Chapter IX: Aboard the Hawk

Taken at a disadvantage and with two brawny ruffians ranged against him, Motor Matt was unable to make any defense. As he lay on the floor, head and shoulders still swathed in the window-curtain, one of his antagonists held him while the other bound his hands and feet with a rope. He was then lifted and carried for some distance. Naturally he could have no idea where or in what direction he was being carried.

A few steps were descended and he heard a door softly closed. The cool air of outdoors laved his hands--he was sensible of that, although the hot stuffiness of the curtain prevented the night air from reaching his face.

He was lifted over something, he did not know what, and laid down in cramped quarters. A conversation was going on around him, but in tones so low he was not able to distinguish the words. He fancied that he heard the girl's voice, although his head was so muffled he could not be sure.

Presently the unmistakable explosions of a motor came to him.

"Brady is taking me away somewhere in an automobile," he thought, and wondered where Carl was that he could not see the machine.

A moment later he felt a gentle, swaying motion as though he was being gently swung in a hammock.

Several minutes passed, and then Brady's voice spoke, in a tone so loud that Matt was able to hear what he said.

"Take the curtain off his head, Pete, and untie him. It's time he took hold here. Keep your revolver handy for use in case he gets obstreperous. He's full of ginger and will have to be tamed."

Matt felt some one working at his cords. They were stripped away quickly, and the curtain whisked from his head. He jumped up, the floor under him swinging with the quick move and almost upsetting him.

"Careful, there!" warned Brady. "Where do you think you are, anyhow?"

Matt was dumfounded. Overhead was the long gas-bag of the Hawk. In front of him, at the mechanism of the machine, sat a dusky form which he recognized as belonging to Brady. Brady's hands were on the levers.

With a shout of anger Matt jumped toward Brady, the car lurching and swaying with his frantic movements.

"Stand where ye are!" came the husky, threatening voice of Pete, from behind. "Do as I tell ye, King, or I'll shoot."

Matt turned around. Standing with his back braced against an upright timber that held the car to the oval ring under the gas-bag was Brady's burly assistant. He held a dark object in his hand and Matt knew it must be a revolver.

"Where are you taking me?" demanded Matt.

"Turn around this way," said Brady. "Now that you know what'll happen to you if you get too hostile, maybe we can have a bit of a talk together."

"Don't shoot!" implored a feminine voice; "I don't want to have any shooting, dad!"

The voice came from a bundle on the floor, close to where Pete was standing. By looking sharply, Matt was able to see a white, ghost-like face hovering against the rail.

The girl had been brought along with them! Matt was glad, for her sake, that he had not got into a rough-and-tumble with Brady.

Without seeming to pay the girl more than passing attention, the young motorist turned toward the man in the chair.

"Well?" said he, crisply. "What have you got to say about this, Brady? I guess you could be arrested for what you've done, all right."

Brady laughed.

"How's a policeman coming up here to get at me?" he asked. "An air-ship is a great thing for a fellow who wants to turn a few tricks in spite of the law."

"That's your game, is it? Well, what have you to gain by running off with me? I told you I didn't have that roll of papers."

"I'm out the blue prints, but I'm in a good motorist. I'll not be able to improve the Hawk according to Jerrold's plans, but I guess I've got hold of a driver that's good enough to make up for most of the improvements."

"If you think I'm going to drive this car for you," said Matt, "you're away off in your calculations."

"That's what you think now, but you'll change your tune before long," said Brady, easily. "I know this air-ship pretty well, and I installed the motor. All it needed for that was a good machinist and a good inventor. I'm not a good driver, though, and I've picked you for the job. The offer I made back at the house goes. Five hundred a month. Pretty good pay, eh, for a boy of your age?"

"I don't care how much you offer, Brady. As I have already told you, no amount of money could hire me to work for you. You're a scoundrel, clear through. What you've done to-night proves it.

"Bear a little to the left, Brady!" called Pete, who was evidently on the lookout. "You're getting too far to the north."

