“We’ll take you up after we’ve had something to eat,” said Bob.
“Fine!” cried the professor. “I’ll get my long-handled net ready. Some of those butterflies are very shy in the upper air currents.”
“Do you mean to say you’re going up in that?” asked the Parson.
“Why not?” counter queried Professor Snodgrass. “I’ve done it before.”
There was a murmur of surprise, and it was easy to see that the professor had advanced greatly in the estimation of the cowboys.
The putting together of the airship, and its use by the boys made quite a diversion at Square Z ranch, where novelties were rare. The cowboys lost so much time from their routine work looking up at the clouds for a sight of the craft that Dick Watson finally requested the boys to make their flights at times when the employees were at liberty, or else keep from circulating over the cattle ranges.
Professor Snodgrass went up not once but several times, and made choice captures of upper air insects. Jerry and his chums tried to induce some of the cowboys to take a flight with them. But though Gimp almost allowed himself to be persuaded he finally backed out, amid the jeers of his fellows.
The boys were in high spirits for the airship accomplished all they expected it would in the way of gaining them more consideration. The cowboys treated them as more than equals. They could not ask enough questions about the workings of the airship, and few of them would believe that it was not like a balloon, and that, somehow or other, compressed gas caused it to rise.
Jerry tried to illustrate by scaling a piece of tin in the air, the flat surface corresponding to the surface of the airship’s wings, and its motion sustaining it, just as the motion of the airship, imparted to it by the propeller kept the machine up. As soon as the forward motion ceased down came the tin, just as down came the aeroplane.
But the cowboys were all incredulous in general, though Gimp and the Parson had some idea of the theories involved.