Transcriber's Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

COURTESY OF SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

THE BOY AVIATORS
IN RECORD FLIGHT
OR
THE RIVAL AEROPLANE
BY
CAPTAIN WILBUR LAWTON
AUTHOR OF “THE BOY AVIATORS IN NICARAGUA,” “THE BOY
AVIATORS ON SECRET SERVICE,” “THE BOY AVIATORS IN AFRICA,”
“THE BOY AVIATORS’ TREASURE QUEST,” ETC.

NEW YORK
HURST AND COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

BOY AVIATORS’ SERIES
By Captain Wilbur Lawton
Six Titles. Cloth Bound. Price 50c
UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME

1 The Boy Aviators in Nicaragua;
or, In League with the Insurgents.
2 The Boy Aviators on Secret Service;
or, Working with Wireless.
3 The Boy Aviators in Africa;
or, An Aerial Ivory Trail
4 The Boy Aviators’ Treasure Quest;
or, the Golden Galleon.
5 The Boy Aviators in Record Flight;
or, The Rival Aeroplane.
6 The Boy Aviators’ Polar Dash;
or, Facing Death in the Antarctic.

Your orders solicited.
HURST & COMPANY
Publishers—New York

Copyright, 1910, by HURST & CO.

CONTENTS

THE BOY AVIATORS IN RECORD FLIGHT

Or,
THE RIVAL AEROPLANE.

CHAPTER I.
THE BIG PRIZE.

“Phew!” exclaimed Billy Barnes as he reported for work on the New York Planet one broiling afternoon in late August, “this is a scorcher and no mistake.”

“I should think after all your marvelous adventures with the Boy Aviators that you would be so used to heat and cold and hardship that you wouldn’t kick at a little thing like a warm day.”

The remark came from a young fellow about twenty-one years old who occupied a desk beside that of the stout spectacled youth of eighteen whom our readers have already met as Billy Barnes.

“Why, hullo, Fred Reade!” said Billy, looking up with a good-natured grin from the operation of opening his typewriter desk, “I thought you were off covering aviation.”

“I was,” rejoined the other, with a near approach to a sneer, “but since we printed your story about the recovery of the treasure on the Spanish galleon I guess they think I’m not good enough to cover the subject.”

If the good-natured Billy Barnes noticed the close approach to outspoken enmity with which these words were spoken he gave no sign of it. Any reply he might have made was in fact cut short at that minute by an office boy who approached him.

“Mr. Stowe wants to see you, Mr. Barnes, at once, please,” said the lad.

“There you go, the managing editor sending for you as soon as you get back. I wish I was a pet,” sneered Reade as Billy hastened after the boy and the next minute entered a room screened off from the editorial department by a glass door bearing the words “Managing Editor.”

At a desk above which hung “This is my busy day,” and other signs not calculated to urge visitors to become conversational, sat a heavy-set, clean-shaven man with a big pair of spectacles astride his nose. He had a fat cigar in his mouth which he regarded as he spoke with far more intensity than he did Billy.

“Afternoon, Barnes,” was his greeting.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Stowe,” returned the young reporter, “you sent for me——”

“Sit down,” said the other brusquely, indicating a chair.

Billy sat down and waited for the next words of his managing editor.

“The Planet, as you know, has made a specialty of featuring aviation,” continued Mr. Stowe, gazing fixedly at his cigar.

Billy nodded, the remark did not seem to call for a more definite reply.

“We have offered prizes for flights from time to time, and in this way have obtained a reputation as an authority on aviation and a patron of what is bound to be the vehicle of the coming ages.”

Again Billy nodded at the managing editor’s rather florid way of putting it.

“For instance, the $10,000 Albany-New York flight and the $30,000 New York-St. Louis flight. The $100,000 offer for a transatlantic flight as yet remains unchallenged for, but I have no doubt that in time some daring aviator will make the attempt.”

“It should be possible,” once more agreed Billy, wondering what was coming next.

“In the meantime,” Mr. Stowe continued, “the Despatch has declared itself our rival in this field by also devoting great attention to the subject, and offering prizes for flights in opposition to our original idea. The owner of the Planet has therefore decided to eclipse all previous offers and be the first in the field with a prize of $50,000 for a flight from New York to San Francisco, or as far in that direction as possible. The air craft that travels furthest will get the prize.”

“Across the continent?” gasped Billy.

“Exactly. We are going to publish the conditions and date of starting in our to-morrow morning’s issue. And the offer incidentally means a great chance for you.”

Billy gave a questioning glance.

“I intend to have you follow the racers in an automobile and send dispatches from the various points along the route concerning the progress of the cross-country aerial racers.”

The young reporter’s face beamed.

“That’s mighty good of you, sir,” he said earnestly.

“Not at all. It’s simply the selection of the best man for the job; that’s all. You have far more knowledge of aviation than Reade—or at least you ought to have after your long association with the Boy Aviators—and therefore we have selected you.”

“As to the conditions of the race, Mr. Stowe—how about stops, gasolene and water stations, and so on?”

“Each contestant will be expected to arrange those details for himself,” was the answer. “This newspaper simply offers the prize to the first aeroplane to arrive in San Francisco, or go furthest in that direction. Also, of course, we claim the privilege of getting exclusive accounts of the doings of the Planet aeroplanes. That’s all. Simple, isn’t it?”

“Very,” agreed Billy as he took his leave. “By the way, sir, does any one else know of your offer?”

“Nobody; not even Reade. I guess he’s pretty sore that we took him off aviation on the eve of making the prize offer, but it can’t be helped.”

“Why, I—you see, sir, I’d rather not take it, if it is blocking Reade in any way. I don’t want to take the assignment at all if it’s going to hurt Reade with the paper.”

The managing editor gave an impatient wave of his hand.

“Let me attend to Reade,” he remarked impatiently, “you go and get out a story for to-morrow about possible contestants. Of course your friends, the Chester boys, will enter?”

Billy looked dubious.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “I rather think they were planning for a rest and to continue their studies, and this cross-country flight won’t be any picnic. However, I hope they do enter,” replied Billy.

“I had no idea that there would be any doubt about it,” said Mr. Stowe impatiently, “well, do the best you can. Anyhow, get interviews with Blewitt, Sharkness and Auldwin. They will be sure to enter their machines, and let’s have a good, live story for to-morrow. By the way, not a word of this to anybody but the aviators you may see till we publish the offer. The Despatch would be quite capable of offering a similar prize to-morrow morning if they learned what was in the wind.”

Billy nodded as Mr. Stowe once more gave a sign of dismissal, and hastened from the room. So hurried was his exit, in fact, that he almost bumped into Reade as he made his way out. The editorial room was deserted, except for the dark-haired, slender young fellow with whom Billy had almost collided. The other reporters were all out on their assignments.

“Well?” were Fred Reade’s first words.

“Well,” rejoined Billy, adjusting his spectacles, which had narrowly escaped being jarred off his nose in the bump, “isn’t there room enough in the place without your getting so near that door that you almost upset my slender form?”

“Never mind that,” replied Frank Reade; “what I want to know is, how do I stand in there?”

He motioned with his head toward the managing editor’s room from which the boys were by this time several paces removed.

“I don’t understand you exactly,” was Billy’s reply. He noticed that Reade’s face bore an angry flush and he seemed excited.

“What I mean is this: Am I going to continue to do aviation for the Planet?”

“Say, Fred, old man, I’m awfully sorry——”

“Oh, cut that out. You don’t mean it, and you know you don’t. You wanted to grab off the job for yourself, and I can see by your face that you have.”

“If you mean that I am to do aviation for the Planet in future, you are right,” replied Billy. “I am; but it was only on Mr. Stowe’s orders. You’re wrong, Fred, and you know you are, when you accuse me of trying to take your job away from you.”

“Oh, rot,” exclaimed the other angrily. “If that had been the case you’d have kept away. You don’t have to work. You made plenty of money out of your share of the Golden Galleon treasure. You have just deliberately tried to oust me from my job.”

“You talk as if you’d been fired,” said Billy. “You know that you are one of the most valued reporters on the Planet.”

“Don’t try to jolly me,” rejoined the other angrily. “And as for being fired, I don’t have to be, for I’ve got my resignation ready written out. Here copy boy!” he cried, “take this note in to Mr. Stowe.”

As the boy hurried up Reade drew from his pocket an envelope and handed it to the lad.

“Hold on there!” cried Billy, genuinely moved at Reade’s evident chagrin, “have you gone crazy, Fred? What’s the matter?”

“Take that note in,” thundered Reade to the hesitating boy, who thereupon hurried off, “it’s your fault I’ve had to quit, Billy Barnes, and I’ll not forget it, I can promise you. I’ll get even with you for this in a way you don’t suspect. No; I won’t shake hands with you. I don’t want to speak to you.”

Reade flung angrily off and put on his coat and hat. Without taking any more notice of Billy he strode out of the Planet offices and into the street.

On the sidewalk he paused for a minute. His hat shoved back off his brow and his forehead puckered in perplexity.

“I’ll do it,” he exclaimed suddenly under his breath as if he had made up his mind to something. “I’ll do it. The Despatch will jump at it, and I’ll get even on Billy Barnes and the Planet at the same time.”

CHAPTER II.
BILLY AS A DIPLOMAT.

A few minutes after Fred Reade had left the Planet offices he was followed by Billy Barnes. The young reporter boarded an open Madison Avenue car, preferring it to the stuffy heat of the subway, and in due time found himself at the home of Mr. Chester, the wealthy banker, and father of Frank and Harry Chester, the Boy Aviators. The lads need no further introduction to our readers, who have doubtless formed the acquaintance of both the young air pilots in previous volumes of this series. To those who have not it may be as well—while Billy Barnes is ringing the doorbell—to say that Frank and Harry Chester were graduates of the Agassiz High School and the pioneers among schoolboy aviators. Beginning with models of air craft they had finally evolved a fine biplane which they named the Golden Eagle. The first Golden Eagle was destroyed in a tropical storm off the coast of Nicaragua, as related in The Boy Aviators in Nicaragua; or, In League with the Insurgents. To carry out an important commission affecting a stolen formula the lads then constructed a second Golden Eagle, in which they met many adventures and perils in the Everglades of Florida. These were set forth in The Boy Aviators on Secret Service; or, Working with Wireless, the second volume of the series. In the third and fourth volumes the boys had aerial adventures in Africa, and in the Sargasso Sea. What these were will be found in The Boy Aviators in Africa; or, An Aerial Ivory Trail; and The Boy Aviators’ Treasure Quest; or, The Golden Galleon.

Before the servant who answered Billy’s ring had time to announce him there was a rush of feet down the hallway and two tall lads, with crisp wavy hair and blue eyes, were wringing Billy’s hand till he laughingly shouted:

“Hey, let up! I’m not the India-rubber man with the circus.”

At this moment a door opened and a gray-haired man stepped out. It was Mr. Chester.

“Why, how do you do, Billy Barnes,” he exclaimed heartily, “glad to see you; but I hope you haven’t come to take my boys off again on some wonderful trip or other. You know their mother and I like to see them at home sometimes.”

“Well, sir,” began Billy somewhat abashed, “the fact is I—you see—I mean—well, the long and short of it is, sir, that I have an adventurous proposal to make to them.”

“Hurray!” shouted Harry. “Good for you, Billy!”

Mr. Chester, however, assumed his—what Frank called—“official face.”

“Really, I——” he began.

“Now, father,” interjected Frank, “don’t you think it would be a good idea if we heard what Billy’s proposal, or whatever you like to call it, is before we say anything more?”

“Perhaps you are right, my boy,” said his father, “but I am busy now, and——”

“We’ll take Billy out to the workshop and make him tell us all about it, and then we’ll submit it to you,” suggested Harry.

“That’s a good idea,” assented his father.

Five minutes later the three boys were closeted in the big room above the garage of the Chester home, which served them as a workshop, study and designing plant all rolled into one. The blue prints, aeroplane parts, chemicals, and tools scattered about or ranged in neat racks against the walls in conjunction with a shelf of books on aviation and kindred subjects, the table illumined by movable drop lights shaded by green shades, gave the room a very business-like appearance. It was clearly a place for work and not for play—as a sort of framework newly erected in one corner showed.

“What’s that?” asked Billy, indicating it.

“Oh, just an idea we were working on for a wireless adapted for auto use,” rejoined Frank, “but never mind that now. What’s this wonderful plan of yours?”

“Simply this,” replied Billy briskly, “how’d you fellows like to get $50,000?”

“Would we?” exclaimed Harry. “Lead us to it.”

“You’ll have to lead yourselves,” laughed Billy.

“Oh, come on, Billy, put us out of our suspense. What do you mean?” said Frank.

“Well, my paper, The Planet, you know,” began Billy, “has decided to offer the amount I named for a successful flight from here to San Francisco, or as near to that city as can be attained. There are no conditions—except get there first, or travel furthest.”

“Well?” said Frank.

“Well,” repeated Billy, “I’ve come here to interview you. Are you ready to announce yourselves as competitors for the Planet’s contest?”

Not so much to Billy’s surprise Frank shook his head.

“I don’t know what to say,” he rejoined. “It isn’t a thing you can make your mind up to in a minute. I’d like to do it, but it would require a lot of preparation. Then, too, there would be maps to get up and a thousand and one details to arrange. It’s a big task—bigger than you imagine, Billy.”

“Oh, I know it’s a big proposition,” said the young reporter, “that’s one reason I thought it would appeal to you,” he added subtly. “As for gasolene, why not carry a supply of it in the automobile?”

“What automobile?” asked Harry.

“Why, didn’t I tell you,” exclaimed Billy, “the auto I’m to follow you fellows in and send out accounts of your progress. Oh, Frank, please say you’ll do it—it would be bully.”

“It would be bully, no doubt of that,” rejoined Frank; “but I have a lot of experimental work on hand that I want to finish. I should have to leave that, and Harry is preparing for college. No, Billy, I’m afraid we shall have to call it off. There are lots of other aviators you can get to take part. The prize is big enough to call out the biggest of them.”

Bitter disappointment showed on Billy’s face.

“Then it’s all off?” he murmured dejectedly.

“I’m afraid so—yes,” replied Frank. “What do you say, Harry?”

“I’d like to go,” decided Harry promptly; “but, as you said, Frank, it would delay us both in our studies, and then we would have a lot of work to do on the framework of the Golden Eagle, wrecked as she was.”

“Hold on there!” cried Billy. “I was coming to that. I was going to say that maybe the reason you refused was that you couldn’t build a new ’plane in time, but did I understand you to say you had recovered the frame?”

“Of the old Golden Eagle II,” put in Frank. “You recollect that following the fight with Luther Barr’s dirigible in the Sargasso we had to abandon her.”

“After that rascal Sanborn tried to blow a hole in the pontoons that made her float and sink her.”

“I shall never forget the look on his face as that devil fish seized him and bore him to the depths of the sea,” shuddered Harry.

“Nor I,” said Frank; “but here’s your story, Billy. Having, as you know, left the Golden Eagle drifting on her pontoons we never thought we should see her again, but a few days ago a message reached us from Florida saying that the government derelict destroyer Grampus, while on the lookout for dangerous wrecks in the Caribbean Sea, encountered a strange-looking object scudding over—or rather through—the waves. They set out in chase and soon made it out as the framework of an aeroplane. You remember that I advertised the loss of our air craft pretty extensively in marine and naval journals, and offered a reward, so that when the drifting aeroplane was sighted every man on board the government vessel was eager to capture it. As the wind dropped soon after they sighted it they were enabled to get alongside the derelict and found that it was indeed the Golden Eagle. Her planes were riddled with bullets and her pontoons covered with green seaweed, but the framework was as solid and the braces as taut as the day we put her together. Moreover, the engine, beyond being badly coated with rust, was as good as the day we set it on the bed plate.”

“Say, why didn’t you tell me about this before?” demanded Billy.

“Too much of a hurry to get her back, I guess,” rejoined Frank. “But, say,” he broke off, “the frame was shipped from Florida and arrived here this morning. Want to look at it?”

“Want to look at it? You bet I do!” gasped Billy. “That’s the finest old air ship in the world.”

“So we think,” laughed Harry, as Frank led the way down a flight of steps into the garage below the room in which they had been discussing the Planet’s offer.

Frank switched on the lights and there stood revealed in the rear of the place a shadowy framework that glistened in places where the light caught it. It towered huge, and yet light and airy-looking, like the skeleton of a strange bird.

“It wasn’t shipped that way?” asked Billy.

“Not much,” was Frank’s reply. “They took it down in Florida and boxed it.”

“And a nice mess they made of it,” said Harry; “but, thank goodness, they didn’t harm the engine.”

He pointed to the motor which was out of the machine and lay in a corner.

“Doesn’t look very big for the work it’s done, does it?” laughed Frank, gazing lovingly at the eight-cylindered, hundred horse-power engine that had performed such good service since the boys installed it.

