[CHAPTER I.]
CAPTURING AN AIR-SHIP.
"Py shiminy grickets! Vat do you t'ink oof dot! See dere vonce, Matt. A palloon, or I vas a lopsder! Und vat a funny palloon it iss."
Motor Matt and his Dutch chum, Carl Pretzel, were sitting by a quiet country roadside, in the shade of some trees. Drawn up near them was a light touring-car.
The boys were several miles out of the city of Chicago, from which place they had started about the middle of the forenoon, and they had halted in that shady spot between Hammond and Hegewisch to eat the lunch they had brought with them. Carl had just finished the last piece of fried chicken when, happening to look skyward, he saw something that brought him to his feet with a jump. As he called to his chum, he pointed with the "drum-stick," at which he had been nibbling.
Matt's surprise was nearly as great as Carl's, and he likewise sprang up and gazed at the air-ship, which was coming toward them from the north and east, making smart headway against the wind.
"Great spark-plugs!" exclaimed Matt. "That's the first air-ship I ever saw."
"Vat's der tifference bedween a palloon und a air-ship?" asked Carl.
"Well, you can navigate an air-ship with the wind or against it, while a balloon is at the mercy of every current that blows. A round gas-bag and a basket is a balloon, Carl, but when you add a gasolene-motor and a propeller you have an air-ship."
"Dot's blain enough. Der air-ship iss sky-hootin' dis vay to peat four oof a kindt. Say, it looks like a pig cigar. Vat a funny pitzness! Und you nefer seen vone pefore, Matt?"