Airship Andy: or, The Luck of a Brave Boy

This was the gentleman to whom Andy had entrusted the two hundred dollars. Andy had a very favorable opinion of him. The village banker was a great friend of the boys of the town. He had started them in a club, had donated a library, and Andy had attended two of his moving-picture lectures. After the last one, Mr. Dawson had taken occasion to pass a pleasant word with Andy, commending his attention to the lecture. When Andy had taken the two hundred dollars to him that morning, the banker had placed his hand on his shoulder, with the remark: “You are a good, honest boy, Nelson, and I want to see you later.”

“I’ll wait until about nine o’clock,” planned Andy, “when most of the town is asleep, and go to Mr. Dawson’s house. There’s a lecture at the club to-night, I know, and he won’t get home till after ten. I’ll hide in the garden and catch him before he goes into the house. I’ll tell him my story, and ask him to lend me enough to get some shoes and the other things I need. I know he’ll do it, for he’s an honest, good-hearted man.”

This prospect made Andy light of heart as time wore on. It must have been fully half-past eight when he began to stir about, preparatory to leaving his hiding-place. He moved his injured foot carefully. It was quite sore and stiff, but he planned how he would line the timber townwards and stop at a spring and bathe and dress it again. He mapped out a long and obscure circuit of the village to reach the home of the banker unobserved.

Andy was just about to emerge from the haystack when the disjointed murmur of conversation was borne to his ears. He drew back, but peered through the hay as best he could. It was bright moonlight. Just dodging from one haystack to another at a little distance, Andy made out Gus Talbot and Dale Billings.

“Come on,” he heard the latter say – “now’s our chance.”

“They must be still looking for me,” he told himself.

There was no further view nor indication of the proximity of the twain during the next hour, but caution caused Andy to defer his intended visit to the banker.

“The coast seems all clear now,” he told himself at last, and Andy crept out of the haystack, but promptly crept back again.

Of a sudden a great echoing shout disturbed the silence of the night. Some one in the vicinity of the farmhouse yelled out wildly:

“Fire!”

CHAPTER IV – DOWN THE RIVER

“Fire – fire!”

The cry that had rung out so startlingly was repeated many times. Andy could trace a growing commotion. His burrow in the haystack faced away from the buildings of the Jones farm, but in a minute or two a great glare was visible even through his hay shield.

Andy did not dare to venture out from his hiding-place. From increasing shouts and an uproar, he could understand that the Jones household, and then the families of neighbors were thronging to the fire. Some of these latter, making a short cut from the road, passed directly by the haystack in which he was hiding.

“It’s the barn,” spoke a voice.

“That’s what it is, and blazing for good,” was responded excitedly, and the breathless runners hurried on.

Andy made up his mind that he would have to stay where he was for some time to come, if he expected to avoid capture. Very soon people from the village came trooping to the scene. He could trace the shouts of the bucket brigade. He heard one or two automobiles come down the road. The glare grew brighter and the crowd bigger. Soon, however, the stubble-field began to get shadowed again, he noticed.

It must have taken the barn an hour to burn up. People began to repass the haystacks on their return trips. Andy caught many fragments of conversation. He heard a man remark:

“They managed to save the livestock.”

“Yes,” was responded; “but Jones says a couple of thousand dollars won’t cover his loss.”

“What caused it, anyhow?”

“It was a mystery to Jones, he says, until Talbot came along. They seemed to fix up a theory betwixt them.”

“What was that?”

“Why, Jones was sort of hot and bitter about some boys who have bothered him a lot of late. He walloped one or two of them. Young Gus Talbot was among them. Jones was hinting around about the fire being set for revenge, when Talbot spoke up and reminded him that he had headed off that runaway apprentice of Talbot’s this morning.”

“Oh, the boy they’re looking for – Andy?”

“Yes, Andy Nelson. He’s the one that set the fire, Talbot declares, and Jones believes it, and they’re going to start a big hunt for him. Talbot says he’s beat him out of some money, and Jones says he’s just hung around before leaving for good to get even with him for stopping him from getting away from Talbot.” And, so speaking, the men passed on.

