The Hawkins Cloud-Climber

OW in the name of common sense even such a government as the United States could have kept it out of the papers is several notches beyond the grasp of my feeble .22-caliber mentality. Considering the press notices we did get—but they tell me that it is coming out, anyhow, and an authentic account were better given beforehand.

Therefore, consider Exhibit A:


 * Come at once. Wire train. Meet you at Station. Trouble..

This, as one may possibly guess, was a telegram.

It reached me at the office in the middle of the morning, and somehow it set me to thinking with real earnestness.

When Hawkins will acknowledge that trouble exists, it should mean at least that his skull has been fractured or three or four of his legs broken. And he was down there in Washington alone, and as a matter of fact there was nothing to keep me at the office, and my wife was out of town and even the cook had deserted, and as another matter of fact I have always liked Washington, even in the warm, late fall, and—

Exhibit B:


 * Coming. Arrive 8.20..

I keep a grip at the office, neatly packed for emergency trips now and then, and inspection showed that there was enough clean linen to save me from a vagrancy charge, for a day or two at least. The blue shirt might have been a trifle more crisp and the raincoat was undeniably wrinkled, but the outfit would answer.

All that remained was to telephone for a seat and wait for train-time.

Muller, my aged bookkeeper, attended to that. He returned with the glad tidings that a seat was reserved. And then Muller, who has been with me for some years and takes occasional liberties in the way of familiarity, read the telegram on the desk and proceeded to throw the first pail of icy water on the blanket.

“Are you going down to see Mr. Hawkins?” he asked flatly.

“Yes.”

“Is Mr. Hawkins in trouble, sir?”

“He says so.”

“Then—excuse me, Mr. Griggs—but why do you want to mix up in it? Ain't that man made trouble enough for you already, sir? Hasn't he—”

I froze Muller with a look. I am not much good on the freezing, but Muller is easy to freeze. He gave me a last, compassionate glance and sighed:

“Yes, sir, The seat is on the shady side of the car, sir. Good-by, sir!”

Why cannot—well, comparative—youth give ear to the sage sayings of aged lips? I don't know, personally. I wish I did know. If I had only known that particular morning, I should have taken a train for Montreal, smashed a few endows, been arrested under an assumed name and disappeared for the coming week.

The trip to Washington rarely maddens one with exciting events.

This journey was fast, easy, and distinctly lazy. I dozed through the late afternoon and early evening, until the sable gentleman in the snowy coat announced the fact that any person wishing to put down his dollar could gamble it on the virtues of the capable cook in the dining-car.

Thereafter, a sleepy cigar in the smoking compartment bridged over Baltimore and made things even more comfortable—and through the black night the train pulled into the Capital City,

I am bound to confess that I was rather grateful to Hawkins for the relax of the journey. His trouble discovered and adjusted, I would settle down in one of the big hotels and snore placidly through the night, and some time to-morrow I could start back for New York, probably with the consciousness of some good deed done, and—

“Griggs!” shouted a familiar voice, as a hand came down upon my shoulder and sent me careening against the porter.

“Hawkins!” I gasped.

“Well, I congratulate you on your good sense this time, at least!” the inventor chortled blissfully. “I was half afraid you'd get some fool notion in your head and back out.”

“Back out of what?”

“Back out of the only similar chance your poor little life will ever see!” said Hawkins lucidly, as he linked his arm through mine. “Come, Griggs, come! We haven't any time to spare, as it is.”

“To spare for what?”

“For what's coming to you! Oh, don't drag back like that! The machine is outside the station. I came down here in it—and we'll have to get out of town, and—” we were outside now—“John! Crank her up! We haven't any time to waste.”

“But why the dickens do we want to get out of town?” I demanded suddenly. “Are you having trouble with the police, Hawkins?”

“I—”

“Then, what is the matter?”

“There isn't anything the matter!” smiled Hawkins. “That was just a little bluff to get you down here! Climb in.”

“But I have to get to a hotel first and—”

“You'll go to no hotel this night, sonny!” Hawkins remarked. “You'll have something a trifle better than any hotel in this town or any other. Climb in!”

One last second of hesitation and—I climbed in.

Hawkins slammed the door, and the chauffeur seemed able to attend to the rest.

The inventor settled back with a cigar. The car itself whirled into Pennsylvania Avenue and whizzed up the broad asphalt.

And presently the White House was only a memory and we were still going—and I said:

“Hawkins!”

“Well?”

“Where in thunder are we bound?”

“Into the great State of Virginia, for a start.”

“But I'll have to be back in New York to-morrow!”

“You'll be in New York to-morrow a darned sight earlier than ever you expect,” the inventor replied, in rather sinister fashion.

“Why?”

“Because!” said Hawkins with a chuckle. “Be tranquil, Griggs! You're going to see something that—well, hasn't happened before! You'll be able, in a week, to get one of your idiot spells and write it up for a magazine, thereby acquiring about five thousand dollars, at the least. You're—”

“Well, I haven't any such ambitions,” I told him warmly. “I came down here to help you out of whatever trouble you were in, and I haven't the time—”

At which I leaned forward and yelled:

“Stop here, John!”

John switched a few dozen levers and the car slowed down.

“Drive ahead, John!” bawled Hawkins. “He's not responsible! Hustle!”

Evidently the chauffeur's salary was paid up to date. He drove on, and almost wildly.

We swirled across a bridge and struck a black country road, down which the big white pencils of light seemed to be cutting a path. And I turned and roared into Hawkins's ear:

“Have him stop or turn around! I want to go back!”

“Dry up!” said the inventor courteously.

“I won't! I want to get to a hotel in Washington and—”

“Can it, Griggs! Can it!” said Hawkins, even more elegantly.

And there I lost what little temper remained, and shrieked:

“If you don't have that man pull up until I can escape—”

Hawkins is not very light in weight nowadays. I am. Therefore, when Hawkins essays to sit upon my lap, I am practically put to stay put.

He did it this time. He merely switched over and landed on me solid, and with a long, low chuckle he said:

“You dot-ratted imbecile! Do you suppose I brought you down here for anything I'm going to allow you to miss? Don't be a clown, Griggs! Sit still! We'll be out there in an hour at the outside, and then—”

And then— That was precisely what I was thinking at the time. It was just the “and then” which made me so strenuously anxious to look little old Washington in the eyes again and have a New York paper and a smoke and so on, with possibly a bite to eat before going to bed.

“Where is 'and then?' I asked faintly.

“It's right where the Almighty put it, two or three years before the entire world was staggered by the news of your birth, Griggs,” Hawkins roared, as his nice little driver ran the speed up to about seventy miles and the wind whistled so fiercely that my cigar started back toward Washington on its own account.

“But—”

An illuminated church-clock popped into sight and disappeared behind.

Hawkins leaned forward angrily with a bellowed:

“What the dickens is the matter? Can't you get any speed out of this to-night, John?”

John glared back malevolently in the moonlight. Then he went to work putting his malevolence into practise. He merely shot the speed to perhaps two hundred miles an hour and roared on, and I cuddled down in a neat heap on the floor of the car.

That ride lasted, I presume, an hour.

It seemed a year at least. The moon did a fancy dream waltz up in the skies above and the stars seemed to be playing tag with each other, and if there was a bump or a stone in the roads which John missed, the darkness alone could excuse the fact.

We climbed hills by merely sailing over the ridges and landing with a resounding smash on the other side. We took level stretches without the formality of running on the ground more than one yard out of six. Somewhere or other, we struck a buggy and sent it hurtling into the circumambient atmosphere, horse and all.

But John was getting his speed, all night enough, and just as consciousness seemed to be leaving me, Hawkins cried out:

“Well, we're here, thank goodness!”

Possibly they slid me out of the automobile. At all events, I recall standing up and murmuring:

“Where's 'here,' Hawkins?”

“Here is the place you've reached at last,” replied the inventor facetiously. “Just cast that eye of yours around—and if you've ever seen anything like it before, I'll eat my hat!”

Hawkins's hat is still in perfect wearing condition.

I never had. I looked around tremulously and I saw what, beyond question, few people have ever looked upon before or since.

Apparently, we were on an utterly uncultivated stretch of plain, hedged in by woods. To the left were woods, to the right and the foreground. were woods, but right in the middle of the picture lay the interesting part.

There were perhaps ten small tents, most of them illuminated within.

There were four tents of a size that makes the word “tremendous” look small and futile. There was another, some two hundred feet long, which must have cost somebody-*a good four thousand dollars at the least.

I stared at it long and hard, and then:

“What the deuce is it, Hawkins?” I inquired.

“Don't worry about it to-night, Griggs,” said Hawkins. “You'll see to-morrow, my boy,” He chuckled. “Come on to bed, Griggs. I've reserved a cot for you in my own tent.”

“But what is it all about? What is the big tent?” I persisted. “What does it all mean, anyway?”

“It means that finally the United States government has had the good sense to get together with me and put up a few hundred thousand dollars against my few hundred thousand. It's the first time in history that Congress has shown any real sense and—bosh! Come on, if you want to!”

