Mrs. Tupper had by this time opened her eyes and was now listening in amazement.
“Yes,” she added, reprovingly, “all those spiral dips and volplaning and — and — figure-eights are more suited to a circus performer than to a young girl, it seems to me.”
This lady’s face persistently wore a bland and unmeaning smile, which had been so carefully cultivated in her youth that it had become habitual and wreathed her chubby features even when she was asleep, giving one the impression that she wore a mask. Now her stern eyes belied the smirk of her face, but Orissa merely smiled.
“I am not a ‘dare-devil/ I assure you,” she said, addressing Mr. Tupper rather than his wife. “I know the newspapers call me that, and compare me with the witch on a broomstick; but in truth I am as calculating and cold as any aviator in America. Everything I do is figured out with mathematical precision and I never take a single chance that I can foresee. I know the air currents, and all their whims and peculiarities, and how to counteract them. What may seem to the spectators to be daring, and even desperate, is often the safest mode of flying, provided you understand your machine and the conditions of the air. To volplane from a height of five or ten thousand feet, for example, is safer than from a slight elevation, for the further you drop the better air-cushion is formed under your planes, and you ride as gently as when suspended from a parachute.”
Madeline was listening eagerly.
“Are you afraid?” she asked.
“Afraid? Why should I be, with my brother’s wonderful engine at my back and perfect control of every part of my machine?”
“Suppose the engine should some time fail you?”
“Then I would volplane to the ground.”
“And if the planes, or braces, or fastenings break?”
“No fear of that. The Kane Aircraft is strong enough for any aerial purpose and I examine every brace and strut before I start my flight merely to satisfy myself they have not been maliciously tampered with.”
Then Madeline sprung her important question:
“Do you ever take a passenger?”
Orissa regarded Miss Dentry with a whimsical smile.
“Sometimes,” she said. “Do you imagine you would like to fly?”
“No — no, indeed!” cried Mr. Tupper in a horrified voice, and Mrs. Tupper echoed, “How absurd!” But Madeline answered quietly:
“If you could manage to take me I am sure I would enjoy the experience.”
“I will consider it and let you know later,” said the Flying Girl, thoughtfully. “My chum, Sybil Cumberford, has made several short flights with me; but Sybil’s head is perfectly balanced and no altitude affects it. Often those who believe they would enjoy flying become terrified once they are in the air.”
“Nothing could terrify Madeline, I am sure,” asserted Mrs. Tupper, in a rasping voice; “but she is too important a personage to risk her life foolishly. I shall insist that she at once abandon the preposterous idea. Abandon it, Madeline! I thought your new yacht a venturesome thing to indulge in, but flying is far, far worse.”
“Oh; have you a yacht?” inquired Orissa, turning eagerly to the other girl.
“Yes; the Salvador. It is now lying in San Diego harbor. I’ve not seen my new craft as yet, but intend it shall take us to Honolulu and perhaps to Japan.”
“How delightful,” cried Orissa, with enthusiasm.
“Would you like to join our party?”
“Oh, thank you; I couldn’t,” quite regretfully; “I am too busy just now advancing the fortunes of my brother Stephen, who is really the most clever inventor of aeroplanes in the world. Don’t smile, please; he is, indeed! The world may not admit it as yet, but it soon will. Have you heard of his latest contrivance? It is a Hydro-Aircraft, and its engines propel it equally as well on water as on land.”
“Then it beats my yacht,” said Madeline, smiling.
“It is more adaptable — more versatile — to be sure,” said Orissa. “Stephen has just completed his first Hydro-Aircraft, and while I am in San Diego I shall test it and make a long trip over the Pacific Ocean to exploit its powers. Such a machine would not take the place of a yacht, you know, and the motor boat attachment is merely a safety device to allow one to fly over water as well as over land. Then, if you are obliged to descend, your aircraft becomes a motor boat and the engines propel it to the shore.”
“Does your brother use the Gnome engines?” inquired Mr. Tupper.
“No; Stephen makes his own engines, which I think are better than any others,” answered Miss Kane.
