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The Flying Girl
CHAPTER XXIII
A BATTLE IN THE AIR
“What is she doing now?” asked Mrs. Kane, anxiously.
“Soaring in the air about half a mile high and a half mile to the northward,” replied Steve.
“And performing wonders,” added Sybil, with enthusiasm. “I had no idea the aircraft could be controlled so perfectly.”
“Nor I,” admitted the young inventor, modestly. “It really seems like a thing of life under her management, and I am sure I could not have exhibited its good points half as well as little Ris is doing.”
“Are any other aëroplanes flying?” Mrs. Kane inquired.
“Oh, yes,” said Sybil. “There are several in the air, doing really marvelous things; but all seem to keep away from Orissa and are more to the south of us. There’s one, though!” she added suddenly. “Isn’t that an aëroplane coming from the far north, Steve?”
He looked carefully through the field glasses he held.
“Why – yes! It surely is an aëroplane. But how did it get over there?” he exclaimed. “I’ve been watching the other contestants, and they’re all near by. Who can it be?”
Sybil had glasses, too, and she focussed them on the approaching airship.
“It looks very much like Uncle Burthon’s imitation of the aircraft,” she murmured.
“By Jove! That’s what it is!” cried Steve. “How dare he fly it, after it has been withdrawn?”
“Uncle Burthon will dare anything,” she retorted, coldly. “But he is making the mistake of his life to-day – if that is really his aëroplane.”
“Why, he’s driving straight toward Orissa,” said Steve, indignantly. “What is the fellow trying to do – bump the aircraft?”
Sybil laid a warning hand on his arm and glanced into the blind woman’s startled face.
“Orissa is all right,” she announced in calm tones.
But Orissa did not seem all right to Steve, who was growing excessively nervous; nor even to Sybil, whose face was stern and set as she watched the maneuvers of the two craft through her powerful glasses.
“It’s Tyler,” she said softly, meaning that the little chauffeur was operating Burthon’s device. Steve nodded, and thereafter they were silent.
Swift as a dart the Burthon aëroplane approached Orissa, who was deliberately circling this way and that as she glided through the air. She saw it coming, but at first paid little heed, thinking Tyler intended to pass by. But he altered his course to keep his machine headed directly for her and in gravely examining the approaching craft the girl noticed two slender steel blades projecting from his front elevator, like extended sword blades. They were slightly upcurved at the points, and while Orissa marveled to see such things attached to an aëroplane the thought occurred to her that if those blades struck her planes they would rend the cloth to shreds and destroy their sustaining surfaces. In that case one result was inevitable – a sudden drop to earth, and death.
Even as this thought crossed her mind the Burthon aëroplane came driving toward her at full speed. Filled with dismay she could only stare helplessly until the thing was so near that she could distinctly see the scowling face and glaring eyes of Tyler, intent on mischief. Then, without realizing her action, she caused the aircraft to duck, and the other swept over her so closely that Tyler’s running gear almost scraped her planes.
Orissa’s machine rolled alarmingly a moment, but she quickly regained control and then looked to see where Tyler was. He had turned and again was swooping toward her, at a slight downward angle. Orissa ascended to escape him, now realizing the man’s wicked determination to destroy the aircraft, and Tyler, displaying unexpected skill, altered his course to follow her.
The girl, thoroughly alarmed, now turned to flee, scarcely realizing what she did. Tyler followed like some huge bird of prey and, curiously enough, gained upon the Kane Aircraft. The two sets of engines were chugging away steadily, all the propellers revolving like clockwork, while the two rival aëroplanes answered obediently the slightest movements of their rudders.
Finding a straight flight would not permit her to escape her enemy, the girl swerved and began circling widely. After her came Tyler, the wicked looking blades that protruded from his elevator gleaming menacingly in the sunlight, his features distorted by hate and murderously determined.
In the circles Orissa seemed able to keep her distance, but the poor child was so bewildered by this pitiless attack that her head was in a whirl and only by instinct could she handle the levers and wheel to guide her flight.
Tyler now observed several aëroplanes approaching at full speed, and realized he must end the chase quickly or be driven from his prey and prevented from carrying out his diabolical design. He made a quick turn to head off Orissa’s circle and the dreadful blades almost touched her lower plane as she dodged them. Tyler swept round again, but in his eagerness forgot his balance. Perhaps the man relied too much on the automatic device that had once brought Stephen to grief; anyway his aëroplane developed a side motion that nearly shook him from his seat. He tried in vain to restore the balance. The jar caused the motors to slip; the engines stopped dead; with a rending sound the huge planes collapsed and the wreck of Burthon’s biplane began to sink downward. Tyler was pitched headlong from his seat, but caught a rail and clung to it desperately as with ever increasing speed the fall to earth continued.