He walked straight for the big tent and I tagged sadly behind. Somewhere or other, an engine was humming. Hawkins took from his pocket a whistle and blew it shrilly. Then he lifted a flap and we walked into the pitchiness of the huge tent.

And then he snapped down a switch and a flood of light appeared.

The flood of light was not the only thing that appeared though.

Twenty feet above us was a shining cylinder of what looked like polished steel, at the very least a good fifty yards long. Below it, suspended by steel cables, was what resembled the cabin of a good-sized cruising yacht. There were windows and doors and walls of polished woodwork and—

And just then Hawkins snapped the switch again and the lights went out, and the inventor piloted me toward the outer air.

“Hawkins,” I said faintly, “what is it?”

The inventor laughed in his gentle, diabolical way,

“Alta!” he said.

“Which?”

“Alta!”

“And what in—”

“'Alta' is the name of the ship,” said Hawkins serenely. “'Alta' is the name of the flag-ship of the fleet.”

And just there I, too, reached the shrieking stage and cried:

“What fleet?”

The inventor looked at me pityingly in the radiant moonlight for a second or two.

“The fleet of Hawkins Cloud-Climbers, of course,” he said. “Oh, give it up, Griggs. You can't understand it. Come on to bed.”

T seems better to skim, as it were, over that night.

We reached the sleeping-tent. There were three cots inside and there was no light. Therefore we walked in charily—and I slid gently over what seemed to be an occupied cot, sprawled gracefully on a board flooring beyond and arose to hear:

“Vot der deffel—”

“It's all right, count!” Hawkins cried. “Don't get up! It was—just an accident—unavoidable—I'm sure—say! wait till I find that—ah!”

Three incandescents blazed up abruptly.

Also appeared a young German gentleman of perhaps twenty-five, sitting up in his cot with a scowl, a rumpled head, and a neat little “Schnurrbartbinder”  strapped around his countenance to preserve the strictly proper upturn of the ends of his mustache.

“Der dickens! Vot it is, so in sleep shall a man—”

“Now, count!” said Hawkins, rather shakily.

“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight—” I began dazedly.

“Shut up, you confounded ass!” yelled Hawkins. Then he cleared his throat and said more calmly: “Von Moltz, this is Mr. Griggs, of New York, who has come to join us.”

The obviously German gentleman stared at me, as I advanced with outstretched hand.

“Oh—charmed!” he said, as he dived under the covers, and turned his head away.

Hawkins tapped me on the shoulder.

“Official representative of the German government!” he whispered. “Big money for me, Griggs, if he likes—what's coming. But he's in a bad humor to-night. Light disturbs him—and I've got to keep solid with him and—that's your bed, over there; the one with your grip beside it. You don't mind going to bed in the dark. Feel your way over and—”

And the lights disappeared again.

Frankly, I slept.

I don't know just why, for there was cause enough for insomnia. But I managed to roll in, in that nice, chilly tent, and settle on what seemed a strictly hardwood mattress, with case-hardened springless springs beneath it and warmthless covers over it.

But slumber came graciously and wafted me into a region filled with inventors garbed as the demons of Hades itself. The chief seemed to be Hawkins, with a beautiful pair of red horns and a long, arrow-pointed red tail which wagged incessantly, and he was bossing the riveting of a steel cylinder a mile long and throwing around white-hot rivets with his bard hands and—

“Did you sleep well?” demanded Hawkins, as he grabbed my rheumatic shoulder and shook hard—being careful to drive his thumb into the sorest spot. “Wake up, Griggs! Breakfast's ready!”

I rose swiftly. Across the tent, Mr. Von Moltz's cot was empty. Hawkins was fully dressed and saying:

“Now, Griggs! Remember yourself. Don't offend anybody, because I've gathered a bunch for this demonstration such as the world has rarely seen before, I've worked in representatives from all the big nations for the cruise.”

He licked his lips.

“Griggs,” he went on, “when this demonstration is over, I'll have made contracts that will make this man Rockefeller's income look like a bill-clerk's salary compared to mine. The Hawkins Cloud-Climber—the 'I. A.,' as they're calling it around the War Department—that means Ideal Air-ship—is going to—”

“Is it a flying machine?” I gasped. “Well, you can count me out on the trial trip, little friend. I've got a wife—”

“—to smash every preconceived notion of aerial navigation.” I glared at him, and Hawkins snapped his fingers and growled. “Oh, I wanted to surprise you with it, but I suppose I'll have to tell you beforehand, if you're going to put on that imbecile scowl and try to get away.

“This is merely the crystallized idea of all air-ship work, Griggs. I have contrived a machine which combines aeroplane and balloon—that can be propelled in the face of any. wind that ever blew, that can be sent up or down or sidewise at will, that can be provisioned and supplied with everything necessary for a full week, that will travel an easy hundred miles an hour without straining at the power plant, that can devastate a kingdom with the same ease it wipes out a navy, that can make or unmake the world, that can—”

“Well, leave out the rest of the planets, Hawkins,” I said wearily. “When you've smashed this one you'll have done enough, and I believe you're fully capable of the stunt. But as for me, if you'll lend me that machine to the nearest railroad station and—”

“Breakfast, sah!” announced a dark-complexioned voice outside the tent.

“Yes, come on to breakfast, Griggs,” echoed Hawkins, as I dived sadly into the cold wash-bowl. “If nothing more, you'll meet some respectable people.”

I came. I was hungry. I was not at all anxious just then to commune with respectable people—but, as a matter of fact, I did meet them.

After I had dressed, Hawkins escorted me to another long tent, where the bright sunshine came in through the open sides and shone upon two long tables. Possibly thirty people, in all, were eating; and Hawkins led me among them with a flood of introductory phrases and a smile that suggested the pride of the farmer who is exhibiting his prize Thanksgiving turkey on the day before the assassination.

I bowed and shook hands and smiled until my smiling apparatus began to ache; I met Baron This and Count That and Mr. and Mrs. Something Else; but, for purposes of record, the important members of the new acquaintanceship were:

Mr. and Mrs. Walford-Ebbington, who were distinctly English, and wealthy.

Count Franz von Moltz, whom I had stumbled over the previous evening.

Ivan Vilidski, who hailed from that charming suburb called Russia.

And Peter Henry Jones, representative from—well, never mind what State. His name is sufficient guaranty that we had one real Westerner aboard.

He looked the part, too. He was a trifle over seven feet in height; he wore a slouch-hat and a frock coat, and lived up to the appearance of the traditional article.

“Guy insisted on coming along,” Hawkins explained rather unpleasantly in an undertone as we approached the head of the table. “Said he was bound to see what the nation's money was being spent for, and— Sit down, Griggs!”

The breakfast was as nearly right as a real Southern cook can make it, which means that it was perfect. I cast dull care aside and ate cheerfully up to the moment when a man in overalls appeared and announced:

“Mr. Mink says everything is ready, Mr. Hawkins.”

“Is it necessary for you to break in upon a meal to state that fact, Jenkins?” Hawkins demanded from behind the better part of a fried egg.

“You can search me, sir,” said Jenkins, as he saluted and disappeared.

There was a sort of circular giggle. Hawkins arose with a sauve [sic]:

“Well, if everything is ready—”

The company took to its feet and walked out slowly to the open, sunlit plain.

And here—right here—mere description takes on an anemic tinge.

Out on that square half-mile were, first of all, five of the most immense steel cylinders ever constructed. Four of them were possibly seventy-five feet long. Number Five I recognized as the Alta. They were chained to the ground, and around each flitted a little army of workmen.

In the far distance cavalrymen rode along slowly, evidently on sentinel duty. In the near foreground, Hawkins's select company of aristocrats were struggling into wraps and chattering excitedly. And as I gasped aloud, Hawkins said:

“Can you beat it, Griggs? Have you eyer seen it beaten? Twenty-eight of the world's best-known citizens ascend to-day in the Hawkins Cloud-Climbers!”

“And do you mean to tell me that the government is putting up for this festival?” I demanded.

“In just this way,” replied the inventor with marked dignity. “I am to give the demonstration. As soon as the Hawkins Cloud-Climber has shown what it can do, I receive in cash the cost of this whole affair—and I can tell you I've put a dollar or two into it. The whole thing has been conducted with the most absolute secrecy out here. I've got half a troop of cavalry to keep people away. I've engaged an engineer and a pilot for each cloud-climber, and trained them. I've made tentative contracts with half a dozen nations. To-day, we're just going to take a three-hundred-mile run and back, landing in Washington in the afternoon, I'll run you up to New York, if you like. To-morrow the world— What is it, Jenkins?” he ended more calmly.

“They're ready to start Number One, sir!”

“All right! I'll be right there. You stay here, Griggs!”

He hurried away after the mechanic—and I looked after him flitting across that grassy plain; and looked at the tents; and looked at the air-ships swinging on their anchor chains, and the crowd of people; and looked at the Alta; and finally wondered when the sleeping-powder would work off, and when I was due to wake up.

