The Argosy, Christmas 1912 — page 61: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

LOOSING THE TEMPEST. “ There was trouble at once, and a French lawyer served an injunction on me to prevent the exhibition of my air- ship as an infringement on the other. I was thunderstruck. I sought advice. The American consul helped me,- and I learned that the International Air Navigation Company consisted of Lord Dulmondy and a. Frenchman named Nicasse—and Mr. .Joloff. They had stolen my plans, and had me tied so that my sister and I were financially ruined.” | He paused, and wiped a tear away from his cheek. I heard a muttering from Ordway I had heard before, and knew it was an ominous sound. Ordway, with his millions—and his influence — was a bad man when he started to growl like a bear. CHAPTER XXIII. THE STORY OF THE FIGHT. I GuLPED down some of the berry beverage to hide my own feelings, and glanced at Donaldson. That peculiar gentleman was eager- ly drinking in every word of the poor fellow’s narrative, but his face was like an Indian’s. There was, however, a darkening of the expressive eyes, and I knew he understood enough to real- ize the infamous manner in which the young aeronaut had been tricked. “Of course,” continued Sanderman, when he had regained his composure, “the blow was as. severe to my sister as it had been to me. Our money was gone. My mother tried to console us, and said that she-still had her share of my father’s estate, but it was not to be thought we would touch a penny of that. “T could not sleep. There, in my hangar, was an air-ship I had spent our money on, which I had worked out myself, planned every inch of, and given, you might say, my life-blood—- now useless, good for nothing. For, being cramped for means, I had built my exhibition model small, to carry 47 but one passenger and the operator, while the rascals who had stolen the product of my brains, with ample means, had built a real air-ship capa- ble of carrying four or five men, with other weight, suitable for military pur- poses. “Of course I knew when the time came for the awards I would not even be mentioned. “Night before last an overwhelm- ing desire came to me to see that rival air-ship at close range. ‘They would not let me get anywhere near it in the open. I knew that men worked in the company’s hangar at night. So I went there—it was about eleven o'clock. There were few people around, and they all had their own af- fairs to attend. Nobody paid any at- tention to me. “I had no intention to break into their hangar, but just to look through a window. I did that. Men were moving about with lights, and from what I could see the air-ship was ex- actly like mine. ‘““T had just turned away from the window when I came face to face with -M. Nicasse, the French corner of the triangular company. He called me a spy and a thief, and I don’t know what all. Then he rushed at me. “IT was not armed. I had no pistol, knife, nor any sort of weapon. That will prove that my intentions were not wicked. But M. Nicasse struck me— he struck me twice. He seemed to be beside himself with fury. “The second time he struck me he knocked me down. He was a heavier man than I, and I am not much of a fighter, anyway. But as I fell, my hand came in contact with a piece of iron. It was part of an iron rod used in some aeroplanes—part of the dri- ving-rod. “IT was maddened by the attack. In the condition my mind was in after discovering the trick that my employer had played on me, it was not wonder- ful that I lost all sense of—of any- thing. In blind rage I grasped the cComicbooks CO