By the time the train drew into the station at San Diego, Madeline Dentry and her companions, the Tuppers, knew considerably more of aeroplanes than the average layman, for Orissa Kane enjoyed explaining the various machines and, young and unassuming as she appeared, understood every minute detail of their manufacture. She had been her brother’s assistant and companion from the time of his first experiments and intelligently followed the creation and development of the now famous Kane Aircraft.
At the depot a large crowd was in waiting, not gathered to meet the great heiress, Madeline Dentry, but the quiet slip of a girl whose name was on every tongue and whose marvelous skill as a bird-maid had aroused the admiration of every person interested in aerial sports. On the billboards were glaring posters of “The Flying Girl,” the chief attraction of the coming aviation meet, and the news of her expected arrival had drawn many curious inhabitants of the Sunshine City to the depot, as well as the friends congregated to greet her.
First of all a tall, fine looking fellow, who limped slightly, sprang forward to meet Orissa at the car steps and gave her a kiss and a hug. This was Stephen Kane, the airship inventor, and close behind him stood a grizzled gentleman in a long gray coat and jaunty Scotch cap. It was Mr. Cumberford, the “angel” and manager of the youthful Kanes, the man whose vast wealth had financed the Kane Aircraft and enabled the boy and girl to carry out their ambitious plans. This strange man had neither ambition to acquire more money nor to secure fame by undertaking to pilot the Aircraft to success; as he stood here, his bored expression, in sharp contrast to the shrewd gray eyes that twinkled behind his spectacles, clearly indicated this fact; but a little kindness had won him to befriend the young people and he had rendered them staunch support.
On Mr. Cumberford’s arm was a slender girl dressed all in black, the nodding sable plumes of whose broad hat nearly hid Orissa from view as the two girls exchanged a kiss. Sybil Cumberford had no claim to beauty except for her dark eyes — so fathomless and mysterious that they awed all but her most intimate friends, and puzzled even them.
And now an awkward young fellow — six feet three and built like an athlete — slouched bashfully forward and gripped Orissa Kane’s outstretched hand. Here was the press agent of the Kane-Cumberford alliance, Mr. H. Chesterton Radley-Todd; a most astonishing youth who impressed strangers as being a dummy and his friends as the possessor of a rarely keen intellect. Orissa smiled at him; there was something humorous about Radley-Todd’s loose-jointed, unwieldy personality. Then she took her brother’s arm and passed through the eager, admiring throng to the automobile in waiting.
Beside Mr. Cumberford’s car stood a handsome equipage that had been sent for Miss Dentry’s party, and as Orissa nodded to her recent acquaintances Sybil Cumberford inquired:
“Who is that girl?”
“A Miss Dentry, of New York, with whom I exchanged some remarks on the train. She has a yacht in the bay here.”
“Oh, yes; I’ve heard all about her,” returned Sybil, indifferently. “She’s dreadfully rich; rather snubbed New York society, which was eager to idolize her — says she’s too young for the weary, heart-breaking grind — and indulges in such remarkable fancies that she’s getting herself talked about. I hope you didn’t encourage her advances, Orissa?”
“I fear I did,” was the laughing reply; “but she seemed very nice and agreeable — for a rich girl. Tell me, Steve,” she added, turning to h
er brother, “what news of the Hydro-Aircraft?”
“It’s great, Orissa! I put the finishing touches on it night before last, and yesterday Mr. Cumberford and I took a trial spin in it. It carries two beautifully,” he exclaimed, his eyes sparkling with enthusiasm.
“Did you go over the water?” asked Orissa.
“Nearly half a mile. Then we dropped and let the engine paddle us home. Of all the hydro-aeroplanes yet invented, Ris, mine will do the most stunts and do them with greater ease.”
They were rolling swiftly toward the ferry now, bound for the Hotel del Coronado, a rambling pile of Spanish architecture that dominates the other side of San Diego Bay. Presently the car took its place in the line of vehicles on the ferry and Mr. Cumberford, who was driving, shut off the power and turned to Orissa.
“You are advertised to exhibit the new Hydro-Aircraft the first day of the meet — that’s Monday,” he announced. “Do you think you can master the mechanism by that time?”