After that, I walked over to the Alta and stared upward in childish fashion. There was a dangling ladder of steel cable; and in the insanity of the moment I climbed up.

I landed on a deck some eight feet wide, beside the cabin-wall, and about sixty feet long. I steadied myself and strolled along.

There were wooden walls and glass windows that denoted rooms; and forward there was a strong smell of gasoline and the faint humming of a motor—and before me stood Mr. Mink, with a countenance as sweet and amiable as the concentrated juice of the garden variety of lemon.

“Ain't the Main Squeeze due here yet?” he asked delicately.

“Mr. Hawkins will doubtless be here presently,” I said.

“Well—gee! There goes the first!” exclaimed the master mechanic as he ducked to look.

Surely enough, Number One, in the far distance, had suddenly soared skyward gracefully and easily as any feathered bird. For the moment my estimation of Hawkins's inventive abilities rose about one hundred points. The thing went into the air—and Mink was saying:

“All to the good, if she'll hold together.”

“Won't she?”

“Don't ask me, mister. The way she's built—the way the rest of 'em are built—she oughter blow to pieces in about two hours.”

“And how about this one?”

“This here? Oh—I guess this'll hold up for a couple o' hours,” said Mr. Mink cheerily. “The only thing about this one is the size o' that tank o' gas an'— Aw! What do we care? You're insured, ain't you?”

He sauntered away, whistling a happy little tune, and the engine hummed more loudly as I put the wrong end of the cigar in my mouth and stared wildly out on the lovely world that had been supporting me since birth, and—

“That's right,” cried Hawkins, as he appeared suddenly and dragged some ninety-five pounds of scared femininity after him bodily. “There, Mrs. Westerling! Perfectly safe, you see.'

“Yes, but—”

“And here comes your esteemed husband, too,” the inventor warbled as two hundred and ninety-five pounds of perspiring man rolled pantingly to the edge. “Neat, unique, and easy, eh?”

“Yes, it's just about as easy as shinning up a brick wall in a diver's suit,” the gentleman responded. “What the deuce did I ever come on this fool jaunt for, anyhow? If it wasn't for the chance of landing your confounded steel contracts from the governments, Hawkins—”

“Well, that's just what you came for, Westerling,” the inventor answered frostily. “You—ah! Count von Moltz! I see that Jenkins steered you up straight.”

“Yah!” responded that gentleman crisply as he removed his hat, bowed to Mrs. Westerling, and stalked forward in strict military fashion. Westerling stared after him as he mopped his brow, with:

“That cuss's middle name must be 'Von Air-ship,' Hawkins,” he observed facetiously. “Was he born and reared on one, Hawkins?”

The inventor was busy just then.

Mrs. Walford-Ebbington had come within three rounds of the top of the ladder, and essayed a shrieking fit; and Hawkins, prone on his stomach, was tugging at her hands, while Mr. Walford-Ebbington below called:

“Cahn't you draw her aboard, Mr. Hawkins? Cahn't you devise a way—”

“I'm trying my best,” Hawkins panted. “I'm—there!”

Mrs. Walford-Ebbington was there. Her husband followed. After him came swiftly Mr. Vilidski. And with a considerable amount of agility the huge form of Peter Henry Jones, Representative from—well, you know the, Western State—clambered over the edge and straightened up.

“Breezy here, anyway,” he announced as he took a long breath. “When do we start?”

“In about five minutes,” smiled Hawkins greasily. “I'm going to have the flag-ship leave last—the better to demonstrate the superiority of the larger type over the small type. And—there goes Number Four!”

“And we're actually going up in the air now!” exclaimed Mrs. Walford-Ebbington breathlessly. “Fahncey that!” She sniffed at a bottle of salts, with: “Is it quite safe, Mr. Hawkins?”

But Hawkins was busy. He was leaning over the rail as Jenkins climbed aboard to obliterate himself in the direction of the engine-room, and yelling:

“Cast off!”

They did just that, and they did it as if it had been rehearsed for a month. There was a sudden swaying, a twitching, a whirring of propellers.

And frankly, the sensation was simply and purely great!

Somebody must have gently loosened the earth from its fastenings, for it commenced to drop away with the speed of a bullet. Being careful not to make a sound, good old earth simply began to grow less obvious.

Trees and fields and forests appeared and diminished in size. In an incredibly little space of time, half a dozen towns put in an appearance. Then, far to the north, a patch of houses intruded itself into the panorama—and Hawkins pointed at it with a proud air of proprietorship.

“Washington,” he said. “We'll trot back there after we've had a little look at Kentucky and Ohio and so on. Now let's have a glance through the air-ship de luxe. This way, please.”

It was the “air-ship de luxe,” fast enough! We entered a corridor that suggested a private yacht so strongly that one could' almost smell the salt water. We passed into a tiny saloon; we walked on—through a miniature dining-room, capable of seating six or eight; moving onward, we glimpsed four bijou staterooms.

The pompous Mr. Walford-Ebbington walked out ahead, on our way to the engine-room, on his own account; and he stumbled over something and—whatever it was—it dropped beneath the rail and returned to Mother Earth as the gentleman gasped:

“My word!”

Mr. Walford-Ebbington was sufficiently cultured to let it go at that, after he had hopped three paces hugging one foot. The three paces took him to the engine-room door; and as he reached the entrance of that mysterious and all-important domain, Mr. Mink stepped out, less amiable than ever.

“Say, Mr. Hawkins!” he called. “We've lost sight of all the other air-ships! We're going too darned high!”

“Mink—” Hawkins began.

“We are. Look at them gages!”

Hawkins looked. Then he gasped.

“I should say we were!” he shouted, with a tremor in the shout. “Why on earth—”

“Because you told me to go straight up until you told me to stop.”

“Well, now, I tell you to go straight down until we're within fifteen hundred feet of the earth,” the inventor rasped. “Take your big wrench and undo the big valve. Let out some of the gas.”

“Give me the wrench,” said the boss engineer.

“I haven't got your wrench!” the inventor shrieked. “Why—”

“1 guess you ain't got it,” said the machinery chief. “That gent there”—meaning Walford-Ebbington—“just fell over it and kicked it overboard.”

He drew a long breath.

“And that was the only wrench that would undo that big valve,” he concluded with a deadly calm. “I think,” said Mr. Mink toughly, “that we're goin' t' butt the snout offen the man in the moon!”

T may seem a trifle out of place in one way; yet an accurate record should have its details in fairly systematized and succinct form.

Therefore follow a few clippings.

Never mind the names of the papers. Never mind the cities and towns where they were published. Never mind the exact dates or anything else. Those are things which, I understand, I am not privileged to record just now.

Let them simply stand upon the record by number, with the solitary definite assertion that they were all printed within forty-eight hours of the moment when the Alta started skyward.

To continue, then—

This was merely flippant and facetious, but I presume that it chronicled the facts pretty accurately. The only cause for mild speculation is: How the dickens did any one connected with Hawkins have sense enough to dump even that first bag in the approved fashion?

However—

In other words: Biff! for the district attorney and the police force of that particular town. The writer of the editorial must have felt downright wicked when he dealt that terrific blow.

Incidentally, the wrecked air-ship in this case was Number Four, which struck the wrong air-current, and, at the glorious finish, automatically served the Austrian member of the cloud-climber squad with the finest pair of black eyes possible.

However, Hawkins had incensed more editors than one; for here comes the excerpt from the solitary journal of a somewhat provincial town, which we will label

This; too, is mildly facetious; but it establishes the sad fate of the Hawkins Cloud-Climber Number Two, as appeared later. And that editor must have been a kind, merciful man, for it turned out that his wife, with several other members of the Ladies' Heathen Aid Society, were leaving the church at the time of the catastrophe, and that about two hundred dollars' worth of millinery was ruined by falling fragments. And further, from what I have heard, the editor's wife owned the most flowery, peach-baskety creation of them all.

So that that man may be set down as a real Christian, and we may proceed to

Another column to the same effect.

This particular journal, and it was a big one in a big city, spent considerable breath in considering the probable fate of all creation if air-ships were allowed to wander uncontrolled through the atmosphere above populated territory. It ended with a scathing paragraph or two about roping off a section of the Rockies wherein air-mad lunatics might disport themselves, leaving sane people to their own enjoyments in safety; and it suggested, finally, that if Representative—somebody or other—wished to return to Washington next year, he might well introduce a bill for the Federal control of flying-machines.

All of which is mildly interesting, but has no direct connection with the Alta.

Wherefore, let us switch to:

Y the mercy of the kindest kind of a kind Providence, the wind was blowing from behind, and the party, save myself and Hawkins, were just far enough back not to catch the happy tidings of Mr. Mink.

They, in fact, were occupied in the giddy game of practically squatting on their haunches, gripping the rail and staring over it at the beautiful earth below; and, considering that cities were mere spots by this time, and roads the merest tracery, they were reasonably absorbed.

