Chapter V: Motor Matt Protests

The parade was finished without further incident worthy of note, a huge crowd following it back to the show grounds to see the aëroplane flight. As soon as the grounds were reached, Ben Ali came for Haidee. There was a burning light in his black eyes, and he was shaking like a man with the ague.

"Just a minute, Ben Ali," said Matt, catching the Hindoo by the sleeve of his embroidered coat and leading him apart. "What's the matter with your niece?"

"Salaam, sahib," chattered Ben Ali. "Haidee all right soon."

"She can't make an ascension with me, Ben Ali. She was the cause of that trouble, and it would be sheer madness to take her aloft on that trapeze."

"Yis, sahib, _such baht_" (that is true). Ben Ali drew a quivering hand over his forehead. "But she be well like ever soon, sahib."

Ben Ali whirled away, took Haidee by the hand, and vanished among the wagons.

Boss Burton strode to the scene.

"What ails that brown rascal?" he asked, staring after Ben Ali. "He's in as bad a taking as the girl. What did he say about her? I've never been able to get him to tell me anything about her spells."

"He tells me that she will be all right in a little while," answered Matt.

"Then we'll delay the flight. It will be half an hour yet before all the people get here."

Matt peered at the showman as though he thought him out of his senses.

"You don't mean to say that you want the girl to ride a trapeze under the _Comet_?" he demanded.

"Why not?" Burton answered. "You said you'd take her, and she's willing to go--she wants to go."

"When I said I'd take her," returned Matt, "I didn't know anything about her spells. Suppose she were to have one while we're in the air? Why, Burton, she might throw herself from the trapeze."

"No," declared the other, "she wouldn't do that. After she has one spell, I understand she doesn't have another for days, or weeks. It's been a month since she had the last. Why, in St. Paul, she had one ten minutes before she went to the ring for her trapeze work--and she never did better. If Ben Ali says she'll be all right in a little while he ought to know."

"I protest against allowing her to go up in the aëroplane," said Matt firmly. "When the machine is off the ground it has to have my whole attention. I won't be able to look after Haidee without endangering both our lives."

A hard look came into Burton's face.

"I'm paying you five hundred a week for the stunt you pull off with the flying machine, ain't I?" he demanded harshly.

"You are," was the young motorist's calm response.

"And I'm giving the fifty on top of that for taking the girl up with you?"

"That was your proposition."

"And you agreed to it?"

"That was before I knew Haidee was afflicted in this way, Burton."

"Bosh!" scoffed the showman. "The thing has got on your nerves."

"So it has," acknowledged Matt. "I'm not going to place Haidee in any danger, if I can help it."

"And that shot goes as it lays, Burton," spoke up McGlory, who had been taking a deep interest in the talk. "If you think Motor Matt is going to risk the girl's neck, or his own, for a little fifty a week, you've got another guess coming."

Boss Burton had set his heart on that trapeze act. It was a decided novelty, and he could not cut it out of his calculations.

"Am I to understand," he went on, taking a look at the gathering crowds, "that you'll break your contract rather than take Haidee up with you?"

"That's what you're to understand!" snapped McGlory. "We'll not hem, and haw, and side-step, not for a holy minute."

"It's this way, Burton," continued Matt. "Haidee can't go up on the trapeze--we have to take a running start, you know, and it would be impossible. She'll have to ride up on the lower plane; then, after we are well clear of the ground, she'll have to drop from the footboard with the trapeze in her hands. If she's not entirely herself, the drop from the footboard to the end of the trapeze ropes will be too much for her. She'll fall."

"But I told you that after she comes out of these things she's as fit as ever," cried Burton. "It's a still day--the best we've had for flying since you joined the show. I don't want to give up the idea."

"And you don't want to see Haidee killed before your eyes, do you?" asked Matt coldly.

"Oh, splash! There'll be nothing of that kind. Ah, look! Here she comes, and she's just as well as ever."

Matt and McGlory turned. Haidee, ready for the ascent, was hurrying toward the machine from the direction of the tent. She moved swiftly and gracefully, and there was nothing mechanical in her actions--as there had been during the parade. The pallor had left her cheeks and the vacant look was gone from her eyes. Matt and McGlory were astounded at the sudden change in her.

