But Bob was spared the trouble of finding an answer by a shout from the crowd, which told that something had happened.
An instant later five big bodies shot into the air, as the men holding the balloons to the earth let go of them.
“There they go! There they go!” cried Andy Rush. “It’s a race—the dirigible balloon race! Whoop la!”
[CHAPTER IX]
A RACE IN THE AIR
Andy’s excitement was shared not only by the motor boys and their girl friends, but by the vast throng gathered on the carnival grounds. There was something inspiring in the sight of the vast bulks of the balloons, skimming along through the air like gigantic birds. They seemed to demonstrate man’s conquest of the upper regions, even as the locomotive, the automobile and motor boats have shown what they can do to annihilate space on the earth and in the water.
As the balloons rose in the air they seemed to become smaller, and then they all headed in the same direction, for, as Andy had said, there was to be a race of the dirigible machines.
The motors of the balloons, banging away, sounded like a battle in the air, and the propellers whirled about so swiftly that they could not be seen from the earth.
The airships went up perhaps two hundred feet, all of them remaining near one another. Then, in a graceful sweep, they headed for a distant church steeple, about three miles away, in the city of Broadlands.