Chapter XIX: With the Speed of a Whirlwind

Later that night had anyone happened along the mountain trail above Colonel Crider’s pasture, as Johnny Thompson had done one night some time before, they might have seen as on that other night, two dark figures darting back and forth across old Nicodemus’ pen. One led, the other followed but not once did the one catch up with the other. At last, the one that always led, climbed up the side of the pen to go tumbling over it and disappear in the shadows that lie thick along the Stone Mountain trail in the moonlight. The Kentucky football star had been having a little practice. If one were to judge by his action it might be proper to say that Nicodemus had enjoyed this nocturnal adventure quite as much as the boy.

* * * * * * * *

“Here,” Johnny was smiling as he handed a folded paper to Donald next day. “Here’s the release for Uncle Mose’s coal rights. It worked like a charm. But tell me, how did you do it?”

“Not so difficult when you know how.” Donald pointed to a long, irregularly formed glass tube in the corner. It was in three sections. “There’s a transformer up there on the ridge. The line carries power to a coal mine. Hope they don’t arrest me for stealing power. Guess they won’t if I tell my story.

“You see,” he went on after a chuckle, “I had some gas extracted from liquid air in those tubes. When they were all connected and hung down from a tall tree they made quite a long, zig-zagging line. By running a powerful current through the gas in the tubes, I was able to give you a fairly accurate picture of what lightning is at its best.

“Just a neon sign really,” he added quietly. “Sort of irreverent to imitate God’s wrath perhaps, but I trust I’ll be forgiven.”

“I see,” Johnny’s tone told his admiration. “But how about the thunder?”

“Simple enough, but costly. Nice little explosion of liquid air mixed with carbon.”

“You’re an artist in your line,” Johnny complimented him.

“Perhaps,” the other boy agreed. “Also something of a nut. Rather wild sort of way to get what you want. I shouldn’t care to recommend it as a regular thing.”

Later that day Johnny found himself in his car threading his way over a difficult passage. The hour for his departure with Ballard for Hillcrest and the great game on the morrow was rapidly approaching. He did want one more word with the aviator down in the valley so he had decided to have a try at reaching him in his car.

This try was to end in disaster. Just as he was negotiating the last twenty rods of the trail something went wrong with his brakes. He shot down a short, steep slope, took a sudden shock that all but sent him through the windshield, then, with a sinking heart felt his right front wheel crumple from the impact.

“Here we are,” he groaned. “No train until morning! No car available. And tomorrow’s the big game. Hillcrest will be defeated without Old Kentucky. What’s worse, Kentucky will die if he is not there. Could anything be worse?”

“See you’re in a fix,” a friendly voice said. The speaker was close at hand. Johnny looked up. It was the young aviator.

“Yes, a terrible mess!” Johnny’s voice carried conviction.

“Tell me about it.”

Johnny told of his dilemma, told it as he had never told anything before.

“But why not let me fly you over?” the other suggested simply.

“With your liquid air motor?”

“Why not?”

“Suppose it fails?”

“It won’t fail!”

“Done!” Johnny gripped his hand. “I—I’ll go get Kentucky and-and thanks.”

“Save that for the end of the trip,” the pilot grinned.

“Are—are you,” Johnny had been struck by a sudden thought, “could you use a little publicity on your new type of motor?”

“It would be thankfully received.”

“You shall have it,” Johnny was away.

On his way to find Kentucky, Johnny scribbled a note, then thrust it together with two new paper dollars into Lige Field’s hand.

“Here Lige,” he exclaimed, “hop on your pony and ride like sixty to the Gap. Get this message off. The change is all yours.”

“Thanks, Johnny! Thanks a powerful lot!” Lige was away and so was Johnny.

After racing up the creek and over a low ridge to notify Kentucky of their good-bad fortune of a wrecked car and a promised airplane ride, without waiting for the other boy to pack his bag, he hastened back toward the meadow and the waiting plane.

