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CHAPTER XIX.
AN INVOLUNTARY PASSENGER

“A man!” exclaimed the amazed professor. “Why, how in the world did he come here?”

“I don’t know,” said Nat; “but there he is.”

“He must have caught the rope when the Discoverer shot upward,” suggested Joe. “Maybe he thought he could stop us.”

“He’s all wer-wer-wound up in the rope,” announced Ding-dong, who had been peering over the side during this dialogue. “His eyes are closed, and he seems half-dead from fright.”

“Let us drag him on board at once,” said the professor.

The boys lay flat, while the winch was started up until the man’s head was on a level with the under part of the substructure. Then three pairs of strong young arms reached down and dragged their involuntary passenger over the side.

“He’s an Indian!” cried Joe, as the man being dragged into safety from his precarious position proved to be a squat, black-haired little brown man, clad in a garment of rough fibre, and with one of the peculiar ornaments Nat had already noticed, thrust through his under lip.

All this time the Indian had kept his eyes tight closed, and had not uttered a word. Now, however, he opened his eyes, and threw himself down flat on his face on the Discoverer’s deck. There he groveled in an attitude of the most complete humility.

“He thinks we are sky gods, or demons of some sort,” declared the professor, reading the man’s consternation aright.

“I don’t much blame him,” said Nat, with a smile, “that ride through the air at the end of the rope must have been the most terrifying experience of his young life.”

“Young life,” scoffed Joe, “he must be sixty at least.”

“Well, that is young sometimes,” said the professor, who owned to that age himself, although he was as active as most men half his age.

Suddenly the Indian began to speak, but without raising his head. He poured out a flood of words. For an instant, they thought he was speaking his native dialect, but all at once the professor understood.

“He’s talking Spanish,” he said, “and imploring us to spare his life. Just as I thought, he thinks we are beings from another world.”

“Well, if I were in his fix I’d be inclined to think so myself,” said Joe.

But the professor began putting rapid questions, at the same time raising the man’s head and showing him by signs that they meant no harm to him. Little by little the Indian seemed to recover his courage. But he was sorely shaken by his adventure, and explained that when the ropes began to drag over the ground he had seized them to stop the dirigible, and had become entangled in them.

“Why did your tribe attack us?” asked the professor.

“We thought you were human beings,” was the response. “But now we know otherwise.”

He would have cast himself on his face again, but the professor raised him and spoke encouragingly to him.

“Maybe if you’d give him something to eat he’d feel better,” suggested Joe, practically.

“That might be a good idea, and it will show him that we mean him no harm,” said the professor.

The Indian, who said his name was Matco, was taken to the cabin, the sight of which, with its comfortable furnishings and strange scientific instruments, filled him with fresh terror. But little by little he regained his self-possession to a degree, and ate what he was given with zest.

The crew of the Discoverer joined him at the meal, of which they stood in need, Joe relieving Mr. Tubbs at the helm. The stout lad had taken a few lessons in steering before from Mr. Tubbs, and found that it was not as difficult as he had supposed it would be. But then, Joe had had plenty of experience at the wheels of both automobiles and boats.

But after all, the selection of a green hand at the wheel proved somewhat disastrous. The sun arose while they were still talking to the Indian, and Mr. Tubbs was hearing details of the strange manner in which the man had boarded the airship.

In that rarefied air the rays of the luminary of day soon warm the air, and, as a consequence, the gas within the Discoverer’s bag began to expand very rapidly. Those in the cabin, of course, did not notice that the craft was rising rapidly, and Joe did not give a glance at the barograph, it not occurring to him to do so.

All at once he gazed over the front of the pilot-house and looked down below. What he saw almost made him utter a cry. The Discoverer was at a tremendous height, and appeared to be rising more and more rapidly.

Joe, in a sudden panic, twitched a lever, and the next instant the craft shot skyward at breathtaking speed. The boy had set the wrong lever and had adjusted the planes to a rising angle.

Before the professor, who had felt the craft rear upward, could reach the pilot-house, the dirigible had shot up five hundred feet or more. Behind the professor came the others, except Matco, who was sent into a fresh paroxysm of fright by the strange and sudden upward leap of the airship.

