“All of it,” yelled Alan and Roy together. “And what’s the matter openin’ some o’ those olives?” added Alan.
Within a few minutes Ned had the dynamo going and the lights glowing in the store room. Then two of the folding tables were set up and at half-past six o’clock, Roy having announced Cold Spring Harbor on Northumberland Straits, Chef Buck yelled “First call for dinner on the Ocean Flyer.”
Relieving each other at the wheel and engine, in an hour the five boys had all dined. In that time the fog had partly lifted. At seven thirty-seven o’clock it was possible to confirm their bearing by a glimpse of their first lighthouse rays, the flashing white light on Cape Anguille in Newfoundland. In that time the Flyer had crossed Northumberland Straits, twenty-five miles wide; passed over Prince Edward Island, a stretch of twenty-six miles and then over water again as the Gulf of St. Lawrence was reached. Many towns, and even great summer hotels had been in sight during the latter part of the afternoon but here Ned, then at the wheel, saw the last settlement—the fishing village of Tracade Harbor on Prince Edward Island.
For thirty-four miles the airship followed the bend of Prince Edward east. In the misty evening glow East Point Light was just noted to the south with Magdalene Island lying to the north.
“It’s almost like runnin’ on a track,” said Ned to Alan, who relieved him a little later. “To make sure we don’t get lost, ninety miles out there in the gulf you might pick up St. Paul’s Island Light. But it’s twenty miles south of our course. I reckon you won’t see it in the fog.”
When Ned had finished his dinner St. Paul’s Light had been passed unseen on the starboard beam and the fog was lifting rapidly. When Cape Anguille Light suddenly winked like a pale star, almost dead ahead, Ned summoned Buck to the pilot room. Then he went below to the engine room and relieved the faithful Bob.
“You boys go above,” he ordered. “You’re both reporters and you love the picturesque and dramatic. We’ll be over Newfoundland in a few minutes. Then it’ll be only two hundred and forty-one miles over the last land we’ll see till we reach the old sod of Ireland. I want you to see all you can—you may need the impressions in your newspaper stuff. I’ll run up when you sight Fogo Island.”
When Newfoundland’s dark pine forests, its lakes and rivers, its rocky wilds where yet the moose lives and multiplies, had filled the circle of the horizon beneath the birdlike aeroplane, it was eight o’clock. Just then the long obscured sun broke through the mist clouds. A brilliant orange and red sky suddenly darkened the lakes and woods beneath. Then the uninhabited world turned to a sunset glow as if the day had been born again.
“It’s the longest day in the year,” exclaimed Buck. “We’ll see Fogo!”
At ten minutes of nine Alan announced: