Chapter X: A Trick at the Start

The guard who had been in charge of the aëroplane since the parade had returned to the show grounds was relieved by Matt and McGlory. As soon as he had left, Matt, in accordance with his usual custom, made a careful examination of the machine. He knew very well what might happen if he found, after being launched into the air, that some of the many parts of the aëroplane were loose, or the machinery not working properly.

Long ropes, stretched on each side of the road on which the flying machine got its start, served to keep the people back and to give Matt and his corps of assistants plenty of room.

So far as the young motorist could see--and his investigation was always thorough--the aëroplane was in as serviceable a condition as it had been for the morning's flight. It was a most ungainly looking machine when resting on the ground, but was transformed into a thing of grace the moment it spurned the earth and mounted skyward.

"She looks as fit as a fiddle," remarked McGlory, his face shining with pride.

"She'll do her work easy as falling off a log," said Matt. "The repairs we made on her, in Lafayette, seem to have been an improvement."

"We don't want to make any more improvements of that sort," remarked McGlory, thinking of the accident which had made the repairs necessary.

"Ah," cried Matt, "here comes Le Bon. And look who's with him," he added in a lower tone.

The cowboy turned his head and swept his gaze over the throng that pressed the guard rope to the north of the road. Le Bon, in his trapeze costume, was crawling through the press, and close behind him came Dhondaram. McGlory scowled.

"What's the Hindoo coming for?" he muttered. "I'm getting so I hate the looks of that fellow."

Le Bon came close, walking with the springy tread of the trained athlete.

"It looks as though we were going to have as nice a time aloft as we had this morning, Matt," he observed, coming to a halt and taking a look at the sky.

"What's the Hindoo trailing you for?" queried McGlory.

"He wanted to come along and see the flight at close quarters. He's a pretty good fellow, McGlory, and I told him to push along with me. What's the harm?"

"No harm at all," interposed Matt hastily.

McGlory spun around on his heel and would not remain near to talk with Dhondaram. The Hindoo, as he halted in front of Matt, was smiling in his most ingratiating manner.

"I have come to look, sahib," said he, "at your most wonderful performance. It is read of everywhere, and in Chicago most of all. It will be a pleasure. It is permitted?"

"You can stay here," answered Matt, "providing you keep out of the way."

"I will see to that, Mattrao Sahib," and the Hindoo walked around the aëroplane, giving it his respectful attention.

The wonder was growing upon Matt as to the whereabouts of Ping. The Chinese boy was always on hand when the flights were made, for the _Comet_ was the apple of his eye and he took it as a personal responsibility to make sure that the "get-away" was always safely accomplished.

He did not appear to be trailing the Hindoo. If he had been, why was he not somewhere in the crowds that were pressing against the guard ropes.

"Watch the brown tinhorn, Le Bon," muttered McGlory, in the kinker's ear, "and see that he don't tinker with anything."

"Why," exclaimed Le Bon, "he wouldn't do anything like that!"

"He might," was the sharp response. "I haven't any faith in these fellows who wear a twisted tablecloth for a hat. If anything should go wrong, up in the air, it'll spell your finish as well as my pard's. I'm going to have a word with Matt."

The band had come from the mess tent. Instruments in hand, the members had climbed into the band wagon, which was hauled up near the point from which the _Comet_ would start, and a rattling melody was going up from the horns, the drums, and the cymbals.

The aëroplane flight was Motor Matt's own particular part of the show. It was an instructive part, too, for aside from the thrill of seeing a human being piloting a big mechanical bird through the air the observers were given the last word in aërial navigation.

"What's on your mind, pard?" asked McGlory, halting at Matt's side. "You're as thoughtful as a cold game gent who's looking into the open end of a gun."

"Have you seen anything of Ping, Joe?" said Matt.

"Chink 'signs' haven't been at all plentiful since our squinch-eyed brother tried to run out the Hindoo's trail."

"I'd like to know where the boy is, that's all."