Orissa had witnessed the accident and with the sudden transition from danger to safety the girl’s wits returned and she regained her coolness. As she saw Tyler falling to his death, a quick conception of the situation inspired her to action. The Kane Aircraft suddenly tipped and began one of those tremendous dives through space which it had accomplished earlier in the day. Orissa’s aëroplane was absolutely under control, even at this thrilling moment, while the wreck to which Tyler clung was somewhat restrained in its fall by the mass of fluttering canvas and splintered bows. Although the weight of its engines and tanks dragged it swiftly down, Orissa’s aircraft dove much more rapidly. Five hundred feet above the earth she overtook Tyler, guided her aëroplane dangerously close to the man, and cried out to him to seize it. He may not have heard or understood her, but an instinct of self-preservation such as leads a drowning man to grasp at a straw induced him to clutch her footrail, and at the same moment Orissa turned the machine, so as not to become entangled in the wreck, and began a more gradual descent, the little chauffeur dangling from her footrail while, alert and masterful, the girl controlled her overladen craft.
Down, down they came, and thirty thousand pair of startled, wondering eyes followed them as if entranced. Orissa had not looked to see where she would land, for until this moment she had been so thoroughly occupied with the chase and the rescue of her enemy that she never once glanced toward the ground. But the hand of fate was guiding our brave young aviator. Her aircraft, maintaining a safe angle, settled directly upon Dominguez Field, where Tyler released his hold and rolled unconscious upon the ground. Orissa’s machine sped forward on its running gear and came to a stop just before the crowded grand stand.
No one who witnessed that exciting event will ever forget the mad shouts that rent the air when the Kane Aircraft, safe from its battle in the clouds, came to rest just in front of the gasping throng that had watched it with a fascination akin to horror. A hundred eager onlookers surrounded the machine, plucked the aviator from her seat and held her aloft for all to see, while the discovery that a young girl was the heroine of the terrible adventure caused them to marvel anew.
The applause redoubled; men shouted until they were hoarse; women wept, laughed hysterically and waved their handkerchiefs; everyone stood up to applaud; thousands crowded the field about Orissa, who by this time was herself softly crying, until Stephen, white as a ghost, directed his man to run the motor car through the crowd to his sister’s side and assist her aboard.
Mr. Cumberford took no part in this ovation. He was rushing about the field, flinging everyone out of his way with mad excitement and asking continually: “Where is he? Where is Tyler? What has become of him?”
No one heeded him for a time, as every eye was on Orissa, every individual striving to get near her, to touch her – as if she had been a goddess whose hand could confer untold blessings and remedy the ills of the world. But after a while Cumberford found a man who deigned to give him the desired information.
“The fellow who was rescued?” he said. “Oh, he fainted dead away the minute he touched solid ground.”
“And what became of him?” demanded Cumberford.
“Why, the crowd wanted to mob him, it seemed, and I guess that faint was the only thing that saved him from being torn to pieces.”
“Well – well! What then?”
“Then a tall young fellow grabbed him up, chucked him into an automobile and got away with him.”
“Where?”
“How the blazes do I know, stranger? I only saw them get away, that’s all.”
This information was later confirmed by several others, but Orissa’s manager was unable to learn who had taken Tyler away or where they had gone. Cumberford was in an ugly mood, his heart throbbing with a fierce desire for vengeance. Tyler had escaped him for the moment but he vowed he would never rest until both Burthon and his chauffeur were behind the bars.
He was still pursuing his futile inquiries when Brewster approached him and said his daughter, with Stephen, Orissa and their mother, awaited him at the hangar, which was besieged by an excited throng. Directing the man to look after the aircraft and get it safely housed, he hurried away and managed to squeeze through the mass of humanity surrounding the hangar and gain admittance.
Within he found Orissa the center of a group of aviators who were earnestly congratulating the girl on her escape and flooding her with compliments and praise for her skillful handling of the aëroplane. They were noble fellows, these professional aviators, and unselfish enough to be honestly enthusiastic over Miss Kane’s performances. The girl’s beauty and modesty won them at once, and adding these charming qualities to her cleverness and bravery, to-day fully proven, it is not difficult to understand why Orissa Kane from this moment became a prime favorite with every disciple of aviation.
