A BITTER DOSE

Nat Shaley! The worst enemy Slim Tyler had on earth! The man who had cheated him out of his wages! The man who had hounded him on false charges and had had him arrested! The man who, in Slim's belief, had swindled his father out of twenty thousand dollars!

And for the sake of this miserable rascal, Slim had thrown away his chance of winning fame and money and possibly of hanging up a new world's record! And not only his own chance, but that of his loyal friend and companion, Jerry Marbury!

A wave of bitterness swept over Slim Tyler as he looked at the mean, wizened face of the old skinflint.

"So it's you, is it, Nat Shaley?" exclaimed Slim.

"Yes, it's me," snarled Shaley. "Why do you fellers stand here with your mouths open, lookin' so dumb when the train's comin'? Hurry up an' pull that car of mine off the tracks, an' be quick about it."

The indignant response that flew to Slim's lips at the man's brusque order was lost in the grinding of brakes as the freight train rounded the curve and the engineer noted the obstruction on the track.

But the train was heavy and the grade steep, and despite the engineer's utmost efforts the locomotive struck the car and hurled it, a twisted mass of wood and metal, to the side of the tracks.

"There, drat it!" cried Shaley, "they've smashed my car, all because you lazy lummoxes wuz as slow as molasses instead of hustlin'. But somebody'll pay fer this, by gravy!"

"Oh, shut up!" commanded Jerry, stung beyond endurance by the fellow's arrogance. "Who do you think you are, to order us about?"

"You ought to be glad you saved your miserable life," declared Slim. "The old car was a rattletrap, anyway. It ought to have been in the junk heap five years ago."

"What's all this about?" demanded the engineer of the locomotive, who had descended from the cab and approached them, accompanied by his fireman, while the conductor was hurrying from the caboose. "Whose car was that on the track?"

"Mine!" shrieked Nat Shaley. "An' you've got yourself in a pretty mess by smashin' it. I'll sue the company, by heck, an' you'll be lookin' fer another job."

"Cut out that kind of guff," growled the engineer. "What was the car doing on the track?"

"That ain't neither here nor there," retorted Shaley. "You got eyes in your head, ain't you? Why didn't you stop your train when you seed it there?"

"Couldn't stop in time," replied the engineer curtly.

"That's because you don't know your business," snarled Shaley. "You ain't heerd the last of this yet. That car wuz worth twelve hundred dollars, an' your company'll pay every last cent of it. I've got witnesses here," and he pointed to Slim and Jerry.

"Don't call on me," put in Jerry.

"Nor me," added Slim bitterly. "The old car wasn't worth twenty dollars. I've heard you say that you'd had it for fifteen years and it was second hand when you bought it."

"'Tain't so," snarled Shaley vehemently. "You lyin'——"

He stopped abruptly and stepped back as Slim Tyler took a quick step forward.

"Look here, you old rascal," said the young aviator, his eyes blazing, "no man calls me a liar and gets away with it. I won't hit you, because you're too old. But another word like that and I'll take you by the scruff of the neck and shake you till your false teeth drop out."

"Aw, go on," said Shaley sullenly, taking care to keep his distance. "Anyways, I'll make the company pay——"

"How did the car come to get on the tracks?" asked the conductor, who by this time had joined the excited group.

"Because there must have been somethin' wrong in the right of way," replied Shaley. "Part of the rail stickin' out or somethin' that upset it. Why don't your company keep the tracks in order? I wuz joggin' along nice an' peaceable, everything shipshape, an' I struck somethin' at the track that upset the car quick as a wink. Wonder I wuzn't killed. Your company'll have to pay me fer personal damages, as well as fer the car——"

While this farrago of lies was being reeled off, Slim Tyler and Jerry Marbury had been looking at each other in stupefaction.

"You infernal old crook!" Jerry finally burst forth. "The whole thing was your own fault, or the fault of the car. You'd lost control of it, brakes out of order or something, and you were coming down that hill lickety-split."

Shaley glared at him, bursting with rage.

