A STRANGE DISCOVERY

No, it’s the flying machine!”

“Where is it?”

“It must be down among the trees!”

These and various other exclamations came from those in the touring car. All leaped to their feet and gazed up and down the narrow wood road and through the trees and bushes. The sound did not come from overhead.

“It’s in that direction!” cried Joe, pointing with his hand.

“Hark!” came from Harry, and at that moment came one grand explosion of the distant motor, followed by absolute silence.

“Guess she’s busted!” gasped the carpenter’s son.

“And maybe the man has been blown up!” added Bart.

“We’d better look into this,” advised Fred. “Come on!” And he leaped from the automobile [23]and started through the bushes in the direction Joe had pointed out.

The others were not slow to follow, Joe lingering just long enough to see that the power was well shut off and the hand brake applied. Fred led the way, with Harry close behind and the others not far off.

“I don’t see anything of it, do you?” remarked the stout youth, after several rods had been covered.

“That motor was a long distance off,” answered the younger Westmore boy. “The air is so clear here that the sound carries a long way.”

On and on they went, getting deeper and deeper into the woods. Several times they stopped to listen and once they thought they heard a faint cry for help. But this seemed to come from behind, not in front, of them.

“Hello! hello! Where are you?” yelled Bart, with all the power of his lungs. But no reply came to this appeal.

The boys did not know whether to go on or not. All came to a halt in a little glade and gazed questioningly at each other.

“Well, we certainly heard it,” said Harry.

“And it was in this direction,” added his brother.

“It can’t be far away,” said Fred. “Say, why not scatter around?”

“And get lost,” put in Link. He had been lost in the woods more than once and did not relish the prospect.

“Pooh! We can keep within calling distance of each other,” answered the stout youth.

They commenced to separate, Joe and Harry moving to the northward. Here there was a growth of saplings, close together, and the brothers had no easy task to get through.

“I see something!” cried Harry, a few minutes later.

“It’s the flying machine!” burst out Joe. “It’s caught directly on the top of those small trees!”

“Is the man in it?”

“I don’t see him.”

The Westmore boys dashed forward, at the same time shouting to their chums to join them. Soon all the lads were under the trees, gazing curiously at the big biplane overhead. The machine rested almost as evenly on the trees as the top of a table rests on its legs. Some of the canvas planes were slitted, and one of the rubber-tired wheels on which it was rolled when on the ground was bent, but otherwise the contrivance looked to be uninjured.

“Wonder where that old aviator can be?” murmured Bart.

“He’s either around here or he tumbled out before [25]the machine came down,” answered Joe. “Let us hunt around for him. He may have been knocked unconscious, or killed.”

For fully a quarter of an hour the boys searched the vicinity, without getting the slightest trace of the man who had been manipulating the biplane. Then they commenced to search further. But it was of no avail.

“He isn’t here, that’s certain,” was Harry’s comment. “He must have fallen out some distance back.”

“We might try to follow up the way the machine came,” suggested Bart.

“You’d have a hard job,” answered Link. “Why, that aviator made it turn and twist like a snake!”

“Well, the way it landed it must have come from that direction,” said Fred, pointing to the northward.

“Owl Lake is over that way, and he didn’t come from there,” replied Harry. “If he had, we should have seen him.”

The boys returned to the vicinity of the biplane and talked the matter over. What to do next they did not know.

“We’ll have to notify the authorities of this,” said Joe, at last. “Somebody will have to make [26]a regular search for that man, and without delay. If he fell and got hurt he may need immediate medical assistance. And if he’s dead, they ought to find his body.”

“And don’t forget we have that black tin box,” added his brother. “We’ll have to do something about that.”

“Maybe he’s in the machine, hidden by one of the planes,” said Bart. “One of us ought to climb up and make sure.”

“I don’t think he’s up there,” answered Joe. “Still, it wouldn’t do any harm to climb up and look. I’ll go up.”

“Take care that the flying machine doesn’t come down on your head,” cautioned Fred. “It might slip, you know, when you least expected it.”

“I’ll be on my guard.”

With anxious eyes the other lads watched Joe climb one of the small trees upon which the biplane rested. Soon he was beside the biplane and then he crawled out on a tree limb, so that he could see the seat and the engine.

“Nobody up here!” he called down. “He must have tumbled out before the machine landed.”

“Is there anything up there to tell who he is?” called Bart.

As well as he was able Joe looked the biplane over. He saw where the wires from the battery had caught in the tree and become broken, thus stopping the engine. Had this not occurred the motor would most likely have kept on running until the gasoline was used up.

“All I can see are those initials, A. A. A.,” Joe called down. “This machine and that black box belong to the same person.”

“Nothing else—no card, or address?” shouted his brother.

“Not that I can see from where I stand. We might find something if the biplane was on the ground.”

“Well, we can’t get it down, at least not now,” said Fred. “Besides, we had better find the owner first. Maybe he wouldn’t want us to touch the outfit.”