“There’s certainly a lot of cleaning to be done about the ’plane,” remarked Billy, as he handled the rusted frames and tarnished bronze parts.

“Oh, that won’t take long,” replied Frank lightly; “anyhow, we’ve got lots of time to do it.”

“Unless,” put in Billy.

“Well, unless what?” demanded Frank, though he guessed the young reporter’s meaning.

“Unless you go in for that $50,000 prize,” cried Billy skillfully evading the playful blow Frank aimed at him. “In all seriousness, Frank, won’t you?” he pleaded.

“In all seriousness, no,” was Frank’s rejoinder. “I’d like to do it. Billy,” he went on. “I’d like to do it for your sake, if it would do you any good—we both would, wouldn’t we, Harry?”

“You bet,” replied the younger brother with effective brevity.

“Well, of course, I know you fellows too well to try to urge you,” said Billy; “but I would like to be able to announce in the Planet to-morrow that the Boy Aviators announce they will compete for the paper’s big prize.”

“To tell you the truth, Billy,” laughed Frank, “we’ve had about enough newspaper notoriety lately. It’s mighty good of you to write accounts of our adventures, but I guess the papers can get along for a while without anything about us.”

“Not at all, you make good copy,” declared Billy, with such comic emphasis that the boys went off into shouts of laughter.

And so it came about that Billy said good-night without having shaken the Boy Aviators in their determination not to engage in any public flights, but all the time, though they little knew it, events were so shaping themselves that little as they dreamed it they were to take part in the record flight.

CHAPTER III.
UNDER A CLOUD.

It was early the next morning. The paper had been put to bed. Billy, with the satisfied feeling that came to him with the knowledge that he had written a good introduction and account of the Planet’s great offer, was slipping into his coat preparatory to going home, when Mr. Stowe, his face purple with anger, called to him in a sharp voice from the door of the editorial sanctum.

“Come here, Barnes, I want to see you,” he said brusquely.

“Hullo, something’s up with the chief,” thought Billy to himself; but he answered cheerily: “All right, sir,” with an inward feeling that something was all wrong.

“Look here, Barnes,” exclaimed Mr. Stowe, angrily flourishing a first edition of the Planet’s rival, the Despatch, “there has been treachery somewhere. How about this?”

Billy, with an unaccountable sinking of the heart, took the paper the other flourished so furiously. It was still moist and warm as it had been run off the press. The sickly, sweet odor of printer’s ink hung about it. But these details did not attract Billy’s attention. And for an excellent reason. Staring him in the face in big black letters he read:

THE “DESPATCH” OFFERS FIFTY THOUSAND
DOLLARS FOR A TRANSCONTINENTAL
FLIGHT.

Below—and every letter of the article burned itself into Billy’s brain, was a long story eulogizing the enterprise of the Despatch in making the offer and giving a list of the noted aviators who would be sure—so the Despatch thought—to enter the contest.

It was a cold steal of the Planet’s idea.

Almost word for word the conditions were the same as those Mr. Stowe had detailed to Billy that afternoon.

“Well,” remarked the managing editor in a harsh tone, in which Billy recognized the steely ring that always presaged a storm from that august quarter.

“Well,” floundered Billy helplessly, “I cannot account for it.”

“You cannot,” echoed the other in a flinty tone.

“Why no,” rejoined the lad, lifting his eyes to Stowe’s, “can you?”

“Yes I can.”

“You can, sir?”

“We have been sold out.”

“Sold out?”

“Precisely. And there are only three people in the office who could have had any knowledge of the secret. One is the owner of the paper, the other myself and the third is you.”

Mr. Stowe joined his hands magisterially and looked straight at Billy, in whose mind a horrid suspicion had begun to dawn.

The managing editor was practically accusing him of selling the story.

Preposterous as the idea was, Billy realized that to a prejudiced mind, such as the managing editor’s, there would be no way of explaining matters. His thoughts were suddenly broken in on by Mr. Stowe’s harsh voice.

“Is there any one else, Barnes?”

Like a flash the recollection of his encounter with Reade at the very door of the managing editor’s room, the latter’s strange and defiant manner, and the unaccountable publishing by the Despatch of a rival offer, came into Billy’s mind. He was about to mention Reade’s name when he checked himself.

What proof had he?

Then, too, he saw that Stowe’s mind was made up. He did not wish to appear in the position of trying to throw the blame on a man whom he realized the managing editor would not believe could by any possibility have any knowledge of the Planet’s plans.

“I am waiting for your answer,” came the cold, incisive voice again.

“I can think of none, sir,” rejoined the young reporter with a feeling that he had put the rope about his neck with a vengeance now.

“Hum! In that case, by a process of elimination, we have only one person who could have done it, and that——” He paused. “I hate to have to say it, Barnes, but it looks bad for you.”

“Great Heavens, Mr. Stowe!” gasped Billy, who, while he had seen what the managing editor was leading up to, was struck by a rude shock of surprise at the actual placing into words of the accusation, “do you mean to say you think that I would do such a thing?”

“I don’t know what to think, Barnes,” was the discouraging answer. “I am more sorry than I can say to have had to speak as I have. However, until you can clear yourself of the cloud of a suspicion that must rest on you because of this affair we shall have to part company.”

Billy went white.

His superior then really believed him guilty of the worst crime a newspaper man can commit—a breach of faith to his paper.

“Do you really believe what you are saying, sir?” he demanded.

“As I said before, I don’t know what to think, Barnes. However, what I might say will make little difference. In a short time the proprietor will hear of this, and I should have to discharge you whether I wished to or no. If you wish to act now, you may resign.”

“Very well, then, Mr. Stowe, I will make out my formal resignation,” exclaimed Billy, his cheeks burning crimson with anger and shame.

“I’m sorry, Barnes,” said Mr. Stowe, as the lad, scarcely knowing where he was going, left the room. “I have no other course, you know.”

Fifteen minutes later Billy Barnes was no longer a member of the Planet staff, and his resignation, neatly typewritten, lay on the managing editor’s desk. To do Mr. Stowe justice, he had acted against his own beliefs, but he was only an inferior officer in the direction of the paper. Its owner, he well knew, was a man of violent temper and fixed convictions. When he saw the Despatch Mr. Stowe knew that the vials of his wrath would be emptied and that Billy would have had to leave in any event. And so subsequent events proved, for the next day, when Billy’s immediate discharge was angrily demanded by the Planet’s owner, he was informed by his managing editor that the boy had left of his own free will.

“He resigned last night rather than have any suspicion directed toward him,” said Mr. Stowe; “but, you mark my words, the boy will right himself.”

“Nonsense, Stowe, he sold us out,” said the owner bitterly; “sold us out cold and nothing will ever make me alter my conviction.”

“Except Billy Barnes himself,” said Stowe softly, and lit a cigar, which he puffed at with great energy.

When he had learned that Reade was doing aviation for the Despatch the managing editor’s mind was crossed for a brief minute with suspicion that here might be the traitor. But he dismissed it—was compelled to, in fact. To his mind it would have been an impossibility for Reade to have heard the conversation in which the offer was discussed.

In the meantime both papers continued to work up their $50,000 offers, until there was actually developed a keen and bitter rivalry between them. One morning the Despatch would announce the entry of some prominent aviator in its cross-country contest, and the next the Planet would be out with its announcement of a new contestant added to its ranks. The public appetite was whetted to a keen pitch by the various moves.

Crawford, the man who had taken Billy Barnes’ place on the Planet, was a skilled writer, and an excellent man to work up such a story as the cross-continental challenge. It was he who first broached to Stowe the idea of flinging down the gauntlet to the Despatch and inviting that paper to start its contestants on the same day as those of the Planet, the winner to take the prizes of both papers. This would give the struggle tremendous added interest, and attract worldwide attention, he argued.

While events were thus shaping themselves with the Planet and the Despatch, Billy Barnes had visited his friends, the Boy Aviators, and told them, with a rueful face, of his misfortune.

His manner of so doing was characteristic. A few days after he had left the newspaper he called on them at their work shop. To his surprise he found there old Eben Joyce, the inventor whom Luther Barr had treated so shabbily in the matter of the Buzzard aeroplane of which Joyce was the creator—as told in The Boy Aviators’ Treasure Quest; or, The Golden Galleon.

Joyce and the two boys were busied over the Golden Eagle when Billy arrived, adjusting a strange-looking mechanism to it, consisting of a boxed flywheel of glittering brass encased in a framework of the same metal. It seemed quite a heavy bit of apparatus, withal so delicately balanced, that it adjusted itself to every movement of its frame. A second glance showed Billy that it was a gyroscope.

The boys and the aged inventor were so deeply interested in examining the bit of machinery that they did not hear Billy come in, and it was not till he hailed them with a cheery:

“Come down from the clouds, you fellows!” that they turned with a shout of recognition.

“Why, hullo, Billy Barnes!” they cried, “what are you after now? If you want an aeroplane story here’s a good one—a new adjustable gyroscopic appliance for attachment to aeroplanes which renders them stable in any shifting wind currents.”

“It’s a jim-dandy,” enthusiastically cried Harry.

“But it’s a story you can’t use,” added Frank, “because the appliance, which is the invention of Mr. Joyce—has not yet been fully patented. He has been good enough to let us try it out.”

“It looks fine,” said Billy, who knew about as much about gyroscopes as a cat knows of the solar system; “but you needn’t worry about my printing anything about it, Frank. You see, I’m fired,” he added simply.

“Fired?” cried Frank.

“Well, about the same thing—I resigned, as a matter of fact,” explained Billy ruefully; “but it all amounts to the same in the long run.”

“Sit down and tell us about it,” commanded Frank, genuinely concerned at his friend’s evident dejection.

Seated on an upturned box, which had contained batteries, Billy related his story, omitting nothing. On his suspicions of Reade, however, he touched lightly.

“You see, I’ve got nothing on the fellow,” he explained, “and although I’m convinced that he gave our plan away to the Despatch, yet I’ve got nothing to base it on.”

“That’s so,” Frank and Harry were compelled to admit.

The three friends spent an hour or so chatting, and then Mr. Joyce, who had been tinkering with his aeroplane attachment quite oblivious to their talk, announced that he would have to be going home. He had some work to do on another invention that evening, he explained.

“Well, say, as we’ve been stuffing in here almost all day and it’s warm enough to be mighty uncomfortable, what do you say if we take a little spin out in the auto. We can give Mr. Joyce a ride home,” exclaimed Frank.

“The very thing,” agreed Harry.

Old Mr. Joyce was nothing loath to be spared the long ride in a train to his home in the outskirts of Jersey City. As for Billy Barnes, he was delighted at the idea.

Accordingly, half an hour later the Chester boys’ auto rolled on board one of the ferryboats which ply across the North River to Jersey City. The boat had hardly reached midstream before they were aware of another car almost opposite to them in the space set apart for autos in the centre of the boat. Before five minutes had passed they also noticed that they were the object of close scrutiny on the part of one of the occupants of the machine. He was a tall youth with dark hair and eyes, and as soon as he observed that he was attracting their attention he at once withdrew his gaze.

Billy Barnes, who had been “stretching his legs” by a stroll on the stern deck of the ferryboat as she made her way across the river, rejoined the others just as the boat was pulling into her slip.

“Hullo!” he exclaimed as the autos rolled over the apron and onto the wharf, “there’s Fred Reade.”

He indicated the occupant of the other car, who seemed to have taken so much interest in the Chester boys and Eben Joyce, their aged companion.

CHAPTER IV.
THIEVES IN THE NIGHT.

The other occupants of the auto were a man with a heavy red beard and a nervous, alert little man whom Billy said was an aviator named Slade.

“That’s queer to see Reade over here. I wonder what he can be doing,” said Billy, as the two autos left the shed and emerged into the street.

Neither of the boys could, of course, hazard a guess, but had they known it the mission of the reporter who had betrayed the Planet was more nearly concerned with them than they imagined. The car in which Reade was seated seemed a more powerful machine than the one the boys occupied and it soon left them behind. They thought no more of the chance encounter and soon arrived at the home of Eben Joyce, a comfortable cottage on the heights overlooking the “meadows” on one side and the North river on the other.

They were greeted by the inventor’s daughter, who seemed much disturbed.

“Oh, I am so glad you have come!” she exclaimed, after she had invited the little party in.

“Why, what has happened?” asked Frank.

“I will tell you,” she said, while they all leaned forward deeply interested. “This afternoon I was called to the door by a man in ragged clothes who begged me for something to eat. My father has told me never to let anyone go away hungry, so I told the servant to give the man some food. I thought no more of the matter till, on looking out of the window, I saw the man who had asked for charity going toward the old barn out there that my father used as a workshop.”

Old Mr. Joyce became greatly excited. It was evident he feared some harm had come to his collection of scientific instruments and plans for inventions which he housed there for lack of room in the house.

“Yes, yes, go on,” he exclaimed, quivering with agitation.

“He was fumbling with the lock when I looked up and saw him. I shouted to him to know what he was doing. His reply was to instantly stop what he was at and run toward the front of the house. I opened the door just in time to see him leap into an automobile in which were two other men, and they drove off.”

“A tramp in an automobile; that’s funny,” commented Frank.

“Indeed it is. In fact, I recollect thinking at the time that he asked me for food that his manner was too refined to be that of a genuine tramp.”

“What did he look like?” asked Harry.

“He was tall and had a big red beard. That is all I am able to recollect of him.”

“Sounds like the man we saw in Reade’s auto,” exclaimed Harry.

“Can Fred Reade have anything to do with this mysterious happening?” asked Billy.

“Eh, say that name again, young man,” demanded the inventor, who was, besides being often preoccupied, somewhat deaf and so had not heard Billy mention the other’s name when they were in the auto.

“I said Fred Reade,” rejoined Billy. “Why, do you know him?”

“I do, and I know no good of him,” was the reply. “It was he that first approached me in connection with the sale of the Buzzard to Luther Barr and——”

“Luther Barr again. We seem to cross his trail all the time,” exclaimed Frank.

“Eh?” questioned the old man, his hand at his ear, trumpet-wise.

“I said we have heard of Luther Barr before, as you know,” said Frank, “but you never mentioned the fact that Reade had acted for him.”

“It must have slipped my mind in the excitement,” explained the old man. “Yes, Fred Reade has acted for Barr in many matters that I know of.”

“A sort of agent of his,” said Billy.

“More than that,” rejoined old Eben Joyce; “there is some mysterious tie between them. I think Reade knows something about Luther Barr that the other is afraid will come out.”

“How is that?” asked Frank.

“I don’t know, but such is my impression. At the time of the negotiation for the Buzzard Reade treated Barr as an equal more than if he were employed by him.”

It had grown dusk by this time and Eben Joyce’s daughter lit the lamp and set it down on the cottage table. As she did so there came a loud roar of an approaching motor car down the quiet street and the next moment through the gathering gloom a big auto approached the cottage. As it neared it it slowed down. They all went out on the porch to see who could be driving a car down that little frequented street. It was not very light, but as the car drew nearer Frank recognized it.

“That’s Fred Reade’s auto,” he cried.

But if the boys imagined that they were to get any solution of the car’s mysterious appearance they were mistaken. As it neared the house, and the group on the porch must have been plainly visible to its occupants, the big car suddenly leaped forward and shot away into the darkness.

“What did they do that for?” asked Billy.

“I guess they saw so many if us here that they thought it would be more prudent to stay away,” suggested Frank.

“What can they be after?” wondered Harry.

“The blue prints of my gyroscopic attachment and possibly my experimental machine itself,” declared the inventor, “though if they had the blue prints they could easily manufacture them themselves. Reade has been after me to sell them.”

“That is so,” mused Frank; “undoubtedly such prints would be of great value to them.”

“Will you do something for me?” inquired old Eben Joyce, suddenly.

“Of course,” rejoined Frank; “what is it?”

“Will you take charge of my blue prints for me. It is lonely here and I am old and my daughter unprotected. In case they attacked us in the night we should have little opportunity to keep the prints from them. I would feel quite secure if you had them in your possession, however.”

Frank readily agreed to this, adding that he would place them in a safe deposit vault.

“I shall rest much easier if you would,” said the old inventor. “Bad as they are, I don’t think the men would hurt us; all they are after is the plans and I really dare not have them about here another night.”

It was an hour later when, with the plans safely tucked away in an inside pocket of Frank’s coat, the boys started back for town.

“If you feel at all nervous we will telephone home and stay here with you,” Frank offered before they left.

“Oh, not at all,” exclaimed old Joyce, who was already busy figuring a new problem. “I have a revolver and I will communicate with the police about my fears. I shall be all right.”

With hearty good nights the boys’ car swung off, its headlights glowing brightly. They sped along through the outskirts of Jersey City and were about to leave the lonely, badly-lighted section through which they had been passing when suddenly a figure stepped full into the path of light cast ahead of them.

