Joe Strong and his wings of steel or, A young acrobat in the clouds
there be ready to fasten this end to something so they can come down
the rope. Make it good and tight.”
“Yes! Yes! We’ll do that!” was the eager response. “Go on up with the
rope!”
Again the smoke cloud parted and another view could be had of the
imperilled men.
“Where’s the woman?” some one cried.
“She’s burned!” a man murmured hoarsely.
“They’ll all be burned soon,” another added.
But Joe Strong was doing his best to save them. He attached the rope
to his machine, and again cautioning the men in charge of it to see
that it paid out well, he turned on the power in the _Bat_.
In a moment he began rising, but he could no longer see those on the
roof, for the smoke had rolled in again.
Up and up went the lad, the rope trailing out behind him. He could
hear cries of wonder from the crowd now, for he was in plain sight
and what he was about to do was evident to all.
“He’s going to save them!” was shouted on all sides. “That circus
flying machine boy is going to save them!”
In his heart Joe hoped he could.
CHAPTER XXIV
REVELATIONS
Contact by contact Joe shoved over his electrical switch until he was
using full power in the motors, and the big wings were flapping and
fanning the air, carrying him up to the hotel roof.
The fire in the middle of the building was fiercer now, and the
flames, having crept up two more stories, were almost as high as the
roof itself. On two sides there was a wall of smoke, through which it
would be difficult to pass. On the other, tips of flame occasionally
shot up, leaving but one side over which the rope could be passed so
there might be a chance for life.
“One chance out of four,” mused Joe, as he looked up at the roof,
“and that chance may go any second. It’s a slim outlook.”
The rope was paying out freely, and he realized that he had capable
helpers on the ground below.
Though the youth was steering his craft some distance away from the
hotel, intending to come closer as he got beyond the fire zone, he
could feel the heat of the flames as they belched out of the windows.
It was a fierce conflagration.
Higher and higher he went, until finally he was ready to sail in and
land on the roof, being well above the burning hotel. The imperilled
ones saw him, and raised their hands in mute appeal. Joe could see
them shouting to him, but the crackle of the flames was so great he
could not distinguish the words.
“There’s the woman,” he murmured, as he saw a huddled female form
lying on the roof. “She isn’t burned. Only fainted, I guess. But how
will they get her down the rope, unless one of the men carries her?
And that’ll be no easy work.”
But Joe had too many things to think of just then to allow himself
to dwell on that detail. That could be taken up when it was reached.
Squarely over the middle of the roof the lad guided his wings of
steel. He saw the open scuttle by which the men and the woman had
reached their positions. The roof had not burned through in any
place yet, but it was smoking over in one corner, and it was only a
question of a few minutes before it would break into flames.
Joe glided down in the _Bat_ and, as the men on the roof rushed
toward him, he quickly got out of the frame.
“Can you save us?” one young fellow asked frantically.
“I’m going to make a big try!” cried Joe. “Is that woman dead?”
“No, only fainted,” some one answered.
“Lower her down first!” cried a big man, whose clothing was scorched,
showing how narrow had been his escape from the flames. “I see you
brought up a rope,” he added. “Lower the woman first!”
“That’s what!” came the general cry. “The woman first!”
“We can’t lower her!” said Joe.
“Why not?”
“Because flames are shooting out of the windows on all four sides of
the hotel below us. We might pick out a spot where for the moment
there would be no fire, but it might burst out any second and burn
the rope through. It can’t be done. If I had a steel rope it would be
all right, but I haven’t.”
“How you going to save us then?” demanded a man.
“By a slanting rope. We’ll fasten this to the roof here. Down below
there they’ll carry it out some distance and make it fast. Thus the
rope will be held away from the flames for a time, and you men can go
down it hand over hand. It’s the only way. Quick now, the roof may
soon fall!”
“But what about the woman?” persisted the big man. “We’ve got to save
her. I won’t go down to face that crowd and have it said I left a
woman back here to die!”
“I won’t either!” cried the others. “We’ve got to save her.”
Joe did some rapid thinking. For a moment he thought he might take
her down in the _Bat_. It would not lift double, but it might safely
soar down with his weight and that of the woman. But then, as he saw
the parapet, or raised wall of masonry, around the edge of the roof,
put there as a sort of guard rail, he knew his plan would not work.
He would have to make the _Bat_ lift him and the woman over that
parapet and it could not be done. There must another way be found.
“Can one of you men carry her?” he asked, nodding toward the
unconscious form.
“It would be pretty hard to do it and go down the rope,” said one
man. The others nodded their agreement. Then the big man had an
inspiration.
“Will the rope hold double?” he asked.
“Yes, and more too,” said Joe, who knew something about ropes from
his circus experience.
“Then cut off an end of it, tie the woman to my shoulders, and I’ll
go down the rope with her on my back,” cried the big man.
“Are you sure you can do it?” asked Joe.
“I used to be a sailor,” was the quiet answer.
“Then go ahead,” advised Joe. “Make the rope fast while I fix some
holding loops with the piece we cut off.”
