"My heartiest congratulations, boys!" he exclaimed, as he received their paper. "You have arrived just in the nick of time. Panama time, it is now exactly fifty-nine minutes after twelve!"
They had won by one minute! The flyers were so tickled that they also felt like cheering. But they were sobered instantly when Mr. Wrenn came forward and they saw how sorrowful he looked in spite of the brave smile with which he greeted them.
"Young men," said the publisher of the Clarion, "as the loser in this contest I also wish to congratulate you. We have suffered a heavy blow ourselves, but you deserve full credit for the good work you have done, and I am not the kind of a contemporary to withhold compliments so fairly earned. I trust my men conducted themselves as true sportsmen, poor fellows."
Noticing that Oliver Torrey was on the point of making reply, John gave him a warning look, and a moment later pulled him aside and said in a low voice: "Mr. Wrenn should not know that you fellows did not conduct yourselves otherwise than fair in this race. That would make him feel all the worse. Keep mum to everybody about this, and we'll do the same."
Oliver Torrey nodded—tears in his eyes as he saw how desirous the Sky-Bird's crew were of protecting his own interests as well as the good name of his former associates. What fine fellows they were! How he wished he could have been allied with them on this cruise, instead of with Pete Deveaux and his bunch!
The hardships and perils of the past ten days were forgotten in the excitement of the present. Our flyers hardly knew what they were doing, so great was their joy. They shook hands with scores, hearts swelling with those emotions invoked by achievement and the glamor of the moment. It was—and always will be, perhaps,—the supreme hour of their lives.
Almost reverently they looked over the Sky-Bird. Through every possible climatic rigor the airplane had passed, and practically without any attention. Not once, from the time they had left this very airdrome until they had reached it again, after traversing close to 25,000 miles, had she been under shelter or sulked on them through deficient construction. Given a few days to overhaul her engines, they felt they would be quite capable of repeating their world record-breaking achievement, if it were necessary.
These reflections were of brief duration, however; for the crowd, having forced its way past the barriers, and having satisfied its curiosity over the machine, directed their attention to the flyers. Brimming with enthusiasm, they lifted every one of them shoulder high, laughing and cheering, and conveyed them to an extemporized platform made from a large box. From this elevation, each flyer in his turn was called upon for a speech. The boys made these quite brief, but were vociferously applauded; and then the two famous publishers were asked to contribute. Following came the governor of the Zone, who very eloquently expressed the pride the little Republic felt in starting off and witnessing the finish of this memorable event, and he said the keys of Panama were at the disposal of the young aviators until they should feel it incumbent upon them to leave for the States.
For three days our friends remained, and during that time they were the almost constant recipients of honors from civic clubs and associations of the city, as well as from the English-speaking citizenry in general. They were entertained at dinners, at the theater, and at sporting events out-of-doors—and not a penny were they allowed to spend themselves.
To the aviators it all seemed like a festival snatched from the covers of "Arabian Nights." Had genii and fairies, elfs and goblins, appeared before them bearing gifts of gold and jewels they would hardly have been surprised, so unreal did everything appear to their tired minds; and tired bodies only grew more tired under the stress of the social demands.