At four o'clock that afternoon Ned and Alan were speeding over the green and fertile prairies of middle Kansas in blissful ignorance of what Bob Russell had done. Under striking headlines appeared the following story:
"Ned Napier, the famous young aeronaut of Chicago, passed through the city this morning on his way to the southwest to execute the most daring and important balloon journey ever undertaken in this country. Accompanied by an assistant, Alan Hope, and on board a special car packed with $50,000 worth of apparatus he will proceed to Clarkeville, an insignificant town in New Mexico, from which place he will make his hazardous flight over the mountains lying to the north. The aerial journey may possibly extended over the Sierra Nevadas as far as the Pacific Coast.
"The details of the expedition are not made public, as young Napier has been retained by the authorities at Washington and is operating under a strict pledge of secrecy. The knowledge that such an expedition is under way was made known for the first time to the representative of the Comet by Mr. Napier at the Union Station this morning. While slow to discuss the ultimate object of his trip Mr. Napier talked of his plans in a general way.
"'I represent the Hydrographic Department,' he said to the reporter, 'and the journey I am about to make may extend from Clarkeville as far as the Pacific. I hope it will accomplish what the department has planned, but you know that we who are in this profession are always prepared for failure. My assistant and I may easily have our lives crushed out on the rugged peaks of the mountain chain we are attempting to cross.'
"Mr. Napier suggested that some might conclude that he had been sent out as a 'rain maker,' or 'cloud breaker' in an attempt to secure rain for the arid plains, but he laughed at this idea.
"In the government's special car, carefully safeguarded, is carried a large can of a new and powerful explosive. In exhibiting this to the reporter Mr. Napier good-naturedly said:
"'I am sorry I cannot tell the public the exact character of this new explosive. But the secret belongs to the government.'
"When it was suggested that the explosive might be destined for certain elaborate experiments in the unpopulated wilderness of the region to which the expedition is now hastening on the Limited, Mr. Napier would only answer;
"My lips are sealed. I can say no more. But I compliment the Comet in discovering what all the eastern papers have missed—that a stupendous thing is projected and that I have the honor, with my friend, Mr. Hope, to attempt it."
Then followed an elaborate rewritten version of what had been telegraphed from Chicago concerning Ned. After this was a detailed account of the car, not omitting little Mary Hope's bouquet of faded roses, which in Bob's story became "a wealth of cut blossoms, the tribute of Mr. Napier's scientific friends."