A Republic Without a President, and Other Stories, Herbert D. Ward [top 100 novels txt] 📗

that cussed spot, and we'd all be stiff before you could say Jinks."

Nothing daunted, Swift took the aeronaut by the arm, offered him a cigar, and pointed towards the Buzzard mountains.

"That's just where we want to go. D'ye see those birds up there? If they can stand it we can. This deadly what-you-call-it doesn't reach as high as that."

The professor stared and then muttered to himself:

"Gee—mima! The feller's hit it right."

"Now, look here, professor! You're a famous man. Everybody knows you. The Planet charters your balloon for five hundred dollars. Is it a go?"

The professor's eyes glittered yellow, the color of greed.

"I couldn't think of it. I couldn't risk the danger. It's an unknown country, now—no, I couldn't."

"Call it six hundred."

"Impos-sible!"

"Seven!"

"That wouldn't pay me if she breaks."

"Eight hundred dollars!"

"Couldn't do it."

"Nine hundred dollars. I'm tired."

"Subtract eight and add a cipher, and I'm your man."

"Very well! Mr. Ticks is witness. I will give you five hundred when we leave the ground, and the balance when we touch it again."

"Done!"

The two men shook hands over their bargain.

"Let me see," said Swift, glancing at his watch, "it is ten o'clock. We will ascend at one."

"I will assist the professor in preparing his airship," said Mr. Ticks. "By the way, how tall is your balloon, professor? What is her cognomen?"

"I call her High Tariff, mister. That's her name. You'll see it on her. Wait till she gets her forty thousand cubic feet of gas in her, and you'll see her height."

By twelve o'clock the multitude had got wind of the undertaking, and were thronging towards the fenced enclosure, where the huge monster was flapping with that inane motion that only a half-filled balloon can take to itself. Rumors of the wildest description were afloat. By half-past twelve the balloon was, to all appearance, full, and sandbags were being put aboard. By one the crowd could hardly be kept back by self-sworn marshals, and the balloon tugged at its warps as if it would burst its bonds at the slightest provocation.

The High Tariff now awakened the utmost enthusiasm. Men came by tens and hundreds to make offers for the risky trip.

"Blank it all, she's chartered, the High Tariff is," was the aeronaut's invariable reply. "She don't belong to me this trip. Ask the owners."

At ten minutes after one precisely Swift appeared upon the ground. He had just sent off the following message to his paper:

"Start immediately for Russell by thousand dollar balloon."

He had sold his horse and team and had purchased provisions with the proceeds. Five minutes after the sale the horse backed into the hotel and smashed the buggy into Chinese joss-sticks.

Swift walked calmly to the car and ordered the provisions aboard.

"Have you a long ladder and grapnel?" he inquired.

"Two hundred and fifty feet each."

"Anchor?"

"Two hundred pounds."

"Are you ready, professor?" asked Swift, satisfied with his inspection.

"She's full to bustin'!" said the professor, looking uneasily at the straining cable.

"Jump in, Mr. Ticks!" The crowd was almost beside itself at the boldness of the undertaking. Men yelled and hooted encouragement as the venerable and musty editor stepped into the car with a natural air. It took more than this to embarrass Mr. Ticks.

"Now, professor!" As Swift spoke he handed the professor a draft on the Planet for five hundred dollars. The professor hesitated no longer. He snatched the check and bounded in. An assistant stood ready with an axe to cut the ropes that held the impatient balloon. Swift then stepped in leisurely. It was just twenty-nine minutes and a quarter past one o'clock. The crowd shrieked as if their throats would burst. Swift lifted his hat in acknowledgment.

"Good luck!"

"Never say die!"

"Come back and tell us all about it."

"If you see my husband tell him I'm waiting for him."

They cheered and yelled and cried and cheered again.

"Are you ready?" asked Swift, looking at his companions.

"Then let her go!"

A cut, a swirl, an indescribable motion, and shouts became to those in the High Tariff whispers, men became ants, and they were gone.

V.

"Look! For God's sake, look! What is it?"

Swift strained his eyes to the southward, toward the death-bound territory. The malignant cloud that settled over plain and mountain slope was broken on the Gopher lake. As soon as Swift had recovered from the first bound of the balloon he had scanned the dark mist, and by the borders of the lake he had found a rift. This rift indicated the spot where the city of Russell should have been. As he spoke he clutched the arm of his colleague, and pointed over the side of the rising car.

"I—I'm afraid I can't see what you mean," stammered Mr. Statis Ticks, "my glasses are blurred."

The man of figures was really agitated. But Professor Ariel, like many an adventurer, had more than his share of what one may politely call sang-froid, but what is known in common North American as simple "cheek." Besides, in some sections of the country, he might have been called a profane man. With his hands on the safety valve, he looked and then ejaculated:

"By ——. It's gone!"

"I see nothing—nothing but black streaks," said the elder member of the Planet corps hurriedly. "Can't we stop, professor? Perhaps that isn't the site of the unfortunate city!"

The professor, obedient to the suggestion, pulled the safety valve, and the gas rushed out with a wheeze.

"You bet it is! That's the place! Didn't I land there before I struck Empiria? Darned lucky for me they didn't take stock in the High Tariff. I might have been—God knows what, now!"

Even as the three men looked, the cloud closed in upon the land. Strangely enough, it shunned the surface of the water. The travellers cast their eyes upon the sullen bosom of the Gopher lake. This body of water glittered like the scales of a leaden serpent. It looked from that great height poisonous and discontented. Swift gazed upon it intently.

"Why? Wouldn't they have you?" inquired Mr. Ticks, absent-mindedly of the professor. "See! Haven't we struck another current?"

