“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:
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,