On the way he caught up with Donald Day. “Come on along with me to the meadow,” he urged. “We’re flying back to Hillcrest for tomorrow’s game.”

“Boy! You’re going high-hat in a big way!” Donald exclaimed, increasing his speed.

“Case of necessity,” Johnny explained.

“One thing I wanted to ask you,” Johnny said after a moment of silent marching. “What would happen if you pumped a quantity of liquid air into a football?”

“Football would get mighty cold, nearly freezing, perhaps worse.”

“And then?”

“Then it would expand until it burst. You can’t confine liquid air, at least not in any ordinary way.”

“That,” said Johnny, “was just what I suspected. Those fellows played a trick on us. A player kicked the football into the bleachers, one of the fans substituted another ball he’d just given a shot of liquid air.”

“Strange sort of thing to do,” Donald’s brow wrinkled. “Tell me about it.”

Johnny did tell him about that football game and the bursting ball.

“Queer sense of humor,” was Donald’s comment. “Lost them the game, didn’t it?”

“At least they lost it,” Johnny chuckled. “Hope there’ll be no monkey shines tomorrow. Guess there won’t be. Good clean, hard-fighting crowd, that Naperville team. But they’ve got to take a licking. And they will if only the old Doc will let Kentucky play.”

“Here’s hoping!” said Donald. “And here we are at the meadow. There’s Ballard coming over the ridge. You can’t stop that boy. He’s a great fellow. My grandfather is very fond of him. You’re doing wonders for him, Johnny. Got to be getting back. Here’s luck for tomorrow!” The young scientist gripped Johnny’s hand. Then he was away.

Five minutes later with their strange, air-burning motor hitting hard on every cylinder, the boys, with their pilot, felt themselves being lifted high into the bluest of blue skies that so often smile down upon the Blue Ridge Mountains of Kentucky.

To the inexperienced person it is impossible to judge the speed with which an airplane travels. With no trees, no telephone poles, no nothing speeding past him, he is likely to think of himself standing still in mid-air. Not so Johnny Thompson. He had ridden in many planes and under every possible condition. He had come to have a sort of sixth sense. This was a feeling for speed. As he now sped through the air he became wildly excited for he was, he knew, travelling faster than ever before.

“It’s the fuel,” he told himself. “Liquid air and carbon.” Stealing a glance over the pilot’s shoulder, he watched with amazement as the speed indicator rose from two hundred to two-fifty, then to three hundred.

“With a little tail wind, we’d beat the clock,” he chuckled. “Be there before we know it.”

They were, but not until Johnny had time for a few serious thoughts about tomorrow’s game. That game meant a great deal. For Hillcrest it meant a final triumph over an ancient rival. All the old grads would be there. Some had wired for reserve seats from a distance of a thousand miles. Some, like himself, were to come by plane. Johnny thrilled at the thought.

He closed his eyes for a moment and into his mind’s vision there floated the “Crimson Flood,” the team: Stagger Weed, Tony Blazes, Jack Rabbit Jones, Artie Stark, Punch Dickman—all marched before him. And after that, most important of all, Red Dynamite and Old Kentucky. “Good Old Dynamite!” he whispered. “And Kentucky! They must win! They—”

But what was this? Had something gone wrong with the motor? A chill set him shuddering. They were circling for a landing.

Then he laughed. Seizing Kentucky’s hand, he gripped it hard. “We’re here!” he shouted. “Kentucky, we are here! The emergency landing a mile from Hillcrest is right beneath us.” And so it was. They had come with the speed of the wind, no ordinary wind either, the speed of a whirlwind.

Fast as they had come, the news of their strange and daring flight with a new and little-tried motor had preceded them. Johnny’s message had come through. A crowd had gathered to see them land. In that crowd were reporters and camera men. Their pictures would be in all the morning papers. Johnny, Kentucky, and the inventor of this new motor would be there. All this would be grand publicity for the inventor and his motor. It would help to swell the crowd at tomorrow’s game. Johnny was glad.