Joe Strong and his wings of steel or, A young acrobat in the clouds
“You see I can steer myself by working one wing faster than the
other, for each one will have a separate motor. I also have a small
rudder down here, or, rather, two rudders. I control them with my
feet. One is for steering from side to side, and the other is the
elevation rudder. By deflecting it one way I can go up, and by
reversing it I glide down.”
“It sounds easy,” said Ben, but there was doubt in his tone.
“Joe, you sure have ideas,” commented Bill. “But I wouldn’t take the
risks you do--not for a good many thousand dollars!”
“Well, if this thing works right, I’ll be a good many thousand
dollars in pocket,” Joe said. “I’ll take in big money by going about
the country giving real flying exhibitions--not circling around in
an airship or an aeroplane--though they’re wonderful enough; I don’t
mean to say anything against them.
“But my wings of steel will be different. I want to resemble a big
bird as nearly as I can, and I think therein will be the great
novelty.”
“Yes, it will be novel all right,” admitted Bill.
Joe then gave a further demonstration of his queer apparatus--that
is, as good a demonstration as he could under the circumstances. The
two visitors looked at it on all sides, but neither one had very much
faith in Joe’s plan.
“You’d better stick to the motor-cycle,” said Benny Turton. “As for
me, the tank where I play a human fish is good enough for me.”
Joe crawled out of the framework, and pointed out some other
mechanical appliances on his apparatus. As he was locking the
workroom preparatory to accompanying his two friends outside, a
messenger handed him a letter.
“Ha! Maybe this is what I’ve been waiting for,” he said. “Word of the
motors being completed.”
Then, as he looked at the stamp and saw a foreign one on the
envelope, he said:
“Why, this is from England! I guess they’re sending me the rest of my
money. Well, it will come in handy.”
He opened the letter quickly. A hasty glance through the contents
caused Joe to utter an exclamation; and it was not one of joy.
“What’s the matter?” asked Bill Watson.
“Bad news,” replied Joe quietly. “Very bad!”
CHAPTER II
TANGLES
For a moment Bill and Ben hesitated, and each, in his own mind,
pondered whether it would be better or not to leave Joe alone for
a while, and allow him to settle his own affairs. And then the
fellowship that seems to exist among persons who perform together
for the amusement of the public asserted itself, and Bill asked
sympathetically:
“Is there anything we can do, Joe? Is it bad news about your new
machine? Can’t they make it for you--I mean finish it?”
“Oh, it isn’t that,” Joe said. “This letter is from a lawyer in
England who was looking after my affairs. He says my mother’s estate
is badly tangled up, and it is doubtful if I ever get any more money
out of it, and I may be sued for taking what I have already had.”
Benny Turton whistled.
“That’s hard luck!” he exclaimed. “Why, I thought everything was
going smoothly. I don’t see how they can take back what you have
already had.”
“They’ll have their own troubles getting it,” said Joe, “as most of
it has been spent on my wings of steel. But of course if the courts
decide that I had no right to it, I will have spent it wrongfully,
and I’ll be liable to punishment.”
“Why, I thought the lawyer for the mining syndicate that Mr. Craige
represented handled your affairs,” said Bill Watson.
“He did at first,” Joe answered, “but he had to turn my legal matters
over to some one who was not so busy as he. A Mr. Kent Bolling now
has charge, and this letter is from him. The whole affair is all
mixed up. I’ll have to write him a letter at once and ask what can be
done.”
“Then we’ll leave you,” said Ben. “Come to the circus when you can,
Joe. We’re playing a straight week in Wharton, and you may find time
to run over. Wharton is only ten miles. We came on the train to-day,
but you can make it on your motor-cycle.”
“Yes, I’ll try to get over,” promised Joe. And then, bidding his
friends good-bye, he went to his boarding place to pen a letter to
the English solicitor.
And while Joe is doing that just a moment will be taken to acquaint
new readers with something of the history of Joe Strong, as it has
been given in the previous books of this series.
In the first volume, entitled “Joe Strong, the Boy Wizard; Or, the
Mysteries of Magic Exposed,” it is related that Joe, having run away
from home, fell in with a stage magician, Professor Rosello, and went
on the road with him, doing tricks. Joe was particularly fitted for
this, as his father, Alexander Strong, known as Professor Morretti,
had been a magician himself.
The boy’s mother, whose maiden name was Janet Willoughby, had learned
to ride spirited horses in England, where she was born. She afterward
came to America and joined a circus, she and her husband sometimes
traveling together and again in separate shows.
So Joe inherited dexterity and daring. He became an expert
sleight-of-hand worker, and learned to do many circus tricks. He was
fearless and nerveless, and he could as easily balance himself on his
head on top of the church spire as he could down on the ground.
Joe’s father and mother had died when he was small, and he was
brought up by a rather strict man, Deacon Amos Blackford, from whom
he later ran away.
After various adventures on the road with Professor Rosello, Joe
Strong joined Sampson Brothers’ Circus and became one of the
performers. In the second volume, named “Joe Strong on the Trapeze;
Or, the Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer,” the story of Joe’s
life in the circus is given. It was an exciting one. He made friends
and enemies, and among the former were Bill Watson, the veteran
clown, who had known Joe’s mother; Benny Turton, who performed in a
big glass tank of water, and was known as the human fish; and Helen
Morton, a pretty bareback rider.
