“Will you try for a prize?” asked Ned.
“I don’t see why we can’t,” was the opinion of the tall lad. “I wish they had some water there, so we could do some stunts with our hydroplanes, as we did when we rescued Mr. Jackson. That was a trip worth taking.”
“It sure was,” agreed his chums. “Maybe we can soon take another like it.”
And they fell to talking of their adventures in the past, and of those hoped for in the future.
While they are thus engaged I will take the opportunity of telling you something more about the boys, for I may not get another chance, as they are such rapid-fire chaps. Those of you who have read the previous books in the series need no introduction to the motor boys, but new readers may wish to be formally presented to them.
The boys were Jerry Hopkins, the son of Mrs. Julia Hopkins, a wealthy widow, Bob Baker, whose father, Andrew Baker, was a prominent banker, and Ned Slade. Ned’s father, Mr. Aaron Slade, owned a large department store. The boys had been chums ever since they were in the primary school, and when they were old enough to have motorcycles their friendship was more than ever firmly cemented, for they had many adventures together, as told in the first volume of this series, entitled “The Motor Boys.” Later they got an auto, and made a long trip overland, and some time afterward, in company with Professor Uriah Snodgrass, they went to Mexico to discover a buried city.
Coming home from Mexico across the plains they had more adventures. With some money they had made in a gold mine they had located, they bought a fine motor boat, and in that they spent many pleasant hours. The fifth volume of our series, entitled “The Motor Boys Afloat,” details some of them. In their craft the Dartaway, they took quite a trip along the Atlantic coast, and also down in the everglades of Florida. Later they voyaged on the Pacific ocean, in search of a mysterious derelict.
But staying on the earth, or afloat on the water did not long content our heroes. Airships were coming more and more into prominence, and it was not long before our friends had a fine motorship called the Comet.
You will find this air-craft fully described in the ninth volume of the series, entitled “The Motor Boys in the Clouds,” so I will not take up space to tell of it here. Sufficient to say that it was a combination of a dirigible balloon and an aeroplane, and could sail for many miles without coming down. In it our friends had many adventures, nearly always accompanied by Professor Snodgrass, who was an enthusiastic collector of bugs, reptiles, and scientific specimens of various kinds, for a museum.
It was not always easy sailing for our heroes, for in their town of Cresville, not far from Boston, there lived a bully, Noddy Nixon by name, who with his crony, Bill Berry, made much trouble for them. But our friends generally got the best of Noddy in the end.