<h2 id='chap09'>CHAPTER IX</h2>
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<div>JUST IN TIME</div>
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<p class='c011'>“Who is that man, Hiram?”</p>
<p>It was two days after the stirring adventure
among the burning haystacks. They were now
under a new and changed environment. Outside of
a roomy hangar on the training grounds near
Chicago, they seemed to have passed from a zone of
peril and trickery into an atmosphere of order and
security.</p>
<p>The chums had been oiling the <i>Scout</i>, which had
been shipped to them from the Midlothian grounds
the day previous. Dave had noticed a thin wiry man
standing outside of their hangar and studiously regarding
the <i>Ariel</i>. Then the stranger had moved
nearer to them, and transferred a steady, almost
insolent gaze to the young aviator. Hiram had been
so absorbed in his task that he had not noted what
the keen observation of Dave, always on the alert,
had taken in. Now he straightened up and shot a
glance at the stranger, just turning away.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" title='68' id='Page_68'></span>“Hello!” he exclaimed, “he’s familiar. Why
it’s Valdec!”</p>
<p>“You don’t mean the crack cloud-climber, as they
call him, the Syndicate champion?” questioned his
companion.</p>
<p>“That’s him,” went on Hiram. “Yes, that’s ‘the
great and only.’ I saw him down at the clubhouse
last evening. Humph! I don’t like him any better
than I do his backer, and that’s Worthington.”</p>
<p>Dave viewed the rival airman from head to foot.
He was not only curious, but interested. The
chums had met a variety of amateurs and professionals
since their arrival at the present centre of
attraction in the aviation world. A portion of them
were a motley group. They ranged from expert
balloon trapezists to acrobatic notables. They were
essentially “stunt” men. The real professionals
were a widely different crowd. There were men
who had earned fame in their particular line of
activity. Some were inventors, and there was a
sprinkling of scientists. The name, Valdec, however,
Dave had heard a great many more times than
that of any professional on the grounds.</p>
<p>Valdec was an importation. He claimed some
wonderful records made in France and England.
His specialty was the handling of a machine in
speed, gyration and novelty effects. He had been a
public demonstrator and exhibitor at big fairs in
<span class="pagenum" title='69' id='Page_69'></span>Europe. His daring was notorious. He was a
grim, unsocial specimen of humanity, and talked
but little. His backers talked for him, however.
These comprised the Syndicate, a group of old-time
racehorse and baseball promoters and the like.
They had taken to the aviation field as the newest
and likeliest sport where their peculiar abilities
would count.</p>
<p>A great many standard airmen besides Dave did
not like this feature of the great International meet.
It was not to be helped, however. The manager,
Worthington, paid for his special entrants, who
were able to qualify. It was his business to finance
them, and he claimed that such a connection was
legitimate. The Syndicate group formed quite a
camp of their own at one end of the grounds.
There were over half a dozen airmen in the combination,
covering various phases of flying, all out
for prizes, and selected by the promoter as likely to
win.</p>
<p>“Yes, that’s Valdec,” resumed Hiram. “I don’t
like him, nor his crowd, nor their hangers-on, but I
will say the fellow can do things. When you were
away yesterday he had half an hour’s practice on
spiral work. It was not only pretty, but it took
away your breath. I heard one of the bystanders
say that before Valdec makes one of his sensational
dives, he works himself up to such a point that he is
perfectly reckless. That’s his crowd—running
things just as they would for a track race.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" title='70' id='Page_70'></span>“Well, the steady nerve and the clear head counts
in the wind up,” observed Dave philosophically.
“This job is done. Now for some real work.”</p>
<p>It was not Dave’s habit to “show off” nor to advise
his rivals of his prospective programme. The
location of the practice grounds was ideal. The
country about was level, and there was a lake area
over which long distance flights would be unhampered.
The day before, however, and on the present
occasion, as soon as both aviators were in their
places in the machine, its pilot started a course for a
barren uninhabited reach among the sand dunes
twenty miles south of the grounds. Here they were
unnoticed and had free scope.</p>
<p>“No danger of collisions here,” observed the
cheerful Hiram, as they landed and Dave sailed off
alone. Then he sat down on a heap of brush and
chucklingly announced himself as “an audience of
one,” prepared to enjoy the spectacle of the occasion.</p>
<p>“Bravo!” voted the loyal and enthusiastic lad, as
Dave made a superb sweep that vied with a sailing
pigeon, fleeing in terror from this unfamiliar monarch
of the air.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" title='71' id='Page_71'></span>Then Hiram clapped his hands loudly, and kicked
with his feet, as though in some auditorium, and
bound to applaud, as Dave made a volplane that
seemed destined to land the machine nose deep in
the flickering sands. Suddenly, twenty feet from
the ground, he balanced, even tipped, and went up,
up, up—until machine and pilot were a mere speck.</p>
<p>“Hurrah!” rang out briskly, when the daring
operator of the <i>Ariel</i> began a spiral drop. And then
as Dave landed, his assistant, half wild with delight,
was dancing from foot to foot. “Oh, I say,” he
shouted, “it’s up to Valdec! Honest, Dave, it beats
him. Yes, sir, it actually does!” and the faithful
chum laughed, as though already he saw the capital
prize of the meet safe in the hands of his friend.</p>
<p>The chums put in two hours about the flying field
afforded by the sand dunes. They started back for
the International grounds feeling duly satisfied.