Hawkins, though, had forgotten the earth. He drew a long, whistling breath and stared at Mink.

“Did you adjust those gages before we started?” he asked. “Are you sure they're right?”

“Yer government expert did the adjustin' last night, boss.”

“Well—er—come into the engine-room, Mink.”

Mink shuffled in surlily. We followed. Hawkins looked around the little place rather wildly. Then:

“Haven't you another wrench that can be made to open the valve, Mink?” he inquired.

“No.”

“But some of the other tools—some of the pliers—something or other, you know—”

He stopped short.

Mink smiled, with the sweetness of concentrated sulfuric acid, and shifted from one foot to the other, as he directed the smile at the inventor.

“If you can find anything that'll work, boss, I'll use it,” he announced.

Then he stared hard and long at Hawkins.

“It's just what I told yer, ain't it? You wouldn't have a regular valve set on here, with a handle and all, would yer? You wouldn't have nothin' put on but yer own patent valve that carries a machine-shop with it, would yer? Well, now ye've got all that was coming, so what's the use o' kicking? Git me a wrench big enough to go 'round that nut and I'll let out the gas. Then—”

“But how under the sun are we going to get down?” Hawkins croaked thickly.

“We ain't going to, boss,” announced Mr. Mink.

The inventor swallowed twice. Then, despite the fact that Mink could have eaten him in about three gulps, he shook a trembling finger under the engineer's nose.

“You devise a way to get down, you infernal, incompetent loon!” he thundered.

“Huh?”

“Yes.”

“What was that last you called me?” demanded the engineer heavily.

Hawkins straightened up suddenly. It was plain that Hawkins was not going to sink so low as to have a fistic fight with his engineer. And Hawkins, to drop once more into slang, was “dead wise,” because Mink's fists were about the size of Hawkins's head, and they were twitching.

“Mink,” said Hawkins, as he shifted toward the door, “descend at once to the fifteen-hundred-foot level. That is all!”

Mink also straightened up, and there was a queer, nasty grin on his ill-favored countenance.

“Hawkins!” he called.

The inventor turned.

“Well, Mink?” he said frostily.

“Gimme the address of the nearest machine-shop or hardware-store, and directions how to get there, an' I'll do what you want. Then, gimme the address o' the nearest lunatic asylum, an' I'll take you there an' leave the valve with you.”

I presume that really was an impolite speech for an employee to make to his source of salary. Anyway, Hawkins stepped a trifle nearer the door and cried:

“Mink!”

The engineer saluted with mock dignity.

“One more word in that tenor and you will lose your position with me, Mr. Mink.”

“Huh?” the engineer gasped.

“I mean it,” said Hawkins firmly.

“Say,” said Mink thickly, “do you suppose for one second that if I could lose the job I wouldn't be losing it now? Do you suppose, even with the thousand dollars you paid me down to—”

“That makes no difference—no difference whatever,” broke in the inventor. “I have instructed you to—”

Something in Mink's face stopped him. I think it would have stopped a troop of cavalry. Mr. Mink strode down on Mr. Hawkins and, hand on hips, remarked:

“Bo, if I was as big a fool as you are, if I had your nerve, I'd be wealthy. Maybe I ain't got it, but one thing I can tell you: I've gust quit this job!”

“Eh?”

“Yes. No more of it in mine,” said Mr. Mink, as he walked out of the engine-room and sauntered forward.

For perhaps a minute, Hawkins held his breath. Then:

“Mink, I order you to return to the engine-room and resume work!”

“You go to—” Well, never mind the exact location Mr. Mink named. Suffice it that its general direction is downward!

Mink's general direction was straight forward. He followed it until he reached the bow of the Alta. Then he took a camp-stool, sat down, lighted his pipe, crossed his legs, and stared gloomily ahead.

Hawkins turned to the milder, younger Mr. Jenkins.

“Jenkins,” he said unsmilingly, “I have just discharged Mink from my employ. Hereafter, you are in full charge of the air-ship. Can you manage the motor and the steering-gear at once?”

“I can manage it as well as any one,” the helper replied gloomily; “but can any one—”

“You can, Jenkins,” Hawkins responded, with tremulous smiles. “You are the brightest young mechanic I have ever met. You will switch the side planes about ten degrees and direct the ship toward the earth. Come to lunch, Griggs!”

“But how can you do that when the cylinder's overcharged with gas, Mr. Hawkins? How—”

Hawkins allowed himself another long breath.

“Jenkins,” he said, “I have tried hard to impress the principles of the Hawkins Cloud-Climber on you and the rest. I am quite certain that you understand perfectly—but you must think for yourself! Success, Jenkins, comes slowly by individual thought. You know the ship as well as I do. Direct her toward the earth, and do it carefully.” He cleared his throat. “Luncheon, Griggs!”

“But, Mr. Hawkins, how can we get down when this cylinder's overcharged with gas and we're going higher every minute, and—”

“My dear boy,” said Hawkins, with a grin that was meant to be playful, and that actually looked like the dying smile of a consumptive, “think!”

“I'm thinking right now,” Jenkins responded sadly,

Hawkins took my arm and led me out and along the deck.

“That boy'll figure it all out, nicely. I'm going to take care of him—later. I'm going to see that he gets the education he deserves. And now we'll see what kind of a luncheon George brought along. I'll guarantee it without seeing it, though.”

I slowed up a little.

“Hawkins,” I said, somewhat faintly, “why don't you fix things so that we can get down closer to the earth? Why don't you—”

“Because it'll be the best thing in the world for that young Jenkins to do his own thinking, and—” He broke off. “Well, count, how do you like it?”

“I have the opinion that of the altitude we have sufficient,” said the German nobleman. “It shall be quickly for the down-going—not?”

“It shall be quickly for the down-going—yes!” Hawkins tried to laugh. “Just now we won't bother about going up or down. We'll eat. Come on, Von Moltz, and see—”

“But I have one engagement in Washington. It is for to-night—”

“You'll be in Washington a long time before to-night. Step in.”

It is wonderful how time passes when you are a few million feet above the solid soil. As we sat down, I saw a little clock across the room without noting the exact time.

When we had finished that really excellent luncheon, after a long, long chat about air-ships and such matters, I looked at the clock again. It announced the hour of four, and I all but gasped aloud! We had worked along almost to the twilight stage of the day without noticing it!

“Most remarkable,” remarked Mr. Walford-Ebbington, as we rose. “Upon my honor, I never supposed an air-ship could be so comfortable and so swift, Mr. Hawkins.”

“Well, it's merely the perfection of all former principles, you know,” said Hawkins lightly.

“Are we on the homeward stretch now, what?”

“Certainly. We'll land about dusk.”

“And is it all quite safe, Mr. Hawkins?” inquired Mrs. Walford-Ebbington.

“Madam,” said Hawkins frigidly, “has anything particularly unpleasant happened yet?”

“Myra's a trifle nervous, you know,” apologized her husband, with an uneasy laugh. “It does seem we're a bit high, you know, old chap.”

“High?” said Hawkins. “Why, we're not a thousand feet above the earth now! Come out and look.”

We went out. We also looked. And we saw—well, we saw the prettiest collection of white clouds that the sun ever shone upon. Of earth there was no sign whatever.

The Hawkins Cloud-Climber had merely taken up the job of justifying its name, and was intent on making the job a thorough one. We had climbed clouds, all right enough, but—”

“We—have—gone—too—high!” announced Mr. Vilidski, in his nervous English.

“Not at all,” rejoined Hawkins briskly. “The clouds are running too low to-day. That's all. They always run low this time of year, and to-day they're particularly low.”

“Well, whether they happen to be high or low, Mr. Hawkins,” said Mrs. Walford-Ebbington politely, “do you mind lowering the ship a bit? It's awfully interesting up here, and all that sort of thing, but my lungs are choking, you know. I don't know why, but—”

“Merely the altitude, madam,” smiled Hawkins. “However, if it's annoying you, I'll see my engineer at once and—”

And he started forward, and I went with him, while the invited guests stared after us.

Mink was still forward, smoking calmly, and apparently in fear of neither God, man, nor devil. Mink must have worked for Hawkins some time before the Cloud-Climber came into existence.

Jenkins, though, was standing in the engine-room, tearing out small bunches of hair and cursing; and when he saw Hawkins he turned and said tersely:

“Boss, why didn't you have these gages fixed for ten miles, instead o' two?”

“Eh?”

“That's right! The needles bunked up against the two-mile height fifteen minutes ago!”

“Well, didn't I tell you to descend?”

“You did, and I tried it. It ain't no use. I just got down to about three thousand feet, and we went up again and now we're going down again—aha! See!”

We did see. We ducked down through a few billion feet of clouds, and perceived mountain country ahead. And, incidentally, the mountains were rather high and spiky, if there is such a word to describe pine-trees.

“We went over Columbus half an hour ago,” explained Jenkins dismally. “I saw it for a second through the clouds. The best thing we can do is to buck one o' them mountains. We can't turn around.”

