The Airship Boys’ Ocean Flyer

OR

New York to London in Twelve Hours

The Aeroplane Boys Series

By ASHTON LAMAR

OTHER TITLES TO FOLLOW

These stories are the newest and most up-to-date. All Aeroplane details are correct. Fully illustrated. Colored frontispiece. Cloth, 12mos.

Price, 60 cents each.

The Airship Boys Series

By H. L. SAYLER

These thrilling stories deal with the wonderful new science of aerial navigation. Every boy will be interested and instructed by reading them. Illustrated. Cloth binding. Price, $1.00 each.

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postpaid on receipt of price.

IN THE PILOT ROOM OF THE FLYER.

The Airship Boys’

Ocean Flyer

or, New York to London

in Twelve Hours

BY

H. L. SAYLER

Illustrated by S. H. Riesenberg

Chicago

The Reilly & Britton Co.

Publishers

COPYRIGHT, 1911,

by

THE REILLY & BRITTON CO.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

THE AIRSHIP BOYS’ OCEAN FLYER

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

The

Airship Boys’ Ocean Flyer

OR,

New York to London in Twelve Hours

CHAPTER I

THE MAKING OF A NEWSPAPER STORY

It was a few minutes of eleven o’clock at night. One of the many editions of the great New York Herald had just gone to press. But in the big, half-lit room where editors, copy readers, reporters and telegraph operators were busy on the later editions to follow, there was no let-up in the work of making a world-known newspaper.

There was the noise of many persons working swiftly; the staccato of typewriters, the drone of telegraph sounders and now and then the sharp inquiry of some bent-over copy reader as he struggled to turn reportorial inexperience into a finished story. But there was no confusion and none of the wild rush and clatter that fiction uses in describing newspaper offices; copy boys were not dashing in all directions and the floor was not knee deep with newspapers and print paper.

Calmest of all was the night city editor. With a mind full of the work already done and in progress, he was as alert mentally as if he had just reached his desk. Five hours yet remained in which New York had to be watched; five hours, in any one minute of which the biggest news on hand might fade into nothing in the face of the one big story that every editor waits for night after night. And the night city editor, knowing this, dropped his half-lit pipe when his desk telephone buzzed.

“Stewart? Yes! Yes!” he answered quickly in a voice so low that not even his busy assistants heard him. “Where are you? What are you doing?”

“In Newark,” came the quick response, “and we landed it. It’s a peach. That aeroplane tip you know. It panned out all right.”

The night city editor had seemed perplexed for a few moments but at this his face cleared.

“How big? What’s new?”

“Biggest airship ever made; biggest planes; biggest engines—cabin and staterooms; two hundred miles an hour—”

“See it yourself?”

“Been workin’ in the factory three days; American Aeroplane Works; got story cinched. Machine flew to-night first time. It’s a beat.”

“Got talks?”

“Not straight, but I’ve heard ’em talkin’.”

“What’s the idea? Is it a war ship?”

“Got everything but that. Will some one take it by phone? I can get to the office quarter after twelve; got some stuff ready.”

“Who’s back of it? Whose machine is it?”

“Aerial Utilities Company; those Chicago boys, Napier and Hope and their friends.”

The editor thought a moment, glanced at the clock on the wall where the hands pointed to eleven and then said:

“If you can be here by a quarter after twelve, hurry in. If you can’t make it, phone. Get up all the stuff you can. Are Napier and Hope at the factory?”

“They made a test to-night. I know where they went. I was outside the yard. They were gone from ten o’clock till ten twenty-five; were all over New York and forty miles to sea. It—”

“Grab the eleven fifty express and hustle in,” interrupted the man at the telephone. “It’s good stuff and’ll stand a couple o’ columns.”

Hanging up the receiver, the night city editor settled back in his chair, finished lighting his pipe and then, his head leaning in his clasped hands, seemed to be in a reverie. But this did not last long. While he had talked to “Stewart in Newark” three young men had hurried to his desk and laid on it stories or parts of stories on which they had been working. These reporters were now standing a few feet away awaiting further orders or dismissal for the night.

“Dick,” exclaimed the editor as he suddenly unclasped his hands, leaned forward over his desk again and shuffled the copy on it into a little bundle, “we’ll want about two and a half columns in the last edition.” As he spoke, a middle-aged man in his shirt sleeves—for the night was mid-June—leaned backward from a near-by big table at which a dozen men were busy cutting, rewriting and pasting copy, and took the little bundle of manuscript from his superior’s hands.

The waiting reporters groaned inwardly. They knew that this was probably the death warrant for their own evening’s work. Dick, the man addressed, asked nothing and made no inquiry. He knew that something big had turned up. As head copy reader the securing of this “something” was no business of his. Nor did the nature of it stir his calloused curiosity. His orders were to save two and a half columns of space and this he would do. When the story came, he and his assistants would see that it was two and a half columns long and no more.

But this was not the attitude of the three reporters yet waiting near the editor’s desk. This man was no longer in a reverie. In those few minutes he had “blocked out” his big story; he already saw it in print and, unlike Dick, he was now ready to go after it.

“Anything more, Mr. Latimer?” asked one of the reporters eagerly, for each of them had now scented a “beat” and all, forgetting the probable fate of their earlier evening’s work, were eager to be in on it.

Mr. Latimer arose and without reply hurried away in the direction of the night editor’s desk. When he returned, his pipe now sputtering viciously, he called: “Dick, make that two columns.” Then he turned toward the still lingering reporters. They moved to his desk, each trying to attract special attention.

