Chapter IX: The Wreck

For a moment, after the crash, Motor Matt was stunned and bewildered. When he regained his senses completely and realized where he was, he found that he was wedged between the guard rail of the car and a branch of the tree. Turning his head, he looked downward through a clear depth of fifty feet. But for the guard rail, he would have dropped the entire distance and probably have lost his life.

"Carl!" he shouted, clinging to the limb.

"Here I vas, Matt!" came the stifled answer. "I vas hung oudt on a pranch like der veek's vash. Ach, du lieber, vat a luck! Der poor _Hawk_, she iss gone oop der shpout."

"Let's be thankful we didn't go up the spout along with her," replied Matt. "Where's Dick?"

"I don'd know vere he iss. Iss he on der groundt? Himmelblitzen! Oof anyt'ing has habbened mit Tick----"

"Dick?" shouted Matt. "I say, Dick!"

There was no answer, and a sickening sensation sped along the young motorist's nerves.

Turning again, he stared with frenzied eyes toward the ground near the tree. With an exclamation of thankfulness, he saw nothing there to justify his worst fears.

The tree was a live oak and thickly covered with Spanish moss. Dick could very easily be somewhere in the tree and yet out of sight. Certainly, although unconscious and not able to answer, he must have been caught and held among the branches.

"Is your position a safe one, Carl?" queried Matt.

"Veil, oof I don't hang on mit bot' handts und my eye vinkers I vill be on der groundt in some heaps."

"Hang on, then, and stay right where you are. I'm going to look for Dick."

One of the mooring ropes was close to Matt. Carefully he took his knife from his pocket and severed the rope; then, making one end fast to the tree limb, he clung to it while he got out from under the iron guard rail. Presently he was able to stand upright on the limb and peer about him through the trailing streamers of moss. He could not see Dick, but he did see something that impressed him powerfully. The _Hawk_, in one brief minute, had been relegated from the ranks of successful air ships into a mere mass of junk, wedged into the branches of the oak.

The gas bag was almost entirely deflated and looped itself over the bent and broken limbs. The silken envelope was hopelessly torn and much of it in rags.

The motor had been demolished, the end of the car containing it having come in smashing contact with a big limb. Besides that the ironwork was twisted and parts of it had snapped off.

There could be no repairing the air ship. She was as much a total loss as though she had gone to the bottom of the sea in fathomless waters.

Matt's heart felt a sudden wrench; but he thrust aside the feeling and continued his search for Dick. Carefully he made his way along the limb toward the silken envelope, pushing away the moss and peering anxiously as he went.

"Don'd you see nodding?" asked Carl.

"I can see that we'll never again do any sailing in the _Hawk_," answered Matt.

"Ach, dot makes me feel pad mit meinseluf!" wailed Carl. "But I vas glad I vas alife! It vas some tight skveaks, I bed you. Tick!" he yelled. "Vere you vas, Tick?"

Still there came no answer. Silence reigned everywhere in the thick timber and Carl's voice echoed weirdly among the trees.

"He must be hurt and unable to answer, Carl," said Matt.

"You vas looking, eh?"

"Yes."

"Vell, don'd fall off mit yourseluf, dot's all. I don'd vas goot for anyt'ing, my nerfs iss in sooch a frazzle. All I can do is to hang on und say my brayers forvarts, packvarts, und sitevays. Oof ve could only find Tick I vould veel pedder."

Matt finally reached the remains of the gas bag. Climbing upward, he pushed the outer folds aside and there, lodged in the fork of a limb, was Dick.

Dick lay across the fork, head and hands hanging downward. His cap was caught in some small branches below.

"Here he is, Carl!" shouted Matt.

"Yah," answered the Dutch boy, "now I see him since you haf pulled der pag avay. He iss on der same limb as me. Do--do you t'ink he vas deadt, Matt?"

"He may be only stunned," replied Matt. "The thing to do is to get him out of there before he comes to and makes a move that will send him downward in a rush. See any rope near you, Carl?"

"Dere iss a coil oof it righdt py me. Vait und I vill ged it."

Matt heard Carl moving about cautiously, and finally the end of a rope came toward him. Matt caught the rope, but came within an inch of falling as he did so.

"I've got it, Carl," said he. "You keep hold of the other end and come forward along the limb. It will take both of us to get Dick down safely."

Carl, on hands and knees, came slowly along the limb. While he was advancing, Matt reached up and tied the end of the rope securely about Ferral's body, under the arms. By that time, Carl was close to Ferral, standing on the limb and hanging to a branch.

