Chapter VIII: Brought to Earth

If McGlory, Cameron, and Ping were delighted with the start of the new aëroplane, Motor Matt was doubly so. Matt was "at the helm" and capable of appreciating the machine's performance as his friends could not do.

Preserving an equilibrium, and riding on a more or less even keel, is the hardest point to be met in navigating an aëroplane. The centre of wind pressure and the centre of gravitation is constantly changing, and each change must be instantly met by manipulating the wings. In the Traquair machine, equilibrium was preserved by expanding or contracting the wing area, giving more resistance to the air on one side and less on the other, as necessity demanded.

Matt, facing westward in the direction of Minnewaukon, could give no attention to his friends, every faculty being required for the running of the flying machine. Every condition that had so far developed the aëroplane was meeting wonderfully well; but new conditions would constantly crop out and Matt was still in doubt as to how the great planes and the motor would take care of them.

At a height of a hundred feet he steadily opened up the throttle. Faster and faster whirled the propeller, and below the machine the prairie rolled away with dizzy rapidity. Almost before Matt realized it he was over the town of Minnewaukon, with the jubilant cheers of the citizens echoing in his ears.

He made a half turn to lay the machine on her new course. The inner wing dipped as the aëroplane came around, but the expanding and contracting device kept the craft from going to a dangerous angle, and it came level again on the straightaway course.

Even on a day that seems still and quiet the air is a veritable maelstrom of conflicting currents close to the earth's surface. Barns, houses, hills, trees deflect the streams of air and send them upward to churn and twist in numberless whirlpools. To get out of this unruly atmosphere an aëroplane must mount.

Having made sure of the machine's performance at a lower altitude, Matt climbed higher. Three hundred--four hundred--five hundred feet upward he went soaring, then rounded gracefully into a level course and was off at speed along the air line.

It would be hard to describe the exultation that arose in the breast of the king of the motor boys. It was not alone that he was doing with an aëroplane something which had not before been attempted--striking out a new line for the air navigators of the world--but it was the joy of a new sensation that thrilled him, spiced with the knowledge that he was rubbing elbows with death every instant the machine was aloft.

On his clear brain, his steady eye, and his quick hand hung his hope of life. A wrong twist of the lever at a critical time would overset the machine and fling it earthway, a fluttering mass of torn canvas, twisted wire ropes, and broken machinery, himself in the very centre of the wreck.

Higher above the earth the wind was stronger, but steadier, and the motor hurried the aëroplane along at its top speed.

It was difficult for Matt to estimate the rate at which he was traveling. There were no landmarks to rush past him and give him an inkling of his speed. Once, however, he saw a farmhouse in the distance ahead; and he barely saw it before it was swept behind and lost to his eyes under the lower plane.

Wherever he saw a road he followed it. If anything happened, and he was obliged to descend, a flat stretch of hard earth would help him to remount into the air again.

Matt had secured his watch on the seat beside him so that he was able to glance at its face from time to time. He had started from Camp Traquair at eight o'clock. When the hands of the watch indicated nine-thirty, he made up his mind to descend at the most favorable point on the surface below him.

He presently found the place he wanted, hard by a farmhouse, shut off the power and glided downward. A kick at a footlever dropped the bicycle wheels into position, and the aëroplane brushed against the earth of a hard road, moved a little way on the wheels, and then came to a stop.

A man and a boy, who had been watching the strange sky monster from a wheatfield, hurried toward the machine as soon as it had come to a stop. They were full of excitement, and asked many questions, to all of which Matt patiently replied while looking around to see that wings, rudders, and motor were still in perfect condition.

"How far is it to Sykestown?" Matt asked, as soon as his examination was finished.

"About a hundred miles," answered the man.

"And how far are you from Minnewaukon?"

"Eighty miles."

"Great spark plugs!" laughed Matt, resuming his seat in the machine; "I'm traveling some, all right. I've been only an hour and a half coming from Totten."

"Do tell!" gasped the man, in wonder. "Why, neighbor, them there hossless wagons couldn't travel much quicker'n that!"

"I should say not! I've some friends following me in an automobile, but they're nowhere in sight."

Matt got the bicycle wheels to turning. When they were carrying the aëroplane at the rate of thirty miles an hour the planes took the lift of the air and swung upward clear of the earth.

A pull at the gear turned the power into the propeller, and away rushed the machine like a new style of comet.

"I'm going to reach Sykestown in time for dinner," thought Matt, "and McGlory and Cameron are not expecting to meet me there until to-morrow morning. I'd have time to go to the Traquair homestead to-night and perhaps get Mrs. Traquair out of the shack and carry her in to Sykestown."

The idea appealed to Matt. Talk about a test for an aëroplane! A manoeuvre of that sort would put the Traquair machine far and away ahead of any air craft so far invented. What heavier-than-air machine was there that could travel away from its starting point and keep going, asking no odds of anything but gasoline and oil and a firm surface for launching into the void?

This demonstration of the new aëroplane was succeeding beyond Motor Matt's wildest dreams.

"We'll not take her apart and put her in a crate to send her to Washington," thought the jubilant young motorist. "I'll fly her there. I didn't think the machine could travel and hold her own like this!"

Having plenty of time at his disposal, he began manoeuvring at various heights, slowing down and increasing his speed, and mounting and descending.

In the midst of this fascinating work, he caught sight of an automobile in the road below him. The car contained only two passengers--a man and a woman--and was proceeding in the direction Matt was following.

The car was traveling rapidly, but not so rapidly as the aëroplane.

Matt decided to swing the aëroplane to a point alongside the automobile and not more than a dozen feet above the ground, traveling in company with the car and making inquiries of the man in the driver's seat.

If he carried out his plan to go to the Traquair homestead that night, it would be well to learn something about the location of the farm, and the man in the automobile might be able to give him the information he required.

No sooner had he made up his mind what he was going to do than he proceeded to put the plan into execution. Hovering over the automobile, he slowed down the engine, turned the small steering planes in front and slipped down the slope of air as easily as a hawk coming to earth.

Some fifteen feet above the prairie, just far enough to the right of the automobile so that the left-hand wings cleared the car safely, Matt struck into a horizontal course.

He had not had a good look at the man in the car, as yet, although both the man and the girl were watching his movements with the utmost curiosity.

"Hello!" called Matt, still keeping his eyes ahead and holding his mind to the work of attending to the air ship.

There was no answer, or, if there was, Matt did not hear it.

"Are you acquainted with the country around here?" Matt went on.

"A little," came the response from the man.

"Could you tell me where Harry Traquair used to live?"

"You'll have to bear off to the right if you go there. The Traquair homestead is twenty miles from----"

Something in the voice drew Matt's eyes quickly to the man.

"Murgatroyd!" cried the young motorist. "Great spark plugs!"

A twist of the rear rudder sent the aëroplane away from the road; a touch of the lever increased the machine's speed; then, the next moment, he would have mounted high into the air--had not something happened.

The crack of a rifle came from below, followed by the crang of a bullet on metal, a woman's scream, and a sickening lurch of the aëroplane.

Matt tumbled from the lower wing, and then experienced a shock that almost drove his spine up through the top of his head.

Dazed and bewildered, he lay where he had fallen.