“Chambers,” said Mr. Latimer to the youngest of the trio, “get Governor’s island on the phone and see if they’ll put you on Colonel Fred Grant’s wire. If you can’t raise him by phone go down to the Ship News office and have the boys take you over in the boat. We want a good talk with him on this idea: What military prestige will it give the country that is the first to perfect an airship that can travel two hundred miles an hour—an aeroplane that can actually carry men and bombs? Point out that this means across the Atlantic in fifteen hours. Make him talk new stuff, practical, and cut out the Jules Verne patter.”

Chambers, young and inexperienced, hurried away without a question, knowing well enough that this interview was to fit into another story and that it was his business to get it, and the earlier the better.

“Glidden,” said the night city editor, turning to the oldest reporter of the three, “didn’t you write a Sunday story a few weeks ago on ‘The Limit of the Automobile’?”

“Yes, sir,” was the prompt reply of the pleased young journalist.

“Have you some ideas on the possibilities of the aeroplane?”

“I have,” was the prompt reply. If Glidden had gone further he would have added, “I’m getting up another story on that line now.”

“That’s good,” broke in Mr. Latimer. “We’re going to print a big aeroplane story in the morning. I want a ‘lead.’ The man on the story can’t write it. I can’t tell you anything except that this story concerns the first real airship. Give me half a column of what a real aeroplane ought to do—”

“It ought to go ten miles up in the air,” broke in Glidden impulsively as if anxious to demonstrate that he really had some ideas, “and the time will come when the flying machine will stay in the air more than five days. It will carry fifty people, cross the Atlantic or Pacific and sail two hundred miles an hour—”

“That’s enough,” laughed the editor. “Our machine does two hundred miles. Go to it.”

Glidden, who should have had Stewart’s assignment on the aeroplane story, wanted to ask more but he was too wise to do so. A few minutes later he was back at his typewriter, nervous and excited over the part he was to take in the making of the next morning’s “beat.”

The work of the third man was better known to Mr. Latimer.

“Winton,” he began as if sure that his orders would be carried out to the letter, “you’ve heard of the Airship Boys—those Chicago youngsters who have been starring in aeronautics for several years?”

“I know Bob Russell personally,” answered Winton. “He’s the newspaper man from Kansas City who has been with the boys in all their stunts.”

“Did he ever work in New York?” inquired Mr. Latimer.

“I think not. I believe he’s in business with the Airship Boys. Used to work on the Kansas City Comet.”

“Couldn’t get hold of him?”

“If it’s about some new project of these boys,” laughed Winton, “it’s not worth while. They’re all clams concerning their own affairs.”

“But is this the outfit that interested Mr. Morgan in the Universal Transportation Company last summer?”

“I never worked on the story except once when I tried to get Russell to talk and couldn’t. They had a suite of offices in the Waldorf last July.”

“Call the Waldorf and see what you can find.”

Five minutes later Winton was back at Mr. Latimer’s desk.

“Five or six persons connected with the Aerial Utilities Company had apartments and offices in the hotel until the middle of last August. Then the offices were moved to Chicago. There seems to be a group of these people, all interested in aeroplanes on a big scale and their headquarters I think are in Chicago.”

Mr. Latimer touched a button and hastily wrote a note.

“Hand this to the telegraph editor,” he said to the messenger as he gave him this message:

“Craig, Tribune, Chicago. Rush anything on Aerial Utilities Company, organization and business. Also matter concerning Airship Boys, Napier, Hope and Russell.”

Then he turned to Winton again.

“Story in to-night about those boys and a big aeroplane. Napier and Hope and maybe Russell are not in Chicago, but somewhere in Newark. Their newest idea was manufactured by the American Aeroplane Company in Newark. Call the works on a chance; like as not you won’t find any one there. Look up the head of the company. Raise him on the phone. If he won’t talk about the new airship make him tell you where the Airship Boys are. Try the hotels by phone. Must have something about these young men. The man on the story missed a talk with ’em.”

Winton rushed to the telephone room and Mr. Latimer, with another glance at the clock, put the Newark “beat” aside for a moment while he gave his attention to the accumulating copy received from the local news bureau and late evening assignment men. With instructions for each, he had “covered” an East Side tenement fire by rushing four men to the scene and had personally called up and talked to a leading financier on a financial story when Winton returned.

“J. W. Atkinson is president of the Aeroplane Company,” Winton reported. “No one at works. Got Atkinson on phone. He won’t talk but acknowledges Airship Boys are in Newark. Won’t say where. Can’t find ’em at hotels.”

Without answering, the night city editor turned to his telephone.

“Get me the Newark office,” he ordered. “Nathan, if he’s there. Go to the library,” he added, speaking to Winton, “and dig up a story on these kids. There’s plenty there. Get half a column. See if we have any pictures.”

While Winton hurried away on his new task, the telephone rang.

“Newark?” asked Mr. Latimer. “Is that Nathan?”

“Mr. Nathan’s out eatin’ supper,” replied a juvenile voice.

“Go get him. Tell him this. Ready? Put down J. W. Atkinson. Got it? J. W. Atkinson, president American Aeroplane Company. Tell Nathan to see Mr. Atkinson at his home and find where Ned Napier and Alan Hope can be found. Put the names down: Ned Napier and Alan Hope.”

“I know ’em,” interrupted the youthful voice. “Them’s the Airship Boys.”

“Tell Nathan not to leave Mr. Atkinson until he learns where those boys are stopping: where they are in Newark. Got it?”

These events had taken place within fifteen minutes. At ten minutes after eleven Mr. Latimer again put the Newark story aside temporarily and gave all his time to rounding up his part of the next edition. At eleven thirty o’clock Glidden, who was to provide the material for a general “lead” to the big “beat”—none of the details of which he even knew, turned in five hundred words. Mr. Latimer paused in his other work and glanced hastily at the pages. Then he looked at the clock, leaned back in his chair and read each page.