The sudden apparition of the night was waving a red lantern.

“Stop! there’s danger ahead!” it shouted.

“Danger, what sort of danger?” asked Frank, nevertheless bringing the car to a stop.

“Why, there’s an excavation ahead. Ah! that’s right, you’ve stopped. Now then, young gentlemen, just step out of the petroleum phaeton and fork over the contents of your pockets.”

“What, you rascal, are you holding us up?” cried Billy indignantly, as the man pointed a revolver at them.

“Looks that way, doesn’t it?” grinned the other. “Come on now, shell out and hurry up.”

As he spoke three other figures glided from the shadows of an untenanted house near by and silently took up their positions a short distance beyond him. They were out of the path of the auto’s lights and their faces could not be seen. The light glinted on something that each held in his hand, however, and which were clearly enough revolvers. Things looked pretty blue for the Boy Aviators.

The sudden turn events had taken almost bereft Frank of his wits for a minute, but suddenly it flashed across him that the man who had waved the lantern did not talk like an ordinary robber and that it was remarkable that the others took so much trouble to keep out of the light. The next instant his suspicions were confirmed by hearing the voice of the first comer snap out:

“Which one of you has got them gyroscope plans?”

Frank’s reply was startling. Without uttering a word he suddenly drove the machine full speed ahead.

It leaped forward like a frightened wild thing.

As it dashed ahead it bowled over the would-be robber, but that he was not seriously hurt the boys judged by the volley of bad language he sent after them. As for the others, as the car made its leap they had stepped nimbly aside.

“Look out for the excavation. Frank; we’ll be in it!” shouted Billy in an alarmed voice as the car rushed forward.

“Why, there’s no excavation, Billy,” rejoined Frank, bending over the steering wheel. “That was just a bluff on the part of those men, of whom, if I am not much mistaken, Fred Reade was one.”

CHAPTER V.
THE BOYS DECIDE.

Their strange experience of the preceding night was naturally the topic of the day with the boys the next morning. That Fred Reade was concerned in it there seemed no reason to doubt, though just what part he had played was more shadowy. A perusal of the two newspapers, the Planet and the Despatch, the next day, however, gave the boys an inkling of one of his motives for his desperate attempt—if, indeed, it had been engineered by him—to gain possession of the Joyce gyroscope. This was the announcement that the two papers had agreed to start their contestants off in a spirit of rivalry by naming the same day for the start and imposing exactly the same conditions, the prizes to be lumped. Among other things in the Despatch’s article the boys read that Slade, the noted aviator, was an entrant.

“Mr. Reade,” the paper stated, “will accompany Mr. Slade as the correspondent of this newspaper. He will ride in an automobile which will carry supplies and emergency tools and equipment. Every step of the trip will be chronicled by him.”

There was more to the same effect, but the boys had no eyes for it after their sight lighted on the following paragraph:

“Those remarkable and precocious youths, the Boy Aviators, are, of course, not equipped for such a contest as this, requiring, as it does, an excess of skill and knowledge of aviation. A noted aviator of this city, in speaking of the fact that they have not entered their names, remarked that boys are not calculated to have either the energy or the pluck to carry them through an enterprise like the present.”

“That’s Fred Reade, for a bet,” exclaimed Billy, as he read the insulting paragraph. “He’s crazy sore at you and everyone else beside his sweet self. I suppose he wrote that just to make himself disagreeable.”

“Moreover, he knows in some mysterious way that we have the first option on the Joyce gyroscope,” put in Harry, “and maybe he wouldn’t give his eyes to get it for the principal Planet contestant.”

“He’s certainly shown that,” said Frank. “I’ve heard of the Slade machine, and it is reputed to be a wonder. In whatever way Reade heard that we had the gyroscope, there is little doubt that he realizes that fitted with it the Slade plane might win the race.”

“And there’s another reason,” burst out Billy Barnes. “You see now that the two papers have agreed to run the race off together it eliminates the two prizes, and according to the conditions both will be massed and awarded to the winner.”

“Well?” questioned Frank.

“Well,” repeated Billy, continuing, “this means that if Reade has been backing Slade to win the Despatch contest, and there is little doubt he has—now that the two contests are massed if Slade has a better man on the Planet’s list pitted against him the Planet man may win, and then Reade gets nothing.”

“You mean that Slade was almost certain to win the Despatch’s race—that the $50,000 was as good as won with the class of contestants he had against him before the two offers were massed?” asked Frank.

Billy nodded. “And that now, for all they know, the Planet may have some dark horse who will beat Slade and get the combined prize?”

“Precisely, as Ben Stubbs would say,” laughed Billy.

“It would serve them right for the mean trick they tried to play on us by attempting to steal the gyroscope plans if we were to enter in the race at the last moment and be the Planet’s dark horses.” mused Frank.

“Oh, Frank, do you mean that?” shouted Billy.

“I haven’t said I mean anything, you wild man,” laughed Frank, “but inasmuch as my father was talking of going to Los Angeles—you know he has some orange groves out there—I’ve been thinking that we might combine business with pleasure and take a trip to California by aeroplane.”

“Then you’ll do it,” eagerly demanded Billy. As for Harry, he was so entranced at the idea that he was capering about the room like an Indian.

“I think that it is almost certain that we will not,” teased Frank.

“Not what?” groaned Billy.

“Not be able to resist the temptation of going.”

At this point a maid entered the room with a telegram.

“This is for you,” she said, holding it out to Frank.

Frank tore it open and his face flushed angrily as he read its contents. He handed it to the others. The message was not signed, but even so the boys all guessed who it was from.

“You got away from us by a neat trick last night,” it read, “but puppies like you cannot balk us. Men are in this race, not boys, so keep your hands off it.”

“I suppose he means by that, as we are not contestants, we have no right to interfere with their attempts to steal the gyroscope attachment for themselves,” exclaimed Frank. “That’s a fine line of reasoning.”

“That telegram ought to decide us,” burst out Harry.

“It certainly ought to,” chimed in Billy.

At that minute the Chester boys’ father entered the room.

“What are you boys all so excited about?” he asked.

“What would you say if we joined you in Los Angeles?” asked Frank.

“What do you mean? I don’t quite understand,” said Mr. Chester, puzzled in spite of himself, though he knew the boys’ sudden determination to have adventures and suspected that something of the kind was in the wind now.

“If we flew to California, for instance,” said Frank.

“Flew there,” repeated Mr. Chester. “My dear boy, how could you do that?”

“In the Golden Eagle, of course,” exclaimed Harry.

“But—but what for?” questioned the amazed Mr. Chester.

“For a hundred thousand dollars,” put in Billy.

“You mean for that newspaper prize?”

The boys nodded.

“I don’t like the idea of your entering a contest of that character,” said Mr. Chester; “there is a great deal of danger, too.”

“No more than we have been through,” remonstrated Frank; “besides, think of the experience. Why, we would fly over a dozen states.”

“A dozen—fifty, at least,” cried Billy, with a fine disregard for geography.

“But how would you go? How long would it take you?” demanded their father.

“I haven’t figured out just the time we would consume,” said Frank, “but I have a rough idea of our route. The object, of course, would be to avoid any big mountain chains, although if we have our Joyce automatic adjuster I think we could manage even those cross currents with ease. But this is to be a race and we want to get there first. The newspaper route is from here to Pittsburg, from there to Nashville, crossing the Ohio and Cumberland rivers, thence, due west almost, across the northern part of Arkansas, Oklahoma, the Texas Panhandle, New Mexico, Arizona and then across California to San Francisco.”

“Hurrah,” cried Billy, his eyes shining. “Indians, cowboys, gold mines and oranges.”

When the laugh at the jumbled series of images the mention of the different states Frank had enumerated aroused in Billy’s mind had died down Mr. Chester wanted to know how the boys were going to carry their supplies.

“Well,” said Frank, “as you are going to California and leaving the car behind we thought that perhaps you wouldn’t mind letting us use it. We will be very careful——”

“Oh, very,” repeated Harry.

“Most,” supplemented Billy.

Mr. Chester laughed.

“I never saw such boys,” he said, “but even supposing you had the automobile—I say supposing you had it, could you carry enough supplies in it for the aeroplane?”

“I am sure we could,” Frank asserted. “You see, automobiles are in such general use nowadays that it would only be in the desolate parts of the western states that we should have to carry a large supply of gasolene. Almost every village nowadays has it in stock.”

“You seem to have the whole thing thought out,” laughed Mr. Chester.

“It will be the trip of a lifetime,” shouted Harry.

“Well, I shall have to consult with your mother,” was Mr. Chester’s dictum.

Mrs. Chester objected very much at first to her sons’ plan.

“You are always going off on dangerous trips. I do wish you’d spend a little time at home,” she said.

But the boys assured her they would be very careful and would keep constantly in touch with their parents by telegraph and not take any unwarranted risks.

“Well, I suppose I shall have to yield,” said Mrs. Chester at length.

“Hurrah!” cried the boys.

And thus it came about that one week before the big race across the continent was due to start the names of the Chester Boys were enrolled on the Planet’s lists as contestants.

CHAPTER VI.
OFF FOR SAN FRANCISCO.

The final touches had been put on the Golden Eagle and she had been transported to Governor’s Island off the Battery four days later. The start for the great transcontinental race was to be made from the flats at the southern end of the reservation. The boys discovered that as the day of the race drew nearer that the list of entrants had narrowed down to three. There was their own aeroplane, the Slade entry of the Despatch, and a big dirigible which had also been entered by the Despatch. This left them the sole representative of the Planet. Of the large number of original entrants, some of them had become discouraged. Others’ machines had been broken in practice and still others were convinced, as the starting day drew near, that it would be impracticable to make the long flight.

“Well, the contest is certainly narrowed down,” commented Frank one day while they were all seated in front of their shed watching the Despatch’s plane alight from a flight it had taken above the Jersey meadows.

“I’m glad of it,” said Harry; “the fewer there are in the race the easier it will be to avoid collisions and accidents.”

After his attempt to steal the plans of Mr. Joyce’s gyroscopic balancer the boys heard no more of Fred Reade in a hostile way. Of course, they did not speak, and Reade cast black looks at them as he came and went on his frequent visits to the aerodrome of Arthur Slade. However, his active antagonism seemed to have ceased. Probably he was too busy arranging the final details of the start to be able to spare the time to make himself unpleasant.

The big dirigible, a red painted affair with a crimson gas bag, was also housed on the island. So great was public interest that the little Government steamer that brought visitors over from the mainland was crowded down to her guards with the curious who had obtained passes to see the racing machines.

For her dash overland the Golden Eagle had been equipped with her wireless. An outfit of Frank’s invention had also been installed in the automobile which was to carry old Mr. Joyce, Lathrop Beasley and Billy Barnes. Lathrop was an expert operator and the boys hoped to be able to keep in constant touch with each other by means of the apparatus. Mr. Joyce, it had been agreed, was to accompany the expedition as mechanic. His skilled knowledge of aeroplane engines and construction was expected to prove invaluable in case of the breakdowns which the boys knew they must expect on such a voyage.

At last the night came when the red flag with a white ball in the center, which meant the racing ships would start the next day, was run up on the tall flagstaff at the army post. The boys could hardly sleep for excitement and lay awake till late talking over final details. It was agreed that the auto was to “pick up” the aeroplane as it flew over Jersey City. From that time on they would keep in touch by wireless or telegraph all the way across the country, the auto carrying extra supplies, machinery parts and gasolene.

The Despatch’s aeroplane was also to be followed by an auto in which Fred Reade was to be a passenger, as was also the red-bearded man whose identity was a mystery to the boys. The red dirigible drivers, not being able to afford an auto, had had to depend on luck for gasoline and other supplies en route, although they could carry a good load.

The day of the start dawned fair and still. The bay lay an unruffled sheet of gray water. The flag drooped on its flagstaff. It was ideal flying weather. All the aviators on the island were up early and working over their machines. There were joints to be tightened, stay wires to be carefully inspected, oiling devices to adjust and engines to be turned. This work was impeded a lot by the inquisitive crowds who began to arrive on the first boat.

A detachment of soldiers was finally set to work roping off a space in which, as the time for the start drew near, the air ships were “parked.” This relieved the situation and the boys could work unhampered. Billy Barnes, Lathrop and Mr. Joyce started for Jersey early.

“Good luck!” shouted the boys, as they rolled on to the boat in their big auto.

“So long, see you after dinner,” cried Billy with a merry wave of the hand.

The boys’ parents, relatives and groups of their school friends had come over to see them off, and when the hard and dirty work was finished the boys had their hands full explaining to their young friends all about the Golden Eagle.

At last the bugle that announced that it was half an hour before starting time sounded. An electric wave of enthusiasm ran through the crowd. Over in the city windows of skyscrapers began to fill with men and women anxious to watch the contestants shoot into the air. On ferry boats and roofs all along the water front thousands of eyes were watching.

“Are you all ready?”

It was General Stanton, commander of the Department of the East, who had consented to start the race, who spoke.

“Yes,” came in a shout from the aviators.

The dirigible men began to cast off ropes and the aeroplanes were dropped into position. A squad of men drove back the pressing crowds, and the boys, after kissing their parents and bidding farewell to their relatives and friends, took their seats in the Golden Eagle’s chassis.

There was a mighty roar and blue flames and smoke spouted from the engine exhausts as the motors were started. Men, with their heels dug into the sandy ground to avoid slipping, held back the struggling planes. The dirigible swayed and tugged at her resting ropes like an impatient horse.

“Bang!”

It was the starting gun at last.

“Hurrah!” roared the crowd.

“They’re off!” shouted everybody, as if there could be any doubt of it.

“They’re off!” shouted everybody.

Like mighty birds the two aeroplanes swept swiftly forward a few yards over the level ground and then headed out far above the river toward the Jersey shore. The big dirigible, its engine droning like an enormous scarab beetle, followed, keeping well up with the speedy winged craft.

From thousands of windows, banked with white faces, handkerchiefs and flags waved and from the roofs of the office buildings housing the Planet and Despatch plants bombs were exploded at regular intervals to spread the news broadcast that the race had begun. In the offices of the evening papers the great presses were already rushing out “Extras” telling of the start. Soon newsboys in the canyon-like streets of lower New York would be crying their wares.

Every pilot of every boat on the river pulled his whistle cord and tied it down as the air craft swept far above. The uproar was literally ear-splitting. Owing to the roar of their engines, however, the aviators heard little of the turmoil which they caused.

In a few minutes Jersey City, which had gone just as airship mad as New York, was reached. On swept the high-flying craft above its crowded roofs and bellowing factory whistles. Far beneath them they could see the flat green expanse of the meadows beyond with the silver paths marked on them by the Hackensack and Passaic rivers. As they flew onward and left the city far behind the boys could spy on the road beneath them the two convoying autos.

All at once the wireless began to crackle.

“They are sending up a message,” exclaimed Harry.

“Great start—good work—we’ll beat them all to a frazzle,” was the message the spark spelled out.

“Thank you, let’s hope so,” replied Harry.

The course had been marked on maps that both the Boy Aviators and their companions had handy for reference. From the autos, too, flew red and blue flags, which made identification easy. At night the Boy Aviators’ auto was to burn red lights. The signal that a good landing place was at hand would be flashed upward at night by a blue flare. Of course, if it was necessary to alight in the daytime the occupants of the Golden Eagle would be able to spy such spots far below them more readily than anyone driving on the surface.

The engine was working perfectly as the Golden Eagle rushed onward. Its steady song delighted the young voyagers. Harry, with watchful eyes, looked after the lubrication, while Frank kept the craft steady on her course. On and on they flew, the autos beneath seeming specks in clouds of dust. The dirigible was about two miles behind and the Despatch’s aeroplane was a short distance in front of it. The boys, therefore, had a good lead.

“That’s a good start. We’re beating them already,” exclaimed Harry.

Frank smiled.

“Two miles isn’t much in a race of this length,” he remarked. “We’ve only started, Harry. We’ll have lots of ups and downs before we’ve finished.”

How prophetic his words were neither of the boys realized at that time.

CHAPTER VII.
ABOVE THE EARTH.

As it grew dusk the boys found themselves flying high above a pleasant wooded country, dotted here and there with small villages and prosperous looking farms. From their lofty station they could see men and women rush out below them waving their arms in excited amazement as the contestants in the big race swept along. Cattle and horses, too, tore about their pastures mad with terror at what they doubtless thought were terrible destroying birds of enormous size.

Occasionally, too, they would fly above rivers and railroads and by noting these carefully they managed to keep their bearings clear. The Despatch aeroplane was now far behind and the dirigible had taken up second place. The auto had been lost sight of also.

“Send out a wireless. We must locate Billy and the others,” said Frank.