“Is it the same old engine, Steve?” she inquired.
“Exactly the same, except that I’ve altered the controlling levers, to make them handy both in the air and on water, and balanced the weight a little differently, to allow for the boat attachment.”
“How did you do that?”
“Placed the gasoline tanks in the rear. That makes the engine feed from the back, instead of from directly overhead, you see.”
Orissa nodded.
“I think I can manage it, Mr. Cumberford,” she decided. “Will Steve go with me on Monday?”
“Why — no” returned the manager, a trifle embarrassed. “Our fool press agent had an idea the event would be more interesting if two girls made the flight out to sea, and the trip back by boat. Sybil has been crazy to go, and so I let Chesty Todd have his own way.”
“You see, Miss Kane,” added Mr. H. Chesterton Radley-Todd, who was seated beside Mr. Cumberford, while Stephen and the two girls rode behind, “the management of the meet couldn’t get another aviatress to take part, because you had been engaged to fly. The other air-maids are all jealous of your reputation and popularity, I guess, so the management was in despair. The dear public is daffy, just now, to watch a female risk her precious life; it’s more thrilling than when a male ventures it. So, as they’re paying us pretty big money, and Miss Cumberford was anxious to go, I — er — er — I — ”
“It is quite satisfactory to me,” announced Orissa quietly. “I shall enjoy having Sybil with me.”
“I knew you wouldn’t object,” said Sybil.
“The only thing I don’t like about it,” observed Stephen, reflectively, “is the fact that you have never yet seen my Hydro-Aircraft. It’s safe enough, either on land or water; but if the thing balks — as new inventions sometimes do — there will be no one aboard to help you remedy the fault, and the invention is likely to get a black eye.”
“Give me a tool bag and I’ll do as well as any mechanician,” responded Orissa, confidently. “And your Hy is not going to balk, Steve, for I shall know as much about it as you do by Monday.”
CHAPTER TWO
THE GIRL WITH THE AEROPLANE
The MORNING FOLLOWING Orissa Kane’s arrival, which was the Saturday preceding the meet, she went with her brother Stephen to his hangar, which was located near the Glenn Curtiss aviation camp on a low bluff overlooking the Pacific. There the two spent the entire forenoon in a careful inspection of the new Hydro-Aircraft.
As she had told Madeline Dentry, the Flying Girl never wittingly took chances in the dangerous profession she followed. The remarkable success of her aerial performances was due to an exact knowledge of every part of her aeroplane. She knew what each bolt and brace was for and how much strain it would stand; she knew to a feather’s weight the opposition of the planes to the air, the number of revolutions to drive the engine under all conditions and the freaks of the unreliable atmospheric currents. And aside from this knowledge she had that prime quality known as “the aviator’s instinct” — the intuition what to do in emergencies, and the coolness to do it promptly.
Stephen Kane, who adored his pretty little sister, had not the slightest fear for her. As she had stood at his side during the construction of his first successful aeroplane and learned such mechanical principles of flying as he himself knew, he had no doubt she could readily comprehend the adaptation he had made to convert his Aircraft into the amphibious thing that could navigate air and water alike.
“It seems to me quite perfect, Steve,” was Orissa’s final verdict. “There is no question but the Hydro-Aircraft will prove more useful to the world than any simple aeroplane. If we could carry gasoline enough, I would venture across the Pacific in this contrivance. By the way, what am I to do on Monday? Must I carry Sybil in any certain direction, or for any given distance?”
“I’ll let Chesty explain that,” said Steve, turning to the youthful press agent, who had just then entered the hangar in company with Mr. Cumberford and Sybil.
“Why, er — er — a certain program has been announced, you know,” explained Chesty Todd; “but that doesn’t count, of course. We’ll say that owing to high winds, contrary air currents, or some other excuse, you had to alter your plans. That’ll satisfy the dear public, all right.”
Orissa frowned slightly.
“You mustn’t compromise me in such ways, Mr. Todd,” she exclaimed. “The Kane-Cumberford Camp has the reputation of fulfilling its engagements to the letter; but if you promise impossible things of course we cannot do them.”
