Shuddering at the thought of such an end, Frank aroused his brother and Ben and then went aft to inspect the engine-room. He found that of the eight cylinders only five were doing their work, and a brief examination showed why. The insulation on three of the spark plugs had cracked and it was not before he had done a lot of rummaging around that the boy found spare ones stored in a locker.
By this time the engineer, who seemed a decent enough fellow, and told Frank his name was Dick Richards, had recovered and helped the boy fit the new sparkers to the motor. First, however, Frank had hailed Harry through the tube leading to the pilot-house.
"How high are we?" he asked.
"A thousand feet," came back the reply.
"All right," shouted Frank back. "I guess the wind has moderated enough now for us to drift for a while. I am going to stop the engine."
The machinery accordingly was brought to a standstill and Frank and the engineer set busily to work placing the new sparkplugs and wiring them up.
This completed, Frank hailed Harry once more.
"I'm going to start up."
"All right. I'm looking out," came the reply.
The compressed air apparatus that started the engines was put in operation and the engine was soon working as if nothing had happened.