As the Flyer mounted upward and forward Ned could see the motor beneath stop for a moment and then turn quickly in the broad road. A policeman was hurrying toward the motor but the latter did not pause. While the officer ran by its side the motor suddenly jumped ahead and Ned, chuckling, knew it was on its way to Fleet Street. Laughing, he arose and closed the trap door. Then, suddenly, his face became thoughtful. He seemed almost frightened.
For the second time a big crisis in their perilous voyage had been passed with a laugh. A week before, the thought of this moment would have come to Ned as the climax of a ceremony. Now, he had just done that for which he and his friends had risked their lives, with the ease that a bag of peanuts might have been tossed into a monkey cage.
When Ned reached the pilot room Roy had already repeated all the details of what had happened. Both Alan and Buck were elated.
“What’s the matter with you?” exclaimed Buck as soon as he saw Ned’s face.
“Nothin’,” answered Ned as he took his place at the lookout. “Nothin’ at all. It worked out all right, didn’t it?”
But there was a good deal the matter with the young leader. He had just realized what it meant to cross the Atlantic ocean over night and the thought that the Flyer had just accomplished an undreamed of feat in the delivery of the Telegram matrices almost unnerved him. The great, busy London beneath, scarcely attracted his attention.
But his reverie lasted only a few moments. Buck and Alan were picking out the route to the country rendezvous and Roy’s activity aroused Ned. Throwing open and latching the pilot room doors they quickly reviewed the program for the stop.
“We’ve been seen, good and plenty,” said Alan, “and we’ll likely be followed. If the authorities interfere they mustn’t be allowed to get away with it. Buck,” he added, “you know police and their ways. Stall off anybody till we get our people and the fuel aboard—if the ‘bobbies’ show up. And we’ll make the shift in rag time.”
Buck had never seen Acton and the place was far from being an ideal landing place. But it was not wholly bad. And there was no need to waste time searching for the best ground. Hardly had Alan and Buck decided that they were approaching the agreed upon spot when Buck’s eye caught sight of a waiting automobile about a quarter of a mile north of the suburban depot. Just beyond, in the midst of market gardens and on what seemed to have once been a cricket ground, now awaiting the gardener’s plow, an auto-truck and another automobile were in sight.
“These folks certainly ain’t goin’ to be lonesome,” smiled Buck. “I’ve counted eight men. One o’ the cars is a motor truck!”