“Good heavens!” cried the professor, as he jerked over the descending lever, “we have risen to a height of more than eight thousand feet.”

As he spoke they suddenly noticed that the air had grown bitterly chill.

“Just like Joe to make a break like that,” said Nat, with a good-natured laugh that took the sting out of his speech; “we’d better get down to earth once more as quickly as possible. It’s too cold to be comfortable up here.”

“We’ll soon drop now,” said Mr. Tubbs confidently.

But as the minutes passed and it grew colder, his face became grave.

“We’re rising,” cried the professor, glancing at the barograph.

“That’s right,” cried Nat. “What can be the matter?”

“Have you got the descending planes set at their sharpest angle?” demanded the professor.

“Yes,” was the response, “but they seem to have no effect on her at all.”

The professor thought a moment.

“We shall have to pull the escape valve and let out some gas,” he said. “The rising sun has warmed the air till the expansion of gas has made the bag too buoyant for the planes to have any effect on it.”

“Won’t that waste the gas?” asked Joe.

“Yes, but we will have to do it. Mr. Tubbs, pull the escape valve, please,” said the professor, whose nose was red and whose teeth were beginning to chatter.

“It’s snowing!” cried Nat suddenly.

The air was filled with flying flakes, and the Discoverer seemed to be soaring through a wonderful white void. But it was no time for admiring such effects.

Reaching above his head, Mr. Tubbs gave the cord that worked the escape valve situated on the top of the big bag, a sharp tug.

Then he gave it another and another, with no results.

“It’s stuck fast!” he said, the words coming out shrilly from his blue, frozen lips.

A look of dismay spread over the professor’s face.

“Nonsense,” he said. “It can’t be.”

“But it is, I tell you.”

“Let me try it.”

The professor gave a hard tug, but still the cord did not budge.

“Give me a hand here,” he said to Nat, and together they tugged.

Suddenly, and without the least warning, the cord broke off short in their hands, and they fell sprawling on the floor. To his astonishment, when Nat tried to rise, he found the task difficult. Breathing seemed to be a labor, and his limbs felt like lead. The professor had actually to be helped to his feet, and then staggered, with one hand over his heart, to the helmsman’s settee, on which he sank, breathing with a queer, whistling sound.

“What on earth has happened?” demanded Joe, who like the others, felt strangely oppressed and heavy. His head ached as if it would burst.

“The – the cord must have frozen to the sides of the bag,” gasped out the professor. “The change to this awful altitude turned the night moisture accumulated on the gas bag’s sides to ice. I fear we are doomed, unless – ”

He paused, panting and gasping.

“Unless what?” demanded Nat, forcing the words out.

“Unless we can get that valve open.”

“And if we can’t?”

“Then we must drift higher and higher till we perish of cold, or the bag explodes and we are precipitated to the earth.”

CHAPTER XX.
“ALL OUR LIVES DEPEND ON IT.”

Nat staggered toward the door of the pilot-house. Mr. Tubbs, at the wheel, the least affected of the adventurers, turned his head.

“What are you doing to do?” he demanded.

“Get that valve open,” was the brief reply.

“Boy, you are crazy!”

“Maybe, but I’m going to make a try for it, anyhow. All our lives depend upon it.”

“By hooky, if it’s to be done, you’ll do it, and if not, why then, I guess we’ll have to meet death as bravely as we can,” was Mr. Tubbs’ muttered remark, as Nat plunged out of the door.

In the cabin Ding-dong, breathing hard, lay on a narrow bunk. Matco was stretched on the floor, apparently unconscious. Nat gazed at them half stupidly.

“Pretty far gone,” was the thought that came into his dazed mind. Then he plunged on again, reeling as he went, his mind concentrated with bitter intensity on the task that lay before him. Gaining the deck, he found the cold almost too much for him, and he turned back for an instant and donned warmer clothing from the professor’s chest.

Then he doggedly proceeded with his self-imposed task. He noticed that the engine had stopped. The bitter cold had condensed the moisture within it and frozen the lubricating oil.

