Frank felt sure that his airship days were not at an end. Reaching his home a little later, he found reporters for both the evening papers awaiting him. His and Phil’s safe return had already spread over town. Inexperienced, as was his father, Frank talked freely to the young journalists. The result was that one paper told how the boys, worn out with the strain of their struggle in the vortex of the hurricane, had fallen unconscious to the floor of the car and only revived when Mr. Graham found the monoplane wrecked in the field. The other account told how the Loon had risen to the height of twenty-three thousand feet, instead of twenty-three hundred, and how the aviators would certainly have frozen to death had it not been for the glass enclosed cabin. Here the reporter added a detail of his own, which was that the aviators were already planning a stove to be heated by the exhaust gases of the engine. With this, he suggested, there would be no limit to the height of future ascents.
Both papers in their last editions had pictures of the boys. So fully was the entire story told that nothing more remained to be said, and in three or four days the sensation of Frank and Phil’s flight, accident and escape, seemed at an end. But the story of the flight had traveled far, and it soon attracted attention that was to mean much to both boys.
In fact, within a week, a letter was on its way to Frank that carried them in a short time into the far West and eventually set them “Battling the Bighorn.” In the adventures that subsequently befell them among yawning chasms, and while soaring over snow clad mountain heights, even the gripping pleasure of the “dash in the dark” was forgotten.
Six days later Frank was surprised to receive a letter postmarked New York and written on the heavy stationery of the well-known sportsman’s club of that city—the “Field and Forest.” It was from his uncle, Mr. Guy Mackworth—his mother’s brother. Frank had never had a letter from his uncle, although Mr. Mackworth visited the Grahams—sometimes twice a year. Mr. Mackworth and Mr. Graham jointly maintained a trout camp on the Little Manistee, and Frank’s uncle or some of his eastern friends were pretty sure to be there in June of each year. Now and then Mr. Mackworth came out in the fall for the partridge shooting.
Frank’s uncle was an unusual man and, as can be surmised from the exclusive club he frequented (most of the members of which are big game hunters in all parts of the world), he was an assiduous sportsman. A man of extensive means and a seeker of big and rare game, he pursued his hobby in all sections of the globe.
Being a bachelor and a great traveler he had become a gourmet. Next to hunting tigers in India, lions in Africa or moose in Canada, the proper and inviting preparation of food was his chief diversion. In this he had trained Jake Green, a young colored man, until the latter was almost as skilled and fastidious as his master.
“Your uncle,” explained Mr. Graham to Frank, “makes himself as much at home in camp as he does at his club. Like a true sportsman he roughs it uncomplainingly if necessary, but by choice he prefers comfort when it can be had. His camp outfit and shooting and fishing equipment are most elaborate. Nothing that contributes to comfort, convenience or even to luxury is omitted. Yet there is nothing provided merely for show. Each thing has a reason.”
“I didn’t know he could cook,” remarked Frank a little surprised.