"Well, we can't stay here all day chewing the rag," interrupted the conductor, looking at his watch. "I'll take the names of you two gentlemen," he said, taking out a notebook and doing some hasty scribbling. "As for you," he said to Shaley, "you can put your claim in the regular way, though I don't think you'll get anything. Get into the cab, Jim," he directed the engineer, "and start her going."

A minute or two more and the train was under way.

Slim Tyler had gained his nickname because of his tall, lanky figure. He had been christened Ross Joseph, and was the son of Stillwell and Mary Tyler. Both had now been dead for years. Mr. Tyler had once been possessed of considerable means, but most of it had been swept away in the later years of his life by unfortunate investments.

There was practically nothing left for the orphan lad, and he knocked about, supporting himself as best he could, until he got a job in Nat Shaley's lumberyard at Centerville.

Slim worked early and late, hard and faithfully, but Shaley, whose dislike he had incurred because of an accident that had been wholly Shaley's fault, discharged him abruptly, owing him forty dollars in wages. Shaley offered him twelve dollars in full settlement, but Slim Tyler insisted on getting the forty that were due him. High words took place and Slim declared that he would get square with Shaley for cheating him. The threat was thrown out in the heat of anger and really meant nothing.

But that night Shaley's yards burned, and Slim, friendless and moneyless, realized the deadly significance that would be attached to his threat, which had been overheard by the foreman. In bewilderment and consternation he "hopped" a freight train that same night. In the car where he had ensconced himself he came in contact with a half-drunken tramp who called himself High Hat Frank and who referred to the fire, chuckling tipsily.

In his wanderings Slim Tyler finally brought up at North Elmwood, where he found employment with Carl Stummel, a good-natured old German keeper of a "hot dog" stand. It was a great relief for Slim to have his livelihood provided for, but his chief satisfaction rose from the fact that the hot dog stand directly faced the North Elmwood flying field, one of the great aviation fields of the country.

Slim Tyler, from his earliest boyhood, had been fascinated by the idea of flying. He would have given the world to be an airman. But without money to go to a flying school it seemed that this ambition would never be realized.

It was a great delight, however, to watch the planes circling about and to see the pilots and mechanics at work. He picked up many acquaintances among the aviators, and every spare hour he had he spent on the flying field. He looked with reverence on the famous airmen and especially on Dave Boyd, the most famous aviator in the United States and, for that matter, in the world.

Slim's great chance came when he found in the road, where it had been jolted from an automobile, a satchel containing two thousand dollars in cash. To his delight this proved to belong to Dave Boyd, and Slim hurried to him with the money.

The great aviator was so struck with the boy's honesty that he insisted on giving him a substantial reward, and finding that Slim was interested in flying, he gave him employment in his own hangar. The lad was in the seventh heaven and was learning rapidly all that was to be known about airplanes when one day, just on the eve of a South American flight by Boyd, he found himself confronted on the crowded flying field by Nat Shaley.

The latter clamored instantly for Slim's arrest. In the hue and cry that followed Slim took refuge in the tail of the Shooting Star, the plane that was to carry Boyd and his party to Buenos Aires, Argentina, the goal of the flight. While hiding there, he overheard Shaley say something inadvertently that led him to associate the old miser with his, Slim's, father's lumber deal.

Then, to the lad's surprise and consternation, the Shooting Star rose in the air, and he found himself an unwilling stowaway on the great South American flight.

What thrilling adventures he met with on that voyage, the stern disfavor with which Boyd and his assistants met him when he emerged from his hiding place, the way in which he conquered their respect and admiration by his courage and quick wit in desperate emergencies, his arrest by Shaley on his return and his exoneration; all this is told in the first volume of this series, entitled: "Sky Riders of the Atlantic."

The wrongs he had suffered at the hands of Shaley were in Slim Tyler's mind as he gave vent to his bitter denunciation of the wizened old rascal.

"You'd better look out what you're sayin', you boys had," bristled Shaley. "Them words is actionable at law. You can't go aroun' callin' people names an' not get caught up with, let me tell you."

"Oh, close your face!" exclaimed Jerry, in profound disgust. "Slim knows you're a crook. I know you're a liar. I wish you were younger so that I could take a swing at you. Gosh, Slim," he added as he turned to his comrade, "if I'd known that it was this old rascal in that car I'd never have agreed to come down."

