The last rope was cast off, and the Comet, with a rush, went straight up. Jerry, in the pilot house, pulled over the lever controlling the motor and the big propellers began to revolve. The airship darted ahead, sailing over the heads of the crowd. The motor boys were off for the west.
[CHAPTER XI]
A TOWN IN TROUBLE
For a few minutes after rising in the airship, the boys were busy adjusting machinery and looking at various gauges to see that everything was running smoothly. The Comet had never behaved better, and was sailing along like a bird.
“Some class to this, eh?” inquired Bob, who, in addition to his appetite, had another failing—that of using slang occasionally.
“She’s running as well as we could expect, and a little better, considering the treatment she had at the hands of Noddy Nixon,” responded Jerry. “I’ll speed her a bit, now.”
He adjusted the lever controlling the motor and propellers, and the big blades, in front of the airship, that served to pull it forward, whizzed around so swiftly that they looked like blurs of light. Then, fastening the side rudder, so that the craft would head due west, Jerry left the pilot house, and joined his companions in the main cabin, where Professor Snodgrass was busy looking over his specimens, to ascertain if any had suffered harm when they escaped from the box during his rush through the crowd.
“How did you happen to hear we were going to make another trip, Mr. Snodgrass?” asked Bob.
“Why, your father mentioned it in a letter I had from him a few days ago,” answered the scientist. “I wrote, as I do, once in a while, to inquire how you all were, and when he replied he stated that you were going on a trip West, but he did not say what for. As it happened, the museum with which I am now connected, and for which I travel, collecting specimens, needed a flying lizard. They are very scarce, and only one museum that I know of has a specimen. So I decided to get another. These lizards are supposed to exist in certain parts of our country, and I think the west is as likely to contain them as is any other section. So as soon as I learned you were going there I hastily packed up, and came along. But I very nearly missed you.”