Tensas gazette. [volume] (St. Joseph, La.) 1886-current, 1908-05-08

line uSQCdrI Hdu udluiy u"1huicu
away when a note SO thin that it
would have been undetected by the
inexperienced ear threaded the
rhythm of the motor. Noah lis
tened with a frown. With deli
cate fingers he overran this
and that Part, but the small foreign
voice sang with mischievous obstin-
acy, and swelled in volume until 1t
led, as 1t were, the refrain of the en-
CINE. Then with a series of hoarse
chucks it ceased abruptly, and the
shaft lay dead in its bearings.
On the ground it would have been
comparatively easy to overhaul the
motor; but Noah was averse to alight-
ing In this waste between Duntown
and Moorland, where 1t would be i'm
possible to secure the aid he might
need. So he tinkered away as best
he could. sometimes rewarded by a
brief spinning Of the propeller that
reused his hopes In vain.
With her engine dead, the Comet
was at the mercy Of the wind. At
first this drove her on toward Moor
land, in the course previously select
ed; but presently, due either to a
change in the wind or cross-current,
she began to drift north. The long
shuttle-shaped bag had not the steadi
ness OF the ordinary spherical balloon.
and its quick rolling and unexpected
plunges tried Noah's nerves and In
creased the difficulty OF his work
Hoping to reach a calmer stratum
OF air, Noah upended two of his bal
last bags, and as the sand fell, the
Comet pierced the low-hanging clouds
like a cannon-ball. For a moment
Noah was frightened; but the rise
OF the ship ceased almost as abruptly
as it had begun, and she hung some
eighty feet above the white mass of
cumuli, casting a distorted and gigan-
tic shadow upon 1t.
The earth had vanished. 1t seemed
that If he fell, the cloud must catch
him as in a blanket, and the absence
of wind had also its steadying ef-
feet upon Noah. He went at the en-
CINE with determination, tested the
sparkling plug and the flow of gaso-
line, put oil wherever there was fric-
ton, and at last had it chattering
cheerily at its highest speed.
Now that the Comet was under con-
troll again, he hitched forward, and
the air-ship dived down on a gentle
slant, piercing the fun of vapor until
the dunes spread their diminished map
below her. 1t was appalling to see
how diminished they were, and Noah
swung himself quickly backward to
arrest the dive.
Probably he did so too quickly. The
great bag of the Comet, halted sud-
denly in its course, oscillated violent
ly and buckled so sharply that one Of
the thin wire guys leading from the
forward collar to the framework snap
ped with a twang. The end few out
writhing into the blur of the pro-
peller, which received it with horrid
crunching.
Before Noah could stop the engine
1t came to Earring stand, and one
Of the light propeller-blades snapped
short off and few upward against
the blunt snout of the Comet. The
distended silk, almost as brittle as
glass from the tremendous interior
pressure, cracked open in a wide-lip-
ped slit. through which the ship be-
gan instantly to belch her hydrogen
Rigid with horror, Noah saw the
slit widen, until the whole snout, torn
away by the rush of the imprisoned
hydrogen, hung downward like a huge
clowns hat. The long belly of the
bag began to work as IL 1t were
breathing, and at the rupture the silk
fiuttered loosely.
The Comet was spilllng her gas fast
Gently her tail sank and her wound
ed nose pointed up and up until she
stood nearly on end, still sinking.
With arms and legs wrapped con-
vulsively about the framework, Noah
had bitter moment of terror. The
Comet was more than half a mile
above the dunes. In a few minutes
she would begin to fall in earnest,
and as. the gas rushed from her, her
speed would increase, until long be-
fore the point Of safety could be reach
ed she would be shooting downward,
a streaming wreck, with tremendous
velocity. Why should he cling to heri
He might as well let go his hold, and
save himself, perhaps, the torture OF
anticipation.
But under this cowed spirit there
seemed to be a second personality. a
subconscious self, active, keen, dart
ing upon the problem from every side,
seeing possible remedies and reject
ing them in a flash and squirting az
ter others This was his inheritance.
perfected by long training, and his
fear was dull and slow in comparison.
While his eyes saw the earth leap
ing up to meet him, he had an even
more vivid picture of the broken bag
and its worm-like pulsations as it ex-
PEELED the gas, and a portion of his
mind began to calculate the probable
number Of minutes that would elapse
before the ship lost all buoyancy and
the plummet rush began.
He perceived at once that the down.
ward motion would drive in the tail,
the gas being no longer confined, and
accelerate its natural volatile propen-