But Nat wasted no time on these observations. What he had to do must be done quickly if at all.

Gazing upward at the huge bulging curve of the under side of the gas bag, he saw the broken ends of the valve cord fluttering from the bag. They were far above his reach, even if the securing of them would have done him any good.

It was only for an instant that he paused. Then, summoning up every ounce of resolution in his determined mind, he seized hold of the starboard rigging and began clambering up and outward.

He did not dare to look down into the awful void beneath him – vast and empty as eternity itself. Keeping his eyes steadily fixed on the bulging bag, Nat climbed by sheer force of will power till he was up to the network that encased the bag.

Right here began the most difficult and terrifying part of his task. Hanging desperately above the immensity beneath him, he had to make his way to the upper part of the bag. He did not dare to think of what he was doing. The very notion of it made him feel sick and dizzy. The lad just climbed, fixing his mind on the thought of reaching and opening the valve.

Somehow – to this day Nat couldn’t tell you how – he clambered round under the bulge of the bag and began the easier task of making his way up the tightly rounded sides to the top of the great cylindrical gas container. As the professor had surmised, ice had formed on the outside of the bag, and made Nat’s endeavor ten times more hazardous and difficult. This ice had clogged the valve ropes, and Nat saw that the only thing to do was, as he had made up his mind, to climb on till he reached the top of the bag.

The possibilities of a slip were awful, and Nat no more dared think about them than he had about the chances of his slipping when he was hanging between earth and sky under the lower part of the bag. He resolutely dismissed them from his mind.

But the physical difficulties of the lad’s self-imposed task were almost overwhelming. There was a sharp pain in his chest, and his limbs felt as if they had leaden weights attached to them. Suddenly a warm stream of something Nat knew to be blood, gushed from his nose; but still he worked his way upward, climbing amidst the network meshes like a sailor on ratlines.

Once or twice he was compelled to pause from sheer exhaustion, and, clinging on with might and main, to spread himself flat on the surface of the gas bag to rest.

If Nat had not been a clean-lived lad all his life, and had not been a hater of smoking and bad company, he would never have been able to endure this ordeal; but somehow, his young vitality won out, and at last he could reach out a hand and touch the valve.

Bracing himself against the rigging, he tugged with all his might. But the condensed moisture had formed ice on the valve, and it stuck.

Nat felt a childish rage take possession of him. Raising his fists, he beat and tore at the valve, while tears of physical weakness and exhaustion streamed down his cheeks.

“I will get you open! I will! I will!” he cried again and again.

But even his frame gave way at last, and suddenly his eyes grew dim and he felt as if a sword had been plunged through and through him.

As everything grew black, Nat, with a last effort of consciousness, clutched at something to save himself from being plunged backward into space.

He caught it, or thought he did, and then his senses went out from him with a vivid flash and a terrible roaring in his ears like the sound of a hundred waterfalls.

Half an hour later, or at ten o’clock, Joe Hartley opened his eyes. At first he hardly knew what had befallen him; but in a few seconds his recollection came back with a rush. He remembered that the Discoverer had seemed doomed, recalled Nat’s plunge through the door and how he had tried to follow his chum, but had fallen, overcome by exhaustion, at the door.

But now all the chill was out of the air, bright sunlight streamed through the pilot-house ports, and the professor and Mr. Tubbs, both of whom had collapsed on the floor, were sitting up looking about them rather bewilderedly. The professor was the first to speak.

“A miracle has happened,” he declared. “The Discoverer is out of danger.”

“The barograph shows twenty-five hundred feet,” announced Joe, who had been studying that instrument.

“Where are the others?” asked Mr. Tubbs, rising rather weakly to his feet.

As if in answer to his question, Ding-dong Bell appeared in the doorway between the pilot-house and the main cabin.

“Where’s Nat?” he demanded.

“Isn’t he out there with you?” asked Joe, with a quick leap of his heart.

“No. The only person out there is Matco. He’s so scared that he’s under the ber-ber-bunk.”

