Chapter IV: Queer Proceedings

The place occupied by the aëroplane in the procession was almost at the end, and just behind the herd of four elephants. Rajah, owing to his freakish disposition, was always the fourth elephant of the string, Delhi his mate, immediately preceding him. With peaceable brutes ahead, Rajah might usually be depended upon not to cut any capers.

It will be seen from this that the _Comet_ followed on the heels of Rajah.

The parade was almost in readiness for the start when Matt, McGlory, and Ping reached the aëroplane. Hostlers were running about placing plumes in the head-stalls of the horses, drivers were climbing to their seats, the wild animal trainer was getting into the open cage, and the members of the band were tinkering with their instruments.

Haidee was standing by the aëroplane when Matt, McGlory, and Ping reached the machine.

"All ready, Haidee?" asked Matt.

The girl turned and looked at him blankly. Her face was unusually white, and there was a vacant stare in her eyes.

"What's to pay, sis?" asked McGlory, with a surprised look at Matt. "Don't you feel well?"

"I am well."

The words came in an unnatural voice and with parrot-like precision.

Boss Burton came hustling down the line in his runabout.

"Hurry up, Matt," he called. "Help Haidee to a place on the upper wing of the _Comet_."

Matt stepped over to the runabout.

"What's the matter with the girl?" he asked, in a low tone.

"Matter?" echoed Burton, fixing a keen look on the girl. "By Jupiter, she's got one of her spells again! She hasn't had one of those for a month, now, and I thought they'd about left her for good."

"Is she subject to spells of that kind?"

"She used to be. There's something queer about them, but they don't last long."

"We shouldn't put her on the upper wing, then. There's no seat there, and nothing to hold on to."

The sharp, impatient notes of a trumpet came from the head of the line.

"Well, put her somewhere," said Burton impatiently, and whirled his horse.

"Get on the top plane, Ping," said Matt, hurrying back to the _Comet_. "Haidee is going to ride on the lower wing with us."

"Awri'," chirped Ping, and McGlory gave him a leg up.

Haidee, moving like an automaton, made no objection to this arrangement. She took her place obediently on the lower wing of the machine, between Matt and McGlory, and the engine was started.

When the elephants began to move, Matt switched the power into the bicycle wheels, and the aëroplane lurched over the uneven ground. Reaching the road, the _Comet_ went more steadily; and when the procession wound into the paved thoroughfares, the movement was comparatively easy.

Ben Ali, from the neck of Rajah, kept turning around and looking back at the three on the lower plane of the _Comet_.

Matt, McGlory, and Haidee, on account of the wings of the aëroplane being turned lengthwise of the street, rode facing the sidewalk on the left. In order to see them, Ben Ali was obliged to keep Rajah somewhat out of the line.

"What's the matter with Ben Ali?" asked McGlory, leaning forward and talking in front of Haidee. "He's showing a heap more interest in the _Comet_ than he ever did before."

Matt shook his head, and met steadily the piercing eyes of the Hindoo until they were turned forward again.

"What is your uncle looking this way for, Haidee?" he asked.

"I don't know."

The girl expressed herself in the same mechanical way she had done before.

"Haidee isn't herself," said Matt, "and I guess her uncle is worried. Change seats with her, Joe."

Matt wanted to talk with his cowboy chum and did not want to be under the necessity of passing his words around the girl.

"Move over, sis," requested McGlory, standing up and balancing himself on the foot-rest.

The girl quietly slipped along the plane.

Cheer after cheer greeted the aëroplane and the king of the motor boys as soon as the crowded thoroughfares were reached. Ping, on the upper wing, and clad in all his barbaric finery, was as proud as a peacock. Haidee, on the other hand, paid absolutely no attention to the crowds. She sat rigidly in her place, like a girl carved from stone, keeping her unblinking eyes straight ahead of her.

"I'm plumb beat, and no mistake," breathed McGlory, in Matt's ear. "I never saw Haidee like this before. She acts to me like she was locoed."

"Boss Burton told me, just before we started," answered Matt, in a low tone, "that she was subject to 'spells.' This is the first one she has had in a month, Burton says."

