Chapter XXVI: The Boy Aviators' Pluck

But it was almost a week later that the 1,400 odd miles down the coast to Fernandina, Florida, and from thence overland to the Crescent City, were completed. Storms and minor accidents spun out the voyage to this length, although Dr. Perkins had calculated on making a faster run. In fact, his aim had been to make about 500 miles a day, with night flights to help out, if possible.

Many interesting incidents, which it would require another volume to chronicle in detail, marked the trip. Off Savannah the _Sea Eagle_ towed a disabled motor boat, containing a pleasure party, into port, and a short time later flew above the Atlantic squadron of the United States fleet bound south for target practice. Aerial greetings were exchanged by wireless between the _Sea Eagle_ and Uncle Sam's bulldogs of the ocean.

The next day the _Sea Eagle_ was once more enabled to render aerial ambulance service by taking an injured keeper from a lighthouse off Fernandina into port, and arranging for a substitute to be sent out at once. At every city they stopped they received a great reception, for by this time the flight of the _Sea Eagle_ had received the attention of the country through the medium of the newspapers.

Possibly one incident may be worth chronicling in more detail. This occurred when, a short time after rising for a night flight from Eufala, Alabama, to the Mississippi State line, Frank descried, through some trees, what he thought was the rising moon.

"That's the funniest-looking moon I ever saw," declared Harry, who happened to be doing duty as engineer.

"Why, what's the matter with it?" demanded Frank.

"Why, it's red."

"Probably caused by the mist from some marshlands," decided Dr. Perkins, who was resting, while Frank guided the _Sea Eagle_, at which he had become quite expert. But the next moment he changed his opinion.

"It isn't the moon at all. It's the glare from a fire, and a big one, too. Let's hurry up, boys."

Neither Frank nor Harry needed any urging, and the _Sea Eagle_ was soon traversing the air so fast that the wind sang in their ears. As they raced along the glare grew brighter and angrier, glowing with a lambent red core from which flames could be seen leaping skyward like a nest of fiery serpents.

A few minutes brought them into full view of the conflagration. It proved to be a fine old farm-house. The front of the place was a mass of flame, and the blaze appeared to be bursting through the roof. Men could be seen running about the grounds like a nest of disturbed ants, and others were hastening on foot, in autos and in buggies, from every direction.

Nobody paid any attention to the oncoming aeroplane in the excitement, and when it dropped to earth on the lawn in front of the blazing building, there was the liveliest sort of confusion. Some of the farmers did not know what to make of the visitor from the skies, but their more enlightened neighbors soon informed them, and recalled the newspaper accounts they had read of the _Sea Eagle's_ great flight.

"Anybody in the building?" shouted Frank, jumping from the _Sea Eagle_ as the craft came to a standstill.

Nobody answered for a moment, but suddenly, from the back of the building, came a piercing scream.

"Help! Help!"

"Goodness, that's a woman calling!" exclaimed Frank. "Come on, Harry."

Both boys dashed round to the rear of the blazing mansion, and there, at a third-story window, they saw a woman with a baby in her arms, leaning out and frantically calling for help.

"Get a ladder!" shouted Frank.

"No time to hunt for it," cried Harry. "We'll have to try another way."

"What do you mean?"

"See the flat roof of that coach house over there? If we had a board we could make a bridge from it to the window."

"But how are we to get to the roof of the coach house?"

"Fly there."

"What! in the _Sea Eagle_?"

"Why not? The roof is flat and big enough to give us room to land if we are careful."

"Cracky! I think you're right. Has anybody got a board?"

"Here you are," exclaimed a man who had darted off to a lumber pile when he overheard Harry's plan.

"Good! I think this will be long enough. Come on, Harry, let's lose no time. See, the flames are almost at that part of the house."

At top speed the two boys ran back to the _Sea Eagle_, calling to Dr. Perkins to join them. Hastily they explained what they meant to do. Dr. Perkins was inclined to doubt if the plan was feasible, but as it appeared to be the only way to save the woman and the child, he agreed to attempt it, grave though the risk of disaster to the _Sea Eagle_ appeared to be.

