“What was that?” asked the other, curiously.
“You remember that Puss was off somewhere a week ago. I heard that he was down in the city, but no one knew what for. And now it develops that he spent two days around the aviation field over on Long Island, watching the way they ran the aeroplanes. And it is said that he went up several times with Curtiss in one of his biplanes, so as to learn how to handle the wheel!”
“You don’t say?” ejaculated Andy, his eyebrows denoting the most intense astonishment. “Well, in that case he has got the bulge on us, for a fact. Why, if he had such an experienced aviator for a teacher Puss must be in the swim right now. And we’ve just got to dig for all we’re worth to get on even terms with him.”
“Don’t worry,” said Frank, composedly. “In the first place I don’t believe the story. If he went up with any one it was a man less famous than Curtiss, who certainly wouldn’t bother taking a boy up with him while exhibiting his machine and what tricks it could do. Even if Puss did go up, that doesn’t make him an aviator. We’re going to learn our little lesson by slow degrees and without the help of any outsider, too.”
They were soon busily employed in cutting out the wings and starting to secure them to the planes. It was a particular job, for upon those essential parts of the monoplane almost as much depended as on the engine itself. If the latter broke down while in flight or stopped while “banking” the aeronaut could save himself by volplaning down toward the earth; but should his planes suddenly give way, he would drop like a plummet!
Frank was a cautious lad, who never forgot that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. And he would certainly omit nothing that could add to the safety of himself and his chum.
They had just concluded it must be time for dinner, when Andy, who had started for the house to wash up and be the first to partake, uttered a loud cry that brought his companion hurriedly forth.
“I guess it’s all true, Frank,” the other was crying, as he pointed his finger at some unwieldy object that seemed to be moving unsteadily along just over the tops of the trees where the balloon had vanished; “because there’s Puss and Sandy in their new biplane, starting out to make their first little flight. Oh, my! look at that dip, would you? I thought it was going to smash that time, but they lifted her all right. You see, Frank, they’ve got us beat a mile in being first afloat!”
CHAPTER VIII.
THE NOVICE FLIGHT OF THE BIPLANE.
There no longer existed the slightest doubt in the mind of Frank Bird that their rivals had indeed stolen a march on them and were the first of the Bloomsbury brand of aviators to mount upward in the realms of space.