Three weeks of testing proved to them that their engines were a complete success. Then began what proved to be their great adventure.
There came to them a short, bald-headed man of middle age, with a letter from Mr. McFarland, their employer.
The letter read: “This gentleman, Professor Paul Lasky, is a very close friend of mine. He may ask you to do something difficult and dangerous. Do it if you can, for his cause is worthy and his need imperative.”
The stranger was not slow in laying his needs before them. A tramp steamer had gone on the shoals of a coral island some two thousand miles from the Pacific coast of America. Some passengers and members of the crew had been drowned. The others had been rescued. The wreck was driven high on the sand in a sheltered bay, so she would not break up at once. Some hardy adventurers, claiming to have owned the steamer, had put off in another steamer four days previous with the purpose of salvaging her cargo. It was imperative that he, the professor, should reach the wreck before them. A seaplane was the only craft that could bring him to the island in time, and of all the air-craft then on the coast, none had the possibilities of such protracted flight save their own. He wished them to take him there. The reward would be ample and, should his mission be successfully accomplished, they would be real benefactors of mankind, since some tens of thousands of children would be benefited.
Johnny and Pant held a long consultation. The undertaking was a serious one. Could it be that the stranger knew the type of engine their plane carried? His mission must indeed be an important one if a mere landsman, accustomed to neither the sea nor the air, would attempt such a perilous flight to accomplish it.
“What can it be?” Johnny demanded of Pant.
“Can’t tell. Some treasure on the ship, perhaps.”
“But the ship and the cargo belong to the men who have gone to strip the wreck, don’t they?”
“Perhaps. Then again, perhaps not. Perhaps, at least, not all.”
“Well, if you are ready to undertake it, I am.”