“Now,” declared Frank, after the boys had gone over every stay-wire, stanchion and brace on the machine, and the engine had been carefully wiped and the brass parts polished, “the Chester expedition is ready to get underway!”
Harry hopped nimbly into the pilot-house and took up his seat at the rear of the chassis. His job was that of engineer. Captain Frank followed him a second later and with his hand on the guide wheel to which the controls were connected gave a comprehensive look over the aeroplane.
“What would the Junior Aero boys do if they could see us now?” Harry hailed from his seat, looking up from his adjusting of the grease cups.
“What wouldn’t any of them give to be going along?” responded Frank.
It had been arranged that the Golden Eagle was to be headed toward the northwest where, like a blue cloud, the Cordillera range loomed against the sky. Somewhere over in that little known part of the country Rogero and his men were marching toward the coast and—the thought thrilled in both the boys’ minds, though neither spoke of it—it was over there, too, somewhere in those dim blue mountains, that the lost mines of the Toltecs lay and the little known relics of that ancient civilization.
There was a final handshake between the boys and their father and a shouted good-bye to Jimmie Blakely.
“All right astern, Harry?” hailed Frank.
“Ay, ay, sir,” responded his brother.
Harry threw in the switch, having opened the valve that connected the engine with the gasolene tank a few minutes before. At the same instant Frank started the engine. There was an involuntary cheer from the hands who had clustered around the machine but at a respectful distance, recollecting their disconcerting experience at the time that Frank tested the engine.
With her fifty horsepower whirring round her propellers at eight hundred revolutions a minute, the Golden Eagle began to move. Faster and faster she glided over the ground till after a run of about two hundred yards her forward end lifted and she shot upward into the air as Frank’s trained hand had directed the upward gliding planes. The engine was going at its work with a will and the rhythmical purr, so sweet to the ear of the operator of an aeroplane, showed that there wasn’t going to be any balk out of it on this trip.