“Good stuff,” he announced without even a smile as he finished. “That’s the idea; just what I wanted. Stewart is coming in from Newark with the story a quarter after twelve. Get your supper and be back by that time. I want you to help him shape up his stuff. Chambers and Winton will have ‘adds’ to the story.”

A quarter of an hour later Winton reported with his sketch of the Airship Boys. His superior did not read the matter—he was sure enough of Winton—but spiked it with Glidden’s copy.

“No pictures,” explained the reporter, “except one in the Scientific American of last July showing working drawings of a steel monoplane—the one they used in the New York-Chicago flight.”

“Get it and take it to the picture man. Tell him to make a two-column cut of it. No pictures of the young men?”

“Not on file.”

“That’s good,” said Mr. Latimer with his first smile of the evening. “It’ll make a good ‘follow’ to-morrow. By the way, did you get a story of these youngsters right up to date?”

“No,” answered the reporter, somewhat regretfully, “I couldn’t find anything about them after their record flight in a steel monoplane between New York and Chicago last July. I know they were in New York at their Waldorf offices until August. But I can’t find anything about them since that date. If they’ve got a new idea, they’ve had since last August to work on it unmolested by the newspapers.”

Mr. Latimer was shaking his head as he refilled his pipe.

“Get your supper and hurry back. Stewart’ll be here in fifteen or twenty minutes. Then we’ll see what we can all do to find out what they’ve been doing since August. The story is gettin’ to look good.”

Winton was about to hasten away when his interest got the better of his judgment and he violated one of the unwritten rules of the Herald office: he questioned his superior.

“I know it isn’t my business, Mr. Latimer,” he began, hesitatingly, “but didn’t Stewart say they have made a new machine that can fly two hundred miles an hour?”

The night city editor nodded his head.

“And he has the details of the machine?”

“All of them,” replied the editor. “But he’s missed the main thing—the story. What are they going to do with such a craft? Why should they test it out in secret—under cover of night?”

“And that’s what we are trying to find out?” asked Winton, showing confusion.

“Certainly,” was the response. “The mere account of a new aeroplane isn’t worth two columns in the Herald. That’s only half the story. Its purpose and possibility make the real story.”

Winton leaned over the desk, his face flushed.

“I know what those boys have done in the past,” he said in a low voice. “There’s only one thing left for them to do now. If you can’t find them and don’t know what that is I’ll make a guess for you: they’re going to cross the Atlantic.”

“Certainly,” was Mr. Latimer’s response. “My own idea precisely. And that is the story the Herald is going to print in the morning.”

But the night city editor was wrong. The Herald did not print such a story in the morning, as will be set forth in the next chapter.

CHAPTER II

WHAT A REPORTER SAW IN THE DARK

Stewart, the reporter who had been working in the American Aeroplane Company’s plant for several days and who had telephoned the tip on the first flight of the wonderful new machine, reached the Herald office a few minutes ahead of his schedule. He was hot and excited. As he hurried to Mr. Latimer’s desk he drew from his pocket a wad of copy—a part of his story already prepared. The night city editor looked at the clock—he seemed always watching the clock.

“Twelve ten,” Mr. Latimer began without question or comment and waving back the proffered manuscript. “We want a column. Take an hour and do it right. Tell what you saw—don’t speculate. Tell about the new machine, and don’t be technical. We’ll make the ‘lead’ when we see what you’ve got—”

“This is ready now,” interrupted Stewart, mopping his brow. “I did it on the train.”

“Use it in your story; put it together yourself. It’s for the last edition. By the way, you didn’t find what they’re going to do with the new airship?”

“Everything but that,” confessed Stewart. “No one in the factory seems to know. But it seems to me that they’ll certainly use it first to cut down the time on that New York-Chicago airship line. Four or five hours to Chicago would be quite a card.”

“Why not fifteen hours across the Atlantic?” asked Mr. Latimer with a significant twinkle in his eyes.

“You’re right,” exclaimed Stewart. “I hadn’t thought of that. Say, that’s great; first airship across the ocean. Sure! They can do it. That’s the idea. That’s my ‘lead’—”

The night city editor raised his hand.

“Don’t bother about the ‘lead.’ Do what I told you: write what you saw and a description of the machine. And you might start right away if you like.”

Stewart, coat off and pipe going, was just well into his story when Chambers reported from Governor’s Island. He had seen Colonel Grant.

“But,” explained the reporter to Mr. Latimer over the telephone, “he said it was too late to talk to-night. He’s offered to prepare a statement for me to-morrow.”

“What did he say to-night?” snapped the night city editor.

“Well, he said America ought to be proud of its advance in aeronautics; that there were great possibilities in aerial navigation—”

“Yes,” broke in Mr. Latimer, “but did you think to mention what I told you to ask him? What military prestige it would give a country to own the first aeroplane that could fly two hundred miles an hour?”

“Yes, sir,” was the prompt answer, “but he said he’d rather not be quoted on that.”

“What was it?”

“He said he rather thought it might give prestige to any one of the great nations and that if America had such a ship that it ought to keep it and not let some European government snap it up. He said, as a nation, he thought we were rather behind the other powers in the development of the airship in a military and naval way.”

“Did you promise not to quote him?”

“No, sir. But—”

“Glidden,” called Mr. Latimer to that young man, who had just returned, “here’s Chambers on the wire at Governor’s Island. He’s had a talk with Colonel Grant: hot stuff about neglect of government to develop airships for naval and military purposes: thinks our new aeroplane gives us balance of power among the big nations. Take it and get up a good story on it. Here’s Glidden, Chambers,” he continued, turning to the telephone again, “he’ll take your stuff.”

A moment later Glidden was at a desk and the waiting Chambers had been switched to him. With almost one movement the more experienced Glidden caught up the receiver and, with a piece of paper rescued from the floor and a stub of a pencil borrowed from a man next to him, was ready.

