The Dreadnought Boys on Aero Service

"W-e-l-l?" retorted Ned, "so far as I can see, if we were sealed up in one of the Manhattan's air-tight magazines we would have just about as good a chance of getting out as we have of escaping from this place."

"Same here," agreed Herc woefully. "What are we going to do? Do you think they'll starve us to death?"

Barren of hope as the situation appeared, Ned could not help smiling at Herc's woebegone tone.

"They'd hardly dare to do that," he rejoined; "this is the twentieth century, and such things as law and order prevail. No, I guess they have some sort of trickery on hand with which we might interfere, and they mean to keep us locked up here till they have carried out their rascally plans."

"Talking of plans, did they take back the ones of the pontoon aeroplane?"

"No," exclaimed Ned, brightening, "thank goodness that's one thing they seem to have forgotten. Anyhow I suppose they know they have us at their mercy and can get them any time they want them."

"Reckon that's it," agreed Herc.

Silence ensued. The two boys sat side by side in the pitchy blackness of their prison, for Ned, anxious to reserve it for emergencies, had extinguished the electric torch. Neither of them was a nervous sort of youth, but the long vigil in the dark was enough to get on anybody's nerves.

"This is certainly a tough situation," remarked Ned after a time. He spoke more for the sake of hearing his own voice than for any novel idea the words might convey.

"Not giving up, are you, Ned?" inquired Herc.

"Giving up?" grated out the elder Dreadnought Boy, "I'm like Paul Jones – I've just begun to fight."

"When did Paul Jones say that?" asked Herc.

"Why, that time that the British captain, Pearson, peered through the smoke surrounding his majesty's ship Serapis and the little Bonhomme Richard.

"Pearson hailed Paul Jones and shouted out, 'Have you struck your colors yet?'

"It was then that Paul Jones sent back that answer. Those were grand words, Herc. They ought to be framed and placed on board every vessel in Uncle Sam's navy."

"Yes, Paul Jones was a wonderful sea-fighter all right," agreed Herc, "but I wonder what he'd have done if he'd been cooped up in here."

"Figured on some way of getting out," rejoined Ned promptly. "Time after time British frigates hemmed him in. They thought they had him trapped. But every time he slipped through their fingers and resumed his career as a sea tiger. With his little bit of a junk-shop fleet he did more to establish the name of Americans as sea fighters than any man in the republic."

"But how about Ben Franklin, who advanced the money to buy the ships, or at least saw that it was raised?" asked the practical Herc.

"Well, of course he helped," admitted Ned, "but even he couldn't save Paul Jones from his country's ingratitude. Why, it was a hundred years or more before his bones were discovered in an obscure spot in Paris, where he died in poverty, and were brought back to this country and buried with the honors they deserved."

"Humph!" observed Herc, "that was a pretty shabby way to treat one of our biggest naval heroes. Wish we had him here now. What was that old anecdote you told me once about Paul burning his way out of a prison some place?"

"Oh, that!" laughed Ned. "I guess that was a bit of imagination on the part of the writer. At any rate it isn't mentioned in the histories. It was one time that they locked Paul Jones in the cabin of a British vessel. They thought they had him safe. But he ripped out the lining of stuffed cushions of the captain's sofas and burned a way out through a port hole that they thought was securely locked. I read it in an old book I picked up in Philadelphia, but I guess the book was more fiction than fact."

Another silence ensued, and then Herc spoke. He took up the conversation where it had been left off.

"It's worth trying," he said in a matter-of-fact tone.

"What's worth trying?" asked Ned, through the darkness.

"Why Paul Jones' trick – or rather the trick he is supposed to have played."

"Oh, burning himself out of prison?"

"Yes."

"I don't see the connection with our case."

"Then you are a whole lot denser than I gave you credit for being."

"Thanks. But I see you've got an idea of some sort simmering in that massive brain of yours. What is it?"

"Just this, that we duplicate the trick."

"By ginger, Herc, there's nothing slow about you. You mean that we burn ourselves out of here?"

"That's just what I do. See any obstacles in the way?"

"A whole fleet of them. For one thing we'd suffocate ourselves if we tried to burn the door down, which is, I suppose, what you are driving at. Another thing – how about matches?"

"I've got lots of those. Now see here, Ned," went on Herc enthusiastically, "my plan may seem just moonshine, but it's worth trying. You know that little swinging trap at the bottom of the door?"

"Yes."

"Well, we can build our fire outside the door by thrusting our fuel through it and out into the passage. My idea is that the flames will rise against the surface of the door, and if we make them hot enough will burn off the bolts without setting the whole door on fire. The oak is thick enough, I think, to remove all danger of that."

"Humph!" said Ned. "There's only one thing you haven't thought of, Herc."

"What's that?"

"What are we going to build a fire with?"

"With the same stuff as Paul Jones did – or rather stuff somewhat like it – the soft lining of these padded walls."

"Say, Herc, you're a wonder! I always said you had a great brain," cried Ned banteringly, "but hasn't it occurred to you that your fire would burn out the floor of the passage and set the place on fire before it would get the bolts hot enough to make them drop off?"

"It might if the floors and walls were not concrete. I noticed them as we came along," rejoined Herc in a quiet voice.

"Herc, you ought to be director of the Smithsonian Institute or – or something big," declared Ned admiringly. "It does begin to look as if we might have a chance to get out, after all. At any rate, it's worth trying. It will give us something to do."

"Of course it will," responded Herc cheerfully; "and now, if you'll switch on that light of yours, we'll start pulling the materials for our fire off these walls."

It didn't take long to rip out a great pile of the batting and shavings with which the walls were stuffed. These were thrust through the hole in the bottom of the door into the passage outside as fast as they were pulled out. At last the pile was declared large enough, and, with a big heap in reserve for use when the other had burned out, the boys prepared to light the mass of inflammable stuff.

It blazed up fiercely when the match was applied, but, of course, as it was outside the door in the concrete passage, the flames did not bother the boys or imperil the building. On their hands and knees the two young prisoners crouched, feeding the flames assiduously when they showed signs of dying down. There was plenty of fuel, and a roaring fire was maintained.

All at once there was a soft thud outside the door, and something dropped into the flames. It was one of the heavy bolts which had torn loose from its charred and weakened fastenings. A few minutes later another crash announced that the second one had fallen.

The lads waited a few minutes, till the fire died down, and then, with beating hearts, they put their shoulders to the door.

"Heave!" roared Ned, and the next moment, under their united efforts, the remaining bolt tore loose from its blackened foundations, and the two Dreadnought Boys stood outside in the smoke-filled passage.