The instrument clicked off the message, its blue spark leaping and crackling across the gap like a tongue of living fire.

In a few minutes a reply came back.

“We are now passing Cresston, Pennsylvania. Land and wait for us at Remson. You can tell it by its red brick church tower.”

“There it is off there to the north about five miles,” cried Harry, pointing to where a tall red tower stood out against the sky.

“I hope we can find a good landing place there,” said Frank, setting his rudder over a bit. The airship answered like an obedient steed. Round to the north she swung, her gyroscopic balancing device keeping her from heeling over, even at the sharp angle at which Frank guided her round.

As they drew near Remson the greatest excitement prevailed. People could be seen scurrying out in all directions and pointing upward. Suddenly a deep-toned “ding-dong” was borne upward to the young sky navigators.

“They are ringing the church bell to announce our arrival,” cried Frank.

“Well, I hope they’ve got supper ready for us,” laughed Harry; “air-riding gives me an appetite like a horse.”

A few hundred yards from the center of the town was a flat green field which made an ideal landing place. Frank swept downward toward it and as the townsfolk saw that the aeroplane was going to drop there was a mighty rush of townsfolk. The road leading to the field was black with them. The younger ones climbed fences and cut across lots to get there in time.

Frank saw that unless they got out of the way there was going to be trouble. He shouted to them to clear a path, but either from stupidity or from ignorance of aeroplanes they stood stolidly gazing upward, open mouthed, as the aeroplane rushed down.

“Out of the way!” yelled Frank.

“Hurray!” cried the people, not budging an inch.

There was only one thing to do to avoid injuring someone and that was to attempt to land at the further end of the field where there were some trees. This meant a risk of smashing the Golden Eagle or at least damaging her, but if loss of life was to be avoided it was the only course to pursue.

With a ripping, rending sound, as the twigs and branches grazed her, the big plane dropped to earth.

There was a sharp, snapping sound, as her landing wheels struck the ground. A branch had caught one of the rudder-guide wires and torn it out, breaking a pulley wire. Worse still, one of the wheels was badly damaged. But the crowd minded none of this. They rushed in and began handling the aeroplane, pulling wires and twisting wheels and levers, till the boys began to despair of ever getting their craft away from Remson intact.

All at once, however, a big red-faced man appeared and began angrily driving the people back. He was the owner of the field, it seemed, and was dressed like a farmer. When by dint of threatening them with the constable he had succeeded in getting the crowd to fall back to a respectful distance, he began to ply the boys with questions.

They were too busy examining the damage done to their craft to answer many of them, and the man doubtless thought them a very surly pair of youths.

In a few minutes the auto drove up and there was more excitement.

“What’s happened?” asked Billy, as soon as the three occupants of the car reached the boys’ side.

“A bit of bad luck,” said Frank, straightening up from his scrutiny of the damage.

“Let me look at it, boys,” said old Mr. Joyce, who had spent the whole trip over his beloved calculations.

He crawled in under the plane, and soon emerged again, shaking his head.

“We’ll have to get a new wheel,” he said. “If I had wire, a tire and tools, I could invent one, but I haven’t.”

“But where can we get one?” gasped Harry, for spare wheels were one of the necessities the boys had forgotten to put in the auto.

“A bicycle wheel would do,” said Mr. Joyce, who was seated on the grass designing an improved mousetrap.

Inquiry developed the fact that nobody in Remson was willing to sell a bicycle wheel, and the boys were almost in despair until one of the villagers volunteered the information that there was a bicycle factory at Tottenville, twenty miles away.

“We’ll have to go over there in the auto. That’s the only thing to do,” announced Frank.

“Looks like it,” agreed the others.

An arrangement was made with the red-faced man whereby the boys leased a bit of his field for a camping-place for the night, and the waterproof tent was soon erected, the portable cots set up, and the blue-flame stove started going under a liberal supply of ham and eggs and coffee. Lathrop went into the village and soon returned with pie and cakes. The boys’ meal was rather a public one, for the villagers seemed hypnotized by the sight of the sky boys, and gazed stolidly at them as they ate, as if there was something as wonderful in that as in their flights.

While they were eating, a farmer, who had driven into town from a small village some miles away, announced that the dirigible and the Despatch aeroplane had landed there.

“Well, we are holding our lead, anyway,” remarked Harry cheerfully.

“I hope we can maintain it as far as Pittsburg,” said Frank, for, of course, all the contestants had to race over the prescribed course.

As soon as supper had been despatched the boys got into the auto, leaving old Mr. Joyce to guard the aeroplane, and, after making inquiries about the road, started off for Tottenville. The road was a straight one, and there was a bright, full moon, so they did not anticipate any difficulty in arriving at their destination. Before they started Frank ’phoned to the factory, and an assortment of wheels was left for them in charge of the watchman, as the factory would be closed for the night long before they could reach there.

Frank sent the auto bounding over the road at a fast clip. Their lights shone brightly in front of them, showing them the track for some distance ahead.

“Look there!” suddenly shouted Lathrop, as they swept down a steep hill.

Directly in the road in front of them the headlights revealed a big, lumbering hay-wagon, loaded high with its sweet-smelling burden.

“Hey, get out of the road!” shouted Frank at the top of his voice.

But the man on the wagon seemed to be asleep. Anyway he paid no attention to the boys’ loud hail, but kept serenely on in the middle of the road. His big lumbering wagon quite prohibited all chance of passing him.

“Stop the machine,” cried Harry.

Frank shoved on the emergency brake. But instead of the auto coming to a stop there was a sharp snap as if something had broken.

“It’s busted,” cried Frank. “I can’t stop the car.”

“Now we are in for it,” exclaimed Harry.

On rushed the auto, gathering speed as it tore down the hill.

Suddenly the man on the hay-wagon awoke, and, looking back to ascertain the cause of all the noise behind him, saw the car bearing down on him.

“Stop it!” he shouted.

“I can’t!” yelled back Frank.

“Oh, we’ll all be killed,” cried Lathrop.

But the man was shouting something and pointing ahead.

“What’s he saying?” asked Billy through his chattering teeth.

“He says if we don’t stop we’ll all be killed. There’s a bridge ahead and only room for one vehicle on it.”

As Frank spoke, the boys saw the bridge, a narrow, wooden affair. The road widened a particle just before it reached the bridge. The arch spanned a quite wide creek, the water in which sparkled brightly in the moonlight. Dumb with alarm the boys sat helplessly in the onrushing auto. Frank gripped the wheel and desperately cast about for some way to get out of the difficulty.

Suddenly he almost gave a shout. To one side of the bridge he saw that the banks of the stream were low and sloped gently. It might be possible to run the auto across the stream that way.

At any rate he decided to try.

As the auto reached the point at which the road widened, the boy swung the speeding machine over and whizzed by the wagon so closely that wisps of hay clung to the auto’s side.

But the lead horses—there were four of them—blocked access to the bridge.

The next minute there was a shout of alarm from the boys, as they saw that Frank meant to dash across the stream. The auto struck the bank, seemed to bound into the air, and then crashed down into the water with a force that threw a cloud of spray high above it and thoroughly drenched its occupants.

But to Frank’s great joy the machine did not overturn, nor did it seem damaged, as it kept right on through the water, which, luckily, was not deep, and dashed up the other bank. Here Frank managed to get it under control—as the opposite side of the creek was a steep grade—and the car came to a stop with a grunt and a groan.

“Gee whilikens, I thought you was all killed for sure,” exclaimed the badly frightened countryman, as he drove up to the group of boys, who were out of their car by this time and busily examining the extent of the accident to the emergency brake.

“It wasn’t your fault we weren’t,” blurted out the indignant Billy. “You are a fine driver to go to sleep like that.”

“Don’t you sass me, young feller,” roared the countryman; “what business have you got to be flying around the roads in that choo-choo cart and scaring folks out of their wits?”

“Just as much as you have to be occupying the whole road and going to sleep like that,” retorted Billy.

“I’ve a good mind to give you a licking, young feller,” said the man, starting to climb down from his wagon. But he thought better of it, as he saw the four determined looking boys standing there in the moonlight.

“I’ll fix you later,” he muttered. “Git up, Sal; git up, Ned,” and he cracked his whip and the wagon rumbled on up the hill.

A short survey showed the boys that the damage done to the brake could be repaired with a few turns with the monkey-wrench, one of the bolts having worked loose. The adjustment made, they climbed back into the car, and were soon speeding once more toward Tottenville.

At the factory they found the watchman waiting for them, with several new wheels of the stoutest make.

“You’re in luck,” he said, as the boys paid for the one they selected and gave him something for his trouble besides. “This wheel was made for one of them air-ship bugs that lived in this town. He bruk his neck before it could be delivered, and it’s lain here ever since.”

The boys agreed that however unfortunate it had been for the luckless Tottenville aviator, it was good luck for them, and after thanking the man they started back for Remson at a fast clip.

As they bowled along they passed a ruinous looking hut, in which, late as was the hour, a light was burning.

“That’s funny,” said Frank.

“What’s funny?” inquired Billy.

“Why, to see a light burning in a tumble-down hut like that at such an hour. Folk in the country go to bed early as a rule; and see there, there’s an automobile in front of the house.”

Sure enough, a big touring car, with its lights burning brightly, was drawn up in front of the hut, which lay back at some distance from the road.

“It is queer,” agreed Harry.

As the boy spoke they all started at an unexpected happening.

From the hut there came a piercing cry of:

“Help!”

CHAPTER VIII.
BOY AVIATORS TO THE RESCUE.

“They are murdering some one in there!” cried Frank, bringing the car to a stop.

Indeed, the piercing cries indicated that some one was being maltreated, if not actually murdered.

“Come on, we’ll save him,” cried Harry, drawing his revolver, for all the boys had thought it best to carry arms on such a trip as they were undertaking.

“Be careful. We had better peek through that window first, and see with whom we have to deal before we announce our presence,” breathed Frank, as the boys tiptoed up the path.

“That’s a good idea,” agreed Billy. “There might be a lot of them and then we should have to get help.”

Cautiously they crept up the path and peered in at the window of the deserted hut. A strange scene met their eyes.

In one corner of the bare room a rugged man with a grizzled beard was tied hand and foot, while another man with a red-hot poker seemed about to burn his eyes out. His cries for help were pitiful.

His captors, however—for beside the man with the poker there were two other men in the room—seemed to have no pity for him. The man with the poker was exclaiming in a fierce voice:

“Sign the title to the mine or we will kill you,” as the boys peeked cautiously into the room, which was lighted by a lamp detached from the auto. On the tumble-down hearth the fire in which the poker had been heated smouldered.

The man with the poker had his back to the boys, but even about that there seemed something strangely familiar. The appealing words next uttered by the bound man soon apprised them with whom they had to deal.

“I will never do so, Luther Barr,” declared the victim in a trembling voice.

The boys all started with amazement at encountering their old enemy in such a surprising manner in this out-of-the-way hut at midnight.

“Your attempts to get the papers from me are of no use. Kill me if you must, but don’t torture me.”

“So you won’t tell where they are,” cried Barr angrily.

“I will not,” said his victim firmly.

“Then take that,” cried Barr, in a cruel tone.

The horrified boys saw him lunge forward with the red-hot iron. His victim gave a loud cry of pain as he felt the red-hot metal approach his eyes to burn them out; but even as Barr raised his arm Frank had decided what to do.

“Stop that!” he cried in a loud, clear voice.

As Frank had expected, this sudden interruption so startled the miscreants that they at once left their victim and started for the door. As they rushed toward the portal, Frank, with a cry of “Come on,” leaped through the window frame, from which the glass sash had long ago been broken, and followed by the others, was in the room the next instant.

“Quick, Harry; cut him loose,” he ordered, handing the other boy a big hunting knife.

It was only the work of a few seconds to free the man. But before the ropes had fallen from him Luther Barr and the two other men had rushed back from the door and made a dash at the boys.

“Stay where you are, Mr. Barr,” said Frank, leveling his revolver; “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“What, you interfering whelps, have you crossed my path again?” shouted Barr, who had recognized the boys instantly. “This time I’ll fix you for interfering with my plans.”

He suddenly whipped out a revolver and fired point-blank at Frank. The bullet whistled past the boy’s ears and buried itself behind him.

The next instant the room was plunged into sudden darkness. One of Luther Barr’s companions, in stepping backward to get a rifle that leaned against the wall, had knocked the light over.

“Quick, boys, run for the auto,” shouted Frank, taking advantage of this sudden diversion.

Before the others could recover their wits, the boys, half dragging the man they had rescued with them, reached the door, and the next minute were in their auto.

“Shoot at their tires,” they heard old Barr shout, as they whizzed off down the road.

A shower of bullets followed, some of which struck the tonneau. But none of the missiles, fortunately, either wounded them or hit the tires, in which latter case they would have had to come to a standstill.

Frank put on full speed, and with the start they already had they soon outdistanced the auto which held Barr and his two companions. It followed them for a short distance, however, old Barr shouting maledictions after them.

“Oh, how can I ever thank you boys?” exclaimed the rescued man, as he gratefully clasped Frank’s arm. “That terrible man, Luther Barr, would certainly have blinded, and perhaps killed me, if you had not arrived in time.”

“How did you come to get in his power?” asked Frank.

“It is a long story, young man, and begins in Arizona,” said the stranger; “but first, I must tell you my name is Bart Witherbee, and I am well known in the West as a prospector. I located a valuable mine, which seems abandoned, some time ago in the northern part of the state, and I have managed to keep the location a secret till I can file a formal claim to it. In some way the two men whom you saw with Barr to-night, and who are Hank Higgins and Noggy Wilkes, two bad men, and gamblers, heard of this. They formerly worked for Barr, who has mining property in Arizona. When they learned I was coming to New York to see my daughter, they came along, too, and informed Barr of what they knew about the valuable mine I had found. At that time I did not know Barr, and by these two men was tricked into meeting him on the pretense that he had some real estate he was willing to trade for mines in Arizona. I have other claims beside the one I located recently, and I thought I might trade one of them for some of Barr’s property in the East.

“You can imagine my consternation when we arrived out here to find myself in the hands of Hank Higgins and Noggy Wilkes. I tried to run, but they caught and tied me, and, as you saw, would have either killed me or maimed me for life if you hadn’t saved me.”

“What part of Arizona is your mine in?” asked Harry, deeply interested, as they all were, in the man’s narrative.

“It is near to a place called Calabazos, in the northern part of the state near the Black Cañon,” replied the man. “I want to let you boys have a share of it for what you have done for me to-night. It would be only a slight return.”

“Why, we are going near to Calabazos,” exclaimed Billy. “I noticed it on the map. It’s near the Black Cañon.”

“That’s right, young feller,” said the miner; “but what are you tenderfoots going to do out there?”

Frank explained about the transcontinental flight.

“Wow,” cried the westerner, “that’s going some, for fair. Well, boys, I’m going to get on the fastest train I can and get back to Calabazos, and file my claim, for you can call me a Chinese chop-stick if that thar Luther Barr isn’t going to camp on my trail till he finds where the mine is located.”

“I guess you are right,” remarked Frank. “Luther Barr won’t stop at anything when he starts out to accomplish a purpose.”

“Why, you talk as if you knew him,” exclaimed the astonished miner.

“Know him?” echoed Billy with a laugh. “I should say we do, eh, boys?”

The boys’ previous acquaintance with the unscrupulous old man was soon explained to Bart Witherbee, who interrupted the narrative at frequent intervals with whistles of astonishment and loud exclamations of, “Wall, I swan”; “Call me a jack-rabbit, now,” “If that don’t beat hunting coyotes with a sling-shot,” and other exclamations that seemed peculiar to himself.

“Wall, now, boys, you’ve got to have some part of that mine, if only for the sake of getting even with that old man.”

The boys tried to insist that they had no right to any of Witherbee’s property, but he was so insistent that finally they consented to visit the mine with him when they reached Calabazos, that is, if they were far enough ahead in the race to be able to spare a few hours.

Witherbee told them some of his history. He was the son of a stage-coach driver, who had been killed by robbers. The miner, after the murder, had been adopted by somebody whose name he could not recollect. It seemed that some years after his adoption he had been kidnapped by a traveling circus, and had sustained a severe blow on the head by falling from a high trapeze. This made him forget everything but his very early youth. After a while he escaped from the circus and joined a camp of miners. He had been a miner ever since.

“I’ve often thought I’d like to meet the man who cared for me when my father was killed,” he said, “fer he was good ter me, I remember. Sometimes I have a flash of memory and can almost recollect his name, but it always slips me at last. If he ever met me, though, he’d know me all right. See this?” He rolled up his sleeve and showed them a livid scar. “I was on the coach when it was attacked, and that’s a souvenir I got. They didn’t mean to hit me, it was just a stray bullet.”

“And your mother,” asked Frank, “is not she alive?”

