Within a few minutes came this message in reply:
“Congratulations unparalleled success presses waiting, estimate exact time arrival if possible. Herald.”
“Two ten,” flashed the answer.
Then, a little later, followed this wireless to the Herald operator:
“Forward Chicago Mary Hope Beverly Hills. In America again safe and well. Alan and Ned.”
But the wireless figures were not exactly correct. Picking out lights, the detour to find South Norwalk, a slow-down in the Sound as the bridges were approached and then the rise as the Flyer headed over the sleeping metropolis to trace its way north by the winking lights of Broadway, threw Roy out in his calculations. When the green lights marking the signal diamond on the Herald roof flashed out no one on board noted the hour. Checking and sinking between the buildings on either side, the Flyer floated over Herald square. As a bag dropped on the Herald roof with a crash the manager of that newspaper glanced at his watch. It was twelve minutes after two o’clock.
At the moment Ned whirled the wing wheel for a new lift a loud voiced boy dashed from the rear of the Herald building.
“Here y’ar; extry papia; all ’bout big airplane crossin’ ’Lantic ocean; papia, double extry Hurld!”
On the first page of the damp sheets under the boy’s arm—and the first loaded wagon of extras was now rattling down Broadway—was the story Buck and Bob had written three days before. In display type above this was printed this bulletin:
“The first aeroplane to cross the Atlantic Ocean reached the Herald office at ten minutes after two o’clock this morning. It left London at one minute after two o’clock yesterday afternoon. Distance traveled 3,218.1 miles. Time, twelve hours and eight minutes. Highest speed, 205.2 miles an hour. Greatest altitude, 31,000 feet. Lowest temperature, 2° above zero. The monster triple-planed Ocean Flyer, with a daring crew of five men, has conquered the air at last. Under the auspices of the Herald and Telegram, Captain Ned Napier and his associate Alan Hope, left New York Wednesday, June 21, at one o’clock, twenty-one minutes and twenty-two seconds in the afternoon. Their monster aeroplane successfully crossed the Atlantic—traversing Massachusetts, the Gulf of Maine, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, 1,709 miles of trackless water, Ireland, the Irish Sea—and delivered the plates of the Telegram’s special coronation edition safely to the Herald representatives in Hyde Park, London, at twenty-five minutes after one o’clock the next day. The story of the preparations for these marvelous feats, with a full description of the Ocean Flyer, its unique ideas and a detailed account of its now celebrated crew, appears below.”