"Well, there's no use crying over spilt milk," said Slim sadly. "We are down, and that's the end of it. Come along and leave this old crab to stew in his own juice. Gee, I hate to face Dave Boyd, but we might as well get the agony over with."

They left Shaley glaring after them malignantly, climbed into the cockpit, and lifted the plane into the air.

"Feel as if I were going to my own funeral," muttered Jerry dejectedly.

"It's a blow right between the eyes," admitted Slim. "But I really don't see what else we could have done. We didn't know that Shaley was going to recover in time to stagger off the tracks. And we would never have forgiven ourselves if, for the sake of money, we'd let a human being be crushed to death, as it seemed likely he would be."

"Of course not," agreed Jerry. "Oh, I'm not beefing because we came down. I'd do the same thing over again under the same circumstances. But I'd rather we'd gone to the help of anyone else in the world than that old miser. And how grateful he was! Thanked us a lot, didn't he? Called us 'lazy lummoxes' because we didn't get that old bunch of junk off the track."

They reached the flying field to find the crowds in a great state of excitement. It was known that the Lightning Flash had come down and all were agog to know the reason.

The Speed King was still gracefully flying over the field, and Jerry looked at it with eyes bleak with disappointment.

"They win," he said bitterly, "and all because a wretched old crook happened to be in this part of the country at the wrong time. This sure has been our unlucky day!"

Slim brought the plane down to a perfect landing, to be surrounded immediately by a clamoring crowd.

Dave Boyd pushed his way to the side of the plane.

"What in thunder made you come down?" he demanded. "Engine trouble?"

In a few words Slim Tyler explained the cause of the disaster. Boyd's disappointment was bitter, but he bore it like the sportsman he was.

"Of course you had to do what you did," he conceded, when Slim had finished. "It's just a bit of awfully bad luck. And the fact that it was Nat Shaley you did it for adds the finishing touch. We've just got to grin and bear it.

"By the way," he added to Slim, as the young aviator and Jerry climbed dispiritedly out of the cockpit, "speaking of Shaley reminds me that a little while ago a trampish-looking man was around here looking for you. Said he'd known High Hat Frank."

Slim pricked up his ears.

"Where is he now?" he asked eagerly.

"Haven't the least idea," replied Boyd. "Probably hanging round somewhere. Probably he'll be hunting you up, now that he knows your plane's come down."

He turned to give directions to have the Lightning Flash drawn into her hangar, and Slim Tyler made his way wearily through the crowd. The reason for his descent had spread like wildfire, and he received many congratulations for having made such a sacrifice for the sake of saving a life that seemed to be in danger.

These, however, failed to cheer him greatly. His heart was sore. He had entered the race with the highest of hopes. He had hoped to write his name on the scroll of fame. His success would have meant not only money, but reputation. His name and the story of his exploit would have been in every newspaper in the United States. It would have been the opening wedge of a great flying career.

But he had lost! And lost for the sake of whom? That was the bitterest drop in his cup of misery. Lost for the sake of his worst enemy, a man who had cheated him, a man who hated him, a man who had not thanked him, a man who would even chuckle when he read the papers and learned the extent of Slim's loss! It was surely the irony of fate.

He made his way across to Stummel's hot dog stand and dropped wearily on a stool.

The old German spotted him at once and was so agitated that he dropped the cup of coffee he was handling.

"Himmel! It vos Shlim!" he cried, as he hurried toward him. "Vy iss it dot you iss not yet oop in der air alretty? Iss it dot you haf a fall gehabt?"

Slim smiled wryly.

"No go, Carl," he replied. "I had to come down."

"Und dot two tausend dollars iss ausgespielt?" asked Carl, in consternation. "It iss geflopt gangen?"

"All gone," assented Slim. "I don't get a red cent."

"Und I haf lost der fife tollers dot I bet on you," continued Carl. "But dot iss nuddings. It iss for you dot I feel badt. Poor Shlim!"

A rough-looking man on an adjoining stool turned about sharply.

"Are you Slim Tyler?" he asked.