Islands in the Air | Page 3

astounding revelations to sleep I went out to take a turn or two about the lawn in an effort to get the thing thoroughly analyzed before committing myself to sponsor a scheme that seemed to be the most impossible thing ever conceived by the mind of man.
As I went down the porch steps I fancied I heard a slight scraping noise from the direction of my study window. I looked that way and for a moment thought I saw a vague shadowy form emerge from the deeper shadows and disappear over the porch railing. But as the sky was overcast and the gloom deep in that particular quarter I dismissed the notion.
For more than an hour I paced up and down the drives and across the lawn thinking over the professor's words. The result of it all was that I finally concluded to back him financially.
CHAPTER II
The Secret of Walnut Ridge
WE HAD no difficulty purchasing the desired tract on Walnut Ridge. We enclosed it with a high, woven wire fence topped by five strands of barbed wire. Our workmen were selected carefully, housed to keep their mouths shut. As secretly as possible the material of diverse sorts was collected on the ridge and the actual work of construction began. The few reporters and other curious humans that found their way out through the wilderness to the plant were sent on the wrong trail by the report that we were about to test out special iron mining machinery and make borings for other minerals.
While our electricians under the able direction of a little red-headed Scotchman named McCann were familiar with all the workings of the intricate machinery, motors, transformers and so on, no one understood the complete working principle save the professor himself, although McCann, being canny and deep, I credited with understanding more than he let on. Certain it is that the professor was in love with him and trusted him implicitly. The professor was everywhere, tireless, secretive, and often provoking. Sometimes he worked far into the night when all others had sought their beds.
As for myself I wandered about from one section to another in a maze of doubt and wonder. The whole thing was too deep for me, and I thought so much on the subject that it began to rob me of my sleep. Besides, the Professor's taciturnity finally began to irritate me. Although I was furnishing all the money he did not offer to divulge the inner secrets of his scheme. My wonder was intensified as the sky islands, two in number and located one near each end of the enclosure, began to take form. These islands were fashioned out of structural steel, were square in form and about one hundred yards from rim to rim. Although their superstructure was built of light-weight materials, each must have weighed many thousands of tons burdened as they were with machinery of many kinds--oscillators, condensers, motors and diverse other machines whose names and offices were known only to the Professor.
Besides the machines on the islands, others were sheltered by small buildings on the ground. At three corners of each island were short mastheads with powerful lights and at the fourth rose a taller masthead bearing a revolving airplane beacon. I knew that the Professor proposed to raise this great mass into the air by wireless control, to suspend it there and raise and lower it at will. Having had the theory dinned into my ears for many days I naturally absorbed some of the faith of its inventor, but as the work progressed I began to have misgivings and to fear that, after all, his mind was unbalanced.
Of course the public was not admitted to the grounds. I began to suspect that many doubted the iron machinery story, for several reporters and photographers finally came to visit us and were turned away with a sharp rebuke.
One of our first tasks consisted of clearing a landing field, after which Greta always brought the Professor and me over in her plane--a remarkable machine in its way. Although she did not understand these air islands any more than I, she criticized the Professor for evolving them and was sceptical of their success.
We heard and saw little of Van Beck, but Greta saw him often--as I afterward learned. Then one day she swooped down suddenly out of the sky, climbed from the cabin of the plane and was followed by Van Beck.
Professor Stiener glared, but Van Beck grinned amiably through his black, bushy beard.
"Sir, you must know that you are not wanted here," fumed the Professor. He turned savagely to Greta. "What is the meaning of this, Greta?"
"Why Professor Van Beck is an old friend," she said innocently. "I just landed here without thinking. I beg your pardon, Gustave. We will be going."
Greta