On the homeward passage, Harvey and his father were lucky enough to meet the noted German aviator, Ostrom Sperbeck, of whom we have heard already.
Mr. Hamilton explained to the Professor that his son Harvey with the assistance of the colored youth, who was “bound out” to a neighbor, were at work on an aeroplane with which they hoped to fly, but the Professor warned them against it.
“It is too dangerous; some of the best aviators have lost their lives and you know that one of the Wright brothers came within a hair of being killed. Encourage your son, if you wish, in the sport, for those who are boys to-day are the ones that will make the greatest discoveries and advances in aviation, but do not let him take any risks that can be avoided. Buy him a first-class machine and forbid him to use any other.”
Mr. Hamilton was impressed with the advice and acted upon it.
Bohunkus Johnson was as ardent as his young friend, but, lacking his mental brightness, was not given charge of the aeroplane, though promised a chance of trying his hand later on.
So much having been told, it will be understood how on a pleasant summer day, Harvey and Bohunkus started on their outing, with permission to be gone several weeks, though their expectation was to return in the course of ten days or so.
Several facts will be borne in mind. Nothing not deemed absolutely necessary was taken with the aviators. Inasmuch as they could not stay more than two hours in the air, without replenishing their supply of fuel, they carried no food, nor were any weapons taken along, for it was not probable they would ever need anything of the kind. Although Harvey headed toward a spur of the Alleghany Mountains, with the object of relieving what promised to become a monotonous experience at times, it did not seem possible that they would ever run into personal danger from that cause. He carried a pair of binoculars held by a strap over one shoulder, for such an instrument was likely to prove useful in their voyages through the air.
Harvey ascended for a fourth of a mile, and Bohunkus shuddered at the thought of plunging again into the arctic regions, but his friend lowered the front rudder and they skimmed away on a level. The view was as entrancing as ever, with cities, towns, villages, scattered houses, stretches of wood and cultivated country, winding streams, puffing engines pulling trains that looked like insignificant toys, and the gleam of what seemed to be a lake of several miles area in the distance. The wanderer through the finest picture galleries in Europe can become sated with the numberless master-pieces, and wonderful as was the unfolding panorama, the youths grew tired of its splendid sameness. When they gazed at the earth it was without any clear impression of what they saw.
Far to the westward loomed a mountain, the outlines showing a dim blue haze against the summer sky. Harvey had fixed the elevation in his mind before leaving home and, it was his intention to sail over the summit into the more unsettled country beyond. As near as he could judge the range was about twenty miles distant.
“I can easily make it in an hour,” he reflected, “and not hurry.”