“There is nothing impossible if you do not want it to be. We are going to get into the treasure-ground by the air-route this time, even if we have to steal one of those planes to do it.”
Just then the train rolled into the station and Ted and Stanley gathered up their baggage and followed the crowd along the platform and out into the street.
CHAPTER IV
THE RIVALRY OF THE AIRMEN
“Sir, the colonel presents his compliments and commands you to report to him at once.”
Ted and Stanley had just finished breakfast and were crossing the open little courtyard between the dining-room of the inn and their own quarters when the orderly stepped briskly in their path, saluted, and delivered his message.
“What?” Ted asked, stopping in his tracks.
“Colonel who?” from Stanley, “and what does he want with us?”
“Colonel José Antonio de Estrella, commanding officer of the First Aero Squadron.”
“Why this great honor? We do not know the colonel and cannot imagine why he wishes to see us. But of course if he insists, we shall be happy to pay him a visit. Only he should invite, not command, us; we have put up with enough ‘commanding and ordering’ in our own army to last us a long, long time.”
“Are not the señores the flyers who have been expected the past month? The colonel has been very impatient of the delay.”