H. L. Sayler

“ The captain, not less eagerly than Andy, did as directed, and Roy, having turned the propeller blades into place, started the engine. The first whirr of the big blades began to agitate the loose sand and dry grass. Then the young aviator turned on more power. The agitation grew into a breeze, and that into a tornado-like storm of wind. The boy and the man on the ground felt the aeroplane pulling, and as it began to tug at its human anchors and rock from side to side, Roy quickly shut off the engine. ”

“ In the shop that evening, stood, in the rough, the frame of the future car—Captain Anderson’s handiwork.
The spread of this frame was a little over thirty-six feet, and, despite Andy’s fortunate find of spruce, the four horizontal beams were of pine, each cleverly spliced in three places with one-quarter inch stove bolts to a short, thinned under piece. But the stanchions holding the two planes together, and the struts connecting and bracing the front and back beams were of spruce, as were all the rib pieces. Pine weighs as much as spruce, but it is only five-eighths as strong. ”

“ Captain Joe Anderson’s real home was in the north on one of the great lakes. As a young man he had devoted much of his time to yachting. Therefore, when he and Mrs. Anderson sought a winter home in the south, he built his bungalow on the wide, baylike Indian River.
To this salubrious spot Captain Joe and his wife hastened each fall. With no servants, Mrs. Anderson saw to the few household needs. Living on the shore of the biggest and most beautiful body of boating water in America, Captain Joe gave every daylight hour to sailing and making boats. ”

“ Andy was debating this on Sunday morning as he stood before the idle boathouse. “What’s the good of it all? It’s a cinch that my mother ain’t goin’ to let me try to run it. And what if she does consent? For a fellow who hasn’t had a particle of experience, to bang away with a car like that’d be a crime. Everyone has to learn. I can, I know, but a fellow certainly don’t do it the first time. It’s twenty chances to one that I’d break the thing the first dash out of the box. Gee whiz! but it does seem a shame.”
“What’s a shame?” asked Captain Anderson, who was strolling to a seat on the pier. ”

“ THE BIRD OF DEATH
Captain Bassett’s yacht-like schooner did not sail that night. Long after the camp fire of the spongers on the beach had fallen into a glow, the Englishman and Andy were in talk in the owner’s cabin. On the chart before them the compasses were often in play between a dot marked “Timbado Key” and the unnamed indentation in a long island, where the boy had written in pencil “Palm Tree Cove.”
At seven o’clock the next morning, two of the black men had brought up the unloaded can of gasoline. ”

“ But this did not long deter the curious Andy. Many kinds of pipe, bars of iron, empty carboys, boards, boxes, and barrels of hard and soft coal were about the shed. Catching up a piece of bar iron, Andy demolished the lock staple with a blow.
The spaces between the board siding had been filled in with laths and, as the shutters were closed, it was a moment or two before the prying visitor could make out his surroundings. As he began to do so he knew that Captain Anderson’s suggestions were more than justified. He was plainly in the workroom of an experimenter of wide scope. ”

“ Decaying conchs was the predominating odor. But it was varied with the smell of rotten shark meat, a half-consumed shark hanging from a post in the center of a filthy court. One glance told me that Cajou’s house was not here, for behind the odorous pens and the reeking cook pots, I had seen steps cut in the coral limestone bluff.
“These steps,” went on Captain Bassett, after he had supplemented his expired cigar with a pipe, “were partly concealed under vines and dwarfed palms. After most of those about the beach huts had disappeared toward the top of the elevation, I followed. ”

“ In the shape of a flattened pear and almost an inch and a half long, the tropic jewel seemed to radiate a glow of life.
[216]
“What’s it worth?” whispered the dazed boy.
“Twenty years of isolation in this desolate world,” said the suddenly sobered Englishman. “In money, it has no price. It is not for sale.”
There was no more rest for Andy that morning. When the Pelican had been taken apart and loaded on the schooner and Captain Bassett’s crews of spongers had been embarked in their small boats, it was noon. ”

