Originally published: April 24, 1909
Genres: Adventure, Children's
Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/199572904-motor-matt-s-air-ship-or-the-rival-inventors
Gutenberg link: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/47901
Chapters: 16
Warning: This may include outdated and derogatory language and attitudes.
CHAPTER I
CAPTURING AN AIR-SHIP
"Py shiminy grickets! Vat do you t'ink oof dot! See dere vonce, Matt. A palloon, or I vas a lopsder! Und vat a funny palloon it iss."
Motor Matt and his Dutch chum, Carl Pretzel, were sitting by a quiet country roadside, in the shade of some trees. Drawn up near them was a light touring car.
The boys were several miles out of the city of Chicago, from which place they had started about the middle of the forenoon, and they had halted in that shady spot between Hammond and Hegewisch to eat the lunch they had brought with them. Carl had just finished the last piece of fried chicken when happening to look skyward, he saw something that brought him to his feet with a jump. As he called to his chum, he pointed with the "drum-stick," at which he had been nibbling.
Matt's surprise was nearly as great as Carl's, and he likewise sprang up and gazed at the airship, which was coming toward them from the north and east, making smart headway against the wind.
"Great spark plugs!" exclaimed Matt. "That's the first airship I ever saw."
"Vat's der tifference bedween a palloon und a airship?" asked Carl.
"Well, you can navigate an airship with the wind or against it, while a balloon is at the mercy of every current that blows. A round gas bag and a basket is a balloon, Carl, but when you add a gasolene motor and a propeller you have an air-ship."
"Dot's blain enough. Der airship iss sky-hootin' dis vay to peat four oof a kindt. Say, it looks like a pig cigar. Vat a funny pitzness! Und you nefer seen vone pefore, Matt?"
"I never saw one that would travel successfully. This one, though, seems to be going in good shape."
"You haf seen palloons meppy?"
"More than I can count," said he. "I've been up in balloons a dozen times. When I was in the Berkshire Hills they used to have races and start from Pittsfield. That's where I began making ascensions."
Carl dropped his wondering eyes to Matt for a moment.
"You vas der plamedest feller!" he exclaimed. "You haf tone more t'ings as any feller I ever see, und you nefer say nodding ondil it shlips oudt, like vat it toes now."
Motor Matt made no answer to this. Just then his attention was completely absorbed by the aircraft.
As near as he could judge, the cigar-shaped gas bag was more than a hundred feet long. Beneath the bag was suspended a light framework. Midway of the framework was an open space, containing a chair in which sat the man who was handling the motor. Out behind the driver the framework tapered to a point, and at the end of this rearmost point was the whirling propeller. The glittering blades caught the sun in a continuous sparkling reflection, which made the airship appear to be trailed by a glow of fire.
Forward of the cockpit, or open space was the motor. A rail ran around the cockpit.
There were two men in the car—one in the driver's seat and another in front of him, leaning over the rail. This second man seemed to be looking at the two boys, and to be waving his hand and giving directions to the driver.
Along the side of the gas bag, Matt was able to read the name "Hawk," printed in large letters.
The Hawk was about a hundred feet above the surface of the earth. A long rope depended from the car, and twenty or thirty feet of it dragged along the ground as the car moved.
"Vat's der rope for, Matt?" inquired Carl.
"If that was an ordinary balloon," replied Matt, "we'd call the rope a guide rope. Usually, the guide rope helps to save gas and ballast. When you want a balloon to go up, you know, you throw out sand; when you want it to come down, you let out gas. That trailing rope acts as ballast. When the gas expands, and the ship wants to rise, part of the rope that trails is lifted from the ground and throws more weight on the car; and when the gas contracts and the car shows a tendency to descend, more of the rope falls on the ground and takes just that much weight off the car."
"Dot's as clear as mud!"
"I can't understand why they've got a drag on the air-ship," muttered Matt. "I supposed the propeller and the steering blades were enough to send such a craft wherever it was wanted to go."
As the Hawk came nearer, Matt's trained eyes and ears convinced him that the driver of the airship was a poor motorist. Evidently, he did not understand the engine he was handling. The airship zigzagged erratically on its course, and the long bag ducked upward and downward in a most hair-raising manner. On top of that, Matt could hear one of the cylinders misfiring.
