The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1910-03-10

Wilmer walked toward Fort
Morgan, his teeth set. his fists
striking vicious blows at nothing,
nearer insane than he had ever
been before. He hated Carson
most violently, now, instead of
sourly and inactively as before.
His inventive Genius was genuine
and respectable, but he was in
sanely jealous, refusing to admit
the correctness of anyone else's
ideas to anything pertaining
to aviation-and yet, the great
dragon-fly in the shed had i'm
pressed him. 1t was so workman
like, so trim-so poised; and the
great wing surfaces beating the
air in section. while the wing it.
self was stationary, were eloquent
of power in lifting and driving.
He was impressed and immensely
depressed. He had been so san
guine of his helicopter, so ambi-
tious, with Shayne's money, to
build another and better one, and
conquer fortune; and to have this
young sprout, with his logarithms
and his new knowledge" rob
him of Shayne's attention and
Shayne's money! If the fool girl
had only not whisked herself in
to the air, and all but into eter-
nifty, and fallen two thousand feet
into this young DEVILS arms! And,
then, who had butted in, got
Shayne away from him, gone
north in the same air-ship with
him, and was now back, with
money for the engines that had
been for long months waiting to
be paid for, the cock of the walk,
choking and pounding the head of
better man and a better engi-
neer? Carson-the young hound,
with Shayne's money, with
Shayne's influence-stolen from
him! He would fix this fellow,
good and plenty! He would
stamp his face into the ground!
He would crush his white teeth
out and send them down his
throat. He would kill him, in
some slow, horrible way, If he
waited until he was hundred
years old. Winners burning heat
was so much more mental than
physical that he scarcely felt the
cool breeze that rolled in the vast
volumes of lashing white water,
and piled huge drifts of dry foam
on the white beach. He plodded
along unweariedly, making toward
the crossing to the lagoon. Once
in a while he gazed off to the
north from a dune-top, saw that
he had not yet passed the Hinter-
land of marsh and alligator-wal-
low, and walked on, the roar of
the ocean in his ears, and the
growl and snarl of vengeance in
his brain.
Seated on a log he looked over
his drawings of Carson's air-ship.
He could understand the method
of making so much wing-surface
rotary, and tho abandonment of
the screw principle for that of the
old feathering wheel; he under
stood. how the clustered gearings
along the dragon-fly's back could
set these beating paddles at any
angle or hold them firm for glid-
ing, or make them strike down,
forward, or backward. These
things meant perfect control
save in one thing: how could so
great a craft be kept from over
turning? 1t was too big to be
balanced by feeling. like a bicycle
or the Wright machines. 1t would
turn turtle; he would bet on that.
'I'd give hundred dollars to
see it," snarled Wilmer. ITO see
him fall out of the fool thing,
breaking his bones. And before
he croaked. to stamp in his
mouth, and feel his teeth go!
Damn him!"
But that mysterious glass globe
in the center of the craft, with
so many little horoscopes beauti-
fully mounted to run in vacuo2
This was the mystery to Wilmer.
1t looked like a round, compact,
clear brain. And yet, those eight
gyroscopes-se in pairs, like the
right and left halves of the brain,
we're too light to hold the great
aeronef stable in the air.
"If they were heavy enough to
balance her, she couldn't lift the
weight. What are they for?
There's deviltry in that glass
globe. / wish I'd smashed It'll"
He struck off north, now,