“Shoot it, Chambers,” was his salutation and the interview was under way.

Several pages of Stewart’s story had now reached Mr. Latimer’s desk. Before he gave it his attention, he took up Winton’s matter on the Airship Boys and glanced hurriedly through it. This apparently called for no comment and he passed it at once to Dick, the head copy reader.

“Here’s the first of that two-column story for the last edition. It’s the last ‘add.’ Use all of it. There’ll be a talk with Colonel Fred Grant to follow the main story.”

Dick shuffled the sheets together without a glance at the words on them, spiked the pages on a spindle, readjusted his pipe and raised his green eye shade.

“Who’s writin’ the story?” was his only response.

“Stewart,” said Mr. Latimer.

“A cub?” grunted Dick as he looked at the watch on the blotter before him. Then he jerked his head to show the contempt all old copy readers feel for inexperienced reporters. “It’s twelve thirty,” he added as a part of his groan.

“He may not be a cub after to-night,” was Mr. Latimer’s tart rejoinder as he at last tackled Stewart’s copy.

“At ten twenty o’clock last night,” Stewart’s story began, “an airship that is undoubtedly destined to make the first flight across the Atlantic ocean, was given a secret test from the yards of the American Aeroplane Company’s plant in South Newark.

“That the experimental flight was successful in every way is attested by the fact that this newest and most complete aeroplane was in the air twenty-five minutes and attained a speed of between 180 and 200 miles an hour. The flight was cloaked in mystery and the only spectators were the inventors and owners of the airship, the superintendent and the president of the Aeroplane Company and a reporter for the Herald.

“While every effort has been made to keep any intelligence of the new marvel from reaching the public at the present time, the record breaking test made last night was observed and timed. This mechanical, sky-piercing meteor was driven by man thirty or forty miles out to sea and, concealed by the shadows of night, it returned successfully and unseen directly over the skyscrapers of New York.”

Without reading further Mr. Latimer reached for a pad of copy paper, a pencil and his shears. In a few minutes Stewart’s carefully prepared story had been transformed by scissors, paste pot, interlineations and new lines into this:

“This mechanical sky-piercing meteor last night set what may be the ultimate record for man’s aerial flight. Three miles in sixty seconds or one hundred and eighty miles an hour, is the last proof of man’s complete conquest of the air. With London but fifteen hours from New York, the crossing of the Atlantic is assured. And, in the language of Colonel Fred Grant, ‘this assures the superiority of the United States as a naval power.’

“This new marvel was given its initial test last night. At ten twenty o’clock the airship that is destined to revolutionize aeronautics, rose mysteriously from the yards of the American Aeroplane Company’s plant in South Newark. Within the next twenty-five minutes it had darted forty miles straight out to sea and then, concealed by the shadows of night, returned successfully and unseen, directly over the sleeping skyscrapers of lower New York.

“This historic flight, cloaked in darkness, was made with no spectators other than the inventors and owners of the airship, the superintendent and the president of the aeroplane works and a reporter for the Herald. While every effort had been made to keep intelligence of the wonderful invention from the public at the present time, an account of the secret test as well as a complete description of the aeroplane itself, is given herewith in detail.”

By the time the copy boy had laid Stewart’s next batch of copy on the night city editor’s desk Mr. Latimer had passed all of the first “take,” marked “lead to come,” over to Dick, the head copy reader, and the big aeroplane “beat” was on its way into print. Few changes were made in the rest of Stewart’s story. Having finished his first few pages and reached the real narrative, he wrote rapidly and easily.

The inexperienced young reporter had done his work well. For several days he had been in the service of the Aeroplane Company as a common workman in the yards. In that time, with his eyes open and by skillful questioning, he had succeeded in striking up an acquaintance with one of the skilled enginemen working on the new car. From this man he had wormed the general details of the aircraft and learned that a test of the completed aeroplane was to be made.

These things were not told in his story but he did describe graphically and in a way that made Mr. Latimer nod his head in approval, everything to be seen by the eye from the time the great tandem-planed sky vehicle was rolled out into the yard and lifted itself cloudward until it sank in the same spot again twenty-five minutes later.

When those pages of his story reached the desk Mr. Latimer rose and hurried to the busy writer’s side.

“How did you know they were going to pull this off to-night?” he asked.

“I didn’t. But I guessed it would be at night. I meant to watch each night—”

“Where were you?”

“On the roof.”

“You’re doing very well. Good stuff,” was his superior’s comment. “Get it in a column.”

There wasn’t a great deal that the young reporter could write of the actual flight. The ship-like structure had been wheeled out of the gloom of the canvas-sided setting-up room into the yellow glare of half a dozen yard torches. It rumbled heavily—more like a heavy truck than the flimsy airships Stewart had seen. Then, for some minutes, several persons had passed back and forth by means of a step ladder into an enclosed part of the great, metallic-glinting structure. From the lights that flared up and died out in the big torches he knew that his first night’s vigil was to be rewarded with something.

“At ten fifteen o’clock,” he described in his story, “only a vast expanse of metal, cables and truss could be seen vaguely as those busy about the towering superstructure moved a torch or climbed into or out of the mammoth enclosed frame. Just before ten twenty o’clock an engine started suddenly somewhere within the ship-like body of the winged wonder. A little later, a brief burst of light within the central enclosure threw into sudden view two rows of flashing portholes. Like the bow of a miniature ocean steamer, the front of the shadowy structure stood, for a moment, clearly defined in the night.