"Are you all ready for me, Motor Matt?" she asked eagerly.

The trapeze was ready. That had been attached to the under plane of the _Comet_ and the bar lashed to the foot-rest before the parade. But Matt was not ready.

"How are you feeling, Haidee?" asked Matt kindly.

"Fine!" she declared.

"Do you remember what happened during the parade?"

A puzzled look crossed her face.

"I can't remember a thing about that," she declared. "In fact, everything has been a blank almost from the time I left the calliope tent, where I was talking with you, until I came to myself in the menagerie tent with Uncle Ben."

Matt bowed his head thoughtfully.

"What's the matter?" asked the girl, in a quivering voice. "Aren't you going to take me up with the _Comet_?"

"He's afraid you'll have a spell while you're in the air, Haidee, and drop off the bar," jeered Burton.

The girl stepped forward and caught Matt's sleeve.

"Oh, it can't be true!" she exclaimed tearfully. "Motor Matt, you're not going to keep me from making that extra money? I need it! I must have it!"

The girl's earnestness made Matt waver.

"It won't do," spoke up McGlory decidedly.

"Joe!" and Haidee turned on him. "Why can't you understand that I'm just as able as ever to do my trapeze work? I'll not have another of those queer spells for a long time."

"That's what you think, sis," answered McGlory, "but if anything happened to you my pard would remember it as long as he lived. He has just protested to Burton against taking you up. And he had a bean on the right number when he said what he did."

"_I'm_ taking the chances," said Haidee, "and nothing will happen."

The aëroplane was at rest on the hard roadway running across the show grounds. For a distance of twenty feet on each side of the road strong ropes were stretched to keep back the crowd. The throng was now pressing against the ropes, clamoring for the aëroplane to make its flight.

"If this performance don't come off," said Boss Burton, "it will be a tough blow for the Big Consolidated. I advertised this trapeze stunt on the flying machine in the morning papers, wiring it ahead from Indianapolis. It's _got_ to be done, that's all. Every promise made in our bills is always carried out. That's what has given this show a hold with the people. I don't say one thing and then do another."

"Circumstances alter cases," returned Matt.

"If you don't want to take Haidee, will you take Archie le Bon?"

Archie le Bon was one of the Le Bon Brothers, iron-nerved men who performed wonderful flying feats on the trapeze.

"Certainly I'll take Archie le Bon," replied Matt, glad to find such a way out of the disagreement. "Bring him here while I'm getting the machine ready."

Haidee began to cry, but Burton took her by the arm and led her away, talking earnestly and in a low voice.

A trick was worked on the king of the motor boys that morning, and it was something for which he never forgave Boss Burton. And it was a trick carried to a successful conclusion almost under the very eyes of McGlory and Ping. Matt, being busy with the aëroplane and the motor, did not discover it until too late.

Matt went over the machinery of the _Comet_ with the same care he exercised before every flight. A loose bolt or screw might spell death for him if it escaped his attention.

When he was through with his examination, and had taken his seat ready for the flight. Le Bon appeared. He was in his shirt sleeves, not having had time to exchange his everyday clothes for ring costume.

"I'll run with the machine," said Le Bon, "and climb over the lower plane from behind when it gets to running too fast for me."

"That will do," answered Matt.

Amid the breathless silence of the crowd, Matt set the motor to working.

"Ready!" he called.

The machine started along the road, gaining in speed with every foot of its progress.

At the end of fifty feet it was going faster than a man could run; and at a hundred feet it was darting along at thirty miles an hour. This was the gait that enabled the wing to pick the machine off the ground.

As the _Comet_ slid upward along its airy path, the astounded McGlory saw Le Bon far back toward the point from which the machine had started. Thinking that, through some mistake, Le Bon had been left behind, McGlory turned toward the mounting aëroplane.

Then the trick dawned upon him.

Haidee was climbing over the lower plane toward Motor Matt, now and again turning to wave her hand at the cheering crowd!

And McGlory saw something else--something that had a fearful significance in the light of later events.