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