“Where is the lad?” demanded the professor earnestly, with a note of anxiety in his voice.

Mr. Tubbs, who had been struggling with his dim memory of events preceding his collapse, spoke:

“I recall it now,” he said. “Nat said he was going to get that valve open” – he paused – “somehow.”

“And you let him go?” demanded the professor.

“I – I didn’t mean to,” stammered the repentant Mr. Tubbs, “but I was so nearly on the verge of caving in, that I couldn’t carry out my resolve.”

“Search the craft thoroughly,” ordered the professor, lines of anxiety showing in his face, “there was only one way to open that valve.”

They looked their questions.

“And that was by climbing around the gas bag and opening it by hand.”

“Good gracious!” exclaimed Joe. “And Nat dared do such a thing!”

“He must have, and succeeded, too,” said the professor in a curiously tense voice, “the opening of that valve was the only thing that would result in our having dropped to a supportable region of the air.”

“But we are dropping no longer.”

The exclamation came from Mr. Tubbs.

“No. The automatic cut-off arrangement would have closed the valve when we had reached a warmer belt of atmosphere,” explained the professor, “but don’t let us lose time talking here. Scatter through the Discoverer and make a thorough search. He may have dropped unconscious somewhere.”

The anxiety with which the search was conducted may be imagined. The Discoverer was allowed to drift lazily along while they sought some trace of the missing lad, but the search resulted in nothing.

“There is only one conclusion to be reached,” said the professor in a solemn voice, “poor Nat paid the penalty of his bravery with his life. He – ”

The man of science broke off, unable to command his voice, and at the same instant came a cry from above them – a hail from out of the air, it seemed:

“Hello, people!”

“Good heavens! It’s Nat!” fairly shouted the professor, as Nat, whose feet were alone visible round the bulge of the gas bag, clambered nimbly down and dropped from the rigging, beside them.

In his excess of joy, the professor flung his arms around Nat’s neck, much to the lad’s embarrassment, while the rest fairly fought for a chance to grasp his hand. In intervals of joy making, Nat told his story, part of which we are familiar with.

It seemed that when he swooned on the swaying balloon top he instinctively clutched at the first thing his hand encountered, which was one of the valve ropes. The valve, already loosened by his pounding on it, yielded to the sudden pressure upon it and jerked open. At least, this was the only explanation Nat could furnish of the fortunate occurrence.

When he came to himself he said he saw that the Discoverer was at a reasonable height, and manipulating the cords he again closed the valve. He was too weak to attempt the descent at once, but lay outstretched on the top of the gas bag, regaining his strength. All this time he suffered with a dreadful fear that his friends below might have succumbed to the awful rigors of the upper air. With an apprehensive heart he at last began the climb down and he concluded:

“You may imagine how delighted I was to hear your voices, even if the professor was preaching my funeral sermon.”

The boys broke out into wild yells of enthusiasm.

“Three cheers for Nat Trevor, the bravest boy on earth!” shouted Joe Hartley.

The shouts rang out oddly in the thin atmosphere of mid-air, but they relieved the boys’ feelings. As they died out, Matco appeared at the door of the cabin, and gazed at the scene a moment. Then seeing that Nat was the idol of the moment the Indian ran nimbly along the swaying deck and throwing himself on his knees, placed Nat’s foot on his head.

It was the last straw.

“Say, fellows!” cried Nat with a red face, “that’s about all of this hero business. Let’s have some breakfast and get the engine going.”

And so, what might have been a tragedy, ended in one of the merriest meals ever enjoyed by aerial travelers.

By noon the Discoverer, none the worse for her involuntary flight into the icy realms of space, was able to resume her voyage over the desolate peaks and abysses of unknown depths, above which the adventurers were now soaring.

CHAPTER XXI.
“FEATHERED AEROPLANES.”

The professor’s observations that day showed that they were within two hundred miles of where the fabled city ought to lie, always supposing that it really had an existence. But you may be sure that not one of the Motor Rangers doubted that fact.

