Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-06-12
CHAPTER XII
JACK HARDY'S APoTHEoSIS.

days, is to say very little about It. Where
were the Sergeant and the tutor? Had they
achieved their end? What was their fate?
How near home were they now? That word
''home" was used with stint. 1t stuck in
the throats of the explorers
AS the days passed into weeks the awful
suspicion grew upon them that this airship,
if it refused to move, would probably be
their tomb. They began to economize pro-
visions. This decision of the professor, who
had taken charge in the absence of the Ser
geant, was made upon the twentieth day,
and brought down the house with gloom.
But what had the inventor been doing in
the meanwhile? Alternating between wild
hope and bursting with despair. Three
times had the delicate aud ponderous
machinery been taken apart and reftted.
Jack and Royal worked like horses to help
him. These two were true to their promise.
Now they began to understand the meaning
Of their commanders instructions. To be
killed in the front of battle is not so hard a
fate as to be picked off by stray bullets
while waiting in the rear the order for ad-
vance 1t required all the cheerfulness
and invention of the boys to keep up the
inventors courage and their own. ST
don't see where our corner lots are coming
in" Jack Hardy would suggest airily.
"And how am I going to survey for that
summer hotel?" But Jokes and conun-
drums gave out in time. By the twentieth
day no man felt funny.
"Once more, old fellow" urged Royal
Sterne for the fiftieth time, "I'll bet there's
dead wire somewhere, or some blamed
screw loose. Let ber go againl''
For the hundredth time the inventor ex-
amined his machinery. 1t was of no use.
The Aeropole sullenly refused to bulge.
Her huge fans disobeyed. The great storage
battery, in itself a new invention, seemed
unable to give an impulse to the shy ma
chinery. The Aeropole did not coquet;
it sulked Its disease was not the breaking
of an artery, or the failure of the heart, nor
even hysteria. Her organism was perfect;
her nerves true to their centers; her limbs
able to revolve. It was an authentic case
of hypochondria, of nervous unwillingRess
to move.
the inventor piteously. every part is
perfect. The power is plentv.. She'll wake
up and be herself again." Then he went to
the lever, and his will, acting through it,
was d1sregarded.
This lasted 80 days Then Jack Hardy
began to think.
"Forty-eight hours more and they are due
back" he calculated. ROYAL is beginning
to have the sulks. There are no white bears
to be shot I'm in prime order. 'Tisn't SO
bad as it was one summer on the plains
IN bet cent the professor has passed some
little fool thing BY. I'll have to 60 for
them," he unused, thinking of the rescue he
might be called upon to undertake. Royal
would have to stay behind to guard the pro-
professor. 81 guess I'll make dab in the
engine room and sly around generally"
So Jack Hardy crowded into the engine
room, squeezed the protesting inventor to
one side, and dabbled with nuts and attach
ments and wires and screws, as if he knew
all about it
"If don't strike 12," he answered, "at
least I can't make her more contrary than
she is
The professor grumbled, but repaired the
damage with sarcastic precision after every
visit
The thirty-third day arrived Men in the
Arctic region count time from the day of
departure or disaster. Fifty times during
the day before Royal and Jack had climbed
to the top of an elevation at distance of q
few hundred feet, and peered with tele-
scope toward the mslign North. Then they
would come back to the inventor with sad
faces and in silence.
On the thirty-third day the suspense be-
came intolerable, and so did the tempers of
the three men in the Aeropole.
balky machinery, and his state of mind in
particular became unmanageable. ''You
are pretty inventor to bring us up here,
and be downed by your own machine? he
cried. "I'm tired of you; and as for you,"
turning toward Royal and putting pipeiul
in that gentleman's surprised face, "that's
the third time you've turned up Jack rum
ming. I never could trust man who turned
up the Jack that way"
Both men, insulted to the quick, turned
upon him, each in his own way. The pro-
lessor, too thin and worn to fight, folded his
arms and advanced sternly upon Hardy. He
meant to wither him with look. But
Royal, who had taken boxing lessons in his
chronological days. squared up to his
friend, flushed and grew pale, and then
fatty said:
"You liel''
Jack Hardy, bereft of his senses, as they
all were by their terrible situation, started
up with the pack of cards in his hands and
faced his companions. Men who have been
imprisoned tor weeks In the same narrow
place have learned to loath the companions
they once loved. They detest everything
even themselves This is next to the last
stage of that terrible diseose-ennui. 1t is
but step to murder or suicide. 1t is dis
tinct form of insanity.
jack glared at the two. He had already
forgotten that he was the assailant. He
was already prepared to consider himself
the injured party.
'tFirst your he cried. Then with all his
might he hurled the pack of cards straight
at the face of the inventor Professor
Wilder naturally ducked. The cards hurtled
on. They scattered and separated at the
door of the engine room. Like leaves they
skinned about They struck here and
there, covering vital parts of the strange
machinery.
But, even as they struck their unintended
mark, there was low, whizzing sound. 1t
increased in volume. The stubborn cleo
trical engine, silent for month and
week, was awakened. Kissed at some un-
known spot BY a chance card, it had started
from its lethargy. The life blood was once
more in its nostrils The princess of all
electrical machinery was vitalized-and by
two-spot!
Anger was blotted out in astcnishment.
Delight made the foemen brothers again.
With bound the Professor opened the cur
rent wider. The horizontal, lifting wheels,
long kept SO carefully from ice or snow,
revolved swiftly. The Aeropole groaned.
1t racked and creaked. The three men
shouted simultaneously:
"An axep'
"a pick!'
A stroke here, pry there, shake, d
thud, desperate leap into the car and
sudden bound-and with stately pride the
airship arose and looked upon the place of
her imprisonment with disdain.
The Professor watched her power and her