As the Flyer increased its speed, Buck pulled his cap lower. From where he stood on the engine room gallery, the port planes or wings, stretched horizontally over his head far from the body of the car. Swaying slightly beneath the pressure of flight, they sounded a constantly changing note of vibration. Beneath the forward plane the giant propeller caught and fixed his eye. He could no longer make out its blades but the heavy chain drive ran smoothly back and forth with all the fascination of an endless waterfall. Spell-bound, Buck held to the door frame and gazed until a sudden new lunge almost tore his grasp loose.
The sea was almost beneath. New York had risen in the air as if fresh new scenery had been pushed upon the stage. The big ocean steamers in dock at Hoboken and Jersey City lengthened from black lines to port pierced and big funnelled leviathans of the sea. Just to the north, round shaped ferry boats, drifting with the tide, were churning their way back and forth across the river. Then the great sky craft dropped once more. All the world seemed rising as if to meet the speeding aeroplane. Buck grasped the door and with the other hand caught the gallery rail.
“Stand by,” came a sharp command from within the cabin. Although holding to the ship with both hands in his new alarm, Buck had sense enough to realize this meant him. Scarcely knowing how he did it, the young reporter got into the engine room.
“Aye, aye,” he responded rather feebly. Just then the Flyer tilted still further forward. It had reached New York harbor and its vigilant pilot was now preparing to pick up the waiting cargo. Buck saw the gently heaving tidewater as he took his post. Had either Roy or Bob looked at him they would have seen a sort of pallor creeping into his face. Bracing himself against the downward dip of the car Buck awaited further orders—his teeth set and his lips compressed as he fought his first attack of “sky sickness.”
“All right,” came suddenly through the speaking tube—the prearranged signal to Roy—and before Bob could repeat it he saw the speed indicator begin to drop. The Flyer was gliding toward the water and Roy’s head sank lower through the open space. On the upper forward gallery, Ned stood with a pair of binoculars in his hands. He had moved back opposite the open pilot room door. Ned made neither suggestion nor comment to his chum at the wheel. But, with a busy glass, he swept the opening of East River now dead ahead.
“See her?” called Ned when he first made out the “Fanny B.”
“In mid-river?” answered Alan.
“With a small black boat lying alongside,” continued Ned.
“Make out her two black-banded stacks?” asked Alan.
“And the signal too,” announced Ned. “She has a white flag at her stern.”