Brady moved one of the levers, and the ease and certainty with which the air-ship swung to the new direction brought Matt's admiration uppermost. Never had he been able to resist the lure of untried machinery, and here was an experience so novel that it carried him out of his troubled environment, so to speak. For a moment, suspended in that starlit void and swimming noiselessly through the night, he yielded himself to the fascinations of the new experience.

"How powerful a motor have you?" he asked.

"Ten horse-power," answered Brady, "and it weighs forty pounds."

"How do you steer the machine up and down, and right and left?"

"That's where I've got the bulge on Jerrold. One rudder with two cross-section planes does all of that. This lever here--I don't know whether you can see it or not from where you stand--gives the up and down 'dip' to the rudder that makes the machine rise or fall. By moving the lever right or left, the air-ship turns in the corresponding direction."

"Take me back," ordered Matt, "and land me at the place where you took me from."

"You've got a picture of me doing that!" scoffed Brady. "Now that I've caught you, I'm going to keep you, see? You're just the sort of a lad I need in my business. Grove and Needham, when they finally got back to South Chicago with the air-ship, told me all about you. If I'd known what I do now at the time you called at the balloon house, I'd have taken a different tack."

A muttered imprecation came from Pete. He was thinking of his fall over the barrel.

"Those fellows got back without breaking their necks, did they?" queried Matt.

"Just about. When they told me what had happened, I sent off that telegram."

"We might just as well look this thing square in the face, Brady," said Matt. "You've acted the part of a scoundrel in your dealings with me, and you haven't gained anything by it. If you don't turn back and put me down in South Chicago, I'll make more trouble for you than you can well take care of."

"I'll take my chances on that, my bantam. I like your spirit, and we're going to get along fine. Just cast in your lot with mine, and I'll make a rich man out of you. In the Hawk we can travel all over this continent, from Hudson Bay to Patagonia. Where men never went before, we can go. No mountain range is so high that we can't cross it, and no desert is so barren that we can't wing our way comfortably over it."

Matt stared at the dark figure in the chair. If any honest man had talked to him in that way, the young motorist would have been tempted to become an aeronaut, for he could see plainly the possibilities of a serviceable air-ship; but as for Brady, he was a criminal, and that cut him off from any consideration on Matt's part.

The young motorist sank down on his knees and looked over the side of the car. They were perhaps a thousand feet in the air. Houses, villages, dark expanses of timber and lighter stretches of meadow swept past them, moving out from under the car like a dark panorama.

Driving an automobile at speed was like flying, but here was flying itself. The new sensation gripped Matt and thrilled him in every nerve.

"How are we heading, Pete?" called Brady.

Pete was leaning over the opposite side of the car, looking forward.

"I'm jest tryin' to git my bearin's, Brady," he answered. "It's so pesky dark it's hard to make out jest where we are."

Matt stole a look at Pete's back. The hand gripping the revolver lay on the rail. By one quick move Matt could have snatched the weapon. As the idea swept through his mind he cautiously changed his position.

Just then a soft hand rested on his and he saw the girl's face pressed close.

"Don't do anything desperate!" she whispered, imploringly. "Do whatever dad says--it will be better for you. When we get to where we're going, I'll help you escape, and----"

"I think, Brady," called Pete, "that ye're still too fur to the north. Better shift a leetle more to the left. I won't be sartin, though, that I'm right."

"I ought to be there on the lookout," answered Brady. "Come here, King, and take the engine."

The girl's words had influenced Matt powerfully. On top of that was the alluring prospect of handling a new machine.

"I'll take the engine for a while, Brady," said he, getting up, "but you're to remember I'll not hire out to you."

"All I ask is for you to handle the motor," replied Brady. "You'll come to your oats quick enough, I'll gamble on that. You watch King, Pete," he added to the other man, "and make sure he sends the Hawk where I tell him to. If he tries to send her anywhere else, you know what to do."

"That's no josh," answered Pete.

Brady left the chair and went forward. Matt dropped into the vacant seat and began studying the various levers with his groping hands.