CHAPTER XII THE PELICAN MAKES ITS FIRST FLIGHT

Based on his hasty examination of the aeroplane, young Osborne instantly suggested a few improvements or reinforcements. As most of the work yet to be done, such as the attachment of the rudder, landing skis, and wheels, would increase the car so much in size that it could not be taken in and out of the shop, everything was immediately moved out of doors.

Then, before actual labor began, Captain Anderson suggested that they go into the house for a few moments. Andy chuckled. He knew that the captain wanted to acquaint his suspicious wife with the turn in affairs—possibly the captain was afraid that Mrs. Osborne might make a real attack with her skillet.

Andy could not but envy the young aviator’s natty figure and the professional look about him. It was with considerable pride that he presented Osborne to Mrs. Anderson and his mother.

“Maybe you don’t know about him,” began Andy while Roy protested and grew red in the face, “but there isn’t anyone in America, young or old, who knows any more about flyin’ machines than he does. There’s a book about him, and he ain’t but—how old are you?” exclaimed the boy.

“Oh, I can’t vote yet,” laughed Roy. “This is certainly a beautiful place for a home, Mrs. Anderson.”

“And that book tells how he figured out an aeroplane express in the deserts of Utah and found a lost tribe of Indians—”

“But I can’t see that anything I did was half as remarkable as the making of a complete aeroplane down here,” broke in Roy.

“I never saw a regular flying machine,” said Mrs. Anderson, “but this one doesn’t look like one to me. Do you think it is all right?”

“No aeroplane is absolutely all right,” answered Roy smiling. “But this one out there is correct so far as I understand aeroplanes. Anyway, I’m going to test this one out, and I don’t expect to kill myself doing it.”

“How far can you go in it?” asked Mrs. Leighton.

“If it works all right, I could go easily from here to Lake Worth, or back over the Everglades, or even across to the Bahamas—”

“To the Bahamas?” broke in Andy.

“Certainly,” affirmed Roy. “I understand they aren’t over eighty-five or ninety miles away. But I shan’t do any of these things. I’ll make a thorough test of the apparatus and then show Andy how to operate it.”

“Andy!” exclaimed Mrs. Leighton in alarm.

“I promised to,” explained Roy, surprised. “That is, if he wants to try it.”

But Mrs. Leighton was shaking her head.

“That’s part of my business, you know. I’ve taught a good many persons and have never yet had an accident.”

“I don’t think I want him to learn,” said Mrs. Leighton slowly.

“Mother,” spoke up Andy, with energy, “didn’t you say I could try to operate this car when Captain Anderson asked you to let me do it?”

“I—believe I did,” conceded that lady hesitatingly.

“Well, Captain Anderson,” exclaimed Andy stoutly, “don’t you want me to try it?”

“If Mr. Osborne tests it out and takes you up and shows you how, I think it’ll be all right.”

“There,” urged the boy facing his mother, “are you going to keep your word?”

“Let’s see what Mr. Osborne has to say about it after he has tried it,” pleaded the boy’s mother.

That was all the concession Andy wanted.

At three o’clock the Pelican was completed.

“You have to wait for the wind to go down, don’t you?” asked Captain Anderson. “That’ll be about five o’clock.”

Roy shook his head.

“Some do,” he said, “but with a perfectly-made machine and a powerful engine, I like a fair breeze.” He looked about. “I’m all ready.”

The river shore at each side of Captain Anderson’s place was crossed by a wire fence. On the south side of the pier, the hard, white sand stretched like a road for miles. Here and there was a little driftwood. Captain Anderson removed the fence with a few blows of an axe, while Andy ran down the shore to remove the driftwood.

“I suppose you think it strange I don’t help,” said Roy to Mrs. Anderson and Mrs. Leighton, who were on the pier. “But that’s the first thing an aeroplane operator has to learn. When I make an extensive flight, I do no work that day if I can help it. My assistants fill the tanks and get the car in place. I save every bit of muscle and nerve force I have.”

“You haven’t stuck to your rule to-day,” suggested Mrs. Leighton a little anxiously. “You’ve worked harder than the others.”

“Oh, this isn’t a real flight,” explained Roy. “I mean one in which you’re going to do stunts in the way of an exhibition. I shan’t go high or far. If I were going up several thousand feet—”

“Several thousand feet!” exclaimed both ladies.

“The safety in aeroplane work,” Roy explained, “is in going very high or very low—no middle ground. Either go so low that a fall won’t hurt you, or get up so high that if anything happens, your machine will have time to get into a glide.”

The fence having been removed and the beach cleared, the taut, bird-like aeroplane was carefully trundled around the pier and out on the sand facing south, from which direction the breeze was blowing. Andy and the captain were visibly nervous.

Then, as if it had just occurred to him, Roy said he would test the engine once more. Mrs. Anderson and Mrs. Leighton had followed close behind. Roy turned with a smile.

“You ladies had better step to one side,” he suggested. “There’ll be quite a commotion behind. Take hold of her,” he said to the captain and Andy.

He located Captain Anderson and Andy at the rear of the car on opposite sides of the rudder frame and told them to sit on the ground and dig heel holes in the sand as if pulling on a rope in a tug-of-war.

“And pull your hats over your eyes,” he ordered. “Hold your heads down and hang on until you get the word to ‘let go’.”

The captain, not less eagerly than Andy, did as directed, and Roy, having turned the propeller blades into place, started the engine. The first whirr of the big blades began to agitate the loose sand and dry grass. Then the young aviator turned on more power. The agitation grew into a breeze, and that into a tornado-like storm of wind. The boy and the man on the ground felt the aeroplane pulling, and as it began to tug at its human anchors and rock from side to side, Roy quickly shut off the engine.