“Why not?” demanded Hawkins.

Jenkins surveyed him for some time. Then:

“Honest t' Moses, boss, I wouldn't want to hurt your feelings, but this here steering apparatus is simply on the fritz. It wouldn't steer a fifteen-foot rowboat over a sand-bar. I've tried every darned way on earth to work it—and it won't work.”

“Now, Jenkins,” Hawkins began placidly, even if a quart or so of cold sweat did stand on his brow, “you know—”

And just there he stopped, for Mr. von Moltz approached and said:

“Mr. Hawkins! Von moment!”

Hawkins turned again.

“Mein lieber Herr,” said Von Moltz, “es macht mich sehr traurig dieses zu sagen, aber”—he caught himself—“I mean, it is necessary that I shall be in Washington this evening.”

“Well, I told you that you would be there, didn't I?” demanded the inventor.

“You did, but it seems to me not that way,” smiled the count. “Always goes the ship to the westward. For Washington shall it eastward be.”

“Well, we're going straight east now, count,” Hawkins lied crisply. “We have turned around, and we're going straight home.”

“Den who hass mofed der sun, Mr. Hawkins?”

The inventor gulped. Von Moltz pointed an accusing finger toward the bright little orb above.

“Dot is der sun,” he said, with absolute truth. “Und ve are going in der wrong direction—yes! Und to-night, by eight o'clock, in Washington, I shall be married—fool vot I am!”

“Yes, you are a fool to get married,” Hawkins answered nastily. “You're—”

“I am not speaking of vot kind of a fool I shall be to get married, you pig!” roared Mr. von Moltz hotly. “I speak of the fool foolishness which has made me mit you come. Yes! Put me on der ground where shall be a train, oder, by Heaven, I see that my government make for you that damage suit—”

“You go to the dickens!” said Hawkins, as he mopped his brow. “You'll get down when the rest of us get down, and not before. I don't care a continental cuss whether you're being married or not. Nobody on this thing's any more anx—”

He stopped there.

“Herr Hawkins,” Von Moltz told him solemnly, “der time comes sometimes when shall be blood on the head of a man for his own fault.” Which was impressive, if not clear. “Such iss it now!”

“Is it?” snapped Hawkins, as he turned away.

“It iss,” reiterated Von Moltz, as he grasped the inventor's shoulder and transfixed him with a fiery glare. “To the ground I go at once, or for you shall suffer consequences. So!”

“Well, the ground's right down below there,” replied Hawkins, as his handkerchief absorbed a few more ounces of perspiration. “Jump, if you want to.”

“Yes, und ven I arrive—”

“You'll be dead and not worrying me or any one else!” snarled the inventor. Then he drew a long breath. “Say, Von Moltz, haven't you got sense enough to see when a man's worried and preoccupied? If you're so infernally anxious to get down, drop over the side. I can't put you down—yet. I will in an hour or two, and you can get married half a dozen times if you want to. That's all, and now please drop it and shut up!”

Von Moltz's hand slapped to his left hip; and I presume that if a sword had been there. Hawkins would have known just how it feels to be perforated by sunshine. A too merciful Providence had relegated that sword to a position beside a uniformed leg, though—and Von Moltz turned and stalked forward.

We looked after him. He approached Mink, and seemed to confer for a minute. Mink pointed ahead. There was a mountain there, half a mile or so away, and it was pretty clear that we were going to ride within a very few hundred feet of the summit.

Then Mink laughed, and unhitched a huge coil of rope that hung to the rail, and passed an end to Von Moltz.

And may I be drawn and quartered if the German gentleman didn't noose it around his waist and, with the late engineer holding tight, jump over the side!

AWKINS screamed faintly and dropped into my arms, and for a minute or two I thought he had surely collapsed.

He straightened up, though, in time to see Mink paying out the rope as neatly as if he had been dropping lunatics over the side of air-ships since the age of five.

But, whatever little stunt Hawkins may try, the stunt does its work. That wild screech brought our entire company to the deck en masse. They ran to the rail—they looked over and saw Von Moltz dangling and kicking, a good two hundred feet below—and they, too, screamed a chorus so beautiful and impressive that one might have pictured a group of condemned souls taking their first look at their permanent home.

Walford-Ebbington walked straight to Hawkins and shook his fist under the gifted inventor's nose, and roared:

“Why did you throw that man overboard, sir? Why—”

“I—”

“Why, I awsk?” thundered our English delegate. “You know fully as well as I do, sir, that the German ambassador is away at present, and that minor international affairs are practically in the hands of the British embassy. You know, also, that I am responsible to—”

Hawkins took a long gulp and cleared his throat. And just then—

“I'm lettin' ye down!” bellowed Mr. Mink, as he hung over the side with his toes clinched under the bottom of the rail. “Quit yer kicking, and try fer that farmhouse.”

Mink seemed almost wise that time.

There was a farmhouse ahead, on the slant of the mountain, with a few poorly cultivated fields about it. There was also a crowd of men, women, and children in the foreground, watching Mr. von Moltz's antics with deep interest.

Still farther, there was a tall man in jeans, who held a shotgun and wiggled it around in such a petulant way that I began to wonder whether Von Moltz had left his family address in Washington.

Mink stared downward keenly and let out a few more feet.

Von Moltz seemed to understand, for he waved a hand upward. Then, within some six inches of the roof, he made his star trial at landing from a Hawkins Cloud-Climber,

And as a Hawkins victim he was a success.

He struck the chimney squarely. He embraced it affectionately—and for about ten seconds his fate hung delicately as a watch-spring.

After which the Cloud-Climber took the decision, the chimney loosened and came free, and Von Moltz floated gaily onward. And just here Von Moltz made his serious break—he dropped the entire arm-load of bricks on the company assembled below—and inside of another ten seconds that big, double-barreled shotgun had been discharged at him.

There was a faint, wild shriek as the floating count raced on. His legs struck a young fruit orchard and wrecked a dozen little trees. He tried once more for a good-sized tree—grasped it firmly and tugged at the rope around his waist.

And just here Mink had the extreme good sense to exert his mighty muscles and begin hauling in Mr. von Moltz. Even a German count with upturned mustache cannot successfully strike a mountain at fifty miles an hour without doing himself a little damage.

Von Moltz, then, began an ascension as rapid as his departure. He passed nonchalantly through a pine-tree and lost his hat and the better part of his trim coat. He screamed wildly as a tremendous boulder loomed up ahead—he struck it with his feet and leaped a good three yards skyward and Mink began to curse and to haul in more strenuously than ever.

And a little human interest was injected into the situation, for the crowd was hanging over the rail and Hawkins was crying frantically:

“Get back! Get back, all of you! Don't you see you're tipping the whole thing over? Get back from that rail!”

Mink, also, emitted a stream of—well, modified English that tasted of several sides of the hereafter. He linked his legs a little tighter around the railing and shouted:

“Go as far as you like, boss! You can't queer me. I was on a circus trapeze onct.”

Whereupon he hauled in rapidly again—and Mrs. Walford-Ebbington shrieked madly. I did not blame her. Our deck had listed over to the tune of some forty-five degrees. We were squatting, in the most literal sense, dead above sure death. One sudden arising—one slip—and we should have landed on the fertile soil below.

The big wicker chairs seemed to realize it, too, and they were anxious for the end. They slid gracefully to the rail. They tottered—they tumbled over the rail after their slide—and where they landed—Heaven only knows!

Whereupon there was a crash.

And a black person named George raced out of the dining-saloon two inches ahead of a flood of crockery. He dodged. He fell. He rolled along the deck of the Alta; and the crockery, smashing merrily, poured after him and slid to the edge, dropping to earth in a rain of broken pieces of china.

Whoever was below must have enjoyed it intensely; but, meanwhile—Von Moltz!

Von Moltz was, as he said later, “gymnasticizing.”

In other words, Von Moltz was badly rattled, and was trying to climb his rope in a sort of monkey-on-a-string fashion, while Mink hauled furiously and made remarks.

The result was that the rope took to swinging in real earnest, and the count swung with it. He took quarter arcs with the ease of a trained acrobat, principally because there was nothing else to do. He gave an impersonation of an official pendulum that has probably never before been equaled by a human being.

Still coming up, he turned dainty somersaults every ten seconds, invariably landing head upward and as invariably shrieking at each new stunt.

Not only that, but he seemed to have acquired a magnetic attraction for crockery. Dishes and platters, cups and saucers, steered straight for Von Moltz, landing with absolute impartiality on every inch of his anatomy. The best part of a lovely chicken salad alighted on his head with the grace of the original chicken itself, and was dislodged by a triple somersault.

Then Von Moltz landed at the rail, and Mink dragged him over; and Hawkins burst into a gale of fiendish laughter as the crowd backed away from the edge, and the Alta righted herself.

