Roy only laughed.
“Father’ll let you know how much obliged he is in the morning,” said the boy. “I accept the offer now. Father can have the bonus, and I’ll take the wages. Be sure and count on me, Mr. Atkinson. I’m jumpin’ at the chance. You can telegraph right now—‘Machine and operator leave tomorrow.’”
[CHAPTER III]
LOOKING UP AN ANCESTOR
But Mr. Osborne was not as quick to give his consent as Roy predicted. As the boy and his father rode home that evening, Mr. Osborne found many reasons why he did not wish his son to go to Utah to “take a chance of dying of thirst on some desert, or of being scalped by Indians,” as he expressed it. He did not urge very strongly the risk to Roy in skimming over mountains, plains and canyons in an aeroplane. Mr. Osborne being the maker of the airship and having business faith in it, he had to confine his arguments to other reasons.
“The principal reason you’re afraid,” urged Roy, with a laugh, “is that you’ve never been west of Pittsburg. You don’t know any more about Utah than—than—”
“Than you do,” interrupted his father. “Just you wait until you tell your mother.”
The Osbornes lived on the far side of Newark in an attractive suburban house with a yard big enough to include a large flower garden. It was early evening when Mr. Osborne and Roy reached home, and Mrs. Osborne was busy cutting flowers. Roy, waving his straw hat, sprang across the lawn to open up the question at once.