“I’m glad Mr. Havens is coming,” Jimmie said with a sigh of relief.
“I said it was the Ann!” Ben returned after another long look. “I didn’t say Mr. Havens was flying her! It seems to me that the man on board doesn’t know as much about the aviation game as Mr. Havens does. She’s wobbling about something frightful!”
CHAPTER III.
JIMMIE’S DARING FEAT
In ten minutes all doubts as to the identity of the aviator were dissipated by a signal from the sky which the boys all understood. Besides informing the boys of his presence, the signal also conveyed the intelligence that he was in need of assistance.
“I wish I had a ladder long enough to reach him!” Jimmie grumbled.
“We’ve got a ladder long enough to reach him!” insisted Carl.
Almost before the words were out of his chum’s mouth, Jimmie was whirling the wheels of the Louise down the valley so as to get a good running ground, the machine having been drawn close to the fire after lighting. Understanding the boy’s purpose, Carl lent a hand, and the aeroplane was soon facing a clear field.
“What are you boys going to do?” asked Ben.
“We’re going up in the Louise to see what we can do for Mr. Havens!” Jimmie answered. “Didn’t he say he needed help?”
“You can’t help him after you get up there!” declared Ben.
“We can tell better about that after we get to him.”
“All right, go it!” replied the other. “I’ll remain here and watch the Bertha and the camp while you’re gone. But look here,” he continued, “if Mr. Havens is in bad shape, don’t either one of you boys try to shift over to the Ann. If you do, you’ll break your neck.”
The next moment the Louise was in the air, her lights burning brilliantly. The Ann was still approaching, but staggering as if the aviator had lost all control. Below the boys saw Ben piling dry pine on the fire so as to provide a broadly-lighted landing-place for the oncoming machine.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do when we get up there,” Jimmie shouted in Carl’s ear, “but there’s one thing sure, and that is that if we don’t do something Mr. Havens will soon go crashing to the ground!”
The boys were now obliged to give over conversation, for the motors were in swift motion and the roar of an express train could hardly have been heard above the sparking.
When at last they came close to the Ann and swung about so as to move with her, they saw Mr. Havens sitting limply in the aviator’s seat. His chin was lowered upon his breast, and he appeared to be too weak or too dazed in mind to look up as the Louise swept past him, whirled and moved along directly above him.
The boys saw that the great machine was rapidly getting beyond his control. Had he understood the nature of the ground below, he might have shut off his motors and volplaned down, but they understood, of course, that the dark surface below was unknown territory to him.
For some reason, probably because the disabled aviator had realized that he was fast reaching his objective point and shut the motors down to half power, the Ann was not making good speed. The Louise slowed down so as to keep exact step with her and Jimmie bent over in his seat and looked past the edge of the upper plane to the framework and propeller of the Ann. Directly he sent the Louise faster for a second and looked under the edge of the Ann’s upper wing to the vacant seat at the left of the aviator.
“Do you think,” he shrilled into Carl’s ear, “that I could get down into that seat?”
“Of course you can’t!” answered Carl.
“I could if I had a rope!” insisted Jimmie.
“There’s a rope in the box under your seat,” Carl replied, “but there’s no need of your attempting suicide!”
“Now, look here!” Jimmie argued, speaking very slowly and shouting to the full capacity of his lungs in order to make his chum hear his words, “if you can hold this machine steadily above the Ann, without varying half an inch in her pace, I can drop past the upper plane of the lower machine, light on the framework, and climb into that seat.”
“No one ever heard of such a thing being done!” declared Carl.
Before the words were out of Carl’s mouth, Jimmie had the rope in his hands. He fastened it securely to the framework of the Louise and dropped one end down.
“Now,” he called to Carl, “unless you hold the Louise exactly right, you’ll get the rope tangled in the Ann’s propeller, and then it will be all up with all of us!”
The boy’s face was pale as death as, motioning Carl to shift his weight as much as possible so as to prevent the Louise swaying when he changed his position, the boy took hold of the rope and lowered himself.
In a second he felt his body brushing against the framework of the Ann’s top wing. Then the rope began twisting and untwisting under his weight, and he whirled round and round like a top, until he became possessed by a feeling of dizziness.
He could see the ground, red with firelight, where the tents were and nothing else. He sensed that both machines were passing over the camp. At last, after what seemed to him an eternity, the twisting rope brought him face to the vacant seat and to the disabled aviator, whose hands were limply touching the levers.
When at last the boy’s feet touched the framework and he let go of the rope to cling to the edge of the plane, it seemed that the swaying of the machine must certainly throw him to the ground. However, he steadied himself for an instant, lowered himself at the knees and half fell forward clutching the seat when his outstretched hands came to it.
For a moment it did not seem possible that he was ever to recover his faculties again. Everything was in a whirl. The stars in the sky, the red light of the camp-fire on the cliff to the east, the dark bulk of the mountains farther away, all seemed mixed in a great jumble, in which nothing was distinct and everything seemed to be mixed with everything else.
When his mind cleared he saw that Mr. Havens’ hands were dropping from the levers. Another instant of indecision or inactivity would have brought death to them both. He seized the levers, and the Ann swung upward again, steady as the hands on the dial under his confident touch.
The rope which he had used still hung down from the Louise and, reaching forward, he gave it several quick jerks to indicate that he was safe. Then he saw the Louise shoot ahead, and knew that Carl was looking back toward him. The rope had been drawn up as soon as his signals had been received. The warning against permitting it to become entangled in the propellers of the Ann had been remembered by Carl.
Both machines were now some distance west of the camp-fire, but the boys came slowly around and dropped. During the last few yards of the slanting journey through the dark air, Jimmie was obliged to steady Mr. Havens in his seat. When at last the strain was over and the great flying machines lay on the rich grass below, the millionaire aviator fairly fell from his seat.
When Carl and Ben came forward to greet Jimmie, their faces were as white as snow. Their hands trembled as they extended them to the boy.
“He would do it!” Carl exclaimed. “I tried to get him not to!”
“Some one had to do it!” declared Jimmie, pointing significantly to the huddled figure on the ground by the side of the Ann.
“It’s a wonder you didn’t kill yourself and Mr. Havens and Carl also,” exclaimed Ben. “Why, look here, boys,” he went on with a trembling voice, “if that rope had swung out a few inches farther, you would have been ground to pieces in the propellers, and the Ann would have dropped to the ground