“Well, this is a pretty kettle of fish!” ruminated Andy. “What next, I wonder?”

The refugee felt pretty serious as he realized the awkward and even perilous situation he was in. As he recalled the fact that Gus and Dale Billings had crossed over the field an hour before the fire broke out, he was pretty clear in his own mind as to the identity of the firebugs.

“It’s no use of thinking about seeing Mr. Dawson now,” decided Andy. “It’s too late in the evening, and too many people will be looking for me. There’s so much piling up against me, that maybe Mr. Dawson wouldn’t believe a word I say. No, it’s a plain case. They haven’t any use for me in Princeville, and the sooner I get out of the town and stay out of it, the better for me.”

Andy’s foot was in no condition for a long tramp. He realized this as he stretched it out and tested his weight upon it. He was not seriously crippled, but he was in no shape to run a race or kick a football.

“It’s going to be no easy trick getting safely away from Princeville and out of the district,” the boy told himself. “I’ll wait until about midnight, then I’ll make for the river. There’s boats going and coming as far as the lake, and I may get a lift as far as the city. I can lose myself there, or branch out for new territory.”

Everything was still, and not a sign of life visible anywhere on the landscape, when Andy at length ventured to leave his hiding-place. There was a smell of burned wood in the air, and some smoke showed at the spot where the barn had stood, but the town and the farmer’s household seemed to have gone to bed.

No one appeared to see or follow him while crossing the stubble field, but Andy felt a good deal easier in mind as he gained the cover of the brush.

The boy was entirely at home here – along the river as well. He had found little time for recreation while working for Talbot, but whenever a spare hour had come along he had made for the woods and the creek as a natural playground. Now he went from thicket to thicket with a sense of freedom. He knew a score of good hiding-places, if he should be suddenly surprised.

Andy looked up and down the creek when he reached it. He hoped to locate some barge ready to go down the river with some piles of tan bark, or a freight boat returning from the summer camps along the lake. Nothing was moving on the stream, however, and no water craft in view.

“I’ll get below the bridge. Then I’ll be safe to wait until daylight. Something is bound to come along by that time,” he reflected.

Andy reached and passed the bridge about a mile below Princeville. There was no other bridge for ten miles, and if he had to foot it on his journey to the city, he would be out of the way of traversed roads. He walked on for about half a mile and was selecting a sheltered spot to rest in, directly on the stream, when, a few yards distant, he noticed a light scow near shore.

Andy proceeded towards this. It resembled many craft of its class used by farmers to carry grain and livestock to market. Andy noticed that it was unloaded and poles stowed amidships. He stepped aboard. No one was in charge of it.

“I might find some of the abandoned old skiffs or rafts the boys play with, if I search pretty hard,” soliloquized Andy, stepping ashore again.

“Hey!”

Andy was startled. Tracing the source of the short, quick hail, he discovered a man seated on a boulder near a big hazel bush. Andy was startled a little, and slowly approached his challenger.

The man who had spoken to him sat like a statue. He was a pale-faced individual, with very large bright eyes, and his face was covered with a heavy black beard. A cape that almost covered him hung from his shoulders, completely hiding his hands. He looked Andy over keenly.

“Did you call me, mister?” inquired Andy.

“Yes, I did,” responded the man. “I was wondering what you were doing, lurking around here at this unearthly hour of the night.”

Andy mentally decided that it was quite as much a puzzle to him what the stranger was doing, sitting muffled up at two o’clock in the morning in this lonely place.

“I was looking for a boat to take me down stream,” explained Andy.

“Are you willing to work for a lift?” inquired the man.

“I should say so,” replied Andy emphatically.

“Do you know how to manage a craft like this one here?”

“Oh, that’s no trick at all,” said Andy. “The river is clear, and there’s nothing to run into, and all you have to do is to pole along in midstream.”