Joe Strong and his wings of steel or, A young acrobat in the clouds
flexible, so that he could more easily guide them.
The only trouble was that in flying in the tent he hardly had room
enough to give a good exhibition of what he could do. The circus tent
was one of the largest made. It was bigger than the one the Sampson
Brothers had used when Joe had first come to them, for they had
bought one of increased size to accommodate Joe’s high-wire act.
“If necessary we’ll get a bigger one yet next season,” said Mr.
Sampson. “We want you to have plenty of room, Joe.”
“Yes, that’s what I need. I really ought to fly in the open, but
there would be no money in giving on open-air show.”
“Indeed not. And we need the money. How is your English inheritance
coming on?”
“It isn’t coming on at all,” Joe said. “There’s some trouble I can’t
understand. But it may straighten out in time.”
On reaching, in the course of the route, the town of Highfield, the
managers of the circus found the lot where they were to erect their
tents occupied by a man who had a captive balloon, in which, for a
small sum, he allowed persons to go up.
“I’m afraid he’ll draw the crowd away from us,” said Jim Tracy.
“No, he won’t. Not after Joe does his flying act in the parade,” said
Mr. Sampson, “and the crowd gets a taste of what it can see in our
tents.”
It was just before the afternoon performance that Joe had the _Bat_
out on the circus lot recharging the storage battery. Off to one
side was the captive balloon, surrounded by a small crowd.
Leaving his machine in charge of the electrician, Joe strolled over
to look at the captive balloon.
“Here’s your chance now, ladies and gentlemen!” exclaimed the man
who owned the balloon. “Go up and see how the earth looks from the
clouds. Only a quarter--twenty-five cents--for a trip in the balloon.
Perfectly safe, and we land you back on earth in ten minutes. No
danger at all. I go up with you, and my assistant down here pulls us
back by the rope. Who’ll go up in the captive balloon?”
Several persons entered the basket which was attached to the big
swaying bag, which had been filled with illuminating gas from one of
the city mains.
Then suddenly, just as the balloon man was about to get into the car
to rise with his passengers, something happened. Whether the rope had
been frayed by too much use, or whether the balloon gave a stronger
tug than usual, was not disclosed. But in a moment the balloon, a
captive to earth no longer, shot up, while the women in it screamed
in terror and the men shouted in alarm.
CHAPTER XIII
RESCUED
“The balloon is loose! The balloon is loose!”
Thus cried the crowd, but it was a needless cry, for every one could
see that the balloon was shooting upward.
The man who had intended going up in the basket, as well as his
assistant, made frantic grabs for the car, but it was beyond their
reach in an instant.
Those watching saw one woman attempt to throw herself over the side
of the basket, but a man pulled her back.
“Keep still! Stay in the basket! You’ll be all right!” cried the
balloon man. “She’ll come down some time!”
“Yes, but when?” asked a frenzied woman. “My daughter is in that
balloon! She’ll be killed!”
“No, she won’t! They’ll be all right,” said the owner of the big bag.
“If they will only open the valve and let out some of the gas they’ll
come down quicker.”
“Then tell ’em what to do!” cried some one in the crowd.
The man made a trumpet of his hands, and yelled:
“Pull on the white cord. Pull a little at a time. That will open the
valve and let the gas out slowly, then you’ll come down. But don’t
pull the red cord!”
“They can’t hear you,” said Joe. “Yell louder.”
“Get a megaphone,” some one advised.
“Here, make one out of a newspaper,” a man cried. He rolled a paper
into the form of a cone, tore off one end to make a place for the
mouth, and handed it to the balloon man.
“Pull on the white cord, but not on the red!” shouted the aeronaut,
directing the improvised megaphone toward the balloon, which was now
far up in the air.
“Why not on the red cord?” asked a young man.
“That’s the ripping cord,” the balloonist explained in a low voice.
“If they pull that it will tear a section out of the silk bag, and
the balloon will come down with a rush.”
“Oh, anything to get it down!” begged the woman who had said her
daughter was in the car. “Do anything to get it down!”
Joe Strong had a sudden inspiration. His wings of steel! Why could he
not use them to fly after the escaping balloon? If he could not reach
the valve cord himself, he could tell those in the balloon what to do.
He started on a rush toward the place where his machine was being
charged.
“Is the battery ready?” he called to the electrician.
“Yes, all ready for a flight. But what’s the matter?”
“That balloon!” cried Joe. “It broke loose and there are men and
women in it. I’m going up and tell them how to open the gas valve so
they can get down.”
He did not have his football helmet with him, not being prepared for
his flight, but he did not stop for that now. The balloon was slowly
sailing upward. There being, fortunately, scarcely any wind currents,
it was floating almost exactly above the circus tents.
“Can you fly that high?” asked the electrician, as he helped Joe get
into the cage of the _Bat_, closing the supports about him.
“I think so,” the lad answered. “I’m going to try, anyhow!”
So much attention was centered on the runaway balloon that no one
seemed aware of what the young circus performer was about to do save
the electrician. Joe turned on the current and the big wings began to
vibrate, moving faster and faster until the boy felt himself rising
from the ground.