“She was killed, too, the night the robbers attacked the stage,” said the miner softly. “She was sitting by my father when the attack came.”

They reached their camp without further incident, and found that Mr. Joyce had sat up for them and had a hot supper ready. That they did justice to the meal after their exciting adventures of the night, you may be sure. The meal disposed of, the adventurers turned in for a few hours of badly needed sleep.

“Our adventures seem to have begun with a vengeance,” sleepily remarked Billy Barnes, as he was dozing off.

“Do you think we shall see any more of Luther Barr?” asked Harry.

“It wouldn’t surprise me,” rejoined Frank. “He is not the kind of man not to seek vengeance for the rebuff we gave him to-night.”

CHAPTER IX.
LUTHER BARR FORMS AN ALLIANCE.

At daybreak Frank was out of his cot and after dashing cold water over himself—the liquid being carried from a clear stream in a neighboring field in a bucket he aroused his companions and breakfast was soon sending an appetizing odor into the air. The boys fell to with hearty appetites, and after leaving several telegrams and post cards to be forwarded to their friends and parents in New York, they started actively in on preparations for the resumption of their long journey. The new wheel was soon fitted, and found to answer perfectly. The broken wire was also soon adjusted.

The work had just been completed and the auto and aeroplane fed with fresh gasolene, lubricants and water when Witherbee, the miner, who had slept at a hotel in the village, came hurrying up.

“Call me a horn-toad of the sagebrush desert if here ain’t a go, boys!” he exclaimed.

The boys looked up at their new friend and saw that his face was pale and he looked dismayed.

“Whatever is the matter?” they demanded.

“Matter?” echoed the miner; “call me a gila monster if that there dod-gasted Barr and his companions ain’t stolen my pocketbook.”

“Did it have much money in it?” asked Frank in a sympathetic tone, for the poor miner’s distress was very real.

“Why, it had two hundred dollars. All I have till I can get back to Arizonee. Call me a doodelbug, if that ain’t tough luck.”

“It certainly is,” sympathized Harry; “perhaps we could lend you——”

“Not a cent,” broke in the miner. “Bart Witherbee ain’t borrowing money from kids. But if you’d give me a seat in that benzine buggy of yours I’ll be grateful to you for the rest of my life. Maybe I can help you, too, in the far west. You see, I know that country, and if we run into any bad Indians or cowboys, I can maybe be of some use to you.”

“That’s so,” agreed Frank; “do you think there would be room in the auto, Billy?”

“Sure,” replied the young reporter. “If there isn’t, we’ll make it. We can’t leave Bart Witherbee here penniless.”

“Say, boys, it was the luckiest day of my life when I struck you—call me a comical coyote, if it warn’t!” exclaimed the miner gratefully. “But I’ll make it all up to you when I locate my mine.”

The red-faced man from whom they had leased their camping-place readily agreed to take charge of their letters and telegrams. Indeed, any one in the crowd that gathered to see the start of the boy aviators on the second day of their long trip would have been willing to do anything for them in their enthusiasm over the daring young adventurers.

With a cheer from the crowd the auto bowled off first, vanishing down the road to the west in a cloud of dust. Hardly had it started when there was a loud whirring noise, and down the road came two other motor cars. In the first sat Fred Reade and the red-bearded man, who acted as his assistant, it seemed. In the other, to the boys’ amazement, rode Luther Barr and his two companions of the night before—the western gamblers. Apparently Barr and Reade were on friendly terms, for, as the two machines shot by, Reade turned back in the tonneau and shouted something to Barr, who answered with a wave of the hand.

“Hullo! That looks bad,” exclaimed Harry, as the cars shot by.

“What does?” asked Frank, who had been busy adjusting the engine, and had not seen the motor cars.

“Why, Reade and Barr seem to have joined forces. Depend upon it they are up to some mischief.”

Had the boys known that the night before Luther Barr and the two others had been guests at Reade’s camp, they would have had even more reason to feel apprehensive. In his chase after the Boy Aviators and Bart Witherbee, old Barr had mistaken the road and branched off down a side-track that soon brought him to Reade’s camp, where he and his companions were working over their aeroplane by kerosene flares. The old millionaire recognized Reade at once, stopped and hailed him.

Reade soon explained to him that he was in the aeroplane race as the representative of the Despatch. On Barr inquiring how he came to leave the Planet, Reade explained that his leaving was due to Billy Barnes.

“That interfering cub lost me my job,” he said angrily.

Old Barr was interested at once. Here was another enemy of the Boy Aviators. Perhaps it would be possible to join forces to harass them.

“I see you like the boys as little as I do,” he ventured cautiously.

“Like them,” exclaimed Reade angrily, “I hate them. I hope they lose this race. I mean to prevent them winning by fair means or foul, if I can.”

“Good,” was Barr’s reply; “that’s just the way I feel about it. Now I have a proposition to make to you.”

There followed a long conversation in low tones, the result of which was that old Barr agreed to accompany the Despatch’s party as far as Arizona and the mine, the location of which Witherbee was hiding. He had instantly made up his mind that Reade was a valuable ally.

“I am sure that Witherbee means to let those boys know where the mine is, and give them part of it,” he declared; “and if we can find it first, we can divide it among ourselves.”

Luther Barr had no intention of giving away any part of the mine if he found it. He wanted it all for himself. But he thought that to hold out such a tempting bait would make Reade an even more faithful ally. As for the reporter, he was delighted to have found an enemy of the Boy Aviators. He was a coward, and had been afraid that his party was too small to openly cause them much trouble. Now, however, he was highly pleased at the idea of traveling in such powerful company, and promised himself a “lot of fun with those young cubs.”

And so it came about that Luther Barr and the Despatch auto traveled in company when they broke camp the next morning.

The two autos had hardly passed down the road and out of sight when a shout from the crowd announced that the aeroplane of Arthur Slade was in sight.

“Come on, we’ve got no time to lose,” cried Frank, as he saw the rival aeroplane coming rapidly into view.

Both boys scrambled into their craft, and a moment later, amid a roar from the crowd, they shot upward. As they did so, Slade shot by. He was a powerfully built man, with a mean expression of countenance, and seemed to harbor a spite against the boys, doubtless because he did not like to be pitted against such youthful antagonists.

“I’ll win this race hands down,” he shouted, as he swept by.

As the boys’ aeroplane gathered velocity, however, they overhauled him, and all day the two air-craft fought it out desperately. There seemed to be little difference between them, and the boys resolved that they were in for the tussle of their lives if they meant to win the race. The dirigible hung doggedly on, about three miles in the rear. Her crew did not seem to be urging her. Doubtless they reasoned that in a race of such length it was a good plan to husband their resources and not urge their ship forward too fast.

“The gasolene is running low,” announced Harry, shortly after noon, “and we need some more oil.”

“All right; send out a wireless, and we’ll drop in a convenient place,” replied Frank.

The auto was some distance behind, but a reply to Harry’s message soon flashed back to the occupants of the aeroplane, and a few minutes after they had landed in a smooth, green meadow the auto came chugging up. The tank was replenished, and a hasty luncheon eaten. By this time both the rival aeroplane and the dirigible were out of sight. As the boys had seen nothing further of the autos occupied by Reade and Luther Barr, they concluded they must be traveling on another road—which was, in fact, the case.

“Aren’t you scared to let the other aeroplane get such a long lead?” asked Billy, as the boys made ready to resume their flight.

“They won’t get very far,” said Frank lightly. “You see, they will have to come down for fresh gasolene, just as we did. They have got an air-cooled engine, too, and if they run it too long it will get heated and stop, so that they will have to quit for a while, too.”

“How about the dirigible?”

“The only chance it has to win this race is for both the aeroplanes to break down,” said Harry. “We can pass it even if it got a twenty-mile lead.”

The Golden Eagle flew on during the afternoon without incident. It was getting toward sundown, and Frank was thinking of descending and camping for the night, when, as they were passing high above a spot where four cross-roads intersected, they spied below them the two autos of Barr and Reade drawn up near to the rival aeroplane, which, as Frank had said, had been compelled to come down to replenish her tanks.

Through his glasses Harry scrutinized the group. They were gathered about Slade’s aeroplane, and seemed to be discussing excitedly.

“I thought so,” said Harry, as he put the glasses back in their pocket at the side of the pilot house.

“Thought what?” asked Frank.

“Why, I guess there’s something the matter with their cylinders. Over-heated, I guess. They were pouring water on them when I looked through the glass.”

Hardly had he spoken when there was a singing sound in the air close by his ear. It was like the droning of a big June bug.

“Pretty high for a bug to be flying,” commented Harry.

“That wasn’t any bug, Harry,” contradicted Frank, “it was a bullet.”

“What! they are firing at us again?”

“Evidently.”

There came another whistling in the air, as a second projectile whizzed by.

“We ought to have them arrested,” exclaimed Harry indignantly.

“How are we to prove who fired the shots?” rejoined Frank.

He was right. At the time they whizzed by the aeroplane was over a clump of woods which effectually concealed from her occupants the identity of the wielder of the rifle. Barr’s party had evidently speeded their autos in under the trees and were firing from them. No more bullets came, however. Probably the shooters saw the futility of trying to get good aim through the thick foliage.

Camp that night was made beside a small river, in which Witherbee soon caught a fine mess of yellow perch. These, cooked with the old plainsman’s skill, made an agreeable variation from the usual camp fare, and were despatched by the hungry boys in an incredibly short time.

Of the other aeroplane they had seen nothing since they passed her in the afternoon.

“This means we get a good long lead,” rejoiced Frank.

But the boys were doomed to disappointment, for shortly before midnight the whirring noise of an engine was heard overhead, and, looking upward, the adventurers, awakened by Billy, who was on watch, saw a dark body pass overhead.

“It’s Slade’s machine!” cried Frank.

Shortly afterward the dirigible also went by, with several lights displayed about her decks. The boys shot up a ray of light from the searchlight on the auto, and were greeted by a cheer from the men on the dirigible.

“Well, if those fellows think they can steal a night march on us, we’ll fool ’em,” exclaimed Frank. “Here, Harry, let’s have a look at that map. I must lay out a course, and then we’ll get after them. You fellows break camp and be ready to follow us in the auto.”

There was a lot of bustle and excitement while Frank, by the light of an auto-lamp, with compasses, dividers and measured rule, worked out a course. A route was soon devised.

“All ready?” he cried at last, when final directions had been given.

“All ready,” said Billy, tightening the ropes that held the tarpaulin covering the supplies in the auto.

“Then we’re off,” cried Frank, as he and Harry jumped into the Golden Eagle, and with a rattling roar of explosions glided into the air.

CHAPTER X.
A NIGHT VOYAGE.

Sailing through the air at night is a vastly different thing to the delightful exhilaration of a day voyage. In the latter case, all is plain going—provided, of course, the weather conditions are right—below the aviator is spread out, like a many-colored carpet, a glowing landscape dotted with peaceful hamlets, busy smoky cities, and quiet farms and patches of woodland. But at night all is changed. The darkness hangs about the driving air-craft like a pall. The aviator anxiously scans the earth below him for an occasional light or the glare that a distant city casts on the sky. It is by those means alone that he can get his bearings, unless he is a skilled navigator and steers by the compass. Even then he may get lost. All is uncertainty.

So intent on overtaking their rivals, however, were the boys, that they reckoned little of the risks they ran, and kept the Golden Eagle headed on an almost due westerly course. The tiny shaded light above the binnacle was the only speck of illumination about the air-ship. Luckily the moon cast a bright, white illumination, but the luminary was waning, and was already low in the western sky. Soon all would be as black as a well.

“Heard anything from the auto?” asked Frank, with a backward glance, after they had been running about an hour thus.

“Not a thing,” rejoined Harry; “that means they must have a light in sight.”

“Still, I should like to know just where they are. Send them a flash.”

Harry bent over the wireless key and sent a message crackling into the night:

“Send up a flare.”

The answer soon came. From far below them a blue illumination lit up the trees and along a stretch of road in a lurid glare. The amused young aviators could see horses and cattle out at pasture in the quiet fields galloping for dear life at the alarming apparition.

“Can you see any sign of the others?” asked Frank, some minutes later.

Both boys had in the interval been peering anxiously ahead into the night.

“Not a sign, can you?”

“Not yet.”

“We ought to catch sight of them soon.”

“That’s so. We should have no difficulty in making out the dirigible, illuminated as she is.”

The boys lapsed into silence, straining their eyes ahead in vain.

Suddenly Harry gave a shout.

“There she is, about four points off our course to the north.”

“That’s right. That’s the dirigible, sure enough. Now, comparing her speed with that of Slade’s machine, he cannot be far off.”

“Say, we’ve been making time, all right.”

“I should say we have. But look! Something’s the matter with the dirigible.”

As Harry spoke they saw the row of lights by which they had picked the gas-supported craft out of the night suddenly waver and then begin to drop.

“They are going to descend,” cried Harry amazedly.

“Evidently. Look there!” he broke off with a sharp exclamation.

A red glare suddenly enveloped the dirigible, showing her every outline.

“It’s a distress signal!” was the elder lad’s excited shout. “Something has happened.”

“I’ll tell the boys in the auto to answer it,” suggested Harry.

He sent out a sputtering wireless, which was soon answered by a blue glare from the auto. An answering illumination from the dirigible went up.

“They’ve seen our signal,” cried Frank. “Now, Harry, switch on the searchlight.”

“What for?”

“To pick out a landing-place by. I don’t want to risk our necks by dropping in the dark.”

“You are going to land and help them?”

“Of course; they may be in serious trouble. It is our duty to aid them.”

“But Slade’s machine?”

“Well, he’ll make a big gain on us to-night, I’m afraid, but it can’t be helped. They have signaled for assistance, and we’ve got to go to their help.”

The white finger of light of the searchlight began to sweep the ground below them. So far as they could see, they were traveling over a cleared country only interspersed here and there by clumps of trees.

“This looks as good a place to drop as any,” said Frank as he scrutinized the nature of the country over which they were soaring in slow circles.

Harry assented.

“Tell me when to cut out the engine,” he said.

“I’ll do that myself,” replied Frank. “I’ll do it with the emergency cut-outs. We might have to shift up again in a hurry, and the engine acts more quickly on the driving wheel controls.”

The aeroplane began to drop. About a quarter of a mile from her the dirigible was settling, too. Her crew kept burning flares so as to see that they didn’t blunder into any growth that might have ripped their gas bag.

The boys reached the earth without a mishap, and found themselves in a rocky meadow, about a hundred yards from the road. In a few minutes the auto came chugging along with an excited party on board.

“What is it?”

“What has happened?”

“What’s the matter?”

“Call me a tenderfoot if I didn’t think it was Pain’s fireworks.”

The exclamations and questions came in a perfect volley.

“One at a time, one at a time,” laughed Frank; “we’re not phonographs.”

“You scared the life out of us,” interjected Billy Barnes.

“Well, you needn’t worry about the Golden Eagle; with the exception of the time we are losing, she is as sound as a bell, but the dirigible over yonder is in some distress. We had better hop in the auto and drive in that direction.”

Luckily the road went in the direction in which the dirigible had last been seen, and a short distance down the main track the boys found a field path leading off into an enclosure in which they could see men scurrying round the big dirigible with lanterns in their hands. They seemed much perturbed, and the boys could hear their loud expressions of disgust at their sudden stoppage.

“Dirigible ahoy!” hailed Frank, as the auto rolled up; “what’s the trouble?”

“Oh, hello—are you the Boy Aviators?” said a pleasant-faced man, whom the boys recognized as James McArthur, the driver and owner of the craft. “It’s mighty good of you to come to our aid. Yes, we’ve cracked a propeller blade, and are in a bad fix. You see, we lost a lot of gas in dropping, and that means we’ll have to lighten the ship.”

“I hope it doesn’t put you out of the race,” sympathized Frank; “it’s too bad such an accident should have occurred.”

“It is, indeed,” said Mr. McArthur. “We were doing so well, too.”

“If you will let us I think we can help you out,” volunteered Frank.

“If you only could,” exclaimed the other eagerly.

“We’ve got a spare propeller in the auto. If you like, I can let you have it till you reach Pittsburg or some town where you can get a new one fitted.”

“Oh, I couldn’t think of depriving you.”

“Not at all. I don’t think there is a chance of our having any accident to our propellers. You are welcome to it.”

Mr. McArthur, with profuse expressions of thanks, thereupon gratefully accepted the propeller which the boys unpacked from its place in the big tonneau of their car. It was not long before it was bolted in place, and the dirigible ready to start. The new propeller was a trifle smaller than the old one, but the driver of the dirigible was confident he could get good results with it. Before he started, however, he had to drop three of his men, with instructions to them to walk to the nearest town and then take the train for Pittsburg, at which city he could get fresh supplies of hydrogen gas. In the meantime McArthur and one man were to handle the dirigible, and almost every bit of ballast she carried was sacrificed.

