“Sure,” answered Bob. “That’s one reason I’m goin’. And that’s the reason the Herald is goin’ to give us $60,000. You can bet you wouldn’t give us that for drivin’ an automobile to San Francisco—even at top speed. It’s the chances we take of strikin’ one of these ‘gullies’ up in the sky and turnin’ turtle just where the Atlantic is deepest and wettest.”
“He’s all right now,” was Alan’s quiet comment when Bob had finished. “Bob always blows off under pressure.”
“Well,” said the editor in turn, “I had an idea—a suggestion—but Mr. Russell’s speech almost killed it. Still—”
“What is it?” insisted Ned.
“You said you had not definitely made up your crew. For a time I was prompted to ask if all your operators had to be persons of experience with aeroplanes.”
“They should be, on a trip like this,” explained Ned, “but not necessarily so. They must have coolness, however, and nerve and endurance.”
“Would it be out of the way for me to send a representative with you?”
“If you had the sort of man we could use, that is, one that could stand watch with us and who was not merely a passenger,” answered Ned looking at Alan and noting that the latter approved, “it would not only be proper but we’d be glad to make him our fourth man.”
“I’m sure I have such a young man,” continued the editor quickly, “and he is just about your own age. I never saw him until two o’clock this morning.”
“You mean the guy that tipped us off to the Herald,” exclaimed Bob impulsively.