The young man flushed. In the presence of Orissa Kane this big fellow was as diffident as a schoolboy.
“I — I didn’t think I promised too much,” he stammered. “There are two or three islands off this coast, known as the Coronado Islands. The big one — you can see it plainly from here — is named Sealskin. No one knows why. There are seals there, and they have skins. Perhaps that’s the reason. Or they may all be related, and the seals’ kin play together on the rocks.”
“Be sensible, Chesty!” This from Mr. Cumberford, rather impatiently.
“I’m quite sensible of Miss Kane’s annoyance,” resumed Mr. Radley-Todd, “but I hope she will find her task easy. She has merely to fly to Sealskin Island, a dozen or fifteen miles — perhaps twenty — and alight on the bosom of the blue Pacific. Mighty poetical in the advertisements, eh? Then she’ll ride back in motor boat fashion. When she approaches the shore she is to mount into the air again, circle around the hotel and land on the aviation field before the grand stand. If any part of this program seems difficult, we can cut it out and tell the reporters — ”
“Steve,” interrupted Orissa, “can I rise from the water into the air?”
“Of course. That’s my pet invention. While skimming along the water you lift this lever, free the propeller, then point your elevator and — up you go!”
“Run out the machine. We will make a trial and you shall show me how it is done. The rest of Chesty’s program seems easy enough, and if I master this little trick of rising from the water we will carry out our contract to the letter.”
“All right. Your costume is in that little dressing room in the corner, Ris.”
While his sister donned her short skirt, leggings and helmet, Stephen Kane called his mechanicians and had the Hydro-Aircraft rolled out of the hangar and headed toward the ocean. For himself, he merely put on a sweater and his cap and visor, being ready long before Orissa appeared.
The inventor seldom flew his own craft, for an accidental fall had lamed him so that he was not as expert an aviator as his sister had proved to be. He was recovering from his hurt, however, and hoped the injured leg would soon be good as new. Meantime Orissa was doing more to render the Kane Aircraft famous than any man might have done.
A wire fence encircled the Kane-Cumberford Camp for some distance, except on the ocean side, where the bluff protected it from invasion. There was an entrance gate adjoining the beach road, and while the assembled party awaited Orissa’s ap
pearance Steve noticed that a motor car stopped at the gateway and a man and woman alighted and entered the enclosure, leisurely approaching the spot where the Hydro-Aircraft stood.
“Oh!” exclaimed Sybil, whose dark eyes were far-seeing; “it’s that girl who owns the yacht, Madeline what’s-her-name.”
“Dentry,” said Steve. “I wonder if Orissa invited her here. Go and meet them, Chesty, and find out.”
Mr. Radley-Todd promptly unlimbered his long legs and advanced to meet Madeline and Mr. Tupper. The press agent had an unlimited command of language when driving his pen over paper, but was notably awkward in expressing himself conversationally. He now stopped short before the visitors, removed his hat and said:
“I — er — pardon me, but — er — was your appointment for this hour?”
“Is Miss Kane here, sir?” asked Madeline, unabashed.
“She is, Miss — er — er — ”
“Dentry.”
“Oh; thank you.”
“Then I will see her,” and she took a step forward. But Chesty Todd did not move his huge bulk out of the way. So many curious and bold people were prone to intrude on all aviators, and especially on Miss Kane, that it was really necessary to deny them in a positive manner in order to secure any privacy at all. The press agent, in his halting way, tried to explain.
“We — er — Miss Kane — is about to — er — test the powers of our new Hydro-Aircraft, and I regret to say that — er — er — the test is private, you know.”
“How fortunate that we came just now!” cried Madeline, eagerly, as she flashed her most winning smile on the young man. “Please lead us directly to Miss Kane, sir.”
“Yes; of course; please lead us to Miss Kane,” echoed Mr. Tupper pompously.
Chesty succumbed and led them to the group surrounding the machine, just as Orissa emerged from the hangar. Recognizing her recent traveling companion, the Flying Girl ran up and greeted her cordially, introducing her and Mr. Tupper to the others present.
Complete Works of L. Frank Baum Page 549
