Ned Sinclair's hobby—most boys of fifteen have one or more—was homing-pigeons. He had become interested in the subject through a visit to a pigeon-loving uncle, who taught him the secrets of caring for pigeons, homing and training them to make longer and still longer flights to their loft from far-away points.
Ned's father had built for him a splendid loft in the chamber of the stable, with a wire-covered "flight" stretching out over the green grass at the side. Great pains had been taken in stocking the loft to get only the best "strains" of homers, and the result appeared in the speedy return of almost every bird that Ned had ever sent away to be liberated.
Very often a bird would be intrusted to a friend going upon a journey, with a request that it be liberated at a certain hour and place.
Mr. Sinclair, too, had almost always taken a bird or two with him when he went down to New York city on business, a hundred miles from home. It had frequently happened that in an hour after being liberated from the Grand Central Station the swift little homer would trip the alighting-board at his own loft window, far up the Hudson, and so ring the little electric bell that in the house announced a pigeon's arrival home.
Then, later on, Ned had joined a Homing-pigeon Club in a near-by city, and successively from the two-hundred, the three-hundred, and the five-hundred mile "stations" his homers had flown home, making excellent records for speed.
While the record made in the World's Fair flight was not at all noteworthy for speed, Ned's birds did make the long distance, and returned to their loft, though thoroughly tired out—something that could not be said of many Eastern lofts that sent birds to Chicago for that contest.
A few days before, Ned's sister Helen had started with a party of friends for a trip through Europe. Ned had proposed that she take one of his homers a hundred miles out to sea, then send a message back to them from the steamer. He had selected the most reliable pigeon in the loft, and had packed it carefully in a light basket. Then he had waited patiently on the day the steamer sailed from New York for the tinkle of the little bell that should tell of its return home.
Again and again he visited the loft, thinking the bell might have rung in his absence from the house, but always to return disappointed. It was not until Helen's hastily scribbled note from Queenstown arrived that any clew to the mystery was given.
"Tell Ned," the note ran, "how sorry I am that I could not follow out his directions about the pigeon. Beth was taken frightfully seasick before we were down the bay, and I was so anxiously attending to her for some hours that I entirely forgot about liberating Fleetwing and sending a message home. When I did have a chance to think about it the steward said we were two hundred and fifty miles out. Then I didn't know what to do. I couldn't carry a homing-pigeon all over Europe with me, and I hesitated about liberating it so far out for fear it might not reach land, especially as the weather was not very clear. I had to decide quickly, and so concluded the best thing to do was to set Fleetwing free, but not to hamper him at all with a message tied to his flight feathers. I 'tossed' the little fellow from the deck, and he went straight up into the air, circled a moment, and then flew away America-ward. I do hope he got home safely."
"That explains it," said Ned. "Probably a thick fog came up, and Fleetwing lost his way, and got exhausted before he could get to land. That's the end of that bird," he concluded, dismally.