“Halfway up the side of the vessel extended a railing-protected gallery that indicated two decks. Along the lower of these ran a second gallery. The forward part of the upper deck was plainly a pilot house, from the rounded front of which, through two small heavily glassed openings, shot antennaelike feelers of light into the black factory yard. Behind this section the skeletonlike gallery led astern along what were apparently three more rooms. Passing these, the gallery ascended the rounded side of the giant car and disappeared sternward in the form of a protected path or bridge. The front of the lower deck resembled the dark hold of a freight vessel. In the rear, a door opening from this gallery revealed, through a glare of light, an engine room, now the center of much activity.

“Herein two young men hung over a puzzle of levers, wheels and valves while a third was just climbing into the gallery by means of a drop ladder or landing stage.

“‘What’s the use of all this illumination?’ called the young man just mounting the machine. ‘Why not send out cards?’ he added, laughing.

“One of the boys in the engine room stuck his head outside, glanced about and chuckled. As he disappeared within again, there was a snap and the lights outlining the air machine turned black. Then came the renewed sound of feet hurrying back and forth on metal runways; doors opened and closed and, where deck lights had flooded the strange craft, only the thin rays of electric hand torches indicated persons moving about. One of several men on the ground below now made his way up the ladder to the landing stage and by this to the lower deck gallery, where two of the moving lights were suddenly focussed. Words passed in low tones and, in a few moments, the glow of a green-shaded light appeared through the suddenly reopened door of the pilot house.

“Almost at the same time, but from the distant offices of the aeroplane factory, broke out the staccato of a wireless sender in operation. Those on the lower gallery waited in silence until a voice called from the pilot house:

“‘All right, Ned; fine and dandy; the operator says success and speed.’

“‘Good,’ was the quick response. ‘Come on down, Bob; we’re off.’

“As the light in the pilot cabin winked out, the same voice continued, ‘Good-bye, Mr. Osborne. We’ll be back in half an hour. Stay by the wireless. We’ll keep in touch with you every few minutes.’ ‘Good-bye,’ called another voice and then the man who had just mounted the landing ladder made his way quickly to the ground.”

When Stewart’s account of the aeroplane test had reached this point, Dick, the copy reader, shuffled the pages of the last “take” like a deck of cards and snorted.

“This is fine,” he said, with a despairing look, addressing Mr. Latimer, “but I thought he was goin’ to tell something. Here’s six hundred words and he hasn’t got anywhere yet—”

“Let it stand,” was Mr. Latimer’s snappy order. “It’s good stuff.”

“Simultaneously,” continued Stewart’s story, “the sound of the engine in operation deepened into an almost inaudible note. Then this was doubled as if a second power had been put in operation. A shaded light shone in the engine room and the pilot house door opened and closed. There was the tap-tap of swift footsteps on the lower gallery, one of those aboard sprang up the steps to the top gallery and then a light flashed at intervals along the ladderlike runway on the rear truss. Some one was inspecting the shadowy bridge.

“Far in the rear the hurrying figure dropped through what seemed a small manhole in the truss frame. Half within the tapering, spiderlike construction the person appeared to press a button. There was a sharp buzz in the pilot cabin. Then the figure with the light ran swiftly forward inside the hollow frame of the tail of the airship and disappeared through a self-closing door into the engine cabin.

“Two powerful engines were apparently in full operation. There was the sound of a quick voice in the engine room as if someone were shouting through a tube.

“‘All ready here and astern, Ned,’ could be distinguished. Then, at the resonant single tap of a gong in reply, powerful clutches must have been instantly applied. The aeroplane’s propellers began their wide sweep. Faster and faster they moved, until, as the closed engine room door opened once more and one of the young men passed out onto the gallery, the wide-reaching metal bird suddenly sprang forward. But it was only for a short distance. Within fifty feet, it lifted in the air and, once off the ground, its bow darted skyward like the beak of a frightened bird.

“‘Don’t forget your lights!’ yelled the figure on the gallery as the airship swept upward, ‘and keep the wireless goin’.’ While he was speaking the swift propellers had already carried the car beyond hearing.”

CHAPTER III

THE VETERAN TAKES OFF HIS HAT TO THE CUB

The rest of reporter Stewart’s story of the mysterious airship flight, together with his elaborate account of the construction of the aeroplane as it had been described to him, ran much over a column. Old Dick, the copy reader, groaned and even Mr. Latimer began to wonder how he was to get his “beat” into two columns without “killing” Chamber’s “talk” with Colonel Grant, Winton’s account of the Airship Boys or Glidden’s “lead.”

The latter Mr. Latimer had already thrown out conditionally but he was determined to use the interview and the account of the earlier adventures of the daring boys. There could be only one solution of the difficulty: he must have more space if he had to choke it out of the night editor. Meanwhile, he began to put some pressure on the wordy reporter.

“It’s good stuff, old man,” he said to the perspiring reporter as the latter pounded his typewriter, “but you know this isn’t a magazine and other things have happened to-night.”

Stewart was only a beginner. As yet he knew only a part of a reporter’s trade. He could write but he hadn’t learned how to tell it in a “stick.” The editorial admonition fell on him with little effect. He seemed unable to omit any detail. Page after page came from his machine to tell how for twenty-five minutes the four or five men in the Aeroplane Company yards waited for the return of the flying car.

He told how a movable searchlight was stationed at the landing place and how the watchers then betook themselves to the wireless office of the works. With good judgment he refrained from telling how he concealed himself just without an open window, and one reading his narrative might conclude that the prying reporter was a guest of the watchful group.

Some of the messages from the moving aeroplane he heard and of these he told. Most of them he missed, as his vantage point was somewhat removed. He could tell that the busy wireless operator was in almost constant communication with “Bob” on the airship. But the most important message he did hear, because when it came the excited operator repeated it as if reading a bulletin to anxious thousands.

“On board Ocean Flyer,” he read, “10.24 P. M. Estimate forty miles from Newark at sea. Big steamer beneath. Turning. Better time returning. Look out. Bob Russell.”

