Billy Whiskers' Adventures Part 9

They had gone about half a mile out of town and were still running along the beach when they came to a sawmill where there were a lot of men wading in the water up to their knees pus.h.i.+ng the logs on to a narrow endless moving incline that carried them up into the mill where they would be sawed into lumber.

"Don't they look like big alligators being pushed up that plane to be killed?" said Billy.

"They really do, but I never thought of that before," replied Stubby.

"They remind me more of cattle being driven into the slaughter pens at the stockyards," said b.u.t.ton.

"There is something fascinating about watching those big logs being carried silently up into the mill to be turned into s.h.i.+ngles, flooring and boards of various lengths to be made into furniture," remarked Billy.

"There surely is. But we can't stand here all day or we won't get far on our journey."

The three had just started on a run again when they heard a big voice which they recognized as Mr. Noland's calling to them. He stood on a tramway that ran from the mill to the boat landing.

"Here, you rascals, where are you going? And what are you doing so far from home? You'll get lost one of these days if you don't stop wandering around in a strange town the way you do. Here, come back, I say! Don't you hear me calling you? I just bet this old mill makes such a noise they don't hear me!" and he put his hands up to his mouth and tried to make a megaphone out of them, but it was of no avail. The Chums kept on at their rapid pace and turned neither to the right nor to the left, pretending they did not hear him.

After they were out of sight and sound of the mill, they stopped to rest and to get their breath for they had been running fast.

"I did not know Mr. Noland owned a mill, did you?" Billy asked.

"No. But he seems to own or at least have a hand in everything in that town, I have observed," said b.u.t.ton.

"I really think they will be sorry when they find we don't come back,"

said Stubby. "One could never find nicer people to live with. But we are too old travelers to settle down in any one place, no matter how nice it is. The wanderl.u.s.t has surely got us by the throat."

"Billy," said b.u.t.ton, "you should go on a lecture tour through the U.S.A. and relate the different exciting experiences you have had in the many different countries you have visited."

"How about you and Stubby doing the same thing? You have been with me nearly everywhere I have been."

"I know, but you have so much more presence than we have and your voice carries so much further when talking than ours do," said Stubby.

"Just for sport I am going to enumerate some of the things that you could make into a dandy lecture," said b.u.t.ton. "You could begin with your experiences in the circus when you were young and before you were married. Then when you were hunting for the Kids the time they ran away and were carried off to Constantinople and you thought them dead.

Next, some of the tales you told when you came home from j.a.pan after being in the war between the j.a.panese and the Russians, and afterward how you found yourself down in Mexico. Next you could tell what you and your friends did along with Billy Junior, and your grandchildren, to say nothing of the sc.r.a.pes you were in when you went on that memorable vacation and left Nannie at home. After that you could make a whole lecture on your hairbreadth escape in an aeroplane, what you saw in town and in Panama, on the Mississippi, in the West, at the World's Exposition in San Francisco, and last but not least in Europe during our Great War. And then you might end with our escape from France and the return to America. There would be a wonderful chance for a series of lectures and I bet before the audience heard them all their hair would be standing on end and they would be holding their breath from excitement at your many narrow escapes from death."

"There, Billy," said Stubby, "your life work is laid out for you. You travel and lecture while b.u.t.ton and I will be your press agents and go ahead and find a place for you to lecture in all the big cities and towns. If you did this, then Nannie could travel with you all the time. And I know you would both like that. Then too you would not grow so restless as it would keep you on the move all the time, for we would plan it so that you would give only three lectures in any one place and then go on to the next."

"The more I think of it, the more the idea appeals to me," said b.u.t.ton.

"Why not make our journey north into that kind of a trip right now?"

said Stubby. "We could send word to Nannie to journey south to meet us."

"It _does_ sound rather attractive," admitted Billy.

"Of course it does!" seconded b.u.t.ton. "And you owe it to the poor untraveled animals to give out some of your experiences to them, to enliven their humdrum lives and tell them about the outside world.

Just see what a lot of pleasure the Dog and Cat Club give those stay-at-homes who have never been outside the suburbs of New York City--and most of them have never ventured ten blocks from where they were born."

"Hark!" exclaimed Billy. "I hear the most peculiar whistling, whizzing sound. It sounds up in the clouds, but I can't see a thing."