Amid a perfect tornado of thanks, which they would have been glad to dodge, the boys hurried back to the Golden Eagle, and were soon once more in the air. Daybreak found them flying about nine hundred feet above a hilly, sparsely settled country.

As the light grew brighter, which it did slowly, with a promise of rain, they gazed eagerly about them in every direction. Far behind them they could see the tiny speck of the dirigible, laboring along with her small propeller, but of the Slade machine there was not a sign.

“Well, he has got a start of us this time, for fair,” exclaimed Harry, as the boys looked blankly at each other, following the result of their scrutiny.

“There’s nothing to do but keep doggedly on,” rejoined Frank, “but we ought to reach Pittsburg to-night. It looks as if we are in for a rain-storm, too.”

“It certainly does,” rejoined Harry. “Well, there’s one consolation, Slade can’t do any better in the rain than we can.”

“No, that’s so,” rejoined Frank, but there was little elation in his tone.

For a time the boys sat in silence. It was broken by a sharp shout from Harry.

“Frank! Frank! look there!”

They were flying above a farm-house, from the chimney of which a cheerful column of smoke was ascending. Hungry and tired as the boys were, they could in imagination smell the breakfast coffee, the aroma of the frizzling bacon and the hiss of the frying eggs. But what had caused Harry’s shout was clear enough. Outside the farm-house stood two automobiles, which they recognized as those of Barr and Fred Reade, and a short distance from the two cars stood the Despatch’s aeroplane.

“They’ve stopped for breakfast,” exultingly cried Frank; “here’s where we get ahead of them.”

CHAPTER XI.
THE FIRST LEG.

The country now began to be more thickly settled. In fact, the boys passed a constant series of surprised villages and frightened farms. While they were passing above one hillside farm, in fact, they were received with a demonstration of more than surprise. A man in blue jeans came running out into his barnyard with a shot-gun, and fired the contents of both barrels upward at the young navigators. At the height they were flying, however, a shot-gun could not harm them.

A short time later Harry lay down for a nap, after both boys had eaten some of the cold lunch they had packed at Remson. He slept under protest, but Frank insisted that after their harrying night trip they both needed sleep. He agreed to take his turn later. In the meantime, in the auto, Billy Barnes and Witherbee dozed off and shared watches with Lathrop and old Mr. Joyce. Neither the miner nor the inventor could drive an auto, so it was necessary to divide up the hours of sleep in this way.

While the lads are taking a rest, it may be as well to turn back to the lone farm at which the Despatch party had decided to stop for breakfast. So engrossed had they been over the meal, and so busy had the farm folks been serving them, that none of the party had noticed the boys’ aeroplane fly over, and they made very merry at the thought that they were miles ahead of them. Fred Reade was sure they had broken down, and his confidence that they had met with an accident was shared by Luther Barr, Slade and the red-bearded man, whose name was Ethan Aram, and who was Slade’s substitute driver.

“I feel like lying down for a nap,” said Luther Barr, after breakfast, but his desire was overruled by the others. It was pointed out that he could take a nap in his auto just as well.

“We want to beat those cubs good while we are at it,” said Reade, and this stroke of diplomacy won over old Barr. Taking turns at snoozing, therefore, the party pressed on at a leisurely rate, little dreaming that the Boy Aviators were far ahead and nearing Pittsburg. There was another reason for their decreased speed, also. They wished to take advantage of what they considered a great stroke of good luck to let their engine cool off thoroughly.

As the aeroplane flashed above Lockhaven, Pa., the wires began to get red-hot with news of their close approach to Pittsburg. In the Smoky City huge crowds gathered and awaited patiently for hours the coming of the air racers. Every park and open space held its quota of excited people, and flags were run up on every building.

Frank and Harry had both had a sleep before. Pointing to the southwest of their course Harry indicated a heavy dark pall that hung against the sky.

“That must be the Smoky City,” he exclaimed, and, sure enough it was. Soon the junction of the Alleghany, Monongahela and Ohio rivers in their Y-shaped formation became visible. Then the dark factory buildings, belching out their clouds of black smoke to make perpetual the city’s inky pall. Then the occasional gushes of flame from foundry chimneys, and the long processions of funereal ore and coal barges on the gloomy rivers.

The boys landed in Schenley Park, a fine expanse of wooded and lawned landscape, one of the few beauty spots in the city of gloom. Here it seemed as if at least a quarter of Pittsburg’s population was out to greet them. The police had formed hasty lines as soon as it became evident that the boys meant to land on an open stretch of grass, but they had a hard struggle to keep back the crowds. They were speedily re-enforced by reserves from all parts of the city, however, and soon had the crowd in order.

It had been arranged by telegraph that in case of the contestants landing in a public park that the city would allow them to keep the machine there as long as they wanted, so that after the boys had arranged for a guard to be kept over the Golden Eagle and the shelter tent carried in the auto—which came chug-chugging up half an hour after the boys had landed—had been rigged, there was nothing to do but to go to the hotel for a wash-up and what Billy Barnes called “a real feed.”

Of course the first question the boys had asked when they landed was:

“Anything been seen of the other racers?”

They were delighted to learn that there had not, although they were pretty sure, anyhow, that they were the first to arrive. At the hotel, as the party entered it, having distanced the crowd by speeding through side streets, the manager bustled up and asked for Mr. William Barnes. Billy replied that he was the person sought.

“Then, there’s been a wire here for you more than a day,” said the manager. “It has been chasing you around every hotel in the city, I guess.”

He produced a yellow envelope. Billy opened it eagerly, and then gave a wide grin.

“Whoop-ee, look here,” he cried, extending the message to the boys to read.

“Will you accept position special correspondent with aeroplanes for Planet? Owe you an apology for unfortunate mistake. Reade’s treachery discovered.

“Stowe,
“Managing Editor Planet.”

Of course Billy Barnes accepted the commission, although for a time he had a struggle with his pride to do so. However, as Frank demonstrated to him, Mr. Stowe had acknowledged his mistake, and he would only have presented himself in the light of a stubborn, obstinate youth if he had refused to accept his offer.

The young reporter was in the Western Union office that night filing a long account of the incidents of the trip, not forgetting the accident to the dirigible and its subsequent safe arrival at Pittsburg—though several hours late—when Fred Reade entered. The Slade aeroplane had descended in Highland Park about three hours after the arrival of the boys, and the chagrin of the Despatch people and of Luther Barr and his crowd may be imagined when they learned that they had been badly beaten on the first leg of the trip.

There was a scowl on Reade’s face as he sat down and began to write. His anger deepened as he saw that Billy Barnes paid not the slightest attention to him. Finally he said sneeringly:

“What are you writing for now, anyhow? I thought you were out of a job.”

“So I was till a short time ago,” flashed back Billy, “when the Planet seems to have found out something about a young man named Reade.”

“What do you mean?” asked Reade in a voice he tried to render blustering, but which shook in spite of himself.

“I’m not going into details; you know well enough,” said Billy in a quiet, meaning tone, looking Reade straight in the eye.

The other pretended to get very busy with his writing, but as Billy was leaving the office, he looked up and exclaimed:

“You and your friends think you are mighty smart, but we’ll trim you yet, you see if we don’t.”

“Well, you’ll have to wake up, then,” laughed Billy, “you didn’t do much trimming to-day.”

Franke Reade cast a furious glance after the young reporter as he left the telegraph office.

“I’ll make you pay for that when we get out in the wild country,” he said furiously.

At the hotel Billy found the boys in conversation with McArthur. He had made arrangements to have his ship reinflated that night, he told them, and in future meant to carry with him several cylinders of hydrogen gas. He had telegraphed ahead to Nashville and several other towns on the route to San Francisco to have supplies ready for him, and anticipated no further trouble on that score. He had also been lucky enough to get a propeller from a man who had been making dirigible ascensions at a Pittsburg park, but who had been injured a few days before in an accident.

The boys and their party turned in early and slept like tops. They were up betimes, and after a hasty breakfast motored out to the park. They found the aeroplane in perfect trim, and after replenishing the gasolene and water tanks and thoroughly oiling every part of the engine, they were once more ready to start. A big crowd had gathered, early as was the hour, and gave them a mighty cheer as they swept into the air. The next minute the auto was off, and it was a light-hearted party that occupied its tonneau.

CHAPTER XII.
ATTACKED BY COWBOYS.

The Smoky City, with its inky smoke canopy, bluff-bordered rivers and distant heights crowned with beautiful residences, was soon left far behind. But for a long time the boys flew high above veritable gridirons of railroad yards crowded with busy freight trains and puffing yard locomotives. Every one of the engines gave them a screeching greeting as they soared steadily along far above them.

But they were not alone in the air. The Slade machine was close behind them, with his assistant at the wheel. McArthur’s dirigible, too, was off a few minutes after the boys took the air. The three racers flew onward with no perceptible difference in the distances between them. Each seemed to be grimly holding its own. At Steubenville, Ohio, the boys struck the Ohio river and flew above its course as far as Ashland, where they crossed the border line of the state into Kentucky.

In forty-eight hours more, having allowed ample time for rests and engine adjustments, they arrived at Nashville, Tenn., having passed the border line of the state a few hours before. For several hours they had not seen the other racers, but at Nashville they learned that Slade’s aeroplane had arrived four hours ahead of them, having therefore gained one hour in actual time.

The gain had probably occurred while the boys were delayed at a small town near the Kentucky border fitting new spark plugs, those they used having become badly carbonized by their hard service. They spent little time in the beautiful capital of Tennessee on the banks of the historic Cumberland river. The crowds pestered them to such an extent that they were anxious to hurry on as soon as possible. An examination of the engine, however, showed that it was in need of considerable adjustment, and old Mr. Joyce was compelled to spend several hours over it. The gyroscopic balancer likewise was in need of having its bearings attended to. Slade seemed to have better luck, for his party left Nashville two hours ahead of the Boy Aviators. The start of the Despatch craft was closely followed by that of McArthur’s dirigible, carrying a large gas supply. The extra weight had been compensated for by ripping out a large part of the cabin and cutting down every ounce carried, so far as it was possible to do so without imperiling the ship.

However, when they finally did take the air from the meadow on the banks of the Cumberland in which they had camped, the boys had the satisfaction of knowing that their craft had had a thorough overhauling. The auto, also, had had new tires fitted and its engine overhauled.

The journey across the rolling plains of Arkansas, skirting the Ozarks to the south, on across the vast levels of Oklahoma, fertile with crops and dotted with thrifty homesteads and small frontier towns, was made without incident. One night the boys found themselves camped on the banks of the Canadian river, not very far from the town of Bravo, in the northwest of the great Panhandle of Texas. For two days, now, they had not seen either of their competitors, and had no idea of where either of them were, though at infrequent opportunities he had in the wild country through which they were now traveling, Billy had tried several times to ascertain by telegraph some word of their whereabouts.

The heat was, as Billy said, enough to fry the horn-toads that crawled about on the vast level that stretched, quivering in the torrid sun rays, as far as the eye could reach on every side of the boys’ camping-place. Fortunately they had selected a site beneath an old sycamore tree, which gave them some scanty shade. High against the blazing sky a few turkey-buzzards wheeled, doubtless watching the camps with speculative eyes to ascertain if they were all alive.

But on this latter point there could have existed no doubt in the minds of any human onlookers. The clink-clink of hammers and drills, as the boys worked over their engine with old Mr. Joyce superintending, while Billy Barnes and Lathrop were actively employed loading the auto with a camping kit, gave the camp an appearance of great life and bustle. As for Bart Witherbee, he was at his favorite occupation of cooking. He had shot some young jack-rabbits a few hours before, and was now composing a stew.

“I didn’t know jack-rabbits were good to eat,” exclaimed Billy, when the miner had brought them into camp.

“Young ones is,” explained the plainsman, “but keep away from the elderly jack-rabbits.”

Suddenly Billy, who had looked from his task for the fiftieth time to remark that it was hot, noticed quite a cloud of dust swirling toward the adventurers across the prairie.

“Gee, here comes a whirlwind!” he exclaimed, pointing. The others looked, too.

“Maybe it’s a cyclone,” suggested Harry.

Old Witherbee placed his hand over his eyebrows and peered long and earnestly at the rapidly approaching cloud of yellow dust.

“Whatever is it?” asked Frank.

“Somethin’ that I’m afeard is goin’ ter make it mighty uncomfortable for us,” exclaimed Witherbee, with a tone of anxiety in his voice.

“Mighty uncomfortable, how? Will it blow the auto away?” asked Billy.

“No, youngster, but it may blow us up; that cloud yonder is a bunch of skylarking cowboys, and they’re coming right for us.”

“Will they kill us?” asked Billy anxiously.

“No, I don’t think it’ll be as bad as that; though they git mighty onery sometimes. Don’t you boys give ’em no back talk, and maybe we’ll get out all right.”

The rapid advance of the approaching cowboys could now be heard. Their ponies’ hoofs could also be seen as they flashed in and out under the cloud of dust.

Suddenly there was a terrific volley of yells, and, as the cavalcade drew rein, the cloud rolled away and the boys found they were surrounded by forty or fifty wild-looking fellows, all yelling and shouting. Some of them had revolvers and were firing them in the air. The din was terrific.

“Throw up yer hands, yer Scanderhovian bunch of tenderfeet,” shouted the leader, a big man on a buckskin pony, whose legs were incased, despite the intense heat, in a huge, hairy pair of bearskin “chaps.”

The boys all elevated their hands, and old man Joyce and Bart Witherbee hastened to follow their example.

“Where’s this yar sky schooner yer goin’ a-sailin’ around in, scaring our cattle and driving the critters plumb crazy?” he demanded angrily.

“If you mean our aeroplane, there it is,” said Frank, indicating the machine.

“Wall, there was two of them went over here yisterday, and all the beef critters on the Bar X range is plum stampeded all over the per-arie. We’re goin’ ter stop this, an’ we might as well begin right now. Come on, boys, shoot the blame thing full o’ holes and put a few in ther choo-choo wagin while yer at it.”

The situation was critical indeed.

The boys saw no way of saving their aeroplane, and to add to their troubles they had been informed that their two rivals were in front of them.

Frank alone retained his presence of mind. He saw that only by a trick could they regain their safety from the desperate men into whose power they had fallen.

“Did you ever see an aeroplane before?” he asked of the leader.

“No, I never did,” replied the other; “why?”

“Well, you seem to have a pretty dry part of the country out here, and I guess a little rain would do it no harm.”

“That’s right, stranger, you never spoke a truer word; but what in thunder has that got to do with yer blamed scaryplane, or whatever you call it, scaring all our beef critters away?”

“I am very sorry for your misfortune, Mr.—Mr.——”

“Rattlesnake Ike is my name, with no blame ‘Mister’ on it, young tenderfoot,” growled the other.

“Well, Rattlesnake Ike, we can make rain.”

“What?” roared the whole assemblage.

“We can make rain,” calmly repeated the boy, “with that aeroplane.”

“Wall, now, stranger, how kin yer do that—tell us,” demanded the leader of the cowboys, leaning forward on the bow of his saddle, deeply interested.

“Well, you’ve heard that explosions near the sky will concentrate the moisture, thus causing it to condense in a copious rainfall,” declaimed Frank pompously, putting in all the long words he could think of.

“Hump—wall,” dubiously remarked the cowboy, scratching his head, “I dunno as I hev, but you seem ter have it all down pat.”

“That’s what we’ve been doing with our aeroplane,” went on Frank, “making rain. Haven’t we?” he turned to Witherbee questioningly. The miner at once saw what he was driving at.

“Sure,” said the old miner. “Why, pardners, down in Arkansaw they had forgotten what rain looked like till we came along. We made it pour for three days.”

“And that scaryplane does it?”

“Well, we go up in it and then fire bombs from this rain-gun.”

Frank indicated the searchlight as he spoke.

“Wall, I’d sure like ter see that,” said the leader. “How about it, boys?”

“Let’s see what they kin do; but if yer don’t make it rain, strangers, we’ll string you all up ter that sycamore tree,” decided one of the group.

They all chorused assent, and Frank and Harry at once got into the machine.

“Hand me some rain bombs, Billy,” said Frank.

Billy Barnes reached into the tonneau and produced some blue flares. These he handed to Frank.

“Take care they don’t go off, Frank,” he said solemnly.

“Yes; you recollect them twenty fellers as was killed in St. Looey,” warned old Witherbee solemnly.

“Say, strangers, are them there things dangerous?” asked the cowboy leader.

“Well, there’s enough dynamite in them to blow that river there clean into the next county,” rejoined Frank, “but don’t be scared, we won’t drop them.”

“Get into the auto when we are well up,” Frank whispered rapidly to Billy, while the cowboys exchanged awed glances.

