Part 15 (1/2)

CHAPTER X

FUN WITH OLD RICKS

It was a moment of extreme peril. Sam brought the automobile to a stop.

Had the roadway been wider he might have sheered to one side, but the highway was too narrow for that, and with a ditch on either side, to carry off rain water, he did not want to take a chance of going over.

”Go pack! Go pack!” shrieked Hans Mueller. He was crouching down, looking with staring eyes through the lowered wind s.h.i.+eld of the touring car.

Suddenly Sam acted. While the biplane was still a hundred feet away he threw his lever into the reverse and allowed the gears to connect with the engine. Then the automobile began to move backwards, slowly at first and then faster and faster, as the youngest Rover put on the power.

”He's coming! He's coming! Ve peen busted up in a minit!” roared Hans, who was shaking as with the ague. ”Oh, vy tidn't I sthay home ven I come to pay dis visit!”

The biplane had slowed down, for Tom had shut off the engine. But the _Dartaway_ still had headway enough to catch up to the automobile and it came up like some bird of ill-omen, that made even stout-hearted Sam quail. But he stuck to his post, sending the automobile backward as fast as he dared. He knew the roadway behind was straight, so he simply steered by keeping the wheel as it was.

”Tom, Tom, can't you do something?” he yelled. ”Turn her aside!”

”I'm trying!” yelled back his brother. ”The steering outfit is jammed!”

Backward went the automobile and on and on came the big biplane, until the forward part of the machine was almost over the hood of the touring car.

”Maybe you had better jump out!” cried Sam to Hans.

But even as he spoke there came a sudden snap from the flying machine. A caught wire had released itself. At once the biplane could be steered again, and with a dexterous twist of the wheel and a deflection of one of the tips, Tom brought it around. Over a rail fence it sailed, to land gracefully in the open field beyond. Then Sam stopped the automobile.

”Well!” came from the youngest Rover. And that single word meant a good deal.

”Hope I didn't scare you to death,” sang out Tom, as he climbed from his seat. ”Hans, did you get heart failure?”

”Oh, Dom! Dom! vot for you do him?” asked the German youth, in a voice he tried in vain to steady. ”I d.i.n.k sure you vos going to cut off our heads off alretty!”

”It was the steering outfit did it,” explained Tom. ”I'm awfully sorry I scared you. I was scared myself. I was going to fly over you and then go back when all at once I found I couldn't budge the rudders. Then I got alarmed, thinking the machine might turn turtle on me, so I shut off the engine, intending to glide to earth. But I didn't want to glide right into the auto. Sam, it's a good thing you thought to run backwards. If you hadn't there would have been a smash-up sure!”

”So dot is der new flying machine,” remarked Hans, as he walked into the field to inspect the _Dartaway_. ”Mine gracious! she vos almost so pig like a house!”

”Want to go up, Hansy, old boy?” queried Tom.

”Not for a dousand tollers, Dom! No, not for a million!”

”You'll like it, Hans, when you get used to it.”

”No, sir; nixy!” returned the German youth firmly. ”I sthay py der ground on. You fellers can fly und I vatch you, yah!”

”How are you going to get the machine back?” asked Sam.

”Sail her back,” answered his brother promptly. ”But I'll have to look at that steering apparatus first--and you'll have to help me start.”

”Better let Captain Colby inspect it first,” advised Sam.