"Don't fret about him. I'd like to have a picture of Ping in a corner he couldn't get out of. You take it from me, Johnny Hardluck hasn't got such a corner in his whole bag of tricks."

At that moment Burton rode up to the aëroplane on his favorite saddler.

"Innocent or guilty?" he asked, leaning down from his saddle and accompanying the words with a significant wink.

"Innocent, of course," answered the king of the motor boys.

"Can you prove it to me?"

"Not yet."

"And you never will. Better let me have the Dutchman locked up. That'll scare him so he'll tell all he knows, and maybe it isn't yet too late to get the money back."

"Keep hands off my Dutch pard, Burton," said Matt. "We've made an agreement about that."

"Exactly." Boss Burton straightened. "I guess you'd better get a-going, Matt," he added. "The whole town seems to be outside the guard ropes, and I don't think we could get any more spectators if we waited all night."

Burton backed his horse away from the starting line and lifted one hand. Instantly a breathless silence fell over the vast throng, while every individual member of it craned his or her neck to get a better view of what was going on.

The aëroplane, as has already been stated, had to make a running start on bicycle wheels in order to develop the speed necessary for the wings to take hold of the air and lift the machine. The wheels were low, and Le Bon had to sit on the lower plane beside Matt and hold the trapeze on his lap until the _Comet_ was high enough for him to drop from the footboard.

The _Comet's_ motor was equipped with a magneto, but, at the beginning and while the machine was on the ground, the spark was secured with a make-and-break circuit. When the motor was properly going the magneto took hold and an automatic switch brought it into commission.

McGlory superintended the ground work during the start. Some half a dozen men, under his direction, ranged behind the planes, started the machine, and ran with it. The power in the bicycle wheels soon carried the aëroplane away from them.

At twenty-eight miles an hour the great wings felt the tug of the air, the wheels lifted from solid ground, and a sharp pull at a lever started the big propeller.

Matt had made so many ascensions that he handled every part of his work with automatic precision, and the aëroplane, amid the wild cheers of the crowd, darted skyward.

McGlory, standing perhaps a distance of fifty feet back from the point where the machine left the earth, saw a bag hanging to the under plane, close to an opening that led up through the plane to the motor and the driver's seat.

What was the bag? the cowboy asked himself, and how did it chance to be swinging there?

McGlory had only a few moments to make his observations, for the _Comet_ was climbing swiftly upward and the bag was growing rapidly smaller to the eye. He ran forward, stumbling and looking, and Burton, evidently with his eyes on the same object, galloped past him with glance upturned.

Suddenly a black object appeared over the top of the bag, grew longer, wriggled queerly, and could be seen disappearing into the space between the two planes.

The cowboy halted his stumbling feet and reeled, his brain on fire and his breath coming quick and hard.

That black, wriggling thing must have been the cobra! The cobra, which the Hindoo had said he had sold to some one on the show grounds!

McGlory's mind was a hopeless chaos of fears, doubts, and wild speculations. While he stood there, Burton, a wild look on his face, came galloping back.

"That bag!" he gasped, drawing rein with a quick, nervous hand at the cowboy's side. "Did you see it, McGlory?"

"Yes," answered the other.

"It was one of the bags that had stolen money in it!" declared Burton; "I saw the black lettering on the side! Is it the one you got from the Dutchman?"

McGlory shook his head, still dazed.

"I've got that--in my grip--at the calliope tent," he managed to gasp.

"Where did that one come from?"

Then McGlory came to his senses.

"I don't care a whoop about the bag, or where it came from," he shouted. "Did you see that snake come out of it and crawl up onto the lower plane? Did you see that?"

"Yes, but----"

"Don't talk to me! Find that Hindoo--he was here before the start and he put that bag there. Find him!" yelled McGlory.

Then, at the top of his lungs, the cowboy shouted frantically to Matt, in the hope of letting him know his danger and putting him on his guard.

But it was a fruitless effort. The tremendous cheering drowned McGlory's voice, and it was impossible for him to make his voice heard.