As he spoke the huge High Tariff swayed. A breath of chilly air smote them. Then gently the balloon swung toward the Gopher lake—toward the fateful city.

"Well, you see, the balloon was too old-fashioned for them," answered the professor, still bent upon his grievance. "Now, if it had gone by electricity that 'ud been another thing."

"How so?" asked Mr. Ticks, with polite interest.

"Well! Everything in that gol-darned town went by electricity. They had electric cars, electric lights, electric shampooing, electric cigars, electric sewing machines, electric elevators, electric table service in the hotel; worst was, they had electric cabs. They kept quiet about some of their notions. Folks did say they had their reasons. I didn't hear nothing about all this electric tomfoolery till I struck the city."

"Ah!" interrupted Mr. Ticks, pricking up his ears. "I have heard about those cabs, but I have had no reliable information that they were a success."

"They ain't!" answered the professor, rubbing his right arm with a wince of memory. "Like a darn jack I took one for a spin. They go on three wheels; one in front, two behind. The driver, he sits in front and steers the shebang with the forward wheel. I hadn't gone two blocks when I leaned out of the window and the current struck me in the arm like a shot. You bet I yelled bloody murder and got out of that trap in two shakes of a colt's tail."

"How does all that electrical system work otherwise?" asked Mr. Ticks slowly, after some thought.

"Everybody perfectly wild over it. They won't allow a horse in town, nor even a ton of coal. Electricity is the big thing of the future. They fight electrical duels. Feller that stands the greatest number of alternating volts gets the apology. I saw a dog-fight in the street stopped by the Humane Society. A man would drop a wet sponge on the dog's head, another on his back, and turn on the circuit. They generally both dropped and never knew what struck 'em. Two dead dogs better than one fight. But they kept it all dark enough. These were jest experiments, they said. When they were done that they were going to have an electrical exhibition and invite the hull world. Why, I heard they were fool enough to put in a bill in the Legislature to have the name of Russell changed to Electra. As if Russell wasn't good enough for them!"

Mr. Ticks mused over these facts. Why was it that his acquisitive mind had not roamed over this field before? Perhaps because it was acquisitive, not imaginative. He could only account for the unpardonable omission on the ground that there were so many new competing Western cities, each with its peculiar advantages: and that there were so many strange electrical inventions new each day, that he had overlooked Russell and its progressive hobby. Besides, was he not on the staff of a Democratic paper, which would, perhaps, on the whole, prefer to ignore the new Republican State and its flourishing capital.

"How was all this power produced if coal was excluded?" asked Mr. Ticks.

"Oh, windmills did that. A half a dozen huge windmills, with wings, each as big as the High Tariff, were the first things you saw. They were nearly three hundred feet high——"

"Good Heavens! Look, man! Look down there! Don't you see something in the middle of the lake!" Swift pulled the professor over to his side of the car, and pointed directly below the balloon.

They had now struck a dead calm and the High Tariff floated motionless two thousand feet above the lake. Directly below them was something resting upon the waters. It looked fixed and dead. A log? A wreck? A raft? Slowly the outline took to itself the form of a boat.

"Have you a pair of glasses here?" asked Swift, all of a quiver.

The professor shoved one of Steward's field-glasses in his hand.

"There's a body in that boat!" cried Swift, after a prolonged examination. "No—Great God! It's alive! It moves! It's a woman!"

The professor took a long look.

"I guess you're right. She's a female!"

"But she must be saved," insisted Swift. "We must save her."

"Yes, Professor Ariel," said Mr. Statis Ticks, sententiously and with trembling dignity; "being a woman, she demands our attention, and, besides, as a survivor she can give us the information and suggest the figures we need."

"I'll do my best, gentlemen," said the professor, shaking, his head, "but it's mighty ticklish business. Supposing we drift into the deadly air. I don't know what that vapor means, but it evidently means the 'Sweet By and By.' Even the High Tariff wouldn't save us then!"

"Look here, professor," jerked out Swift, peremptorily, "it's got to be done. Now dry up!"

"All right, it's a go. I can stand it if you can."

So the valve was opened cautiously, and the balloon with majestic slowness, obedient to its master's hand, descended toward the Great Gopher lake, and hovered over the cockle-shell upon its malignant bosom.

As the High Tariff approached the little boat, Mr. Ticks looked at it eagerly.

"She's alive and unmarried," said the oracle, slowly.

"Why unmarried?" asked Swift, with a vague flutter of the heart. He had watched the figure of the woman attentively with the spyglass. It was rounded and supple. Masses of dark-brown hair hid her shoulders and face.

"Because," answered Mr. Ticks, "she is under eighteen. The statistics of this section of the West show that no female over eighteen years of age remains single."

The balloon had now descended to within three hundred feet of the boat. The girl in it did not stir. She lay with her head propped in the bow, so stiffly and so still that to all appearance she was a dead woman. But the three men agreed they had seen her move. Had her rescuers arrived too late?

"Let down the ladder!" cried Swift. "I'll go down and pick her up!" Ignorant how hard it is even for an experienced hand to climb up and down a rope ladder swinging in space, he clambered over the side of the car.

"Hold, young fellow!" Professor Ariel spoke sharply. By this time they were within two hundred feet of the water.

"Hold, I say!" yelled the professor in a rage, letting go the rope to the safety-valve and at the same time, grabbing a sand-bag. "If you stir out of this car I'll pitch ballast out and you'll never see your gal again!"

Swift stopped short. The rope-ladder swayed like a double snake beneath them. Its end was fifty feet above the boat, but, O horrors! It was also nearly fifty feet to one side of the boat—no human power could reach the lady from the ladder. A breath might blow the High Tariff even farther away.

At the same time the girl, doubtless aroused from her