able to remedy the fault. If you have faith in yourself, it's going to turn out all right every time. Try seventy times seven, and never give up as long as life lasts."

"_Nil desperandum_!" quoted Ralph; "or, as we Americans have it, 'if at first you don't succeed, try, try again!'"

"You just bet I will, fellows," said Bud firmly; "and now let's make the first trial spin."

He had elevated the model so that it would start in the air without the necessity of leaving the ground. This was a minor matter, and only intended to hurry things along.

When the little motor got to work there was an immediate movement of the rough miniature monoplane.

"Hurrah! there she goes!" cried Ralph, really excited when he saw the object of Bud's recent labors actually moving through s.p.a.ce, sustained by the extended pair of planes.

Hugh, too, felt a thrill of delight. He was very fond of Bud, and anything that promised to repay the other scout for his weeks of arduous labor pleased the leader of the Wolf patrol more than he could express in words.

Bud was about the busiest boy any one had ever known. To run along and keep, up with that hurrying model, hanging on to the long stout cord, was no easy task. The rudder had certainly been fixed properly to insure a circuit of the field; but as the ground was very rough in places, Bud had great difficulty in keeping from falling many times.

This was partly on account of the fact that he had to fasten his eyes on the scurrying monoplane model pretty much all the time, and could therefore not pay much attention to where he was going, or see the traps lying in the way of his feet.

He stuck to his task heroically, with grim determination to see it through to the bitter end. Every once in a while he would give the cord a savage jerk. In this way he managed to make the little flier take sudden lurches; but in every instance the model instantly resumed its upright position as soon as the pull was past. It reminded Hugh of prank-loving swimmers attempting to sink a boat built with air chambers, which would bob to the surface triumphantly every time.

So far as one could tell from watching these rather clumsy operations on the part of the inventor, his apparatus for steadying an aeroplane was surely showing signs of being a success. It consisted of a small iron bar weighing an ounce or so, which was hung as a pendulum from an arm projecting from under the operator's seat. This pendulum was so delicately set that it seemed to respond to the slightest deviation of the aeroplane from the horizontal.

As the excited inventor explained to his chums, after he had allowed the craft to come to earth again, not without some little damage which precluded another flight that day, it was a very simple thing after all. If the craft was thrown from its balance in any way, the movement of this pendulum would cause two little valves to open.

This would make the compression from the engine force a piston back and forth, which communicated with the warping levers and automatically accomplished what had up to that time, Bud went on to say, been done by the hand of the busy aviator. Thus a mechanical balancer had been arranged, so that the pilot need never bother himself as to whether a stiff gale were blowing or not, since practically nothing could upset his craft.

"It looks to me as if you had a good idea there, Bud," said Hugh; "and unless somebody's been ahead of you in the field, it ought to make you famous as an inventor. Perhaps when you try it again to-morrow, after mending your planes, you'll discover a few ways in which it can be improved. Never believe anything is perfect the first time. And now, shall we gather it up again and carry it to the cabin?"

"You're awfully kind, Hugh!" declared the happy Bud, whose face was rosy from his recent tremendous exertions and from the glow of satisfied ambition. "I am convinced that I haven't been wasting my time, even if I'm only harrowing in a field some other fellow may have plowed before me."

They managed to get the miniature aeroplane over to the shack, though it was no light burden, taken all in all. Bud, however, was feeling so pleased that he could have done the work of an ox himself. There is nothing like satisfaction to bring out unsuspected powers in a boy; and just then Bud believed he could have carried as great a load as any Turkish _hamel_ or porter.

Leaving the queer looking contrivance outside the door, Bud hurried in as though something that he had suddenly thought of was bothering him.

A minute later he burst into view again, a row of wrinkles across his forehead and words of alarm sounding from his lips.