Just now, however, Orissa was embarrassed and a little distressed by all this laudation, following the spirited ovation tendered her by the public at large, so her nerves were beginning to fail her when by good fortune Mr. Cumberford appeared. He saw at once her condition and without stopping to add a word of praise or congratulation managed to hurry her out of the back entrance, past the surging crowd that was even here in evidence, and into their automobile. The others of the party followed with less difficulty and soon they were all headed for town and speeding swiftly along the roadway.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE CRIMINAL
As soon as Sybil reached her room at the hotel she wrote a line to her uncle, Mr. Burthon, which said: “I have wired to Baltimore.” Summoning a messenger she instructed him to search for Mr. Burthon until he found him and then place the message in his hands. She delayed sending the telegram just then, but was so angry and indignant that she was fully resolved to do so during the evening.
Meantime Orissa, who to an extent had recovered from her excitement, was being petted by the family party in the sitting room that had been reserved for them. Poor Mrs. Kane, having hugged and kissed her child and wept over her terrible danger and miraculous escape, now held the girl’s hand fast in her own and could not bear to let it go. Stephen was full of eager praise and, ignoring for the time the final incident of the flight, led Orissa to talk of her aërial exhibition and the admirable behavior of the aircraft, together with its perfect adjustment and obedience under all conditions.
“You’ve won the prize, dear,” he asserted confidently. “No one else did half as much or did it as well, to say nothing of your skillful dodging of that scoundrel Tyler. But I can’t let you make another flight, little sister. You are too precious to us all for us to let you risk your life in this way. The aircraft will have to stand by its record for that one flight – at least for this meet.”
“Oh, no,” protested Orissa; “I’ll go again to-morrow, Steve. I want to. The sensation is glorious, and I’m sure that monster, Tyler – or his master, Burthon – will be unable to get another aëroplane to chase me. I shall be perfectly safe, for your aircraft was from first to last like a thing with life and intelligence. I understand it, and it understands me.”
“I wonder if Burthon really sent Tyler on that murderous errand,” said Steve, thoughtfully.
“Of course he did!” declared Mr. Cumberford, entering the room in time to hear the remark. “Here’s a letter for you, Orissa, just left at the office, and I’m pretty sure it’s Burthon’s handwriting.”
Orissa took the letter, opened it, and read aloud:
“Do not, I beg of you, my dear Orissa, accuse me of inciting that fool Tyler’s mad attack upon your aëroplane. The man stole the machine from its hangar and, crazed by my withdrawal from the meet, which deprived him of the chance of becoming famous, and inspired by anger toward Cumberford, who had at one time maliciously assaulted him and whom he thought responsible for my withdrawal, he made a desperate attempt to wreck your aëroplane without knowing who was operating it. As soon as I found my machine gone I hurried to Dominguez and arrived in time to see the terrible result of Tyler’s madness and your noble rescue of him. I am leaving the city to-night and may never see your sweet face again, but I do not wish you to misjudge me and have, therefore, made this explanation, which is honest and sincere. I trust you will remember me only as a true and loyal friend who would willingly sacrifice his unhappy life to save you from harm. Now and always faithfully yours,
“George Burthon.”
During the reading Sybil had entered and quietly seated herself, listening with lip scornfully curled to her uncle’s protestations of innocence. For a moment after Orissa finished the letter all were silent. Then said Orissa, gently:
“I’m so glad Mr. Burthon had no hand in it!”
“Bah!” sneered Cumberford; “Burthon is a liar. I don’t believe a word of his lame excuse.”
“Nor I,” added Stephen, gravely. “Tyler is a hired assassin, that’s all. I think Burthon is frightened, and wishes to throw us off the track and put the blame on his tool, before running away.”
“I hope that is a lie, too – about his running away,” said Mr. Cumberford. “If Burthon escapes scot-free I shall be greatly disappointed. But the fellow is so tricky that if he says he is going you may rest assured he means to stay.”
“I think not, Daddy,” remarked Sybil, in her cold, even tones. “My uncle is in earnest this time and I doubt if you ever see or hear of George Burthon again.”
A knock at the door startled the little group. Mr. Cumberford stepped forward and opened it to find a tall, blue-eyed young man standing in the hall. He recognized Mr. Radley-Todd – the Tribune reporter – at once, and said stiffly:
“You are intruding, sir. I left word at the office that Miss Kane and I would see the newspaper men at eight o’clock, but not before.”