The course was altered, and the Discoverer’s bow turned toward some ragged-looking peaks that cut the sky line to the northwest. The country over which they were now passing was, as has been said, desolate in the extreme. It appeared to have been devastated by earthquakes or forest fires, and the vegetation was scanty, while the surface of the ground was split, and scarred and hillocked like a crumpled bit of parchment. But toward afternoon the character of the scenery changed. The mountains grew in gloomy grandeur and were clothed with dense tropical growth. Between the great masses and lofty elevations lay dark and unfathomable chasms, at whose depth only a guess could be made. It was wild and dismal scenery, and, viewed even from above, oppressed the travelers with its sense of lonely vastness.

The Discoverer was not making as good time as usual, owing to a stiff headwind. Then, too, the engine had not developed its full power since its freezing up in the upper aerial regions. But the professor announced himself as well satisfied with their progress. Matco gradually got over his first fear of the air travelers and talked to the professor in his rough Spanish, which Nat could hardly understand, so besprinkled was it with mispronunciations and Indian words.

The old Indian was much interested in trying to find out what the white men, – for he no longer thought them gods, – were doing in that part of the country. But the professor deemed it wisest not to tell him. Ultimately they would have to set him free, and if he knew too much of their expedition he might make trouble for them with the other Indians.

It was the middle of the afternoon, and Nat was seated in the cabin reading a book on the Incas, when a hail from the pilot house brought him to his feet. Joe, who was at the wheel, was calling him.

“Nat! Nat! Come out here – quick!”

Nat lost no time in obeying. As he joined Joe the latter excitedly pointed ahead of the Discoverer’s bow.

“Look at those birds, Nat; they are the largest I have ever seen. I wonder what they can be?”

The birds referred to were flying and wheeling in great circles above a ravine some distance off, but far off as they were, it was easy to see that they were of immense size.

“They are bigger than the biggest turkey buzzard I ever saw in California,” said Nat, gazing at them. “Let’s have a look through the field glasses.”

He took the instruments out of their box near the helmsman’s wheel and applied them to his eyes.

“Why, they look like small aeroplanes!” he exclaimed in astonishment. “Their wing spread must be ten or twelve feet, judging from here.”

“How many of them are there, anyhow?” demanded Joe.

“Easily fifty, I should say. Maybe more. It would be impossible to count them accurately.”

“They are right on our course,” said Joe, glancing at the compass, “so that we shall soon have a close view of them.”

“I’ll go and rouse the professor. He’s taking a nap; but I know he’d like to see such a sight.”

And Nat hastened off on his errand.

By the time he returned with the professor, the Discoverer was much closer to the giant birds. The man of science scrutinized them through the glasses.

“Condors,” he announced. “This is most interesting. These birds are the largest birds of prey in existence. Humboldt, the famous traveler, said that Indians told him that they had been found measuring eighteen feet from wing tip to wing tip.”

“Well, I should say they are aeroplanes,” exclaimed Nat. “Do they ever attack men?”

“Cases of it are not unknown,” said the professor, “and almost every Andean village has a story about a condor flying off with a baby. As a matter of fact, though, I guess they confine their attentions mostly to young sheep or calves light enough for them to carry.”

As they drew closer to the soaring mass of birds, they could see that if they were interested in the birds, the birds were quite as much interested in them. One or two began making long, wheeling arcs that brought them closer to the Discoverer.

“I guess they are wondering what sort of a bird we are, anyhow,” laughed Nat.

Indeed, it seemed so. Almost imperceptibly the birds gathered about the Discoverer, wheeling and screaming all about the craft. It could now be seen that they had sharp, large, hooked beaks, and a ruffle of dark flesh at the bottom of a flabby neck. Their wings were of a dull gray color, with black tip feathers, and were of a sweep and size undreamed of hitherto by the boys.

“They look like the harpies we used to read about in school,” said Joe.

“They do, indeed,” said the professor. “One could readily imagine such creatures tearing unfortunate human beings to pieces.”

“They don’t seem afraid of us, anyhow,” said Nat suddenly, as one of the great condors swept by quite close to the Discoverer and uttered a wild scream that sounded like a cry of defiance.