It required but a moment’s calculation when he heard this to make Stewart gasp with amazement. At that rate the Ocean Flyer was doing one hundred and eighty miles an hour. Not even this speed had been predicted by his talkative fellow workman. And at this rate he knew that the marvelous airship might be expected in the Aeroplane Company yards again by ten forty-five o’clock.

The reporter made his plans at once. He knew that it was both futile and inadvisable, if he was to attempt to score his news “beat,” to wait in an attempt to interview either the Airship Boys on the aeroplane or to get more exact particulars from the Aeroplane Company officials. Therefore, making his way out of the yards, he hurried along switch tracks until he was in the vicinity of the street car terminal.

With watch in hand, he waited in the suburban stillness and gloom while he searched the eastern sky. He knew the Ocean Flyer carried no outside signal yet he hoped for a possible glimpse of the shaded green pilot or engine room light. More than once he fancied he could hear the peculiar low note of the big craft’s engines. And all the time he kept an eye on the vertical shaft of the searchlight at the works, for by this beacon he knew the returning craft must guide itself to a safe landing. But neither sound nor returning light could he detect. When it was exactly a quarter of eleven o’clock he began to regret his attempt to save time and was debating the advisability of returning to the plant. In doubt, he was aware suddenly of a new note in the hum of the mosquitoes and other marsh things about him. Was it mosquitoes or was it the hum of the unseen airship? The sound ceased suddenly. Almost immediately the shaft of the warning searchlight swept earthward and disappeared.

Instinctively the nervous reporter glanced at his watch. It was a few seconds of ten forty-six. A trolley car was just starting. With a gulp of exultation the happy Stewart dashed forward and flipped the car. He knew that the Ocean Flyer had made a successful flight and had safely returned. He knew also the distance it had traveled and the time it had taken to do it. His only object was now to call his office by telephone and deliver the story. All these details his rapidly written copy told later, omitting the personal part. When it was complete a column of matter was on Mr. Latimer’s desk.

As Stewart noticed the number of his last page and realized how much he had written, he paused aghast. The bigger part of his story was yet to come—all the details of the ingenious creation remained to be written. Frightened by his failure to obey orders he hastened to Mr. Latimer’s desk. Here, three tired and nervous men, with the marks of a night’s grinding work on their faces and linen—unlit pipes or half consumed, fireless cigars gripped in their set teeth—were gathered in sullen debate.

“There’s two columns of it now and more to come,” the night editor was saying decisively. “We can’t give you another inch.”

Mr. Latimer saw Stewart approaching.

“How much more of that story is there?” he asked appealingly.

“A column, I think.”

The night city editor sighed and the telegraph editor laughed sarcastically.

“Any one who can see three columns in an airship story to-day must have forgotten they’re already back numbers,” exclaimed this executive.

“Lift a column of cable rot,” suggested the night city editor. “This can’t be cut; it’s a big story and it’s a ‘beat’.”

“Give him the paper,” went on the telegraph editor wearily.

“You’ll have to get along with two columns,” answered the night editor, “unless you think the paper is elastic or that we ought to have another page.”

Mr. Latimer slapped the desk with the last “take” of Stewart’s copy.

“You fellows don’t know news when you see it. What does the average reader care about English elections and French champagne riots? Every man and boy in the United States is interested in aeroplanes. And this story tells about the final thing in airships. It’ll be read all over the world to-morrow. It’s big, I tell you, and worth a page—”

“That’s what they all say,” sneered the telegraph editor.

“And I’m goin’ to print it all—every word of it—if I have to take it up to the old man himself.”

“That’s your cue,” broke in the night editor as he excitedly attempted to relight his dead cigar. “That’s where you’ll have to go. You don’t get but two columns from me.”

“It’s twenty minutes after one o’clock,” remarked a sour voice from the near-by copy reader’s desk. “If there’s any more of that Newark stuff you’d better hump it along.”

Without replying, the night city editor tossed old Dick the last of Stewart’s story describing the departure and return of the Airship Boys’ newest wonder and then arose with fire in his eyes.

“Give me all you can write up to two fifteen,” he snapped to Stewart, “and—” Just then his telephone rang.

“Yes,” he answered in a tired voice while the telegraph and night editors yet lingered by his desk. “Nathan? You seem to have taken plenty of time for your supper. Well? Oh, they did. All right. You don’t know where they are stopping? Good-bye.” Then he arose and glared once more at his nightly enemies—the telegraph and night editors. “Winton,” he called sharply to that reporter, who was sitting near by with his feet on a table. “These Airship Boys left Newark on the express just after Stewart. Nathan says they’re in town. Take a flyer through the hotels. Land ’em if possible. Make ’em talk. Phone me if you locate them.”

“’S that mean more of this flyin’ machine stuff?” grunted the head copy reader.

“It means I’m attending to my own business,” retorted Mr. Latimer, and with no further word or look for his office associates, he walked hurriedly toward the door. As the sailor “goes to the mast” or to the captain of the ship in a last appeal against unfairness or injustice, Mr. Latimer was on his way to the “old man” or the managing editor on his customary protest against the machinations of the night editor. Stewart hastened to his typewriter and resumed his tale of the aeroplane.

“The problem of how to build an aeroplane large enough to carry passengers hundreds of miles—possibly across the Atlantic—and at the same time develop speed enough to hold its own against storms, seemed unsolvable until two discoveries were made last winter. Both of these are now well known to scientists and both are unknown as yet to the layman. It was the almost simultaneous discovery of the new metal magnalium (due to the development of the electric converter by the steel works in Chicago) and a final determination of the law of the propeller by Professor Montgomery of California.