“ As Captain Anderson and Andy walked to the pier to get the trundle-cart to carry the trunks down to the landing, the boy was surprised to see a colored man sitting on the edge of the runway.
“Hello, Ba,” exclaimed the captain. “You’re just in time, if you’re lookin’ for a job to-day.”
“Yaas, sah, Ise yo’ honey,” replied the negro. “Loafin’ don’t git yo’ nothin’ but conch meat.”
Andy saw that the man had none of the flashiness of most colored men. ”

“ From the time his engine started and the big propellers began to revolve, he was sorry that he had not brought Ba along to hold the car until it had begun to feel the pressure of the air. With nearly the first motion of the propellers, the aeroplane began to move forward and slowly descend the hill. The new angle seemed to prevent the planes from catching the air, and, as the frame gathered momentum and continued to rumble along over the dry grass, Andy pushed his engine in vain. ”

“ Andy thought a moment.
“I don’t like to leave the machine here—I think I’ll make a little flight and take it around in the cove.”
“Excellent,” agreed the man. “I’ll be proud,” he went on, with a smile and bowing, “to be host to both the aeroplane and the aviator. And I’ll watch—”
A mischievous look came into Andy’s eyes. Some distance ahead of him the hard beach reached back over a gentle incline that made its way like a wide road between the fence-like cocoas.
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“I’ll have to get the car up there,” he said, “to get up momentum. Do you mind giving me a hand?” ”

“ Anderson what she knew about the blacks of the Bahamas.
She told him that they were mostly descended from real Africans; that, in the days when slave stealing was being practised, it was the custom when slavers were caught by English or American men-of-war, to liberate the victims on the tropic Bahamas.
“There may be old men there now,” she [90] said, “who were born in the wilds of Africa. And the second and third generation are not much more civilized. Ba is probably almost as much African as if he were living in the Congo,” she concluded.
“Where is Timbado Key?” asked Andy. ”

“ Undaunted by the captain’s hesitation, Andy fell into argument. He began with the simplicity of the aeroplane mechanically, and insisted that, aside from the engine and propeller, it was even less complex than a bicycle.
“Why, every boy in the country’ll be makin’ ’em. You need only some light, strong wood and wires, and a few yards o’ varnished cloth, and there you are. I’d take the engine home and make one myself this summer, only I know mother wouldn’t let me.” ”

“ Always a dabbler in physics and fond of experimenting, I have been led into working out an idea of my own. While watching the flight of birds, I could not but be astonished at the wide difference between their tail motions and the rear rudder or tail of the aeroplanes as I have observed them in magazine pictures. ”

“ There was no poling the Valkaria that evening, and the sail home was full of joy to all. The next morning, work on the aeroplane was resumed with new vigor. The braced car now occupied so much of the shop that, each morning, Captain Anderson and Andy carried it out to the sandy river shore, where it rested all day on “horses,” that the two workmen might have the entire shop for their further work. ”

“ When he saw that it was Captain Anderson, he broke out at once:
“It’s all settled! I don’t care about that gas accumulator or compressor, or whatever it is—we’ve got her tail!”
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“Her tail?” queried the captain. “Whose tail?”
“Why, the airship,” sang out Andy. “We’re goin’ to have the best one ever made. We’ve got a tail for it—a guider. Did you read the book?”
“Never mind about that now,” admonished the captain. “You’d better be thinkin’ of some good reason why you stayed so long. Your mother’s a good deal put out.”
“I’ve been a lookin’ over things,” explained the boy. ”

“ Turning to the right with the usual rudder, tends to make the machine dart in that direction, just as a boat does when you turn quickly. To stop that, a part of the aeroplane surface on that side is drawn down—that increases the atmospheric pressure and tends to right the machine; the flexing wires see to that. But my uncle’s bird-tail guide goes further: it attempts to lessen this tendency to dart by flexing the rudder on the side that isn’t doing the turning. By elevating the idle corner, he decreases the wind pressure, and that part of the machine settles. ”