"There's a good big crotch of the tree below me," called Matt, "and if you can lower Dick down, I'll drop lower where I can work better."

"I vill do der pest vat I can, Matt," answered Carl. "Tick has der rope aroundt him, und ve can keep him from falling. Go on mit yourseluf."

"You'd better tie your end of the rope around the limb," counseled Matt, "and I'll take a turn of it around this broken branch. That will give me a leverage when we come to lower Dick."

While Carl secured the end of the rope, Matt slid down into the large fork.

"All ready!" he called up. "Be careful now, Carl. The least slip will send both you and Dick downward."

"I do der pest vat I can," repeated Carl.

Bracing himself in the fork, Matt held to the rope with one hand and reached up the other as Dick came down to him.

The rope tightened around the stump of the branch, and Matt let it slide through his hand.

Slowly and carefully Motor Matt went about his work, watched breathlessly by Carl.

The purchase Matt had on the rope was sufficient to enable him to hold Dick in the air while he guided his swaying body downward. As soon as Dick was below him, Matt was able to lay hold of the rope with both hands and let Dick drop at a swifter rate.

In a few minutes Dick was safely on the ground, an inanimate heap at the foot of the tree.

"Dot vas vell done!" declared Carl, heaving a long sigh of relief. "Now how ve going to ged down ourselufs, Matt?"

"Have you tied the rope securely, up there?"

"Yah, so."

"Then we'll have to slide down. You go first, Carl. As soon as you reach the ground, I'll follow you."

"I don'd vas mooch oof a sailor," said Carl, sitting down on the limb and laying hold of the rope, "und I can shlide down a lod easier as I couldt climb oop. Here I go!"

The first twenty feet of the rope was covered by Carl like chain lightning; after that, however, he got a better grip and went the rest of the way more slowly.

Matt lowered himself hand over hand, descending as easily as though he was going down a ladder. Carl was kneeling beside Dick when Matt's feet touched ground.

"His heart iss going like anyt'ing," observed Carl joyfully, "und I can't findt dot he has any proken pones."

"We'll carry him to the edge of the bayou and see if a little water won't help revive him," said Matt. "Poor old Dick! He'll take the loss of the _Hawk_ pretty hard, but we ought all of us to be thankful we got out of that scrape with our lives."

"It vas der closest call vat efer I hat, you bed you! Aber say, vonce!"

"Well?"

"Ve vas forgedding aboudt der feller vat fired dot pullet. Oof he vas anyvere aroundt, meppy he vill haf some more pullets for us."

The wreck, and the saving of Dick, had so taken up Matt's attention that he had not given any thought to the marksman who had caused the trouble.

As Carl spoke, both boys lifted themselves erect and peered about them. They could see no one.

"The scoundrel is leaving us alone," said Matt darkly. "He ought to be content with what he has done, I think," and he swept a rueful glance upward into the tree.

"Who he vas, do you t'ink?"

"Some hunter, perhaps; maybe it was a superstitious negro, who fired at us and then ran away."

"Und meppy," suggested Carl, in a tremor, "it vas some oof der Jurgens gang! Meppy dot iss der drap dey vas going to shpring."

"Maybe; but, even if what you say is correct, we've got to go right ahead and take care of Dick. Lay hold of him, Carl, and help me."

The two boys picked up their injured chum and carried him to the bank of the bayou; then, while Matt made a more extensive examination, in order to determine the seriousness of Dick's injury, Carl went after water.

There was a bad bruise on Dick's forehead, but it was no more than a bruise, although it must have been caused by a pretty hard blow.

"As he went over the limb, Carl," said Matt, "he must have struck his head against it. I don't think he is badly hurt, though."

Taking Carl's cap, which the Dutch boy had filled with water, Matt dashed the contents in Dick's face. While Carl was going back after more water, Dick suddenly opened his eyes and stared at Matt.

"How's everything, mate?" murmured Dick.

"We're alive, old chap," replied Matt, "and that ought to be enough, don't you think, considering what we've been through?"

"You and Carl are all right?"

"Yes."

"And I dodged Davy Jones, after shaking hands with him?"

"It looks that way."

"Then, strike me lucky! it's better than I had hoped for."

Just then Carl came running up the bank and grabbed Dick's hand.

"I hat radder be porn lucky as hantsome, any tay," he rejoiced, "hey, Tick?"