Joe took another look at the flying machine and then rejoined his companions. Once more there was a consultation.

“I don’t know of anything to do but to go on to Cresco and notify the authorities,” said Joe. “We are closer to that town than we are to Lakeport.”

“Supposing that man never shows up for his flying machine,” suggested his brother.

“Then it will belong to us—for we found it!” cried Link.

“Joe and Harry found it,” said Fred, quickly.

“Well, I mean them,” answered the carpenter’s son. “I don’t think we ought to turn the machine over to the authorities.”

“Oh, don’t bother about that now!” cried Harry. “I guess we’ll find that man, or some of his relatives. Why, for all we know, he may be some well-known aviator.”

Slowly the boys walked back to the automobile. As they came in sight of the machine they saw a man sitting on the front seat, smoking a pipe. The man had a fishing rod and a basket with him.

“Hello, it’s Joel Runnell!” cried Harry. “How are you?” he sang out.

“Pretty well, everything considered,” answered the old hunter. “I knowed this was your machine an’ that you couldn’t be far off, so I sot down to take it comfortable till you come back.”

“Been fishing?” asked Joe.

“Yes, up the Big Woods brook. But fishin’ is poor just now,” was the old hunter’s answer, as he knocked the ashes from his pipe. “How be you boys, anyway?” And he smiled broadly, for he liked them all very much.

“Oh, we’re all right,” answered Joe. “Did you [29]see anything of a flying machine while you were fishing?” he went on eagerly.

“Flyin’ machine? No. Wot put that in your head, Joe?”

“We saw one, run by an old, gray-haired man. He dropped a box and we picked it up. Now we’ve found the machine over in the woods, but the man is missing.”

“Great wildcats! You don’t tell me!” gasped Joel Runnell. And then he asked for the particulars, to which he listened with close attention.

“Must have fell out,” was his comment. “An’ got killed, most likely.”

“We hope not,” answered Harry. “We wish we could find him.”

“You yelled, didn’t you?”

“Oh, yes, a number of times.”

“Then he’s most likely as dead as a doornail. And why wouldn’t he be? Fallin’ out o’ one of them contraptions is wuss nor fallin’ off a church steeple, believe me!”

“Well, I guess it’s about as bad,” answered Joe, gravely. “We don’t know what to do, excepting to notify the authorities at Cresco, or Lakeport, or Brookside.”

“Let us take another look around Owl Lake,” suggested Harry.

“That wouldn’t do no harm,” returned Joel Runnell. “If you want me to, I’ll go along.”

“Why, come on, if you wish,” was the ready reply.

Soon the boys and the old hunter were scattered around the lake. While some followed a path leading to the east, the others took that leading the other way.

At the far end of the lake was a small stream known as Brown’s Brook, lined on either side with blackberry bushes. Where the stream emptied into the lake was a hunters’ lodge, now deserted.

“Hark!” exclaimed Harry, as he and his brother, with Fred and the old hunter, came in sight of the lodge. “I thought I heard somebody call!”

All listened and from some bushes came a faint moan. The boys gave a call and another moan was the answer.

“It must be the man!” exclaimed Joe, and ran forward, followed by the others.

  As the crowd rounded some bushes they came upon a strange sight. There, in a heap, rested the aged aviator. He was capless, wet through and through, and his face and hands were scratched and bleeding. One leg was doubled under him, as if wrenched or broken.

  “Thank Providence somebody has come!” he murmured. “Oh, help me! Get a doctor, or somebody! I am about smashed to pieces!” And then he gave another groan and sank back in the bushes, all but overcome.

“He’s putty hard hit, I reckon,” was Joel Runnell’s comment, as he made a hasty examination.

“Let us bind up that cut on his head,” said Joe. “His arms seem to be all right, but that one leg is in bad shape.”

   Fortunately the boys had had some lessons in first aid to the injured, so they knew a little about how to go to work. They got out their handkerchiefs and Harry tore off the sleeves of his linen shirt, and with the cloths they bound up some of the wounded man’s hurts. The medical kit taken on the auto tour was still in the machine and Fred ran for this, and then the wounds were washed and bathed in witch-hazel, and the sufferer was given a stimulant.

“Let us carry him to the cabin,” suggested Joel Runnell. “We can lay him on one of the cots. I know Tom Mason won’t mind.” Tom Mason was a rich man of Brookside who owned the lodge.

“Yes, and we’ll take the auto and get a doctor,” put in Harry.

   “I don’t want a doctor!” cried the old aviator, rousing up. “They are all butchers! I know ’em! They’ll want to put me in the hospital and saw my leg off, or something like that! Just you let me rest and I’ll be all right.”

“But your leg—it seems to be broken,” said Joe.

  “I guess it’s twisted, that’s all. No, don’t get a doctor—I hate ’em! They killed my wife! I’ll be all right in a few days. Only take me to some place where I can rest, and get food.” And then the injured man suddenly gave a gasp and sank back unconscious.