Von Moltz, whatever his former dignity, had gone into the class of “damaged goods.” His countenance had a beautiful coat of mayonnaise; he owned one sleeve and two shoulders of a Prince Albert; and, even under such conditions as these, the inventor had the supreme tact to walk to him, shake a finger under his nose and yell:

“Well, you'll know better next time, hey?”

“Mr. Hawkins!” choked the German representative.

“And you might as well eat that piece of chicken on the bridge of your nose,” suggested Hawkins frothily. “It isn't considered good form this year to wear chicken salads on the head—and there's no use wasting it, anyway, you know.”

“Mr. Hawkins!”

“And you might take that soup-plate out of the bosom of your vest, too,” the inventor snarled. “You're not in need of breast-plates in this company, either.”

“Herr Hawkins!” thundered the German representative. “For killing, you have done your best—und it is a poor best, for still I am not dead. Some day we strike der ground; und ven ve do, my government shall hear of dis!”

“You and your government hanged!” roared Hawkins.

“So you say now. Later maybe otherwise.” Von Moltz drew a long breath. “In der name of der Kaiser, I demand facilities for a washing.”

“George!” called Hawkins to the dark gentleman, who had found his feet.

“Yassah!” stuttered the darky.

“Conduct the gentleman to one of the basins and give him whatever aid may be necessary.”

“Well, dey ain't more'n a gallon o' good water left, sah—”

“Then you go without washing, Von Moltz,” snarled the inventor. “I'm not going to add a water famine to this picnic just to get salad off you!”

“My government, sir, shall hear—”

“Say—come aft with me, Griggs,” Hawkins gurgled.

Von Moltz followed him for a pace or two.

“My government, Herr Hawkins, knows well—” he began as we left the group and made quick passage for the stern of the Alta.

“Griggs, come! I want to—I want to—to talk with you, Griggs. I want to—”

HEY tell me that few people like to read tragedy.

We will, therefore, omit the little talk which Hawkins and I had astern, while the crowd remained forward and Mrs. Walford-Ebbington fainted on schedule time and Mrs. Westerling took care of her and bathed her fevered head with some of the precious water.

We will skim lightly over the sight of Von Moltz being mopped by Mink, with great handfuls of bone-dry cotton-waste. We will also omit particulars of the loud-voiced conversation between Westerling, Walford-Ebbington, and Vilidski, while Mink and Von Moltz: sulked together.

Suffice it that evening was falling fast and that our little talk bore no good fruit, save that Hawkins streaked stealthily to the engine-room, on the off side of the boat. He tiptoed back with a heavy sledge-hammer.

“Griggs,” he said tensely, “I've taken this because there's one chance in ten million that I can knock open that valve without that bunch of fools seeing me! Just steady me on the chair here, will you? Just—”

I steadied him as well as I could. And a gust of wind caught the Alta suddenly—and Hawkins and I sprawled flat.

And the hammer flew gaily over the side and disappeared into the night!

The inventor picked himself up slowly and looked at me with a smile that would have chilled the soul of a Christian Scientist and frozen all the optimism into little snowflakes.

“Griggs!” he said. “That was absolutely the last hope of getting this blasted thing down! That—”

Then:

“Will I turn on the lights, Mr. Hawkins?” Jenkins called along the deck.

“Yes!” croaked the inventor, And:

“I say, old chap, did you fall?” inquired Mr. Walford-Ebbington, solicitously.

“Did I—” Hawkins stared at him for a good ten seconds. “No! I didn't fall. That's a little new Delsarte stunt I do every day about this time! It keeps the shoulder muscles in good condition, you know, and stimulates the liver! Where the dickens did you get the idea that I fell?”

“Why—Mr. Hawkins! There wasn't any offense intended, I assure you! I merely came to awsk at what hour we dine, you know. Mrs. Walford-Ebbington is better now and a bit hungry, as it were. What's the hour, old chap?”

Hawkins's inspiration of breath came with a long whistle.

“The hour is the present hour plus—x!” he said. “X being the difference between the present time and the time we hit something to eat. There's nothing more on board, that I know of.”

“But I've brought your chef, you know, Mr. Hawkins. He says—”

“What have you been saying now, George?” the inventor demanded, with sad humor.

“Ah told de gennleman, sah, that we had some canned beans an' some canned soup, but we hadn't no means o' heatin' 'em, sah?”

“What?”

“No, sah! De oil all ran outen de stove in dat spill, sah!”

A stream of incandescents flashed into being at this point and lent a little color to Hawkins's green countenance. Mr. Vilidski stepped forward—and a nice, patient, obliging man that Russian was!

“The pardon!” he said.

“Huh?” grunted the inventor apathetically.

“We have spoken of this matter—the matter of the heat!” he said apologetically. “I have of electricity a slight knowledge, and of the machinery as well. Similarly, I have spoken to the engineer, and he has also wire, and also many of the German-silver fuse-plugs, which belong to the lighting system. Further has he the German-silver wire in some quantity. With these, and with your kind permission, it may be that I shall construct a—what you call—make-shift stove whereon we heat our soup? Yes?” He nodded. “There is of current a plenty!”

“Well, you've got the kind permission, Vilidski,” said Hawkins wearily. “Go on and amuse yourself.”

“Wall, Ah ain't goin' t' monkey with no 'lectric stoves, boss!” George put in. “Mah cousin cooked foh a Philadelphia family that had one o' dem, an' it blowed up, and poh ole Sam, he—”

“Your cousin Sam be blest!” roared the inventor. “You give Mr. Vilidski the soup-cans and the beans and the pots and—oh, let it go at that! Go on!”

They left. Hawkins put his head in his hands and remained silent for many minutes. Then:

“Griggs, this thing can't be lowered by any process under the sun!” he moaned. “I've got a bunch of people here that I want to impress, and—” he gulped. “Say! did ever a man get into a mess like this before!”

“I never did and I never will again!” I answered briefly.

“And—oh, bosh!” The inventor sat erect and took a new grip on himself. “I wonder what that Vilidski's trying to do in the way of a stove, and how the dickens he's trying to do it. Let's see.”

He led the way to the engine-room. Our company was there, grouped about Mr. Vilidski, who seemed mazed in a million wires. George was standing by the door, with a cargo of open soup-cans and agate-ware pots, and Vilidski was saying in his smiling way:

“If there is not of the good in this amateur stove, there is at least not of the bad. We try now, Jenkins. This is the switch, yes?”

“That's the switch,” said the engineer dubiously, “but if I was you I wouldn't do it. You won't get no heat outen that affair, an' you may—”

But Vilidski's hand was on the switch—and the switch went down with a snap!

And simultaneously there was a streak of blue flashes from the electric stove—and every light on the Alta disappeared.

For a second or so, there was not a breath to be heard.

Then Jenkins's voice came through the gloom.

“Well, ye've done just what I told ye ye'd do, mister! You've blown out every last fuse-plug we have on board, and they ain't no way of even having alight now!”

UST here the moon appeared.

It came out from behind a cloud like a soubrette sailing onto the stage, and I at least was not disposed to hurl anything at that particular moon.

Indeed, it gave a sort of disseminated spot-light to our nice little scene, imparting a fittingly pale light to our little crowd of people, who gaped around the door of the engine-room.

“Then, when will dinner be served?” asked Mr. Walford-Ebbington.

“I guess it'll be served when you climb down and buy a couple gallons of oil!” answered Jenkins lightly.

“But my wife—”

Jenkins turned away in the faint light.

“Mr. Hawkins,” then spoke up Mr. Walford-Ebbington, “It may seem a breach of etiquette, but I demand that dinner be served!” He cleared his throat. “My wife, sir—”

Just then a faint scream indicated that his wife was still alive.

“My wife, sir,” Walford-Ebbington began again, “is accustomed to her dinner at a certain hour. That hour cannot to be changed to suit your bally airship or any similar contrivance!”

“The hour,” said Hawkins, through his teeth, “evidently has been changed!”

“But, don't you see, that's just the point!” persisted the Englishman earnestly. “That is precisely the point!”

“Well, I'm sorry for it,” said Hawkins, “but there doesn't seem to be any way of serving dinner just now and— Oh, darn it! Let's go aft again, Griggs!”

He took my arm and I went willingly—and once more we were astern and alone with the clouds and the Cloud-Climber.

The inventor looked long and earnestly down into the infinite gap of space below us.

“For about three cents, I'd dive over that rail!” he said wildly.

“It'd be a mighty good scheme, if you've got any more ideas like this in your head!” I said, and possibly with a hint of irritation.

“If it wasn't for my wife—”

“Don't let that stop you for a minute! You've got good lawyers, and I'll see personally that everything is attended to in good shape. Go ahead and dive, Hawkins!”

The inventor glared greenly at me in the moonlight.

“I believe that you'd like to see me drop into space, Griggs!”

“At the present moment, Hawkins,” I said honestly, “I believe that I should! I think you'd be serving the community in the finest possible way!”

Hawkins sat down then.

A minute or two and he seemed more calm.

“Griggs, we are up against it!”

“Impossible!” I cried.

