CHAPTER VII--JOHN PARKS, AIRSHIP KING

"Keep right on," ordered the aeronaut to Andy in a low tone.

Andy squeezed under a bulge of muslin and wood and reached what looked like a low, flat-topped stool.

"Do you hear me?" yelled the farmer, brandishing his weapon and trying to look very fierce and dangerous.

The aeronaut, Andy noticed, was reaching in his pocket. He drew out two small bills and some silver. He made a wad of this. Poising it, he gave it a fling.

"There's five dollars," he spoke to the farmer.

The wad hit the farmer on the shoulder, opened, and the silver scattered at his feet. He hopped aside.

"I won't take it; I'll have my price, or I'll have the law on you, and I'll take the law in my own hands!" he shouted.

Snap!--the fowling-piece made a sound, and quick-witted Andy noticed that it was not a click.

"See here," he whispered quickly to the aeronaut; "that man just snapped the trigger to scare us, and I don't believe the old blunderbuss is loaded."

"All ready," spoke the aeronaut to Andy, as the latter reached the seat.

"Yes, sir," reported Andy.

"When I back, give the rope a pull and hold taut till we clear the barn."

"I'll do it," said Andy.

"Go!"

There was a whir, a delicious tremulous lifting movement that now made Andy thrill all over, and the biplane backed as the aeronaut pulled a lever.

Andy gave the rope a pull and lifted the entangled wing entirely clear of the weather-vane.

"Now, hold tight and enjoy yourself," spoke the aeronaut, reversing the machine.

"Oh, my!" breathed Andy rapturously the next moment, and he forgot all about the farmer and nearly everything else mundane in the delight and novelty of a brand-new experience.

Andy had once shot the chutes, and had dreamed about it for a month afterwards. He recalled his first spin in an automobile with a thrill even now. That was nothing to the present sensation. He could not analyze it. He simply sat spellbound. One moment his breath seemed taken away; the next he seemed drawing in an atmosphere that set his nerves tingling and seemed to intoxicate mind and body.

The aeronaut sat grim and watchful in the pilot seat of the glider, never speaking a word. He had skimmed the landscape for quite a reach. Then, where the ground began to slant, he said quickly:

"Notice my left foot?"

"I do," said Andy.

"Put yours on the stabilizing shaft when I take mine off."

"Stabilizing shaft," repeated Andy, memorizing, "and the name of the airship painted on that big paddle is the _Eagle_. Oh, hurrah for the _Eagle_!"

"When I whistle once, press down with your foot. Twice, you take your foot off. When I whistle twice, pull over the handle right at your side on the center-drop."

"'Center-drop'?" said Andy. "I'm getting it fast."

Z--zip! Andy fancied that something was wrong, for the machine contorted like a horse raising on his rear feet. Toot! Andy did not lose his nerve. Toot--toot! he grasped the handle at his side and pulled it back.

"Good for you!" commended the aeronaut heartily. "Now, then, for a spin."

Andy simply looked and felt for the next ten minutes. The pretty, dainty machine made him think of a skylark, an arrow, a rocket. He had a bouyant sensation like a person taking laughing gas.

The lifting planes moved readily under the manipulation of an expert hand. There was one level flight where the airship exceeded any railroad speed Andy had ever noted. Farms, villages, streams, hills, faded behind them in an endless panorama.

Toot!--Andy followed instructions. They slowed up over a town that seemed to be some railroad center. Beyond it the machine skimmed a broad prairie and then gracefully settled down in the center of a fenced-in space.

Its wheels struck the ground. They rolled along for about fifty yards, and halted by the side of a big tent with an open flap at one side.

"This is the stable," said the aeronaut, showing Andy how to get from his seat on the delicate and complicated apparatus of the flyer. "Dizzy-headed?"

"Why, no," replied Andy.

"Wasn't frightened a bit?"

"Not with you at the helm," declared Andy. "Mister, if I could do that, I'd live up in the air all the time."

"You only think so," said the aeronaut, the smile of experience upon his practical but good-humored face. "When you've been at it as long as I have, you'll feel different. What's your name?"

"Andy Nelson."

"Out of a job?"

"Yes, sir."

The aeronaut looked Andy over critically,

"That little frame building at the end of the tent is where we keep house," he explained. "The big rambling barracks, once a coal-shed, is my shop. I'm John Parks. Ever hear of me?"

"No, sir," said Andy.

"I'm known all over the country as the Airship King."

"I can believe that," said Andy, "but, you see, I have never traveled far."

"I've made it a business giving exhibitions at fairs and aero meets with this glider and with a dirigible balloon. Just now I'm drilling for a prize race--five thousand dollars."

"That's some money," observed Andy, "and I guess you'll win it."

"I see you like me, and I like you," said John Parks. "Suppose you help me win that prize? I need good loyal help around me, and the way you obey orders pleases me. I'll make you an offer--your keep and ten dollars."

"And I'll be near the airship?" asked Andy eagerly. "And learn to run it?"

"Yes."

"Oh, my!" cried the boy, almost lifted off his feet. "Mr. Parks, I can't realize such good luck."

"It's yours for the choosing," said the aeronaut.

"Ten dollars a month and my board for helping run an airship!" said Andy breathlessly. "Oh, of course I'll take it--gladly."

"No," corrected John Parks, "ten dollars a week."