Ned did some rapid figuring. Then he uttered a cry of delight.
“What is it?” asked Tom.
“Fifteen hours and forty-six minutes!” was the answer. “The best time ever made! You’ve broken all records, Tom!”
“I’m glad of it,” was the modest reply.
“And so am I!” cried a voice, and Mary pressed her way through the milling throng to—well, what she did to Tom is none of your business nor mine, is it?
“Well, young man, you did what you said you would,” came in the rasping voice of Jason Jacks. “Any time you want that hundred thousand dollars, or two hundred thousand, just let me know. I didn’t believe much in this thing when you started, but you have proved that you can run an airline express between New York and San Francisco. There’s a big future in it, I believe!”
“So do I,” said Tom quietly. “And now I’d like to see who those masked men are.”
When the men were brought before the young inventor and stripped of black face-coverings, they proved to be none other than Renwick Fawn and the man who variously called himself Blodgett and Barsky—the men who had endeavored to steal Tom’s Chest of Secrets.
“I thought so!” said the young inventor. “So it was you who were back of this, with Kenny and Schlump. Well, we have both of them and now we have you.”
“But I thought these two were in jail,” said Ned wonderingly.