"Can you savvy it?"

"No."

"Ben Ali seems worried out of his wits. Watch how he keeps Rajah zigzagging back and forth across the trail, so he can get a look at the girl every now and then. I wonder if Haidee knows what she's about?"

"She must. If she didn't she wouldn't be riding in the aëroplane."

The bands played, the crowds waved hands and handkerchiefs and cheered, the clowns carried out all their funny stunts, and the procession moved on through the city of Lafayette. Students from Purdue University followed the paraders and blew long blasts through tin horns. Rajah showed signs of becoming restless, and Ben Ali's attention had to be given entirely to the big brute.

Matt, with one hand on the steering lever, kept the unwieldy machine moving in a straight track.

"What do you suppose Ben Ali was listening to Carl's talk for, there on the inside of the menagerie tent?" inquired the cowboy, his voice so low it could not possibly reach Haidee. "I had a notion that----"

"Sh-h-h!" Matt interrupted. "I had the same notion, Joe, but it was only a wild guess, at the most. He's a prying chap, that Ben Ali, and he might have had only a casual interest in what Carl was saying."

"I'll bet a ten-dollar bill against a chink wash ticket that there was something more to it than that."

"Well, if there was, it's bound to come out, sooner or later. Say nothing, but keep your eyes open."

"I've always felt that there was a mystery about the girl and Ben Ali, and that----"

McGlory broke off suddenly. Haidee, with the quickness of lightning, had leaned over behind him and jerked one of the levers at Matt's side.

The next instant the big aëroplane took a wild jump forward. The king of the motor boys was alive to the danger in an instant.

"Hold the girl!" he cried, and instantly flung the lever back.

The front ends of the two great wings had hurled themselves against Rajah. The huge animal trumpeted wildly and swung about on his hind legs with trunk uplifted.

It seemed as though he would surely charge the _Comet_, wreck the machine, and kill or maim the four who were riding in it.

McGlory, with Haidee in his arms, leaped from the foot-rest into the road. Ping rolled off the opposite side of the upper plane.

Had Matt deserted his post, the _Comet_ would certainly have been seriously damaged, if not totally wrecked. But, in spite of the danger that threatened him, he kept his seat.

Quick as a flash, he threw in the reverse. The bulky machine began wabbling away on the back track, the clown in the donkey cart behind, and the acrobatic "haymakers" in their trick wagon, driving frantically out of the way.

Ben Ali was using his sharp prod with apparent frenzy, but the jabbing point had not the least effect. Rajah started for Matt and the _Comet_.

Then, had not Delhi's mahout been self-possessed and quick, the worst would have happened.

People in the street jumped for the walk, and those on the walk pushing into the open doors of shops. Shrieks and cries went up from the women, and men yelled in consternation.

Across Rajah's path, with a rush, charged Delhi, coming to a halt and blocking the way. Rajah tried to go around, but Delhi backed and continued to cut off his retreat.

By that time Boss Burton had whirled to the scene in the runabout, and half a dozen men, from the forward wagons, were all around Rajah, belaboring the brute with cudgels, whips, and whatever they could get their hands on.

Rajah's incipient rage was soon quelled by this heroic treatment.

"What happened?" demanded Burton, drawing up beside the aëroplane.

"The machine made a jump," answered Matt, not wishing to put the blame on the girl. "Rajah was too close. Tell Ben Ali to pay more attention to the elephant and less to us, and to keep in the centre of the road."

Burton was angry. The fault seemed to lie with Matt, but Ben Ali caught the brunt of the showman's ire.

Ping, his yellow face like a piece of old cheese, got back on the upper wing, and McGlory led Haidee to the _Comet_ and helped her to her seat.

"Speak to me about that!" gulped the cowboy. "I'm a Piegan if I didn't think you and the old _Comet_ were done for. What possessed the girl?"

"Give it up," answered Matt grimly. "As you said a while ago, pard, these are queer proceedings. Just watch Haidee every minute."

"She didn't know what she was doing, and you can gamble a blue stack on that."

"Of course she didn't. That's why I didn't tell Burton the real cause of the trouble. Keep it to yourself, Joe."