It was the work of but a few seconds for the sailor to make a tight
knot around a projection on the roof. Meanwhile Joe, using the extra
piece of rope, made loops around the woman’s shoulders and waist.
She could thus be held on the big man’s back in an upright position.
Once the main cable was made fast, Joe signalled to those on the
ground to carry out their end and make that fast.
“All ready now!” called the young acrobat.
The fire was raging more hotly now. In one corner of the roof there
was a little tongue of flame showing. The roof had burned through and
puffs of smoke were coming up. It was a question of minutes--nay,
seconds--now.
The rope passed from the roof to the ground on a long slant, and
thus, instead of dangling straight down the side of the building,
where it would have been burned by the flames spouting from the
windows, it was at a safe distance above the fire.
“Come on! Come on!” cried Joe. “Who’s to go first?”
“Let him,” spoke a young man, pointing to the one who had offered to
carry the woman.
They fastened her to his back. She was now slowly regaining the
consciousness she had lost through excessive fear, but she was in no
condition to help herself.
“Well, here I go,” said the big man. He climbed over the parapet and
then, using care and caution, he began to descend the rope, hand over
hand.
A great cry arose from the crowd below as they saw the first of the
saved ones coming from the place of peril.
“Wait until he gets down a way, and then one of the rest of you try
it,” advised Joe.
“I’m very light, I might go now. I wouldn’t add much to the rope,”
spoke a voice close to Joe. He started at the sound of it--for it was
decidedly English in accent.
“Perkins!” he exclaimed, recognizing now the man who had made him the
strange offer about his estate.
“Mr. Strong!” cried the Englishman. “I didn’t know you before--I’m
that excited!”
And Joe had not recognized the fellow whose face was covered with
smoke and dirt. It was the voice that brought recognition. If the man
had spoken before Joe had been too excited to notice it. But it was
Perkins surely enough.
“Yes, go on,” said Joe. “You are a light weight.”
“You--you’ve saved my life!” was the comment. “I won’t forget it, Mr.
Strong.”
“Hurry!” was all Joe answered.
One after another the men followed down the rope. It bore their
weight safely, and only in that way could they have been saved.
Joe’s idea had worked out well.
Cheer after cheer came from the crowd, as those who were anxiously
waiting below saw the men leaving their place of danger. Joe looked
down and noted that the big man, who had carried the woman on his
back, was safe on the ground now. Willing hands were caring for the
waitress, for Joe afterward learned she was one of the hotel servants.
And then, when he saw the last man start down the hempen way to
safety, the lad got in his wings of steel and turned on the power.
The wings vibrated, and up he rose.
Only just in time, too; for as he passed over the parapet and began
to soar away from the hotel, one corner of the roof caved in, and up
shot a burst of sparks, flames and smoke.
“A close call!” exclaimed Joe, as he increased his rate of sailing in
order to get away from the crater of the volcano he feared might soon
represent what had been a hotel.
Joe was received with wild acclaim when he reached the ground. It
seemed that every man, woman and child in the crowd wanted to clasp
his hand--to touch him somewhere--as he came out of the _Bat_. Cheers
were given for him, though few knew his name even, except as they had
seen it on the circus posters.
“It was the greatest rescue I ever saw!” cried a man, and others
echoed his words.
By this time firemen from a neighboring municipality had come up,
and with their help the other handicapped fire-fighters, who were
short-numbered, were better able to cope with the flames. Though
the roof had burned through there was now a chance of getting the
fire under control, though the upper half of the hotel was a mass
of ruins. Only the fact that the conflagration had started in the
middle, whence it burned up instead of down, saved any portion of it.
“Well, I guess I’d better get back to the circus parade,” Joe
thought, as soon as he could get out of the crowd. He again rose in
the air until he was high enough to see the procession wending its
way back to the lots. The parade had been given up when half over.
The fire was too big an attraction with which to compete.
“You covered yourself with glory again, Joe,” cried Jim Tracy a
little later. “It was great!”
“Oh, it wasn’t much,” said Joe modestly.
“Yes, it was--I saw it,” declared the ring-master. “And if we don’t
play to the biggest day and night since you won the aviation prize,
I’m no prophet.”
Jim Tracy was a good prophet, and throngs had to be turned away from
the show, even though straw was spread around the ring to allow
hundreds to sit on the ground. And Joe Strong was cheered again and
again as he sailed around the tent in the _Bat_ which the crowd knew
at once as the life-saving machine.
At night it was the same. And so many had to be turned away that the
management decided to stay another day in the place as business,
thanks to the young aeronaut’s advertising, was so good.
Joe was interviewed by several newspaper reporters, and his picture
was in more than one journal as one of the heroes of the day.
“It was all because of the wings of steel,” said the boy. “In them
any one could have gone up.”
“I guess we’ll have to equip the fire department with a set,” said a
deputy chief who called to thank Joe. “They’d come in very useful in
another case like that.”
“I hope you don’t have any more cases like that,” observed the young
hero.
“So do I,” echoed the fireman.