"It must be an aeroplane then, but I can't see a thing in the sky,"

said b.u.t.ton, but as he spoke a huge dirigible balloon poked its nose out of a cloud over their heads. It was so directly overhead that they could see every part of it distinctly.

"Isn't it a whale of a balloon? I never saw as large a one even in Europe," said Billy.

"Nor I either," said Stubby, full of wonder at its size.

"Look! It is slowly coming to earth. I believe they are going to land over in that clover field," said b.u.t.ton.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

And sure enough they did. This great big dirigible, the first of its size to cross the Atlantic Ocean, was landing right before their eyes.

"Let us run over and get as near it as we can," Billy said.

When the monster airs.h.i.+p landed, the Chums were not fifty feet away, and stood taking in everything as it slowly settled to earth.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Presently little windows and doors were seen to open in its sides and people came walking out. The Chums went nearer and found out by the conversation they overheard that they were forced to land as something was the matter with the machinery. The longer Billy looked, the more he wanted to see what the dirigible was like on the inside, until at last his curiosity got the better of him and he walked boldly up to the balloon and poked his head in one of the doors and gazed in. Not being driven away, or seeing any one, he stepped in and soon was exploring the balloon from one end to the other, with both Stubby and b.u.t.ton at his heels.

"Isn't it wonderful?" said Billy. "Just as cozy and nice as a s.h.i.+p that sails the sea. Staterooms, lounge, dining saloon, kitchen and storerooms galore! Let's hide and be carried off with her when she starts. It is worth being delayed on our journey to have such an experience."

"Indeed it is!" replied b.u.t.ton.

"Quick, get under that table! I hear some one coming," warned Stubby.

Billy dodged under the table in the dining saloon while Stubby hid under a chair and b.u.t.ton ran up a curtain and settled himself on the curtain pole near the ceiling. The person they had heard coming soon pa.s.sed through the room, and they came out of their hiding places and continued their explorations.

Presently they found it difficult to stand on their feet, and looking from a window they discovered they were slowly rising from the ground.

At the same time they found it was exceedingly hard to stand still and keep their balance. Before it should grow any worse, they ran back and hid where they had before, to await further developments.

"I hope if they find us they don't pitch us overboard when they get up two or three thousand feet," said Stubby.

CHAPTER X

UP IN A DIRIGIBLE

"Help! Oh, help! I must have some air," whined Stubby. "I am getting seasick!" But neither Billy nor b.u.t.ton heard him as the noise of the engine and propellers drowned all other sounds in the balloon.

"If there was only a deck I could get out on! I wish I had not come! I just hate this way of traveling! It is worse than being in an elevator in a high building and having the car shoot from the bottom floor to the top in one bound. This thing is worse for it decides to stop, dropping and then shooting up again without warning, and it runs upside down and every other way but straight ahead. Oh, oh, oh! I can't stand it another minute. I must have air!"

So Stubby crawled out from under his chair and climbed up on a long, narrow window seat directly under an open window and hung out his head. He could only just reach the window by standing on his hind legs as he was so short and the window ledge was so far above the seat. As he looked out he could see the earth fast receding from him. He felt as if it were the dirigible that was standing still and the earth that was dropping from them. By this time they were so high in the air that the fields and forests looked like squares on a checkerboard and the broad rivers were mere silver threads across it. As for the churches and houses, they looked like card houses or toy paper villages. People he could see none; they were too small to be seen from this height. He became so interested looking that he forgot his seasickness, and he was very much surprised when they ran into a raincloud and he felt the raindrops on his face. But what surprised him most was to see lightning darting all around him and so near it seemed to go through the dirigible and come out the opposite side. As for the thunder, you people who have never been up in the clouds and heard it close at hand have no idea of the terrific noise and of the terror it causes one.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

By this time the big dirigible was floundering in the stormclouds as a s.h.i.+p does in a heavy sea, only ten times more so. A dirigible is lighter than a s.h.i.+p and the wind at this alt.i.tude much stronger. It would catch the balloon up and carry it for miles out of its course on one of its fierce currents. Then without warning it would suddenly die down and the big balloon would drop hundreds of feet only to be caught up by another blast and twirled around or carried up again as the case might be, while constantly the lightning flashed and the thunder rolled and our Chums thought the very next gale would double them up and dash them to their death.