The Hawk's drag-rope was trailing along the roadway. First, it was on one side of the road, and then on the other, following the irregular swaying and plunging of the car.
"Come on, Carl!" called Matt, turning and running for the automobile. "If that rope strikes our car it may damage it. We've got to fend it off."
"Dose airship fellers vas mighdy careless!" answered Carl, hurrying after his chum. "Dot rope mighdt knock town fences, und preak vinders, und do plendy more tamages."
"There isn't power enough at the other end of it to do much damage," Matt answered, posting himself at the rear of the automobile and watching the advancing rope with sharp eyes.
By that time the Hawk was almost over the boys' heads. The rope, of course, was dragging far out behind, and the trailing part of it bid fair to pass the car well on the right.
"Hello, there!" shouted the man at the rail of the Hawk, leaning far over and making a trumpet out of his hands.
He seemed to be excited, for some cause or other.
"Hello yourseluf, vonce!" called back the Dutch boy. "Keep a leedle off mit your rope—ve don'd vand it to make some drouples for us."
"The airship's out of control," the man shouted. "We can't stop the motor and the ship's running away! Grab the rope, hitch it to your automobile, and tow us back to South Chicago. We'll give you a hundred dollars for your trouble. Be quick!"
"I like his nerf, I don't t'ink!" growled Carl. "He vants to run off mit us und der pubble, und—"
"We can tow the airship, all right," cried Matt, "providing we can get the rope fast to the automobile. We'll have to take a half hitch with the trailing end of the rope around a tree, and bring the airship to a stop."
Matt started for the rope. As he bent down to lay hold of it, the car gave a lurch sideways and the rope was whisked out of his hands and thrown directly against Carl's feet.
Carl grabbed it. At the same moment, the airship took an upward leap, on account of the weight which Carl had taken off the car. This leap flung Carl into the air. He turned a frog-like somersault, hands and feet sprawled out, and came down with a thump, flat on his back.
"Whoosh!" he yelled, a good deal more startled than hurt, sitting up on the grass and shaking his fist at the bobbing craft overhead, "you dit dot on burpose! Vat's der madder mit you, anyvay? Vat for—"
Carl forgot his fancied grievance watching Motor Matt. The latter, making another leap at the rope as it settled back again after overturning Carl, succeeded in laying hold of it.
He had the rope by the end, so that when he picked it up none of the weight was taken from the ship, and Carl's disastrous exploit was not repeated.
"Wrap it around a tree!" yelled the man at the airship's rail; "take a half-hitch around a tree!"
The man might just as well have saved his breath. That had been Motor Matt's plan all along, and even as the aeronaut was shouting his instructions Matt was jumping for the nearest tree.
The young motorist had little time to make the rope fast. The whirling propeller was driving the Hawk onward against the wind at a fair rate of speed. Had there been no opposing wind, Matt would not have had time enough for the work ahead of him.
"Come on, Carl!" he shouted.
The Dutch boy stopped watching and made haste to lend a hand.
Matt was already at the trunk of the tree, but the rope had traveled onward so rapidly that he had less than a yard of it in his hands to work with.
Throwing himself on the opposite side of the tree, Matt laid back on the end of the rope. At that moment Carl reached his side, dropped near him, and likewise took a grip on the free end of the drag.
"It's der fairst time," panted Carl, "dot I efer heluped make some captures mit an airship. Shinks! Look at dot, vonce!"
The driving propeller had forced the Hawk to the end of its leash. The boys, with only a half wrap of the rope around the trunk, felt the quick pull, but easily controlled it. The pull was steady, but, inch by inch, they worked more and more of the rope around the trunk until there was enough to make a knot.
"Dot's der dicket!" exulted Carl, scrambling erect. "Ve've got her tied like a pird mit vone foot. Now how ve going to ged her hitched ondo der car?"
"We'll have to find out what's the matter with the motor, up there," answered Matt, "and see if the power can't be shut off."
As he spoke, he got to his feet and walked down the road to a point directly under the airship.
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