“From that on,” answered Ned, “we’ll follow its shore, for we’ll be over the north branch of the Bay of Fundy where the tides come from—the ‘fog factory.’ On our north, we’ll pass the city of St. Johns, New Brunswick, forty-five miles farther east, and then for seventy-five miles the rocks and trees of New Brunswick will be almost beneath us. At the town of Amherst, where the Bay of Fundy ends, the Flyer will have fifteen miles of Nova Scotia to cross.”
“We ought to have supplies there,” broke in Alan.
“No stop scheduled,” commented Ned tartly. “On the east side of the peninsula of Nova Scotia we’ll strike Northumberland Straits at Cold Spring Harbor. At Amherst we alter our course again to E. 1/2 N. Northumberland Straits are twenty-five miles wide. Then it’s Prince Edward Island, which we cross. That puts us over the Gulf of St. Lawrence with a one hundred and sixty-five mile glide to Cape Anguille on the west side of Newfoundland. There’s a light on Anguille Point. A last run of two hundred and forty miles across Newfoundland brings us to Fogo and the real start. Then it’s ‘ho for Galway Bay’ in Ireland and London Town.”
“It says we change our course to E. 1/4 S. at Anguille,” added Alan, who was following the directions.
“That ought to make it easy,” remarked Buck with one of his grins. “Do we stop at Fogo?”
“Not so you could notice it,” said Ned with a snap. “Good night.”
CHAPTER XIII
ROY OSBORNE’S “PICK-UP CRANE”
Just before one o’clock on the afternoon of June 21 ten persons sat down to luncheon in the private dining room of the American Aeroplane factory. President J. W. Atkinson, of the company, and Mrs. Atkinson; Chief Engineer Osborne and Mrs. Osborne; Night City Editor Latimer, of the New York Herald, and the five members of the crew of the giant aeroplane—the Ocean Flyer. These were, Ned Napier, captain and pilot; Alan Hope, first officer and pilot; Roy Osborne, observer and calculator; Robert Russell, engineer, and Buckingham Stewart, “assistant engineer” and “English pilot.”
Not a member of this crew had been in bed less than ten hours the night before. And, as an athletic trainer would have expressed it, there had been only “light work” that morning. One after another, the Airship Boys and their associates had met at the setting-up room of the big plant where, from time to time, many of the older employes of the works had also gone for a last inspection of the aerial craft that was soon to start on its astounding voyage seaward in an attempt to cross the Atlantic—to make good its projector’s prophecy of “New York to London in Twelve Hours.”