Airship Andy Or The Luck of a Brave Boy Part 6

"It's a bargain!" declared Andy spiritedly. "I think I have guessed a way to get you out of your difficulties."

"How?"

"I'll show you when you are ready to start."

Andy set to work with vigor. He went to the back of the wagon and fitted two boards into a kind of a runway. Then he poured corn into the trough, and hitched up the old horse.

"Now, drive the horse, and I'll attend to the corn," he said. "I won't give them as much as you think," he added, fearing the farmer would object to the use of so much of his feed.

It was not long before they were on the way. As the corn dropped along the road, the geese ran to pick the kernels up. Andy scattered some by hand. Soon he had the whole line of geese following the wagon.

"Now drive in the best spots," he said.

"I'll take to the fields," answered Mr. Pierce.

He was as good as his word, and traveling became easy for the geese, so that they made rapid progress. They kept on until nightfall, pa.s.sing through Afton, where Andy bought a postal card and mailed it to Mr.

Webb, stating his money had been left with Mr. Dawson. By eight o'clock the next morning they reached Wade, and there, at a place called the Collins' farm, Andy was paid off and given the clothing and shoes promised. He changed his suit in a shed on the farm, and then the youth bid his new friends good-by and went on his way.

CHAPTER VI-THE SKY RIDER

"Hold on, there!"

"Don't stop me-out of the way!"

"Why, whatever is the matter with you?"

"The comet has fallen--"

"What?"

"On our barn."

"See here--"

"Run for your life. Let me go, let me go, let me-go!"

The speaker, giving the astonished Andy Nelson a shove, had darted past him down the hill with a wild shriek, eyes bulging and hair flying in the breeze.

It was the afternoon of the day Andy had said good-by to Mr. Pierce and his friends. He was making across country on foot to strike a little railroad town, having now money enough to afford a ride to Springfield.

Ascending a hilly rise, topped with a great grove of nut trees, Andy got a glimpse of a farmhouse. He was antic.i.p.ating a fine cool draught of well water, when a terrific din sounded out beyond the grove. There were the violent snortings of cattle, the sound of smas.h.i.+ng boards, a mixed cackle of all kinds of fowls, and thrilling human yells.

Suddenly rounding the road there dashed straight into Andy's arms a terror-faced, tow-headed youth, the one who had now put down the hill as if horned demons were after him.

Andy divined that the center of commotion and its cause must focus at the farmhouse. He ran ahead to come in view of the structure.

"I declare!" gasped Andy.

Wherever there was a cow, a horse, or a chicken, the creature was in action. They seemed putting for shelter in a mad flight. Rus.h.i.+ng along the path leading to the farmhouse, a gaunt, rawboned farmer was sprinting as for a prize. He cast fearsome glances over his shoulder, and bawled out something to his wife, standing spellbound in the open doorway, bounded past her, sweeping her off her feet, and slammed the door shut with a yell.

And then Andy's wondering eyes became fixed on an object that quite awed and startled him for the moment. Resting over the roof of the great barn at the rear of the house was a fantastic creation of sea-gull aspect, flapping great wings of snowy whiteness. Spick and span, with graceful outlines, it suggested some great mechanical bird.

"Why," breathed Andy, lost in wondering yet enchanting amazement, "it's an airs.h.i.+p!"

Andy had never seen a perfect aeroplane before. Small models had been exhibited at the county fair near Princeville, however, and he had studied all kinds of pictures of these remarkable sky-riders. The one on the barn fascinated him. It balanced and fluttered-a dainty creation-so frail and delicately adjusted that his mechanical admiration was aroused to a degree that was almost thrilling.

Blind to jeopardy, it seemed, a man was seated about the middle of the tilting air craft. The barn roof was about twenty-five feet high, but Andy could plainly make out the venturesome pilot, and his mechanical eye ran over the strange machine with interest and delight.

A hand lever seemed to propel the flyer, and this the man aloft grasped while his eyes roved over the scene below.

How the airs.h.i.+p had got on the roof of the barn, Andy could only surmise. Either it had made a whimsical dive, or the motive power had failed. The trouble now was, Andy plainly saw, that one set of wings had caught across a tin ornament at the front gable of the barn. This represented a rooster, and had been bent in two by the tugging airs.h.i.+p.

"Hey, you!" sang out the man in charge of the airs.h.i.+p. "Can you get up here any way?"

"There's a cleat ladder at the side."

"All right, come up and bring a rope with you."

Andy was only too glad to be of service in a new field that fascinated him. The doors of the barn were open. He ran in and looked about busily.

At last he discovered a long rope hanging over a harness hook. He took possession of it, hurried again to the outside, and nimbly ascended the cleats.

"Look sharp, now, and follow closely," spoke the aeronaut. "Creep along the edge, there, and loop the rope under the end of those side wings."

"I can do that," declared Andy. He saw what the man wanted, and it was not much of a task to balance on the spout running along the edge of the s.h.i.+ngles and then climb to the ridge-pole. Andy looped the end of the rope over an extending bar running out from the remote end of the last paddle.

"Now, then," called out the aeronaut in a highly-satisfied tone, "if you can get to the seat just behind me, fetching the rope with you, we'll soon be out of this tangle."

"All right," said Andy.

"And I'll give you the ride of your life."

"Will you, mister?" cried Andy, with bated breath and sparkling eyes.

The boy began creeping along the slant of the barn roof. It was slow progress, for he saw that he must keep the rope from getting tangled.

Another hindrance to rapid progress was the fact that he had to be careful not to graze or disturb the delicate wings of the machine.

About half the directed progress covered, Andy paused and looked down.

The door of the farmhouse was in his range of vision, and the farmer had just opened it cautiously.

He stuck out his head, and bobbed it in again. The next minute he ventured out a little farther. Now he came out on the stoop of the house.

"Hey, you!" he yelled, waving his hands up at the aeronaut.

"Well, neighbor?" interrogated the latter.