He started to close the door, but Chesty Todd inserted one long leg into the opening, smiling pleasantly as he said:
“This isn’t a newspaper errand; let me in.”
Mr. Cumberford let him in, throwing wide the door, for there was an earnest ring in the young fellow’s voice that could not be denied.
After Chesty Todd had entered, stumbling over the rug and bowing low to the ladies, another form shuffled silently through the doorway in his wake – a little, dried-up, withered man with tousled hair, his cap under his arm, a woebegone and hopeless expression on his leathery face.
“Tyler!” cried a surprised chorus.
The ex-chauffeur did not acknowledge the greeting. Chesty, extending one arm toward the man as if he were exhibiting a trained animal, said sternly:
“Down on your knees!”
Tyler bumped his kneecaps upon the floor in an attitude of meek humiliation.
“Now, then!”
“M-m-m – pardon,” gurgled the little chauffeur, not with contrition but rather as an enforced plea for mercy.
Chesty kicked his shins.
“Get up,” he commanded.
Tyler slowly rose, surveyed the group stealthily from beneath his brows and then dropped his eyes again, standing with bowed shoulders before them and nervously twirling his cap in his hands.
“Here,” announced Chesty, pointing impressively to the culprit, “stands the murderous ruffian known to infamy as Totham Tyler. He is at your mercy, prepared to endure any amount of torture or to die ignominiously at the hands of those he has wronged.”
All but Mrs. Kane were staring in amazement first at Tyler, then at his captor. Said Stephen to the latter, curiously:
“You are a detective, I suppose!”
“Merely as a side line,” was the cheerful rejoinder. “Primarily I’m a newspaper reporter, and whenever I strike for a higher salary they tell me I’m a mighty poor journalist. Let me introduce myself. My name is Havely Chesterton Radley-Todd, quite a burden to carry but it all belongs to me. This is my first experience as an imitator of the late lamented Sherlock Holmes, and I may point with pride to the fact that I’ve unraveled the supposed plot to murder Miss Orissa Kane.”
Tyler growled incoherently.
“True,” said Chesty, looking at the man thoughtfully; “the plot was not to murder Miss Kane, but Mr. Cumberford, whom his loving brother-in-law supposed would operate the Kane aeroplane. Incidentally it was planned to so wreck the aircraft – is that what you call it? – that it would be out of commission during the rest of the meet.”
“Why?” asked Stephen.
“To satisfy his petty malice. If Burthon couldn’t fly he didn’t want you to fly, and he hoped to obtain revenge for being driven into exile.”
There was a murmur of surprise at this.
“Who drove Burthon into exile?” asked Cumberford.
“I did,” said Sybil, indifferently.
“Have you seen him, then?” demanded her father.
“Oh, yes; but my uncle is unreliable. Before he obeyed my command to leave this country forever he decided on a final coup, which has fortunately failed.”
“Burthon,” announced Chesty Todd, “boarded an east-bound train an hour ago. I tried to head him off, but he was too slick and escaped me. That is the reason I am now here. I want you to listen to Totham Tyler’s story and then decide whether to wire ahead and have Burthon arrested or let the matter drop. It is really up to you, as the interested parties. So far the police have not had a hand in the game.”
“Please sit down, Mr. Todd,” requested Orissa, shyly. In the tall youth she had recognized the man who had tried to warn her on Dominguez Field, and was grateful to him.
Chesty bowed and sat down. Then he turned to his prisoner and said:
“Fire away, Tyler. Tell the whole story – the truth and nothing but the truth so help you.”
Tyler opened his mouth with effort, mumbled and gurgled a moment and then looked at his captor appealingly.
“Oh; very well. The criminal, ladies and gentlemen, seems to have lost, in this crisis, the power of expressing himself. So I shall relate to you the story, just as I extracted it – by slow and difficult processes – from the prisoner in my room, a short time ago. If I make any mistakes he will correct me.”
Tyler seemed much relieved.
“This creature,” began Chesty, “has previous to this eventful day been known to mankind as a good chauffeur and a bad citizen. He was employed by Burthon as an unscrupulous tool, his chief recommendation being a deadly hatred of Mr. Cumberford, who at one time indelicately applied the toe of his boot to a tender part of Mr. Tyler’s anatomy. Burthon also hated Cumberford, for robbing him of a million or so in a mine deal, and for other things of which I am not informed – or Tyler, either. Cumberford owns a controlling interest in the Kane Aircraft, and – ”
“That’s wrong,” interrupted Stephen.
