The Airplane Boys among the Clouds | Page 5

car overhauled,
and put in apple-pie condition?"
"It might be a good thing, Marsh," the other promptly answered, as he
detected the signal wink his companion gave. "You know they say an
ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure. And unless
something is done we stand a chance of being thrown over a precipice,
when that weak place in the machinery gives way suddenly."
"All right, then; we'll stop," remarked the gentleman with the glittering
eyes, as if the new idea quite appealed to him. "I'd like to see
something of these Bird boys. They have a future before them, I believe.
And if I'm any judge of up-to-date things I even suspect they've gone
and applied that latest device the Wrights patented, where a little
pendulum under the machine warps the planes automatically, at the
slightest motion of the body, keeping the aeroplane in an exactly
horizontal position."
"Oh! they're up to snuff, all right, take it from me," declared Elephant,
with an air of pride, since it was his friends whose praises were being
sung, and he could bask in the reflected light.

"I bet you there ain't anything going on in aviation circles that them two
boys don't know," put in Larry, enthusiastically. "They take all sorts of
papers and magazines, and spend every living day in that old shop. I
knew something was on, and there she is, all hatched out. Poor old
Percy, won't he just want to crawl back into his hole, though, when he
learns this?"
"Rats! you don't know him if you think that!" exclaimed Elephant. "Ten
to one he plays Frank and Andy a close second. Right now that sharper
has got cards hidden up his sleeve, and ready to surprise everybody.
Didn't he slip away early in the spring, and go down to New York? You
watch his smoke, I tell you, Larry. No, Perc ain't giving up till he has to,
and that won't be till the race is run. Just wait!"
"I declare, that's a queer thing to allow!" exclaimed Longley, who had
picked up the glasses and with them swept the surface of the lake, as
well as surveyed the hovering biplane that had walked on the water like
an aquatic bird.
"What now?" asked Mr. Marsh, looking a little nervous.
"Why, see that boat floating out yonder, the plaything of the breeze that
seems to be rising?" asked the other, still using the binoculars.
"I see what you mean," remarked Mr. Marsh, "and it seems to have
drifted away from the shore. Is that some man lying down in it? There,
I saw the object move then. What is it, Longley?"
"A little baby, hardly more," came the startling reply. "Oh! he was
nearly over the side, that time. However in the wide world do you
suppose the child ever came to be in that boat? Here, take a look.
Marsh. Another tilt like that, and the child will be drowned for certain!"
"Why, it must be Tommy Cragan, the fisherman's baby," said Larry, his
face turning a bit gray with alarm. "I've seen the little shaver playing
around his daddy's boat many a time. It must have floated off; and now
it's away out on the lake, where the water is twenty feet deep!"

"Cracky! that's tough on poor old Cragan, with his wife sick abed!"
groaned the sympathetic Elephant, as he strained his eyes to watch.
"If the child would only remain quiet there would be little danger,"
remarked Mr. Marsh, who was still looking through the glasses, as
though something about the picture fascinated him.
"That's the trouble," remarked his companion, quickly, "the little chap
is getting frightened, or else bolder, for he keeps leaning far over all the
time. Can nothing be done to save the child? If I could swim I'd take a
chance at it myself."
"We could run as fast as anything to Cragan's, sir," declared Elephant,
"or perhaps you could take us in, and we'd show you the way there. He
might have another boat, and would put out to save Tommy."
"I'm afraid that would be too late, good though the intention might
seem," the man said regretfully.
"I can swim like a duck, sir. What's to hinder me jumping in and trying
to get out there to him in time?" demanded Larry, hastening to start
removing his shoes as he spoke.
"It's a long way out there, my boy, and you might take a cramp," said
Longley.
"But I'm willing to try it, sir. Besides, the rest of you could be heading
for Cragan's fish house, and seeing if he's around. I know that little
chap, and he's the idol of his daddy's heart. It'll nigh about kill Amiel if
the kid was drowned."
Even