While the excited men gathered about, and the woman's cries still filled the air, the _Sea Eagle_ was started up, and after circling about, dropped to the coach house roof. The big craft landed without mishap, but Frank reversed the engines barely in time to prevent her from rolling off. However, with the front wheels of the substructure on the very brink of the cornice, the _Sea Eagle_ came obediently to a standstill.

They had brought the board with them, and it was shoved across to the woman, who saw at once what they intended to do. She secured it to the ledge of the window at which she had been standing, and Frank worked his way across the plank bridge and took the child in his arms. He recrossed in safety with it, and then came the woman's turn to trust herself to the frail bridge. But she hesitated till smoke was pouring into the room, and then, fairly driven to try the slender support, she began to cross it.

From the coach house roof the boys called encouragingly to her, for the plank was far too weak to bear the weight of two persons. Even under Frank and the baby it had sagged ominously. Something in the woman's face as she neared the end of her journey caused Frank to reach out toward her. It was well that he had the foresight to do so, for as she reached the end of her journey she suddenly fainted.

Another instant and she would have fallen forty feet to the ground, but Frank caught her dress in a strong grip. Luckily, it was of stout material and did not rip as he seized it. Dr. Perkins and Harry came to his aid the next minute, and with their united strength they managed to draw the woman's limp form to safety.

Hardly had they done so before the flames began breaking out fiercely from the back of the house, and, driven by the strong wind, they were uncomfortably close to the coach house roof. No time was lost in placing the woman and her infant in the _Sea Eagle_, after which the air craft was started. Dr. Perkins rose to a suitable height from which to make a safe descent, and then swept down to the ground, carrying the first woman and child in the history of the world to be saved from a blazing building by aeroplane.

The woman soon recovered after some friends of the neighborhood had taken her and her child to a nearby dwelling.

The owner of the building, and the husband of the woman who had been so bravely rescued, now came bustling up, his face beaming with gratitude. At the moment he was not thinking of the fire but of the brave strangers from the sky who had saved his wife and child.

"I don't know who you are, or where you came from," he exclaimed, "but you literally dropped from the skies when all hope appeared lost. I was in town buying stock, and on my way out I saw the flames coming from my home. Knowing my wife and child had retired I dreaded to think what would have happened if they had not been aroused. I arrived here in time to find my worst fears realized. How can I ever thank you for what you have done?"

"Oh, we only tried to do what we could," said Frank modestly; "we saw the fire and came down to see if we couldn't help."

"I owe the lives of my wife and child to your quickness and courage, and that wonderful airship of yours," vehemently declared the man, whose name was Winfield Thomas, a wealthy farmer. "It was a real blessing you happened along as you did."

Dr. Perkins and the boys could only repeat how glad they were to have done what they could. Without waiting much longer, except to congratulate Mrs. Thomas on her quick recovery, and to express the hope that she would feel no bad effects from her experience, the voyage was shortly resumed. But the adventure at the burning farm house long remained in the boys' memory, and strengthened their attachment to the _Sea Eagle_.

Nearing New Orleans they caught a wireless message from Billy Barnes telling them that he had secured quarters for the _Sea Eagle_ in Algiers, a suburb across the river from the city. That night one stage of the trip was concluded when, in answer to a signal given with a blue lamp, they dropped into a field on the outskirts of Algiers and housed the _Sea Eagle_ in a large barn.

"Thunder and turtles!" cried Pudge when that night in the St. Charles Hotel they were relating their adventures. "You fellows have all the fun and we do all the work."

"Never mind, Pudge," said Frank; "I guess we'll have adventures in plenty ahead of us when we try to locate the wreck of the _Belle of New Orleans_."

"Which will be as soon as possible," said Dr. Perkins. "Our trip has taken us longer than I anticipated, and there is a strong chance that Duval may have got ahead of us."

"There's another reason for hurrying," declared Billy, who had just wired to his paper a long account of the _Sea Eagle's_ trip; "they say that the river is rising. There have been unprecedented rainstorms and the levees are weakening. Negroes are at work on them all along the line, but they doubt if they can make them hold if the river keeps rising."