“I imagine Mr. Tyler’s story is wrong in many ways,” returned Mr. Radley-Todd, composedly. “I am merely relating it as I heard it.”
“Go on, sir.”
“Cumberford had also maligned Mr. Burthon to Miss Orissa Kane, a young lady for whom Burthon entertained a fatherly interest and a – er – hum – a platonic affection. Is that right, Tyler?”
Tyler growled.
“Therefore Burthon decided to get even with Cumberford, and Tyler agreed to help him. The first plan was to steal the design of Stephen Kane’s airship and by cleverly heading him off in some aëro-political manner put the firm of Cumberford & Kane out of business. This scheme was approaching successful fruition when a saucy, impudent schoolgirl – Tyler’s description, not mine – appeared on the scene and spiked Mr. Burthon’s guns. Burthon explained to Tyler that in bygone days he had saved his sister, Cumberford’s wife, from going to prison for a crime Cumberford had urged her to commit, but in doing this he had been obliged to defy the law, and the officers are unfortunately still on the generous man’s trail. Cumberford’s daughter, knowing the situation, threatened to have Burthon arrested – to betray him to the bloodhounds of the cruel law – unless he withdrew his machine from the aviation meet and made tracks for pastures new.”
The Kanes were now regarding Sybil with amazement and her father with suspicion if not distrust. The girl stared back at them haughtily; Cumberford shrugged his shoulders and stroked his drooping, grizzled mustache. Chesty Todd, observing this pantomime, laughed pleasantly.
“Tyler’s story – told to me – of Burthon’s story – told to Tyler,” he observed, his eyes twinkling. “There’s pitch somewhere, and I’ve not been favorably impressed by Mr. Burthon during my slight acquaintance with him. I make it a rule,” speaking more slowly, “to judge people by their actions; by what they do, rather than by what people say of them. Judging Burthon by his actions I should have little confidence in what he says.”
“You are quite right,” declared Stephen, eagerly. “I’ll guarantee, if necessary, that Burthon lied about both Mr. Cumberford and his daughter. No man ever had a truer friend than Mr. Cumberford has been to me.”
Cumberford scowled; Sybil gave Steve one of her rare smiles.
“Anyhow,” continued the narrator, “Tyler was in despair because the aëroplane he was booked to operate was withdrawn from the meet. Burthon told him if they wanted revenge they must act quickly. Their sources of information – erroneous, as the event proved – led them to believe their enemy Cumberford would fly the rival aëroplane, and Tyler needed little urging to induce him to undertake to wreck it. Burthon paid him a thousand dollars in advance, to make the attempt, and promised him four thousand more if he succeeded.”
“Five more,” growled Tyler.
“I stand corrected; but it won’t matter. Tyler made the attempt, as you know. He had no idea Miss Kane was in the airship he was trying to demolish until the last moment, when by a clever turn he intercepted her aëroplane and was on the point of running it down. Just then, to his horror and dismay, he saw the girl plainly and made a desperate effort to check the speed of his machine – to avoid running her down. That was the cause of his mishap, he claims, and his desire to save Miss Kane nearly cost him his life. While he was descending a mile or so through the air, clinging to the footrail, he fiercely repented his wicked act, so that by the time he struck the ground he was a reformed criminal, and, for the first time since he cut his eye teeth, an honest man. So he says, and he expects us to believe it.
“I happened to be near the spot where Tyler rolled and picked him up unconscious – dazed by his repentance, I suppose. The mob wanted to disjoint him and remove his skin, which was not a bad idea; but I decided he could be of more use to Miss Kane alive – for the present, at least – because he might untangle some threads of the mystery. So I threw him into my car, got him to my room at Mrs. Skipp’s boarding house, restored him to consciousness, applied the thumbscrews, got his deposition, lugged him here to you, and now – please have the kindness to take him off my hands, for I’m tired of him.”
Orissa laughed, a little nervously. They were all regarding Chesty with unfeigned admiration and Tyler with pronounced aversion.
Mrs. Kane was the first to speak. Said the blind woman, softly:
“Orissa, you alone can judge this man. You alone can tell whether from the beginning he knew you were in the aëroplane or whether his claim is true that he discovered your identity at the last moment – and tried to save you. If he speaks truly, if he repented at the moment and risked his life to save you, it will have a great influence upon his fate. Speak, my child; you two were together in the air a mile above the earth, a mile from any other human being. Does the man speak truly?”
Orissa paled; suddenly she grew grave and a frightened look crept into her clear eyes.