Dave was more satisfied with the <i>Ariel</i> than ever.
The perfect piece of mechanism had never
“balked” yet. Hiram professed to see new skill
and expertness in his gifted chum with every succeeding
flight.</p>
<p>“Let’s take a view of the city before we go
home,” he suggested, and Dave was nothing loth.</p>
<p>“Doll houses and pigmies; eh?” submitted Hiram,
as they flew over the south end of the city. “A
little flat patch of the world, down there. Those
vessels on the lake look like play-ships. That big
skyscraper doesn’t appear much larger than a
<span class="pagenum" title='72' id='Page_72'></span>chicken house. There’s some excitement!” and
Hiram leaned over to get a better view of what
had attracted his attention. “Dave,” he cried suddenly,
“it’s a fire!”</p>
<p>Dave made out smoke and flames about a very
high structure located near the river that traversed
the heart of the city. He was as much interested as
his companion, for a mimic play seemed going on
below. Everything appeared in miniature—the
hurrying fire engines, the puffing fire-boats on the
river, the great crowds, the giant building wreathed
with smoke. As they neared this Dave made out
more clearly the situation.</p>
<p>“It seems to be a storage warehouse, built solid
from the sixth story up,” he said. “The lower
stories are all on fire. It will be a bad blaze when
it gets up into the closely sealed upper part.”</p>
<p>“Dave,” cried Hiram sharply—“look, look, on
the roof!”</p>
<p>“Yes—a girl,” responded Dave. “Why, Hiram,
she is alone, and imprisoned up there by the fire!”</p>
<p>It was not difficult to understand the situation.
The sixth floor of the building was probably the
office of the warehouse. Such concerns hire but
little help outside of the men who handle consignments
for storage. The girl, probably a stenographer,
must have been alone on the floor noted
when the fire broke out.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" title='73' id='Page_73'></span>She could not descend, for the five lower floors
were all ablaze. Escape was cut off, except upwards.
She had probably fled up the spiral staircases
without coming to a break in the solid masonry,
in the dark, and groping her way, and driven
to frenzy by the pursuing smoke.</p>
<p>Now she was plainly visible to the two chums.
She stood near the edge of the roof, waving her
hands frantically. Below, the hook and ladder service
attempted to reach her point of refuge, but they
could not get above the eighth floor.</p>
<p>“Dave,” spoke Hiram in a muffled tone that
trembled, “can’t we do something?”</p>
<p>Already the pilot of the <i>Ariel</i> had received the
same mental suggestion. His eye took in all the
chances. All that was chivalrous and humane in
him came to the surface.</p>
<p>“There’s just one way, Hiram,” he said. “That
is to make a volplane and a landing on the roof.”</p>
<p>“Yes, yes,” agreed Hiram eagerly. “It’s a long
narrow building, with plenty of room for a stop and
a start.”</p>
<p>“You’re willing to risk it?”</p>
<p>“Yes—surely!” cried Hiram. “Don’t delay,
Dave. We’re safe to try it, before the flames reach
her, or the building collapses.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" title='74' id='Page_74'></span>A great cry went up from the excited crowds in
the streets below, at the sight of what resembled
some mighty winged bird coming on a mission of
rescue and mercy, where other help seemed vain.</p>
<p>The girl on the roof saw the machine, and comprehended
what it meant for her. She ran towards
it with a glad cry as Dave dexterously directed it.
The <i>Ariel</i> struck the smooth flat roof, and came to
a stop, Hiram leaped out.</p>
<p>“This way!” he called, and, taking her outstretched
hand he guided her to the seat he had
just vacated, and belted her in. “Don’t get scared,
nor faint. You’ll be safe on solid land in a jiffy.
Go ahead, Dave,” added Hiram. “The machine
won’t stand my weight on the narrow margin
start we can give it.”</p>
<p>Onward went the <i>Ariel</i>. To the spellbound
crowd below it seemed to slide off the roof. Dave
made a spiral drop. A block away from the fire
there was a lumber yard, only half stocked, affording
a good landing place.</p>
<p>The girl was out of the machine and safe in
charge of two ladies who supported her. She
turned to Dave, her lips moving as if in gratitude,
and then swooned. Dave got started before the onrushing
mob got in his way. It seemed to him as
if the voices of thousands joined in a thunderous
cheer. There on the roof, as if in response to this
mighty tribute to daring heroism, stood Hiram,
smiling and unconcerned as though it were all an
every day occurrence.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" title='75' id='Page_75'></span>“Good for you, and quite in time,” he commented
briskly, as Dave landed on the roof in
safety. “The fire is eating up through the staircases.
See, yonder!” and the speaker pointed to
wreaths of smoke and cinders shooting out through
a roof trap as if forced by an air compressor.</p>
<p>“Something wrong with the control,” said Dave,
as they skidded into space again. “The jar of that
roof, I guess. It needs fixing,” and the young aviator
was compelled to land again in the spot where
he had delivered the imperiled girl into friendly
hands.</p>
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