Читать книгу The Boy Aviators in Record Flight; Or, The Rival Aeroplane - Goldfrap John Henry - Страница 2

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.