Joe had now a new feat to accomplish. He must rise higher than he had
ever gone before, but he felt sure that he could do it. He gave a
glance up at the drifting balloon, and he could dimly discern hands
held out over the edge of the basket in an appeal for help.
Over at the place where the windlass had been stationed to haul
the balloon back to earth, was gathered a crowd of excited men and
women. Those who had friends or relatives in the runaway ship of
the air were frantically begging that something be done. But the
balloonist and his assistant could do nothing except to assure the
imploring ones that the big bag would eventually come down, as the
gas gradually escaped.
“Yes, but when it comes down my daughter may be dead!” cried a woman
frantically.
“What else can I do?” asked the hectored balloonist. “I can not jump
up in the air and pull down the balloon, much as I wish to. It was an
unavoidable accident, I am sorry to say.”
“Why wasn’t your rope stronger?” demanded an indignant man.
“It was always strong enough before,” was the answer. “A very strong
puff of wind must have come to cause the cable to break. I am sorry.
I----”
“Look! Look!” some one shouted. “There goes the fellow who flies in
the circus! Maybe he’s going up to bring down the balloon!”
“Oh, if he only can!” murmured the woman who had been weeping for her
daughter.
The electrician, having assisted Joe, ran over to where the crowd was
assembled. He heard what the woman said.
“Joe Strong will bring that balloon down if anybody can,” said the
man who had charged Joe’s battery for him.
“Does he know anything about balloons?” eagerly asked the man who
owned the runaway air craft.
“I guess so. Anyhow, he said if he could not open the valve himself
he would call to those in the car and tell them how to do it.”
“Does he know which cord to pull?” went on the aeronaut. “If he
tells them to pull the red one--the ripping cord--at that height the
balloon will----”
And then he stopped. He saw the mother looking at him, and he dared
not tell her that if the ripping cord was pulled the balloon would
collapse from the sudden release of the gas and plunge too swiftly
down. The ripping cord is only used when the balloon is close to the
ground, to make a sudden landing to save going into the water or
coming down on dangerous ground.
“I guess Joe Strong knows enough about balloons not to make a
mistake,” the electrician said. “He planned the wings of steel, and
any boy who can do that knows something about air craft. Leave it to
Joe.”
Meanwhile Joe was soaring upward in the _Bat_. He guided his queer
craft in as straight a course as he could toward the drifting
balloon, and as he had the power of the wings to lift him, as well as
the force of a slightly upward current of air, he was moving faster
than the balloon.
For the first time since he had used the reconstructed _Bat_, Joe
turned on the full current. The result surprised him, for he shot
upward so suddenly and with such speed, that his breath was well-nigh
taken from him.
“I’ve got to slow down a little,” the lad decided. He turned back
the switch and the result was a better rate of movement. He was
moving more slowly, but he was still moving at greater speed than the
balloon, and he was sure he would eventually overtake it.
The young aeronaut gave no heed to himself. He did not think of his
own danger; but that was like him, since he never gave a thought to
what was below him in making his air trips.
Up and up he soared, steering, by means of the rudders operated by
his feet, a slanting course. The balloon seemed to have reached a
heavy stratum of air, through which it could not pass, and was now
drifting along parallel to the plane of the earth’s surface--for
though the earth is curved, the curve is so vast that it may be
spoken of as a plane, as regards a certain limited extent.
Joe was now coming nearer to the runaway balloon. Now he could
plainly make out the persons in it--five men and three women. They
called to him, and held out their hands appealingly, but he could not
hear what they said.
“I hope I can make them hear me above the noise my steel wings make,”
thought the young aviator. “I can’t get into the balloon myself,
that’s sure. If I had had a little more practice with my machine I
might manage it, though, for it would be like getting from one moving
automobile into another, once you had the speeds the same. But I
guess I’d better call to them.”
Nearer and nearer he came to the floating balloon. Joe gave a look
down. He was above some low-lying clouds, and it was the first
time in his life he had been up so high. The feeling gave him no
uneasiness, however, for, as has been said, Joe’s nerves were not
of the sort that were affected by what, to others, would be dizzy
heights.
The lad was now within a short distance of the balloon. He found that
he was moving faster than the escaped bag, so he reduced the speed.
This caused the wings to make less noise, and Joe could hear the men
and the women calling to him for assistance.
“Save us!”
“Help us get down!”
“What shall we do?”
“Please listen to me!” cried Joe, making a megaphone of his hands,
for they were not needed in steering. “Do you see two cords hanging
down from up above?”
“Yes! Yes! Two cords!” a man answered.
“Which shall I pull? The red one?” asked another.
“No! No!” shouted the young aviator. “If you do that you’ll
be--you’ll go down too fast,” he hastily substituted. “Pull the white
cord. Yank it once, then wait. Then pull it again. Don’t let out too
much gas at once.”
Joe had not heard without understanding, what the balloon man had
said about the cords which regulated the gas.
“Pull the white cord,” Joe cried again.
“All right,” answered the man.
While Joe flew, encased in the cage of his wings of steel, alongside