“Fine,” he remarked without excitement, as the dust and grass settled and Andy and the captain shook the dirt from their faces. “Nothing the matter with that engine.” Then with another look about and a “feel” of the hand for the wind, he walked to the front of the car.

The breeze seemed a little stronger now. As the young aviator noticed this, he ran into the boathouse and appeared with his coat. This he buttoned and then turned up the collar.

“There’s just a chance that I’ll have to go up a little to turn and get back on the beach,” he explained, “and you don’t have to go very high to find it considerably cooler.”

Then he turned the visor of his cap to the rear, and climbed into the seat.

“Hold on till you get the word,” he commanded. At the same moment he started the engine again.

Once more the rush of wind behind told the power of the revolving propellers. Roy did not look behind. One hand on the engine valve and the other on the lever control, he sat unmoving. Lower and lower dropped the heads of the captain and Andy, as their heels sank into the sand and their hands gripped the framework—the fragile car was throbbing with power and the propellers were no longer visible.

“She’s slippin’—!”

“Let go!” shouted Roy.

As the captain and the boy fell backward, the untested aeroplane darted forward. For a few yards, it bounded up and down, and then, as if gathering new force, shot straight over the smooth sand.

Once it seemed about to rise, and then, striking the beach again, the aviator seemed to lose control of the machine. The rushing aeroplane shot sideways, as if to dash into the shallow river. Again it sprang upward, and again darted toward the river. Just as the forward wheel touched the water, the great planes caught the breeze, poised themselves for an instant, and rose in the air like a fluttering duck. Twice its rear wheels touched the surface of the river, and then the spectators could see Roy shoot the bird-tail rudder shaft to the rear and the pinions fly upwards.

“He’s off!” shouted Andy.

“You bet he is!” shouted Captain Anderson just as vigorously. “She’s flyin’!”

On the sand, Andy raced back and forth, as if he had lost his senses. With a loud whoop of joy, he turned a handspring as the only relief for his bottled-up excitement.

Out over the river the Pelican flew a few hundred feet, and then, veering toward the beach, began to rise. Her propellers seemed to sound louder as she lifted herself. And southward, Roy held her, between two hundred and three hundred feet above the beach, for perhaps a half mile.

Then her operator began to mount higher. As he did so, he turned out over the water and brought the machine about toward the north, at least eight hundred feet above the water.

Andy ran to his mother and threw his arm around her.

“Watch it!” he cried. “Isn’t it a wonder?”

But his mother was too astounded to make a reply.

Having tested the machine, Roy could not resist one of his exhibition stunts. His propellers going full speed, he headed the car toward the beach at a point a little south of where the fence had stood.

Coming directly toward his audience, his speed could only be guessed by the rapidly growing outlines of the car.

This was shooting downward like some swift bird in search of prey. At the angle at which it was traveling, it must surely dash itself on the beach.

“Look out!” yelled Andy, alarmed.

Then something happened. With coolness that had come only with many flights, the boy in the machine made two swift motions. As one hand shut off the engine, the other shot back the rudder lever. The darting machine responded to the guiding planes, rose lightly as if it had struck an atmospheric hill, and then, the propellers coming to an instant stop, the machine floated gracefully forward as if on invisible tracks. Touching its wheels daintily on the ground a few times, it came to a gentle run which ended as Roy gradually applied the wheel brake.

“She wants a little ballast on the right side,” said Roy as he slid from his seat. Then he reached out his hands to the captain and Andy, and said, with a laugh:

“Any time you gentlemen need jobs, I’ll undertake to get them for you in Newark. Your machine is all right. The bird-tail guide certainly helps. I found a little trouble to start because I didn’t give it enough play; I didn’t allow for the counter-action. But it certainly helps. Did you see the turn? With a plain rudder, I’d have come almost to a standstill doing that. I had a dip, but nothing like the usual one.”

“Do you think we can get a patent on it?” asked Andy almost perfunctorily, for he was already feeling the engine cylinders and inspecting the shafts for hot bearings.

“I don’t know,” said Roy, loosening his coat and reversing his cap. “The idea I’ve heard of before—maybe it is patented. But I’d try. And, if you can, I hope you’ll give us the first chance at it—I mean our company.”

“Weren’t you scared?” asked Mrs. Leighton.

“Mrs. Leighton,” answered Roy, “you can’t make an aviator—he’s born. That is, you can’t educate away fear. I am scared sometimes, but it’s from the engine behind my back, never because of the height at which I’m working. But I wish they’d put an engine where you could watch it. A hundred feet up or three thousand, it’s all the same to me. The engine is what I’m afraid of. But here’s one I’m less afraid of than any I ever saw.”

The short winter day was coming to an end, but the sun was yet above the horizon. The breeze had dropped a little. Andy turned suddenly from his examination of the motor and whispered to Roy. The latter smiled and nodded his head.

“Mother,” said Andy, “Mr. Osborne won’t be here long. I’m going up with him.”

“I—” began Mrs. Leighton. “Are you sure it’s safe, Mr. Osborne?”

“We can never be sure of that,” answered Roy. “But I’d rather trust myself in an aeroplane than on a motorcycle.”

“What if your engine stopped?” suggested the disturbed woman.

“It stopped just now. Or, I stopped it,” added Roy. “I can’t go up without the engine, but I can come down without it.”

“Well—” began Mrs. Leighton.

“Can you hold her alone, Captain Anderson?” shouted Andy joyously, knowing that consent had been given.

“I can hold her until she pulls away,” responded the captain soberly, “and when she does that, I guess she’ll be pullin’ some.”

“That’ll do,” said Roy. “Climb aboard.”

Three minutes later, Andy Leighton rose from the ground in his first aeroplane flight—but not the last by any means.