“We are,” said Hawkins. “Until we devise a way of getting the gas out of that darned cylinder, we haven't any more chance of getting to earth than a star.”

“Which means that we're going to blow to the Pacific and over it and into Asia, and live in Manchuria for the rest of our lives?”

“I dunno what it means, Griggs!” mumbled the inventor miserably. “I don't know how we're going to get down!” His head sank on his arms. “If only the wind would change—or something!”

“I guess the 'something' would be more appropriate!” I snapped.

As if in answer to the appeal, a sudden sharp gust shot across the deck from the west—and veered as quickly to the east again. The distinguished inventor looked up for a second or two, realized that it was but a vagrant breeze and dropped into his moody soliloquy again.

“And not a light on board, either!” he said.

“No.”

“If that blasted steering gear would only work! If we could only turn around and fight our way against the wind, it'd—it would be better than nothing. But it won't! It's busted, too!” °

Whereupon Hawkins's head dropped again and he sobbed silently!

I didn't. A strange feeling was coming over me, evidently the result of what some ope has called “hell-tempering!” I was getting hardened to the notion of being lost in the clouds and I lighted a cigar and tilted my chair back against the rail with the same sang-froid that might have obtained on a Sunday-school excursion-boat.

“Just about where are we, Hawkins?” I inquired presently.

The inventor raised his head.

“I don't know, Griggs,” he answered miserably. “If that speed gage hadn't gone smash when she tilted, there might be some way of estimating. Now there isn't. I guess we're somewhere over Ohio—and if this wind keeps up we'll be in San Francisco by morning!”

“But isn't there some way—”

“Griggs, do you suppose that if I knew a way of getting out of this, I wouldn't be drenching this deck with the sweat of my brow to put it through! Do you imagine for a second that—”

He was interrupted there.

Footsteps were coming from behind, and Hawkins turned swiftly, on the defensive.

Mink was in the lead of a group of three. The other two were Von Moltz and Westerling; and, even in the moonlight, they looked ugly, particularly Von Moltz, who had established the scientific truth that mayonnaise-dressing applied to a bare head will make the hair stand straight upright, even after a mopping.

It seemed that Mink was leading, though.

“I've been talking things over with these gents,” he began.

“Well?” Hawkins choked a trifle.

“Well, they want to get down where they can walk on grass again.”

“So do I,” said the inventor.

“I've explained the workings o' yer fool machine to 'em, and shown 'em that it's a practical impossibility to get down now unless we smash that valve and take our chances on landing with the aeroplanes.”

“Mink, you—”

“The situation's just this, Hawkins,” Westerling began briskly, as he cleared his throat. “You brought me on this trip with the guaranty that we were to be landed in Washington this afternoon. You have made good in no sense whatever; and, as a business man, with a slight knowledge of law, I want to say—”

“Now, look here, Westerling,” the inventor began again. “You know—”

“Und it iss not that alone, sir,” Von Moltz fairly shrieked, as his fingers ran greasily through his hair-salad. “Dis efening, at eight o'clock, wass I to be married in Washington. Instead, I am in der air!”

“In more senses than one,” snapped the inventor.

“Und so it iss dot 'der ceremony iss postponed—dot you haf wilfully remofed und detained me in der clouds—dot you haf attempted my life—mein Gott!” The salad was stirred anew. Von Moltz straightened up. “I haf said it before,” he announced. “Jetz I say it again: my government shall hear of dis! It shall hear! It shall hear! It—”

“Well, it will hear, if you yell a little louder,” said the inventor. “Now—”

“Marriage, of course, is a small matter compared to business, Hawkins,” Westerling chipped in sharply. “We can pardon our friend's excitement; but in my case I demand that you, as inventor of this fiendish contrivance—”

“Aw, cut it, gents!” Mr. Mink remarked. “You hold de guy down, if he tries any stunts. We got enough o' this. I'm going t' get the big hammer an' put that valve on the blink. Jenkins has de planes set to strike de earth once the gas is out.”

He swaggered along the deck—and, if such a thing were possible, Hawkins turned several shades paler in the bright moonlight. It was coming! There was no doubt about that—it was coming!

ND it came fast enough.

Mink reappeared with about as ugly a countenance as I have ever seen outside the gorilla department of the monkey-house. He stalked straight down upon Hawkins, and the inventor arose and ducked a good ten feet.

“Jenkins said you took that hammer,” thundered the engineer. “Where is it now?”

The inventor licked his lips. Mink snarled aloud and turned to me with the question:

“Where is it? You tell me, or I'll break every bone in yer body an' drop it overboard!”

I shrank down in my chair.

“It fell over the side,” I mumbled.

“Then I know who knocked it over the side,” announced our engineer, as he wheeled on Hawkins.

“Do you mean to say that that hammer, which Mink says is our last hope, has gone too?” roared Westerling.

“I—I didn't do it,” I said faintly.

“But—”

“But he did,” boomed from the engineer's gentle little vocal chords.

His large fists clenched. Hawkins backed away another pace forward.

“And he's going over to find the hammer,” Mr. Mink announced cheerily as he advanced.

The inventor's mouth opened with a squeak.

“Griggs, stand by me!” he gasped.

And just then I became a hero. It feels nice to be a hero. I dodged past Mink and took up a determined stand at Hawkins's right-hand side—and if I backed, even more quickly than he did, it was merely a tactical move.

To be sure, a trifle of cold sweat sprang from my forehead, and my pulse ran up to something like three hundred; and there was a peculiar feeling in my knees, as if somebody had removed the hinge-pin; but little things like that are pardonable when a man is a hero for the first time, I think.

At all events, we backed together, shoulder to shoulder, and the group followed. It was joined mysteriously as we neared the prow by Walford-Ebbington and Vilidski and Jenkins—and it pained me very much just then to observe that there was not a friendly face among them all.

By now we were at the very point of the Alta.

“Do they—they!—go over?” yelled Mr. Mink.

“Der quicker der better!” screamed Von Moltz.

“Send 'em over the side!” thundered Westerling.

Hawkins dropped flat and grasped the rail, I followed his example swiftly, listening to Mink's:

“Then, all t'gether! Tear 'em loose!”

Whereupon my hero-standing went to eternal ballyhack! I clutched that rail with both hands and shrieked thickly for help. I tore out sections of wire as some one gripped my feet. I called for police and—and then:

“Let go! Let go, you confounded fools!” came in Hawkins's voice. “Let go, I tell you! Don't you see what's happening? We're tilting her down!”

Evidently they did, for Hawkins was struggling to his feet as I lounged weakly against the rail. And I saw, too; we were pointing downward and traveling like sin, and the cause of it seemed to be the crowd in the bow of the Alta.

Even Mink rubbed his head.

“Say, we are going down!” he cried. “Stay where you are, everybody! Jenkins, throw that motor on the last clutch! Get up some speed!”

“Don't!” screamed Hawkins. “The propeller isn't strong enough to stand it going down. Don't—”

Jenkins seemed to be taking orders from Mink, though, for the motor's whir increased suddenly, and the Alta hurtled downward toward an earth that grew nearer and nearer every second as we clutched anything at hand and held our breaths.

“And de planes are set just right, too,” Mink announced excitedly. “Three minutes more an' I'll switch 'em, and we'll land a couple of miles over dere!”

“Mink, unless you slow down—”

Mink settled himself on the floor of the forward deck and gripped a post.

“I'm doing this,” he called. “You stay where you are an' be careful you don't slide over the rail and get what's coming to you.” He emitted a Satanic laugh. “We've got her tilted forward enough to land now, and—”

“But the propeller—the propeller-shaft, Mink!” Hawkins screeched. “It was never made for a strain like that. And the motor's going too fast—”

There was dead silence for perhaps a minute. The party clung and gasped for breath. Screams issued from within the cabins. Jenkins's head popped out dizzily from the engine-room, now almost above us.

“This is going too fast; Mr. Mink!” he bawled. “That propeller—”

It was the last word Jenkins spoke for several seconds.

For a terrific shock ran through the Alta, wrenching her from end to end. The engine began to scream and grind—and from below, from that beautiful, moonlit earthy plain, spotted at wide distances with small houses, came a glare of light, a volume of sound that looked veritably like the sudden opening of the gates of Hades itself.

As a noise, it was past description. As a cause, it was for the moment inexplicable.

But as an effect, it was painfully, bloodcurdlingly clear. The Alta shivered for a moment or two. Then the engines stopped and the earth dropped away suddenly and inexplicably, and it seemed that something serious had happened to my ears.

We shot through a bank of clouds and up into the moonlight again—and; wierdly [sic], everything was calm and silent.

The engine hummed no more. Vibration was a mere memory. Not a soul moved. And in the stillness a cold breeze whirred silently over the deck—and Mr. Jenkins, appearing, remarked:

“Well, it's all over but the shouting, gents.”

“In Heaven's name—what happened?” gasped Walford-Ebbington.

“Uh—yeah!” came faintly from Mink. “What the dickens did happen?”