“Now, gentlemen,” he went on aloud, “get your umbrellas ready, for pretty soon there’s going to be some big rain.”

The aeroplane started up while the cowboys yelled and whooped. It had reached a height of about two hundred feet, and was circling above their heads, when Harry suddenly lighted one of the fizzing blue flares; at the same instant Billy, followed by the others, leaped into the auto.

“Hey, stop that!” yelled the cowboy leader, but at the same moment he broke off with a yell of terror.

“Look out for the dynamite bomb!” yelled Harry, as he dropped the flaming blue flare over the side of the aeroplane, fairly on top of the gang of cowboys.

“Ride for your lives, boys!” shouted the leader of the cowboys, as the flaming light dropped, “she’s goin’ ter bust.”

They didn’t need any urging, but fled with wild cries.

By the time the cattlemen realized they had been tricked, the auto was away on the prairie, speeding on toward the west in a cloud of dust, while the aeroplane was far out of range.

CHAPTER XIII.
INDIANS!

“Ah, now we are beginning to get into my own country again; this begins ter look like home,” exclaimed Bart Witherbee, one day as the adventurers made camp in a canyon in one of the southernmost spurs of the Rockies in the state of New Mexico. The boys had made the detour to the south to avoid crossing the range itself, which would have been a difficult, if not an impossible, task in an aeroplane.

Still they had not sighted the rival racing air-craft, but they knew that the others could not be far ahead now, as at a small settlement they stopped at the day before they learned that the Slade party had called at the blacksmith shop there to repair a truss brace that had snapped. As the facilities of the smithy were rather clumsy for the fine work that has to be done on the aeroplane, the Slade machine was delayed several hours. So far as their judgment went, the boys decided that the other party could not be much more than fifty miles ahead of them.

As for the dirigible, they had heard that the expansion of its gas bag, caused by the sun, had compelled it to remain all one day in a small town in the Texas Panhandle, and that while it was journeying across the arid country it could travel only short distances. The boys, therefore, felt much cheered as at sundown they alighted by the side of a brawling mountain stream and made camp. Bart Witherbee at once got out his improvised fishing tackle and started up the stream in search of trout, which he declared would abound in such waters.

“We’ll have a change from canned beef, canned soup and canned vegetables to-night, boys,” he declared, “if I haven’t lost the knack of it.”

They listened to his heavy footsteps plunging up the steep hillside till they died out, and then took up the ordinary occupations of the camp. The rocky defile up which the old miner had disappeared on his quest was well covered with pine timber almost down to where it reached the arid ground on the edge of which the lads were camped. Except for the occasional scream of a hawk making for its night roost, or the crash of some animal making its way through the dense growth that grew higher up on the hillside, the place was as quiet as a cemetery.

Billy Barnes was examining his camera, which had been severely shaken up on the trip, Frank and Harry were going over the Golden Eagle admiringly, remarking on the way she had stood her hard ordeal, and old Mr. Joyce was taking a lesson in wireless telegraphy from Lathrop. It was beginning to grow dusk. Somewhere far up on the hillside there came the hoot of an owl. The hush of the evening in the foothills lay over everything, when suddenly the silence was broken by a sound that brought them all to their feet.

The report of a rifle had rung out on the hillside above them.

“Must be Bart shooting at something,” remarked Billy, gazing at the scared faces about him.

“That was a rifle shot,” said Frank slowly, “and Bart Witherbee carried no rifle.”

“Then somebody else fired it?”

“That’s about it. Don’t make a sound now. Listen!”

They all held their breaths and waited anxiously in the stillness that followed. For perhaps ten minutes they stood so, and then there came a sharp crackle of snapping twigs, that told them some one was descending the hillside.

Who was it?

Several minutes of agonizing suspense followed before they knew whether it was friend or enemy advancing toward them. Then Bart Witherbee glided, like a snake, out of the woods.

“What’s the mat——” began Frank. But he checked himself instantly.

Bart Witherbee’s hand was held up.

Every one of the group read that mute signal aright.

Silence!

The old plainsman waited till he got right up to the group before he spoke, and then it was in a hushed tense whisper.

“Injuns,” he said, “they’re up on the hillside.”

“How many?” whispered back Frank.

“I dunno exactly, after that there bullet I didn’t wait ter see, and say, boys, I had ter leave as nice a string of trout as you ever see up there fer them pesky redskins ter git at.”

“Never mind the fish, Bart,” urged Frank, “tell us, is there danger?”

“There’s allus danger when Injuns is aroun’, and think they kin git somethin’ that’s vallerble without gitting in trouble over it,” was the westerner’s reply.

“We’d better get away from here right away,” exclaimed Harry.

“Not on your life, son,” was Bart’s reply; “not if I know anything about Injuns an’ their ways. No, sons, my advice is ter git riddy fer ’em. They was startled when they see me, therefore they didn’t know we wus here till they stumbled on me. That bein’ the case, I reckin they don’t know about that thar flying thing of you boys.”

“And you think we can scare them with it?” began Frank eagerly.

“Not so fast, son, not so fast,” reprimanded the old man. “Now, them Injuns won’t attack afore dark, if they do at all. An’ when they do, they’ll come frum up the mountain-side. Now, my idee is to git that thar searchlight o’ yours rigged up, and hev it handy, so as when we hear a twig crack we kin switch it on and pick ’em out at our leisure.”

“That’s a fine idea, Bart, but what if they attack us from behind?” suggested Frank.

“They won’t do that. Yer see, behind us it’s all open country. Wall, Injuns like plenty of cover when they fight.”

“Perhaps we could connect up some blue flares, and plant them on rocks up the hillside, and scare them that way,” suggested Billy.

“That’s a good idee, son, but who’s goin’ ter go up there an’ light ’em? It would be certain death.”

“Nobody would have to go up and light them,” eagerly put in Harry. “We can wire them up and then just touch them off when we are ready. We can get plenty of spark by connecting up all our batteries.”

“Wall, now, that’s fine and dandy,” exclaimed the miner admiringly, “see what it is ter hev an eddercation. Wall, boys, if we’re goin’ ter do that, now’s the time. Them Injuns won’t attack afore dark, and if we want ter git ready we’d better do it now.”

While Frank and Harry planted the blue flares on rocks on the hillside within easy range of the camp, and old Mr. Joyce utilized his electrical skill in wiring them up and connecting them to a common switch, Billy and Lathrop and Bart Witherbee struck camp and packed the paraphernalia in the tonneau of the auto.

“Better be ready ter make a quick gitaway,” was the miner’s recommendation.

These tasks completed, there was nothing to do but to wait for a sign of the attack. This was nervous work. Bart had informed the boys that in his opinion the Indians were a band from a reservation not many miles from there who had somehow got hold of a lot of “firewater” and had “got bad.”

“I’ll bet yer there’s troops after ’em now, if we did but know it,” he opined.

“Well, I wish the troops would get here quick,” bemoaned Harry.

“They won’t git here in time ter be of much use ter us,” remarked old Bart, grimly biting off a big chew of tobacco, “and now, boys, keep quiet, and mind, don’t fire till I tell yer, and don’t switch on them lights till I give you the word.”

How long they waited neither Frank nor Harry nor any of the others could ever tell, but it seemed to be years before there came a sudden owl hoot far up on the hillside.

“Here they come, that’s their signal,” whispered old Bart in Frank’s ear; “steady now.”

“I’m all right,” replied Frank, as calmly as he could, though his heart beat wildly.

The hoot was answered by another one, and then all was silence.

Suddenly there came the crack of a twig somewhere above. It was only a mite of a noise, but in the stillness it sounded as startling as a pistol shot.

“We won’t have to wait long now,” commented Bart in a tense undertone; “all ready, now.”

Each of the boys gripped his rifle determinedly. Old Mr. Joyce had been armed with a pistol. At their elbows lay their magazine revolvers fully loaded.

Following the first snapping of the twig there was a long interval of silence. Then the staccato rattle of a small dislodged rock bounding down the hillside set all hearts to beating once more.

The attack was evidently not to be delayed many moments now.

It came with the suddenness of the bursting of a tropical storm.

Hardly had the boys drawn their breath following the breathless suspense that ensued on the falling of the rock before there was a wild yell, and half a dozen dark forms burst out of the trees. They were received with a fusillade, but none of them were hurt, as they all vanished almost as quickly as they had appeared.

“That was just to see if we was on the lookout,” said old Bart in a whisper. “I reckon they found we was. Look out for the next attack.”

They hadn’t long to wait. There was a rattle of falling stones as the main body rushed down the hillside.

“Now!”

Old Bart fairly screamed the command in his excitement.

At the same instant Billy shoved over the switch that connected the sparking wires of the blue-flare battery with the electric supply for the wireless, and the whole woodland was instantly illumined as if by the most brilliant moonlight.

With cries and yells of amazement, a score of the attacking redskins wheeled and vanished into the dark shadows of the hillside. The lights glared up, brilliantly illuminating everything in the vicinity, but the Indians were far too scared to come out of their hiding-place and renew the attack.

“Fire a volley up the hillside,” ordered Bart. “We can’t hit any of ’em, but it will add to their scare and keep ’em off till I can work out a plan.”

There was a rattling discharge of shots, which met with no return, and then, as the lights began to burn dimly Bart ordered Frank and Harry to get into the aeroplane and sail into the air.

“Turn your searchlight on the wood from up above, and they’ll run from here to San Franciskey,” he declared.

Though rather dubious of the success of the experiment, the boys obeyed, and in a few seconds the roaring drone of the engine was heard far above the wood, while the great eye of the searchlight seemed to penetrate into its darkest depths.

If the boys had had any doubt as to the feasibility of Bart’s recipe for scaring Indians they regained their faith then and there. With yells that echoed into the night, the redskins ran for their lives, tumbling over each other in their hurry to escape the “Air Devil.”

What the blue lights had begun the aeroplane had completed.

“It’s goin’ ter take a year ter round them fellers up ag’in,” commented Bart.

CHAPTER XIV.
THE AUTO IN DIFFICULTIES.

As Bart had expected, the boys were troubled no more that night, although there was naturally little enough sleep for any one. It was soon after daybreak and they were at breakfast when, across the plain, at the foot of the spur on which they were encamped, the boys saw a detachment of horsemen riding rapidly toward them. Through the glasses the boys speedily made them out as United States cavalrymen. They were advancing at a smart trot, and soon reached the boys’ camp.

“Good-morning,” said the officer at their head, “you seem to be breakfasting quietly enough, but you might not be taking it so easy if I were to tell you that several Indians have gone off the reservation and have managed to secure enough bad whiskey to make them very dangerous.”

“I guess, captain, that we had a bit of a run-in with your Indians last night,” said Frank, with a quiet smile.

“What? Why, God bless my soul, they are very bad men; it’s a wonder any of you are alive. How did it happen?”

Frank detailed the happenings of the night, being frequently interrupted by the officer’s exclamations of amazement. He regretted, though, that they had been so badly scared, as he anticipated a long journey before he crossed their trail again.

The attention of the captain and his troopers was then attracted by the aeroplane. They had read in the papers that found their way to the lone desert post of the great flight, and were much interested in the boys’ story of their adventure. The officer told them that he, himself, was much interested in aerial navigation and had constructed several experimental craft. He expected, he said, to be detailed by the government before very long to undertake an important expedition. His ambition was to reach the South Pole, just as his fellow officer, Commander Peary, attained the northernmost pinnacle of the earth.

After a little more conversation, the officer, who said his name was Captain Robert Hazzard, and the boys parted with many warm expressions of friendship. The whole company of troopers, however, waited till the aeroplane had soared into the air, and the auto chugged off beneath it, before they wheeled their wiry little horses and started off on the long weary chase after the Indians.

As the boys in the auto spun along over the level expanse of prairie, which, except where the rough road traversed it, was overgrown with sage-brush and cactus plants, the car came to a sudden stop. Then, without any warning, it plunged forward and seemed to drop quite a few feet.

Billy, who was driving, instantly shut off power, and gazed back in amazement. The auto was sunk to its hubs in mud. There was no doubt about it. The substance in which it was stuck was unmistakable mud.

“It’s a mud hole,” exclaimed Bart Witherbee; “now we are stuck with a vengeance.”

“But what on earth is mud doing out in the middle of a dry desert?” demanded Lathrop.

“I dunno how it gits thar; no one does,” responded Bart; “maybe its hidden springs or something, but every year cattle git lost that way. They are walking over what seemed solid ground when the crust breaks, and bang! down they go, just like us.”

“But this is a trail,” objected Billy, “wagons must go over it.”

“No wagons as heavy as this yer chuck cart, I guess,” was Bart’s reply.

“We must signal the Golden Eagle of our plight,” was Lathrop’s exclamation.

“But the wireless mast is down,” objected Billy; “we can’t.”

“Consarn it, that’s so,” agreed Bart. “Well, we’ve got to signal ’em somehow. Let’s fire our pistols.”

The Golden Eagle seemed quite a distance off, but the lads got out their revolvers and fired a fusillade. However, if they had but known it, there was no need for them to have wasted ammunition, for Harry, through his glasses, had already seen that something was wrong with their convoy.

The aeroplane at once turned back, and was soon on the plain alongside the boys. By this time they had all got out and were busy dragging all the heavy articles from the tonneau so as to lighten it as much as possible. A long rope was then attached to the front axle and they all heaved with all their might. The auto did not budge an inch, however.

In fact, it seemed to be sinking more deeply in the mud.

“We’ve got to do something and do it quick,” declared Bart, “if we don’t, the mud hole may swallow our gasolene gig, and then we’d die of thirst afore we could reach a settlement.”

They desperately tugged and heaved once more, but their efforts were of no avail.

“I’ve got an idea,” suddenly exclaimed Frank; “maybe if we hitch the Golden Eagle to the rope it will help.”

“It’s worth trying, and we’ve got to do something,” agreed Bart. “Come on, then. Couple up.”

The rope was attached to the lower frame of the Golden Eagle, and while they all hauled Frank started up the engine of the aeroplane. For a second or so the propellers of the Golden Eagle beat the air without result, then suddenly the boys’ throats were rent with a loud “Hurrah,” as the auto budged a tiny bit. Not far from the trail were the ruins of an old hut. Several stout beams were still standing upright amid the debris.

“Hold on a bit,” shouted Bart suddenly.

He seized up an axe from the heap of camp kit that had been hastily thrown on the ground and started for the ruins. In a few minutes he was back with four stout levers.

By using these, they managed to raise the auto still more, and wedge the wheels under with other bits of timber obtained from the demolished hut. Then the aeroplane was started up once more, and this time the auto, with a loud cheer, was dragged clear of the treacherous hole.

“We’ll just stick up a bit of timber here to warn any one else that comes along,” declared Bart, as he fixed a tall timber in the ground where it would attract the attention of any traveler coming along the road.

Soon after this, a start was made, and the aeroplane and the auto made good time across the blazing hot plain. All the afternoon they traveled until Billy Barnes fairly cried out for a stop.

“I’m so thirsty I could die,” he declared.

“Then get a drink,” recommended Bart Witherbee, indicating the zinc water tank under the tonneau seat.

“It’s empty,” said Lathrop. “I tried it a little while ago.”

“Empty,” echoed Witherbee, his face growing grave. “Here, let’s have a look at that map, youngster, and see where’s our next watering place.”

Billy Barnes, with a look of comical despair, handed it over. “I’ll have to wait for a drink of water till we get to a town, I suppose. What do you want the map for, Bart?”

“Fer that very reason—ter see how soon we do get to a town. I’d like a drink myself just about now.”

He perused the map for a minute in silence. Then he looked up, his face graver even than before.

“Well, she can go sixty miles or better, but I’m afraid of heating the engine too much if we travel at that pace,” responded Billy, who was at the steering wheel.

“Well, we’ve got to hustle; it’s most a hundred miles to Gitalong, and that’s the nearest town to us.”

“Nonsense, Bart,” exclaimed Lathrop, pointing to another name on the wide waste, which on the map represents sparsely settled New Mexico, “here’s a place called Cow Wells.”

“No, thar ain’t,” was Bart’s reply.

“There isn’t?”

“No.”

“But here it is on the map.”

“That’s all right; maps ain’t always ter be relied on any more than preachers. Cow Wells has gone dry. I reckon that’s why they called it Cow Wells. Everybody has moved away. It used ter be a mining camp.”

“Are you sure it’s abandoned?” asked Billy in a trembling voice.

“Sartain sure,” responded Bart. “I heard about it when I come through on my way east.”

“Then we can’t get a thing to drink till we reach Gitalong?”

“That’s about the size of it,” was the dispiriting reply of the old plainsman.

CHAPTER XV.
THIRST—AND A PLOT.

While the lads in the auto were thus discussing the doleful prospect ahead of them, Frank and Harry were making good time through the upper air on the run toward Cow Wells, which they had noted on their maps as the spot by which they would stop for refreshment. As they neared it in due time, from a distance of a mile away they noted its desolate appearance.