“With this new magnalium it is at last possible to make an all-metal car with light but rigid wings or planes. This metal, a magnesium alloy with copper and standard vanadium or chrome steel, at once assumed a new place in metals.” (These facts Stewart had secured from a German metallurgical quarterly in the Newark Public Library.) “Magnalium is not only extremely light but it has a molecular cohesion never before attained. Its peculiar toughness gives it a capacity for being worked slowly that is ideal for aeroplane uses. It turns the edge of the hardest chisel driven against it, yet the same drill, under slow pressure, will cleave it almost as easily as aluminum.”

Marking this much of his new story “more,” to indicate to the copy readers that more was to come, and heading his next page “Add 1 Description Aeroplane,” Stewart rushed the prepared “take” of copy to the city editor’s desk and continued:

“It is from this new metal that the car, planes and truss of the Ocean Flyer are constructed. The aeroplane is modeled in general after the body and wings of a gull in full flight, insuring, by its peculiar construction, not only the greatest speed, but, by an ingenious adaptation of the same gull’s wing, the automatic stability long striven for by aeroplane builders.”

IN THE “LOCAL ROOM” OF THE NEW YORK HERALD.

“Three sets of follow or tandem planes project, with slight dihedral angles, for from eighty to forty feet on each side of the body of the craft, a wing width never before attained. Yet, in flight, the enormous craft is readily held aloft, with all its load, by wings that are no more than seven and one-half feet in chord—from front to trailing edge. Although it will be incomprehensible to many how such small lifting surface can elevate such a heavy structure, this becomes apparent when the airship is seen at rest. The moment the air pressure due to rapid flight is lessened to a certain point by descent or cessation of motion, the narrow wing surfaces automatically spread till they are twenty-one feet from front to back.”

Glidden, the only airship man in the office, who covered all the aviation “stunts,” had long since finished his interview and was now lounging on the desk next to Stewart’s.

“Great!” was his comment, as he read this part of the story page by page. “Some one is strong with the Jules Verne stuff. Go to it, kid.”

The busy Stewart scarcely heard him.

“This was accomplished,” went on the young reporter, shouting for a copy boy and hustling to the desk another section of the story that was destined never to be printed, “in a simple manner. Near the leading edge of each wing is installed one of the new German pressure gauges with small openings just under the dipping edge. These small appliances, of compact construction, are easily concealed in the depth of the wing. Ordinarily these powerful gauges operate a needle to record pressure. Those used on the planes of the Ocean Flyer are made on a heavier scale and operate directly on a spring drum. From these, light cables extend to movable sections of the wings.

“These movable sections of the planes, the first unique feature of the new airship, telescope within and without the standard sections of the wings. By means of the gauge and spring drums they are extended automatically when the machine is not in swift flight. When the craft has made an ascent and attained a speed sufficient to create a vacuum under the dipping or front edge of the planes, the suction or reverse pressure on the gauges allows the drums to reel in the extension surfaces. When in full motion, as these come in, speed is naturally increased and all the extensions are housed securely beneath or over the main section of the wing.”

“How about the wing trusses?” broke in the skeptical Glidden.

“Corrugated rigidity,” replied Stewart promptly, remembering the phrase he had heard applied to the long, untrussed wings.

“The first section or extension,” his story continued, “running in its grooves, so closely overlaps the outside of the main section as to appear to be its proper covering. The rear section, with separate leaves, like the feathers of a bird’s wing, likewise disappears, leaving only the long narrow wing which has always been the ideal speed machine.

“To drive this huge craft, whose body consists of two stories or decks with pilot house, staterooms, fuel chambers, engine room, bridges above and protective galleries, a much higher percentage of motor power than ever secured before had to be turned into propulsive energy. The waste, or ‘slip’ of the ordinary propellers not only allowed a great deal of the motor’s power to escape, but it applied the remaining power so far from the shaft of the propeller that the resultant leverage greatly reduced the actual thrust.” (As Stewart finished this sentence, after several pauses and corrections, he turned the page over to Glidden with some pride. Then he paused while the older reporter read it.)

“Is that right?” asked Stewart with a curious smile.

“Absolutely,” answered Glidden. “What’s next?”

Stewart’s typewriter began clicking again.

“The new French ‘moon propeller’ does away with this ‘slip’ and allows the full power of the engine to be applied advantageously. Viewed sidewise this new form of propeller looks exactly like the new moon, its tips bending ahead of its shaft attachment. Its object is to gather the air at the outside of the circle,—”

“Periphery,” suggested Glidden, who was reading over the writer’s shoulder. Stewart made the change and continued: “compress it in accelerating degrees as it is forced toward the shaft and there, at the broad, ugly-looking middle section of the blade, exert the full force of the motor on the compressed air. The result is to increase the efficiency of the engine by two hundred and fifty per cent. The massive, eleven-foot propellers, with a section five feet broad at the center, give opportunity for the application of this great force.”

“How about the engine?” exclaimed Glidden as this paragraph was finished. His smile of skepticism was not as marked now.

“This force,” continued the younger man, “is secured by a chemical engine in which dehydrated sulphuric ether and gasoline or either may be used. Since the experiments with sulphuric ether, made last fall, engine makers have watched the rapid development of this form of engine with the greatest interest. Magnalium cylinders, sustaining the shock of the tremendous explosions as the cylinders revolve past the exploding chamber, have developed a power previously only dreamed of. Each of the two huge engines used on the Ocean Flyer is six feet in diameter with four explosion chambers cooled by fans which feed liquid ammonia to the cylinder walls in a spray and then furnish power for its liquefaction again. In form, each engine is a great wheel or turbine on the rim of which is a succession of conical pockets or cylinders. These are presented to the explosion chambers, receive the impact of the explosion and then, running through an expanding groove, allow the charge to continue expanding and applying power till the groove ends in an open slot which instantly cleanses the cylinders or pockets of the burnt gases. By this arrangement there is only a twentieth part of the engine wheel where no power is being imparted, thus giving practically a continuous torque.”