“ As he held it before the boat builder, he placed his finger on one of the pictures and glanced at his companion with snapping eyes.
“A flyin’ machine? An aeroplane?” the captain almost shouted.
For answer, Andy’s hand shot up as if warning silence. With the other he pointed toward the bungalow.
“My mother,” he whispered significantly. [44] “See that?” he continued, pointing to the pictured propeller. “And see that?” he added, indicating the motor. “They are the only hard things about an aeroplane. And we’ve got ’em both!” ”

“ Andy’s heart thumped with a sudden thought. He dropped the mooring line, and the Valkaria drifted dockward.
“Is this Captain Anderson?” called the young man.
As the captain replied, the stranger continued:
“Then this is Andy Leighton!”
“It is,” shouted Andy, “and you’re Roy Osborne!”
“One guess did it,” exclaimed the youth. “I’m a little late, but we had a great sail. I got your letter—came down last night, but got carried to St. Sebastian and stayed all night with Mr. Nilsen—came up in the Frieda—dandy boat—how’s the airship?” ”

“ Squaring the chart sheet with the north and south line of the compass, Andy laid the compass directly over the mouth of Goat Creek. Then he extended his bit of cardboard from the center of the compass to the tip of the Bahama Bank.
The edge of the card cut the compass along the S.E. by S. line. That was a course. With another note of this under his latitude and longitude, the boy sprang up, folded the chart into a square to fit his pocket, dropped the compass into another pocket, and smiled nervously.
“I reckon I’d better eat something,” he said. ”

“ It was the first close view of this that made Andy spring forward as if he had caught sight of a bed of gold nuggets. Hereon, plainly enough, were the physical expressions of the eccentric experimenter’s peculiar ideas. Metal wheels, shafts, springs, cylinders, and pistons were heaped together. In front of them was a wooden, soot-smeared and oil-begrimed miniature model of something. The little model had somewhat the appearance of a mechanical fan. ”

“ THE PELICAN MAKES ITS FIRST FLIGHT
Based on his hasty examination of the aeroplane, young Osborne instantly suggested a few improvements or reinforcements. As most of the work yet to be done, such as the attachment of the rudder, landing skis, and wheels, would increase the car so much in size that it could not be taken in and out of the shop, everything was immediately moved out of doors.
Then, before actual labor began, Captain Anderson suggested that they go into the house for a few moments. Andy chuckled. ”

“ As it flared up at the end of his cigar, the observant boy thought he could make out a smile on the [192] strong face of the accused man. Then it was dark and silent again.
“This nigger, Cajou,” came at last through the half dark night from Captain Bassett’s chair—and in a voice devoid of either guilt or innocence—“is more than you have been told. So far as I know, I am the only white man who has visited his island and come away again. He is a king, in a way. He is also the best type of the pure blood African as he exists in our island world. ”

“ Anderson is the easiest-going woman in the world. But, when she breaks out as she did to-day, I don’t want to cross her. We’ll put the car back into the shop, and—well, we might try a sail until the storm is over.”
“There’s someone out already,” remarked the almost disconsolate boy, pointing toward a speck of sail far down the river.
Captain Anderson looked and led the way to the boathouse. Unbolting the part of the [128] rudder frame he had already attached, he and Andy carried the light frame into the shop. ”

“ At Captain Anderson’s suggestion, Lake Worth was immediately called by telephone, and the Nassau Steamer Company was asked to notify its steamers in transit by wireless of Andy’s flight. He would probably be north of their course, but they were asked to keep a [168] lookout. They were also asked to repeat the message to Nassau, that spongers and fish boats leaving port might also be on the watch.
“He may change his mind,” argued the captain, “and make a landing far down the peninsula, without putting out to sea. If he does, he will be in a wilderness.” ”

“ Captain Anderson removed the fence with a few blows of an axe, while Andy ran down the shore to remove the driftwood.
“I suppose you think it strange I don’t help,” said Roy to Mrs. Anderson and Mrs. Leighton, who were on the pier. “But that’s the first thing an aeroplane operator has to learn. When I make an extensive flight, I do no work that day if I can help it. My assistants [137] fill the tanks and get the car in place. I save every bit of muscle and nerve force I have.” ”