Tom hurried back to Shopton. There were still some things to do on and about his craft, but a few days later all would be in readiness for the start. In order to get a chance to tune his craft up a day or so in advance of the actual start from Long Island, Tom planned to fly there and wait until the signal cannon was fired.
“But who are going to be the others of your crew?” asked Ned the day before the start for Long Island. “You said there would be five, but you, Peltok and I are only three. Is Mr. Damon going?”
“Bless my parachute, I wish I was!” exclaimed the eccentric man. “I’m going to put a big bet down on you, Tom, but I can’t go with you.”
“Why not?” asked Ned.
“My wife won’t let me. She says it’s too dangerous for an old man. Good night! I’m not old!” asserted Mr. Damon. He certainly was not, in spirit at least.
“I’ve got two young fellows who will form the others of the crew,” Tom said as Mary Nestor came to where he and Ned were standing. For there was to be a christening ceremony and Mary was to break a bottle of ginger ale on the sharp nose of the Air Monarch. “There they are now,” he added, as two figures approached.
“Why, Tom!” exclaimed Mary as she saw them, “those look like the two men who rescued you and me when the plane almost took a nose dive into the cranberry bog.”
“They not only look like them but they are those lads,” chuckled Tom as he introduced Joe Hartman and Bill Brinkley to Ned.
They nodded and smiled at Mary. After the rescue Tom had made some inquiries about these automobile mechanics and, learning that Hartman had been an efficient flying man in France while Brinkley had managed one of the big tanks, Tom concluded they were just the men he wanted.
Accordingly, he had engaged them, much to their delight, and they were now ready to set off on the trip around the world. They went into raptures over the mechanical perfection of Tom’s latest machine.