“There doesn’t seem to be much of anything there,” remarked Frank, as he looked ahead of him at the collection of ramshackle buildings that they knew from their observations must be Cow Wells.

“I don’t see a soul moving,” declared Harry.

“Neither do I,” was the other lad’s response. “Maybe they are all away at a festival or something.”

“Well, we’ll get water there, anyhow,” remarked Frank. “I’m so thirsty I could drink a river dry.”

“Same here.”

As the boys neared it, the lifeless appearance of Cow Wells became even more marked. The timbers of the houses had baked a dirty gray color in the hot sun, and what few buildings had been painted had all faded to the same neutral hue. The pigment had peeled off them under the heat in huge patches.

Of all the towns the boys had so far encountered on their transcontinental trip, this was the first one, however small, in which there had not been a rush of eager inhabitants to see the wonderful aeroplane.

“They must be all asleep,” laughed Harry; “here, we’ll wake them up.”

He drew his revolver and fired a volley of shots.

For reply, instead of a rush of startled townsfolk, a gray coyote silently slipped from a ruined barn and slunk across the prairie.

The truth burst on both the boys at once.

“The place is deserted,” exclaimed Harry.

“We can get some water there though, I guess, just the same,” replied the other. “There must be some wells left.”

They swooped down onto the silent, deserted town, in which the sand had drifted high in front of many of the houses. Eagerly they climbed out of the chassis of the aeroplane and investigated the place.

“Hurray,” suddenly shouted Harry, rushing up to a large building with a long porch, that had evidently once been the hotel, “here’s a pump.”

He pointed to an aged iron pump that stood in front of the tumbled down building. But the boys were doomed once more to disappointment. A few strokes of its clanking handle showed them that it was a long time since water had passed its spout. They investigated other wells with the same result.

The boys exchanged blank looks as they realized that they were to get no water there, but suddenly the realization that the auto was back there in the desert somewhere with a tank full of water cheered them.

“They’ve lots of water in the tank,” suggested Harry.

“I guess that’s right; we’d better wait till they come and get a drink of it. I’d almost give my chances in the race for a big glass of lemonade right now.”

“Don’t talk of such things, you only make it worse,” groaned Harry. “Just plain ice water would do me fine. I could drink a whole cooler full of it.”

“Same here—but listen—here comes the auto.”

Sure enough the chug-chug of their escort was drawing near down the rough desert road.

“Say, fellows,” shouted both boys, as the auto rolled up, “how about a drink of water from the tank?”

“Gee whiz,” groaned Billy, “that’s just the trouble. There’s not a drop in it.”

“What, no water?” exclaimed Frank blankly.

“Not a drop, and Bart says we can’t get any here.”

“That’s right; we’ve investigated.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Keep on to Gitalong, that’s the thing to do. If you don’t get there within half an hour of our arrival we’ll start out after you with water.”

“I suppose that’s all we can do,” groaned poor Billy.

“And the quicker we do it, the better,” briskly announced Frank. “Come on, Harry; ho for Gitalong, and to the dickens with Cow Wells, where there are no cows and no wells.”

“That’s why they gave it the name, I guess,” commented Lathrop, with a sorrowful grin.

It grew hotter and hotter as the afternoon wore on. Billy finally, although he stuck to the wheel pluckily as long as he was able, was compelled to give it up to Lathrop. After that he lay on the floor of the tonneau, suffering terrible torments from his raging thirst.

Old Bart sat grimly by Lathrop’s side, encouraging him as well as he knew how, and the boy bravely smiled at the old miner’s jokes and stories, although each smile made his parched lips crack.

“Why, what’s the matter?” remarked Lathrop suddenly, as the auto seemed to slow down and come to a stop of itself.

“I dunno; you’re an auto driver, you ought to know,” said Bart.

“The engine’s overheated,” pronounced old man Joyce. “Look at the steam coming from the cap of the radiator.”

He pointed to a slender wisp of white vapor. It indicated to Lathrop at once that Mr. Joyce was right. The accident they had dreaded had happened. It might be hours before they could proceed.

“What can we do?” demanded Bart Witherbee.

“Nothing,” responded Lathrop, “except to let her cool off. The cylinders have jammed, and the metal won’t cool sufficiently till the evening to allow us to proceed.”

“We’re stuck here, then?”

“That’s it, Bart. We had better crawl under the machine. We shall get some shade there, anyhow.”

“A good idee, youngster; come on, Mr. Joyce. Here, Lathrop, bear a hand here, and help me get poor Billy out.”

The fleshy young reporter was indeed in a sad state. His stoutness made the heat harder for him to bear than the others. They rolled him into the shade under the auto and there they all lay till sundown, panting painfully. As the sun dropped it grew cooler, and gradually a slight breeze crept over the burning waste. As it did so the adventurers crawled from their retreat, even Billy partially reviving in the grateful drop in the temperature. But there was still no sign of the aeroplane.

After a brief examination of the engine Lathrop announced that the party could proceed, and he started up the engine cautiously. It seemed to work all right, and once more the auto moved forward. They had not proceeded more than two miles when they heard a shout in the air over their heads, and there was the Golden Eagle circling not far above them.

Lathrop instantly stopped the machine, and the aeroplane swept down. Frank and Harry had brought with them a plentiful supply of water in canteens.

The boys drank as if they would never stop.

“I never tasted an ice-cream soda as good,” declared Billy.

Refreshed and invigorated, the adventurers resumed their journey toward Gitalong as soon as they had fully quenched their thirst, and poured some of the water over their sun-parched faces and hands. They reached the town late in the evening and were warmly welcomed by the citizens, mostly cowboys and Indians, who had sat up to await their arrival. Several of them, in fact, rode far out onto the prairie and, with popping revolvers and loud yells, escorted the auto party into town.

The aeroplane was stored in a livery stable that night, while the boys registered at the Lucky Strike hotel. The Lucky Strike’s menu was mostly beans, but they made a good meal. They had hardly got into their beds, which were all placed in a long room, right under the rafters, when they heard to their amazement the sound of an auto approaching the place. It drew up in front of the hotel and the listeners heard heavy steps as its occupants climbed out of it and entered the bar.

They called for drinks in loud tones, and then demanded to see a man they called Wild Bill Jenkins.

“Why, Wild Bill Jenkins is just sitting in a friendly game o’ monte,” the boys could hear the bartender reply, “but if it’s anything very partic’lar I’ll call him, though he’ll rile up rough at bein’ disturbed.”

“Yes, it is very particular,” piped up another voice, evidently that of one of the automobile arrivals; “we must see him at once.”

The boys, with a start, recognized the voice of the speaker as that of Luther Barr.

“Must hev come quite a way in that buzz wagon of yours, stranger,” volunteered the bartender.

“Yes, we’ve driven over from Pintoville—it’s a good twenty miles, I should say.”

“Wall, we don’t call that more than a step out here,” rejoined the man who presided over the Lucky Strike’s bar.

In the meantime a messenger had been despatched to summon Wild Bill Jenkins. Pretty soon he came. He was in a bad temper over being interrupted at his game apparently.

“Who is the gasolene gig-riders as disturbed Wild Bill Jenkins at his game?” he roared. “Show ’em to me, an’ I’ll fill ’em so full of lead they’ll be worth a nickel a pound.”

“That will do, Bill,” put in another voice, seemingly Hank Higgins.

Wild Bill Jenkins’ manner instantly changed.

“Why, hello. Hank Higgins!” he exclaimed, “hullo, Noggy Wilkes. Air you in company with this old coyote?”

“Hush, Bill; that is Mr. Luther Barr, a very wealthy gentleman, and he wants to put you in the way of making a bit of money.”

“Oh, he does, does he? Wall, here’s my paw, stranger. Money always looks good to Bill Jenkins, and he’ll do most anything to get it.”

“This will be an easy task,” rejoined Luther Barr. “All you have to do is to tell us the location of that mine you know about. I will buy it from you. But we must be quick, for others are in search of it—Bart Witherbee and some boys that call themselves the Boy Aviators.”

“Why, that’s the bunch that came in here to-night,” exclaimed Wild Bill Jenkins.

“It is?”

“They are here now.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“Sure.”

“Where?”

“Right here in this hotel. I guess they’re asleep in their little cots now, right over your heads.”

“You don’t think it possible that they can have heard any of our conversation?”

“Not on your natural, stranger. We’re as safe talking here as in the Alloff Gastorium in New York. Is that all you want me to do?”

“That’s all. I will pay you well for the information when you deliver the map to me.”

“I’ll deliver it, never fear. It was a lucky day for me I stumbled on that old mine. I’ve never been able to claim it, though, for they’d lynch me for a little shooting if I showed my face there.”

“Those cubs have made good time. We are only twenty miles ahead of them,” struck in another voice—that of Fred Reade; “if we could only disable their machine it would come near putting them out of the race.”

“What, bust their fool sky wagon. That’s easy enough,” said Wild Bill Jenkins confidently. “Listen here.”

But some other customers entered the bar at this point, and the plotters sank their tones so low that the boys could hear no more.

CHAPTER XVI.
THE AUTO GONE.

“Harry!”

“What is it, Frank?”

“Get on your clothes. You, too, Bart Witherbee, and be sure to conceal the map of your mine carefully.”

“What be yer goin’ ter do, Frank?”

“Fool those rascals. There is no doubt they are going to the stable and try to disable our aeroplane.”

“I reckon we’ll fool ’em, Frank.”

“I hope so. We must make haste. Come on out through this window here. It leads onto a back porch. We can slip down a support without anyone seeing us and get round to the stable before they get up from their table. They’ll be in no hurry, for they think we’re asleep.”

“What are we to do, Frank?” asked Billy Barnes and Lathrop, who, with old Mr. Joyce, were evidently to be left behind.

“Just snore as loud as ever you can. There is no doubt that they will creep up here after a while to see if we are asleep. If they hear you snoring they will think everything is all right.”

Frank, Harry and their hard companion were soon out of the window and on the ground. They found themselves on a back street, or rather, a mere trail on the prairie, for the town consisted of but a single street. They rapidly made their way to the livery stable. The man who owned it was there, and at first was inclined to be angry at being awakened.

He appeared at his door with a gun.

“Git out of here, you no good drunken cattle rustlers,” he bellowed, “or I’ll fill you full of lead. Don’t come skylarking around me.”

“We are not cattle rustlers. We’re the boys who own that aeroplane,” explained Frank. “We heard to-night, or rather we overheard, a plot to damage it so that it could not win the race.”

“What’s that?” demanded the other, “some no good, ornery cusses undertook ter come roun’t here and do up that thar contraption of yourn?”

“That’s it.”

“Wall, I don’t know as I’d blame anyone fer wantin’ ter bust up such things. Hosses air good enough fer us out here in the west, but nobody ain’t goin’ to hurt nothin’ of nobody’s while it’s under my care. Come on in an’ tell me about it.”

The boys’ story was soon told. When it was concluded the stable man was mad clear through.

“What, that hobo of a Wild Bill Jenkins, as he calls his self, come aroun’ here and try monkey tricks in my barn? Not much,” he kept repeating. “Hev you boys got shootin’-irons?”

“We shore have,” replied old Bart Witherbee.

“Well, you at least look like a party as could use one,” remarked the stable man, gazing at Bart’s rugged face. “Now the only thing to do is to wait for them to come.”

“That’s it, I guess,” agreed Frank. “They can’t be so very long if they want to get away before daylight.”

But the boys little knew the ingenious plan that the rogues had decided on to compass their ends and destroy the Golden Eagle. Even while they sat there waiting Luther Barr and the others were working out their scheme.

Before long there was the distant chug-chug of an auto heard and as the machine drove away, the sound diminished till it died out.

“Well, I guess your friends decided that they’d put their little expedition off,” grinned the stable keeper. “There they go and good riddance to ’em, I say.”

They waited a while longer, but there was no demonstration of their enemies’ presence. Suddenly Frank sniffed curiously.

“Do you smell anything?” he asked presently. “It seems to me there’s something burning somewhere.”

“I noticed it, too,” said Harry.

At the same instant there was a glare of red flame from the rear of the stable.

“Fire!” shouted the stableman.

His cry rang through the night, and in a few seconds the small prairie town was ringing with it. The flames gained rapid headway. They ate through the sun-dried timbers of the stable as if it had been made of paper.

The stableman and his friends rushed madly about getting out horses and rigs to places of safety. As for the boys and Bart they seized hold of the aeroplane and dragged it beyond reach of the flames. They then ran out the auto. This done they returned and helped the stableman. Soon all the stock and valuable buggies were out of the place and it was a roaring mass of savage flames. There was no fire department in Gitalong, so the inhabitants, instead of wasting their efforts on trying to extinguish the blaze with buckets of water, devoted their attention to wetting down adjoining roofs in order to prevent the flames spreading. The boys were so busy attending to this work that they didn’t stop to notice what had become of their companions. They had had, however, a moment to exchange a hasty word with Billy, Lathrop and old man Joyce, who had hastened from the hotel at the first cry of alarm.

The flames were about out and the barn was reduced to a smouldering heap of ashes before they had time to look about them.

“Why, where’s Mr. Joyce?” suddenly exclaimed Bart.

“He was here a minute ago,” rejoined Frank. “Have you seen him, Billy?”

“Not for the last ten minutes,” replied the other. “What can have become of him?”

“I guess he got tired and went back to the hotel,” suggested Harry.

“That must be it. Come on, let’s go and see if he is all right.”

They started off, but on the way were halted by the stableman.

“Thank you, boys, for helping me!” he exclaimed warmly, extending his hand. “It was mighty white of you.”

“I hope your loss was not very heavy,” said Frank.

“Oh, no; I had that covered by insurance. A good thing I had, too. If ever I get my hands on that rascal, Wild Bill Jenkins, I’ll make it hot for him.”

“Why; do you suspect him of setting it?”

“Not only him but your friends—or whatever you like to call ’em. The scalliwags suspected we might be on the lookout for ’em, and so we were, but at the wrong door. While we were expecting ’em to come sneaking up in front they walks up behind and sets a fire. They’d fix your aeroplane forever and a day, they thought, and as for my barn they didn’t bother about that.”

“That must be it,” exclaimed Frank. “I’d like to get my hands on the rascals.”

“Let’s drive after them and have them arrested at Pintoville. We can easily do it,” suggested Billy.

“All right, you and Bart take the auto. I’ve got to find Mr. Joyce.”

“Where is the auto?” suddenly exclaimed Harry, looking about him. “It was here while we were working at the fire and now it’s gone.”

“Gone!” gasped the others.

“Yes, gone. Look, there’s not a sign of it.”

“That’s right,” said the stableman; “looks like that chu-chu cart had flown away. Wall, if it’s in this town it won’t take long to find it.”

The stableman, who the boys now found out was also mayor, at once ordered out several men with instructions to search for the missing car, but they all reported half an hour later, when the town had been thoroughly searched, that not a trace of it could be found.

In the meantime a search had been conducted for old Mr. Joyce, but he also had vanished as mysteriously as the auto.

“What can have become of them?” exclaimed Frank, despairingly. “Without the auto and our supplies we cannot go any further.”

At this juncture a man came rushing up with a report that searchers had found the tracks of two autos, both going out of the town over the Pintoville road.

“Pintoville is where Luther Barr is staying,” cried Frank.

“Then you can depend upon it,” rejoined their friend, the mayor, “that that is where your auto and the old man have gone.”

“But why should they want to kidnap old Mr. Joyce?” demanded Frank.

“You’ll have to ask me an easy one,” answered the mayor, picking up a straw and sucking it with deep meditation.

CHAPTER XVII.
THE WRONG MAN.

In the meantime, while the glare of the flames still shone behind them, two autos were speeding over the plains. The first, in which was seated Luther Barr, Frank Reade and Hank Higgins, had been waiting just outside the town ever since the boys had heard it chug away before the fire started.

Barr and his companions had spent the interim in ill-disguised impatience. Reade in particular seemed gloomy and apprehensive.

“This is dangerous business, Barr,” he said. “If anything falls through, we might as well make up our minds to be lynched.”

“What is the use of talking like that,” snapped the old man. “Wild Bill Jenkins is a reliable man, Hank.”

“He sure is that, Barr,” rejoined the gambler. “If he says he’ll do a thing that thing is as good as did, and you may take your gospel on that.”

“And your partner, Noggy Wilkes?”

“Why, Barr,” declared the other earnestly, “that feller would rather stick up a stage or rob a bank than sit down to a chicken dinner.”

“Hum,” said old Barr, evidently highly pleased by the very dubious recommendations, “he must be an enterprising young man.”

“I don’t know what that ther word may mean, Barr,” declared Higgins, gravely, “but if et means he’s a good man for this job you can take your Davy he is.”