Joe became an expert on the trapeze and flying rings, and it was
while with the show that he once showed how long he could stay under
water in Benny’s glass tank.
In the third volume, “Joe Strong, the Boy Fish; Or, Marvelous Doings
in a Big Tank,” we find Joe taking the place of Benny Turton, who
became incapacitated through illness.
Joe had many adventures while acting as the “boy fish.” He improved
Ben’s act greatly, and learned to stay under water for nearly five
minutes at a stretch. This served him in good stead once when a diver
was caught in an outlet pipe at the bottom of a big reservoir.
From a stranded circus juggler Joe bought a motor-cycle. He became an
expert rider, then had an idea that he could do some thrilling tricks
with the gasoline-bicycle. In the fourth book, called “Joe Strong
on the High Wire; Or, Motor-Cycle Perils of the Air,” we find Joe
perfecting the feat of riding his machine across an open space on a
suspended wire.
But this was not the only feat the lad did, for he climbed up the
outside of the Flatiron Building in New York, for a moving picture
concern, and rode across a street on a wire stretched from one high
building to another.
Joe left the circus for a time, but came back to it to give
exhibitions of his motor-cycle riding, and it was while on the road
that he received information which enabled him to claim some money
from England. His mother, it appeared, was heir to part of a large
estate. She had been disowned by her family when she married Mr.
Strong, but at the last her father forgave her, and expressed a wish
to have her share in his money.
While on his motor-cycle one day Joe was able to save from severe
injury, if not from death, two Englishmen, Mr. Forrest Craige and Mr.
Floyd Strailey, and it was Mr. Craige who helped our hero to obtain
his inheritance.
With the money he received Joe was able to carry out a long-cherished
scheme--that of building for himself wings of steel, a partial
account of which has already been given in the present volume.
The youth had left the circus at the close of the previous season,
when the show wintered in one of the Southern states, in order to
devote his time to building his queer flying machine. Now it was
nearing completion.
The circus was again on the road, but Joe was not with it, though he
thought he might rejoin it at some future time. Among the reasons for
this, aside from earning his living, was the fact that Joe was very
fond of Helen Morton, and he had a faint idea that some day he might
be able to manage matters so she would not have to perform in public,
as a circus environment is not always best for a girl, though there
are many noble men and women in the profession.
At any rate, Joe’s wings of steel were now nearly finished, and he
had great hopes of what he could do with them by giving exhibitions
in public, as he had done when he rode his motor-cycle on the high
wire.
“But if what this lawyer says is true, and I am to get no more money
from mother’s estate, and, not only that, but have to pay back what I
have already used, then good-bye wings of steel!” said Joe gloomily,
as he again read the epistle from England. “Let’s see what it is he
says,” he mused.
In brief the letter, which was from another attorney than the one who
originally had the case, stated that one of the heirs under the will
of Mr. Willoughby, who was the father of Joe’s mother, had objected
to our hero sharing in the estate, and announced his intention of
making Joe pay back the money received.
“I wonder what’s the matter with him, anyhow,” mused Joe as he
glanced over the letter. “This objecting heir got a bigger share
than any one else, and yet he isn’t satisfied. He wants mine, too.
There is bound to be a lot of litigation over the matter, so this
lawyer says,” went on Joe gloomily; “and lawsuits cost money. I wish
I were rich enough to go over there and find out things for myself.
It isn’t any fun to have to be writing letters back and forth. But
it’s the only way. I’ve spent nearly all my spare cash on that
machine. If that is a failure, I’m ‘up the spout,’ as the Dutchman
said.
“Well, the only thing to do is to keep on and see where I come out. I
ought to get the motors in a few days, and then we’ll see what can be
done.”
When he had first had his idea for the wings of steel, which he
thought would enable him to give even a more spectacular performance
than he had given with his motor-cycle on the high wire, Joe had gone
to Mr. Brader, the manufacturer who had made his first apparatus, to
have him build the flying machine.
At first Mr. Brader, who manufactured much special apparatus for
circus performers, had said Joe’s plan was not feasible. But the
young performer had insisted on having what he wanted, and as he had
made a working plan for the machine, the manufacturer set his men to
work on it in his factory.
“And now it’s all but done,” said Joe, as he sat down to write to
the English solicitor. “Only Ben and Bill seem to think I’m going to
break my neck with it. Well, I’ll show them that it’s perfectly safe.
I’ll soon be flying up near the clouds. It will be great!” And, for
the moment, his exultation drove away his gloomy feeling concerning
the possible loss of his money.
Joe wrote to the solicitor, urging him to do his best to secure the
rest of our hero’s inheritance for him. He explained why he wanted
it, and said it did not seem fair to make him pay back what he had
already been given, even if no more were forthcoming.
“There! We’ll see what comes of that!” the lad exclaimed, as he went
out to post the letter. “I wish Mr. Craige’s lawyer had charge of the
case, instead of this Mr. Bolling. I wonder if I can trust him? I
must make some inquiries.”