“No, they don’t. I – Bless my soul, they are attacking us!” cried the professor as two or three of the birds flew at the gas bag with beak and claw.

“Get out the rifles, quick!” cried Nat. “They’ll tear the bag open if they keep that up.”

“They will, indeed!” said the professor apprehensively. “Shoo!”

But he might as well have said “Shoo!” to a tiger as to the giant birds of prey that now surrounded the Discoverer on every side. Angry screams and the rushing noise of huge wings filled the air.

Nat returned with the rifles, and with Ding-dong Bell, who had already, from his post at the engines, observed the great birds.

“Now, boys,” spoke the professor, “we must use our best marksmanship on these creatures. They are a real menace to the ship.”

Nat took up his position at one side of the pilot house, Ding-dong Bell at the other, while the professor aimed from the centre window.

At the word “fire!” from the professor, all three rifles began to pump lead into the wheeling, circling, screaming flight of condors.

Several stopped abruptly in their soaring circles and fell to the earth, stricken to death. But others, that were only wounded, fought with more fury than ever. The attack by the adventurers appeared to enrage them. They flew furiously at the Discoverer, and one or two even dashed themselves at the pilot house.

But after ten minutes or more of steady firing their numbers diminished. The ones that were left began to sheer off, and finally took flight away from the invaders of their realm. The noise of the firing brought Mr. Tubbs and Matco out of the cabin, and both watched with interest the effects of the fusillade.

When it was over, and the Discoverer had left the last of the great birds behind, old Matco spoke excitedly in Spanish to the professor.

“What does he say?” asked Nat, when the old man had finished what appeared to be a tirade against something or somebody.

“He says,” rejoined the professor, “that what we have done is very good. That when he was a youngster he was carried off by one of these birds. His mother, who rushed out to save him, was attacked by the condor’s mate and so seriously maimed and torn that she died.”

“But how did he escape?”

“His father shot the bird that was carrying him off, with one of the poison arrow tubes,” rejoined the professor, “both the bird and the infant fell to the earth, and Matco says that is the reason his leg is so twisted and that he walks with a limp.”

The boys found this very interesting. It explained, too, something that they had noticed before, and that was that old Matco walked with a decided limp.

“Tell us something more about the condor, professor,” suggested Nat.

“As I think I said,” rejoined the professor, “it is one of the vulture family, and is found from the Isthmus of Panama clear down to the Straits of Magellan. They usually live in the mountains, but sometimes they come down to the seashore to pick the flesh of dead whales. In fact, they have a preference for dead or decaying flesh.”

“Just like turkey buzzards,” said Joe.

“They are a first cousin of that bird,” said the professor. “A friend of mine, who had been a great traveler in South America, told me once that the Indians will catch them for two dollars each, and that sometimes they do quite a lively trade.”

“I shouldn’t much care to have one for a pet,” spoke Joe; “but how do they manage to get hold of such immense birds?”

“By a very simple and ingenious method. They build a pen around the carcass of the first dead steer they can find on some cattle estancia, and then await the arrival of the condors to feast on the flesh.

“The condor, when he is gorged, cannot rise without taking a run – ”

“Just like an aeroplane in that, too,” commented Nat.

“That is true,” said the professor. “Well, as I was saying, the bird cannot rise without this preliminary run, and, of course, the picket fence interferes with this. That is the condor catcher’s opportunity. He throws a lasso around the bird he has selected and lets the condor fight till he is exhausted. Then he throws another and another till Mr. Condor is tired out. That done, the bird is placed in a rough cage and conveyed to the customer.”

“That’s a lo-lo-lot of work for t-t-t-two d-d-d-dollars,” stuttered Ding-dong Bell.

“Any kind of work would be hard for you,” grinned Joe, which almost precipitated a fight. Nat checked it.

“Don’t roll overboard on this craft,” he said, “even if there aren’t any sharks about.”

“Humph! I don’t know that they are much worse than those condors,” was Joe’s comment.

As for Mr. Tubbs he heaved a sigh.

“If only I’d got a moving picture of that fight with the condors,” he said regretfully.