The Boy Scouts and the Army Airship

By LIEUT. HOWARD PAYSON
Author of “The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol,” “The Boy Scouts on the Range,” “The Boy Scouts’ Mountain Camp,” “The Boy Scouts for Uncle Sam,” “The Boy Scouts at the Panama Canal,” etc.
A. L. BURT COMPANY Publishers New York Printed in U. S. A.
Copyright, 1911, BY HURST & COMPANY
MADE IN U. S. A.
“Go!”
Commodore Wingate of the Hampton Yacht Club gave the word in a sharp, tense voice. The pistol he held extended above his head cracked sharply. The crowds massed upon the clubhouse verandas and in the vicinity broke into hoarse cheers as the tension of waiting was relieved.
“There they go!” came the cry.
Before the puff of blue smoke from the discharged pistol had been wafted away by a light breeze, two eighteen-foot, double-ended whaleboats shot out from either side of the float. For ten minutes or more they had been teetering there, like leashed greyhounds. This was while the final words of instruction were being given. Now the suspense of the preliminaries was over, and the “Spearing the Sturgeon” contest, between the Hawk and Eagle Patrols of Hampton, was on.
Bow and bow the two white craft hissed over the sparkling, blue waters of the inlet. From the clubhouse porch, from the beach, from the sand dunes of the farther side of the Inlet, and from the row of automobiles parked along the beach—which had come from all parts of Long Island—the strivers were cheered.
The afternoon’s program of exciting water sports, arranged by the Scoutmasters of the rival patrols, was now reaching its climax. The packed yacht club and automobile crowds ashore had never seen anything like it before. Among them was our old friend of the first volume of this series—“The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol”—namely, Captain Job Hudgins.
“It’s the beatingest I ever seed afloat or ashore, douse my toplights if it ain’t,” the captain was loudly declaring to a group of cronies.