The Alta practically righted herself just there as the group scattered, staggering. Jenkins licked his lips.

“One thing, we lost the big propeller,” he said thickly. “Another thing, I got the engine stopped before she tore everything to pieces racing along without any load on her.”

“But der noise—der explosion—whatever it was?” came angrily from Von Moltz.

“Did you really hear a noise?” Jenkins asked grimly as he wiped his face ow an oily sleeve.

“Schenkins! I—”

Jenkins laughed hysterically.

“I was born and brought up right in this part of the country,” he said with dramatic slowness. “I know every darned inch of it, and this day I've seen more o' boyhood's happy haunts than I've seen in years. That little settlement we just passed over was the grounds of the Kinknoo Powder Works. And that propeller busted loose and dropped into the biggest dynamite storehouse on the whole property.”

A whistling little gasp escaped Hawkins.

“And not only that,” continued Mr. Jenkins, “but it's blown us all up a good mile in the air again and smashed what was left of the steering-gear.”

“And does that mean that we're never going to be able to steer for the earth, my good man?” Walford-Ebbington asked vaguely.

“It means just that, mister, so far as I can see. Good night!”

In one way, it was a good night.

Every one on the Alta seemed too utterly stunned to give it any other consideration.

Relieved of several hundred pounds of propeller, the huge air-ship soared and soared, blown this way and that way—now sinking from an air-current above, now flying upward again.-

And there was neither noise nor gasoline odor nor tremor. Everything was still and calm as could be expected of an angel's flight.

Some ten minutes and Walford-Ebbington approached Hawkins, and his mien was very quiet.

“I say, there's no chance of getting down to-night?” he asked.

“Not the slightest that I can see.”

“Is it safe to go to bed?”

“It's just as safe as sitting up, isn't it?”

“Gad! You're right, old chap,” said Mr. Walford-Ebbington thoughtfully. “I say, old man!”

“Well?”

“Tm awfully sorry for you—really I am, in spite of everything. They're talking of killing you, you know— Good night, then.”

Wherewith he walked off through the stillness and groped his way into the black cabin.

“They're talking of—?” rasped wildly from Hawkins. “Oh, my good Heavens, Griggs!”

“Yes?”

“Go forward and see what they're doing. They haven't got the grudge against you they have against me, Griggs. Go and sound 'em, Griggs. See what they say about me.'

He disappeared toward the extreme stern, and sat down heavily. I went to the extreme forward end of the Alta and looked about.

Mink was nodding in a camp-chair. Von Moltz, upon my honor, was sound asleep on the deck. I shook Mink, with:

“Where's Mr. Westerling?”

“Bed, I guess,” said our genial chief mechanic, “I hope he dies there. Any other man with his muscle would 'a' had you over that rail in ten seconds.”

I left rather hurriedly.

I went back to Hawkins—and even Hawkins himself seemed to be dozing a little.

“You're safe for a few minutes, anyway,” I reported.

The inventor looked up dreamily.

“I don't care a hang whether I am or not,” he said hazily. “I'm going to sleep.”

He seemed to mean it, too. I watched him for a while; then I followed Walford-Ebbington's “example, and groped my way into the saloon. In the reflected moonlight there was visible a wicker couch. I stared at it for several minutes, Then the stillness began to work into me too, and I stretched out for a minute or so and considered almost breathlessly the tiny distance between my soul and the heaven that is above.

Then—

RIGGS!”

I sat up with a bound that brought my head into violent collision with Hawkins's chin. And again:

“Griggs!”

I rubbed my eyes and stared. The inventor's face was beaming; he slapped me on the shoulder and cried loudly:

“Jenkins sat up all night, smoking while we were floating.”

“He did, eh?” I mumbled.

“And the wind's turned west, Griggs! The wind's coming straight out of the west, boy! And we're traveling along in one of the upper air-currents fully as fast as if we had a propeller working at full speed!”

“Ah!”

“And Jenkins says we're well over West Virginia now, and not slackening,” ended the inventor with a glorious whoop.

“And what the deuce good does that do us, old chap?” Walford-Ebbington asked, appearing suddenly, rumpled and sleepy.

“What good does it do us? It means we're making straight for the Atlantic again, man! It means we're homeward bound.”

“Does it, now?” said the Englishman.

We walked out into the open air, the three of us.

We stared down at a stretch of white clouds, and Walford-Ebbington said:

“And just when are we going to be able to drop through those, old chap?”

“Say! You darned killjoy, what's that got to do with it?” asked the inventor almost genially. “You wait till we get over civilized country and then—”

“But if we can see the earth and yet not descend to the earth, why are we any better off than last night, when we could see—"

Hawkins turned away, and I followed him; while Walford-Ebbington polished his monocle and stared about.

“Griggs,” remarked the inventor, “if we're going to die, at least we're going to die near home now.”

“Home is a pretty relative term, Hawkins,” I said. “Personally, I forgive you, because there's nothing else to do. But how about the rest? How about Jones, for example?”

The inventor's jaw dropped suddenly.

“Jones! Where the deuce is Jones? Good Heavens! Did he drop overboard in one of the excitements—or—”

The gentleman from the West answered the question himself.

He came stalking out of the cabin just then, rumpled also and distinctly ugly of countenance.

“Hawkins!” he thundered.

“Yes?” quavered the inventor.

“Where the deuce are we, and what time is it?”

“We are about a mile in the air, Congressman, and the time is about six.”

“What?” The representative of the people rubbed his eyes. “Not six o'clock to-morrow?”

“Well, if you want to consider yesterday as to-day—yes.”

“And we are not back in Washington yet?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because we can't get down.”

“Why not?”

“Well, mainly because we can't open the valve that releases the gas from our cylinder,” Hawkins faltered.

“That thing up there?”

“Yes.”

“If there was an outlet, would we drop?”

Certainly.”

“And I've got to be in the House by three this afternoon,” observed the hitherto unostentatious Congressman. “Why don't you make an outlet then?”

“We can't.”

“We can't, eh?” The Representative regarded Hawkins long and earnestly. “Say! Where I come from, we can make an outlet for anything under God's blue sky.”

“But—"

“And we can do it up here just as well,” announced the gentleman. “If that gas was let out, could the aeroplanes carry us down without killing anybody, Hawkins?”

“Certainly,” said the inventor, as Jenkins appeared sleepily.

“Then let me say that you can take a chance at the nation's money, but you can't waste the nation's time as represented in my salary,” said Mr. Jones. “Here you, man!”

“Yes, sir?” said Jenkins.

“Fix your old aeroplanes so that we'll float down to the ground. I'm going to let out the gas.”

“But you can't—” Hawkins began nervously.

“I can't, eh? You don't know the town I hail from,” laughed Jones.

And he drew from his hip-pockets a pair of revolvers that might have stood off a gang or train-robbers. They were not merely long; they were thick, also. They looked like a pair of baby cannons strayed from home.

They pointed upward and—off!

That is all—they went off! There were twelve of the most terrific reports I have ever heard. And the Hawkins aluminum steel capsule was rent and torn in a dozen places, and gas began to hiss and whistle; and for a little we shot downward—until finally a score of wings unfolded themselves under Mink's hands and the speed slackened a bit—and a railroad train appeared somewhere below, and we were headed toward it.

“A man right in politics can do anything,” said Jones calmly.

Which practically ends the story of Alta, the Hawkins Cloud-Climber!

Not a bone was broken. Not a life lost. We left the Alta in charge of Mink and raced for the railway station, regardless of everything else.

I don't know whether Mink and Hawkins have met since. Most sincerely, for Hawkins's sake, I hope not.

But several things I do know.

The main one is that some one must have lost money, and everything points toward the inventor as that individual. Personally, I know nothing about it, save that I got home safely on the next train from—Something-or-other Corners, in Maryland.

Still:

Hawkins has dispensed with everything but his bookkeeper and typist.

He has also rented his beautiful home to a family of nouveau riche from the West.

He has further cultivated a profound dislike for Washington, even to the length of registering under an assumed name on the night he stopped there while I was bowling homeward.

A friend of mine on the stock exchange told me privately that Hawkins had sold out nearly two hundred thousand dollars' worth of stock in a certain railroad, and in a bad market, at that.

I met Hawkins the other day for the first time in many weeks.

“Have you closed with the War Department yet?” I asked.

“Don't try to be funny, Griggs. It's away beyond you,” said the inventor.

“Where have you been lately?” I inquired more gently.

“At my home in the Berkshires, of course,” answered the inventor frostily. “Where else should I be? A man of my nervous temperament cannot stand treatment such as I have had recently.” He licked his lips. “There was a plot against me. That man Mink, Griggs, had been bribed—”

And just there I made the idiotic break of going into hysterics, and Hawkins walked away. He turned for a hissed:

“They tell me that a certain paper has what is purported to be the whole story of the Cloud-Climber, Griggs. Watch for that story, and watch for the million-dollar libel suit I'll bring. That's all?”

He walked away haughtily.

And I am still watching.