“How’s ‘torque’?” laughed Stewart as he inserted a fresh sheet of paper in the typewriter.

“Torque,” responded Glidden without even a smile, “is exceedingly good. As to the rest of your mechanical details all I can say is I take off my hat to you and whoever handed you this. It is exceedingly warm.”

“The joke of it all,” commented the other reporter, who was not without his own sense of humor, “is that these absurdities all happen to be practicalities. There’s a little more.”

“Weighing 520 pounds each,” continued Stewart, “and with a speed of 1,500 revolutions a minute, these big turbines generate 972 horsepower, natural brake test, and this may be raised to above a thousand horsepower without danger. Revolving in opposite directions they do away with dangerous gyroscopic action. Power is applied to the propellers by magnalium gearing. These are geared up, instead of down, as has always been the practice, and the new ‘moon propellers’ gain in thrust with high speed instead of losing it. This is because of greater compression of the air and a vacuum set up ahead of the blades by reason of their high speed. The car itself—”

At this moment—now after two o’clock—Mr. Latimer suddenly appeared at Stewart’s side.

“Needn’t write any more,” he said sharply. “The story isn’t going to be printed. The managing editor wants to see you at once.”

CHAPTER IV

THE AIRSHIP BOYS MAKE THEIR APPEARANCE

To be ordered to the office of the managing editor in this summary manner at half-past two o’clock in the morning was enough to set an older reporter than Buck Stewart guessing—Buck because his given name was Buckingham. Buck’s first thought was that he would now be asked to explain why he had persisted in expanding a column story into twice that space. Somewhat to his gratification Mr. Latimer escorted him to the office of the head of the paper.

The young reporter had never even seen his distantly removed superior. He had heard that the august editor looked like a preacher. He knew that the “boss” was one of the greatest journalists in the world. Then, instead of speculating on the cause for his summons, he began to wonder how the “M. E.” happened to be in his office at that late hour. The real reason was that the editor had entertained friends at the theatre and lingered long at the supper after. But in Buck’s mind, it could only be because the books on “How to be a Journalist” all said the real newspaper man is always at the right place in a news crisis.

Without a question to his guide, the young newspaper man deferentially followed Mr. Latimer down the long, half-lit hall, through the ground glass door into the anteroom where, in the day time, a colored Cerebus sat in state, and thence into the not over-large room of the director of the great paper. The managing editor, in evening clothes and a crumpled shirt, was slowly exhaling the smoke of a cigar while he examined a large wall map of America and Europe—tracing with a long, white finger a curved red line that marked some steamer course. On the approach of Mr. Latimer and Stewart, the editor turned, motioned Buck to a chair and seated himself in the one at his own desk. There was no introduction. The night city editor took a leaning position against a big table in silence.

“This is Mr. Stewart, I believe,” the managing editor began with a smile as he leaned forward and nervously tore a strip of paper into bits. The smile rather increased Buck’s alarm. He was sure he was in for nothing but criticism and the smile made him fearful that this was to come in ironical words.

“Yes, sir.”

“You discovered this new aeroplane—wrote the story about it?”

“Mr. Latimer sent me out on it. I tried to write a story but I guess—”

“At least you know all about it?”

“I think so. Yes, sir. There are some things I couldn’t learn, but I found out considerable.”

“And it was made by the young men they call the Airship Boys?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you think any one else knows what took place to-night?”

“I’m sure no one does.”

“Or the details of the new airship; the nature of it and what it can do?”

“They seem to be trying to conceal everything. I think no outsiders knew anything about it.”

“And this machine can travel at the rate of one hundred and eighty miles an hour?”

“It did it to-night and kept it up for twenty-five minutes.”

Buck’s questioner leaned back in his chair and gave Mr. Latimer a peculiar look. He seemed about to speak to his assistant but turned toward young Stewart again, took a long, reflective puff on his cigar and continued:

“Have you any reason to believe this machine could cross the Atlantic?”

“I think it could. I believe its makers think so. They call it the ‘Ocean Flyer.’”

What had been a smile on the editor’s face turned into straight, set lips. Again he turned to Mr. Latimer.

“These boys are somewhere in the city you say?”

“Newark says so,” was the night city editor’s prompt response as he slid from the table and took a step toward the desk. “Nathan says they came in from Newark on the midnight express. I’ve got a man out after them now.”

“Haven’t heard from him?”

Mr. Latimer stepped to his superior’s desk and took up the telephone.

“See if Winton is back yet,” he asked sharply.

“Mr. Winton called a few minutes ago,” was the instant response from one of the switchboard operators. “He says them parties is at the Breslin but he ain’t seen ’em yet. He wants as you shall call the Breslin what he shall do.”

Mr. Latimer turned to the head editor, the telephone yet in his hand:

“Yes, sir; they are at the Breslin. Our man hasn’t seen them. They’ve probably turned him down.”

The managing editor thought a moment, in which interval of silence he relit his cigar and then nodded an approval.

“That’s all,” answered the night city editor to the operator, “no message now.” And he replaced the receiver. Mr. Latimer’s attitude seemed to indicate that he knew something important was about to happen. Buck, himself—only temporarily relieved that the storm had not yet broken on him—also cudgeled his brain to account for his interrogation.

“You’ve stopped the story?” continued the managing editor at last.

“Yes, sir,” answered Mr. Latimer ruefully, “although most of it is in type. It was a beat.”

“I understand,” said the editor instantly and in a consoling tone. “Perhaps we can get a bigger beat.” He began tearing another bit of paper. Then throwing the pieces suddenly from him, he sat upright, grasped the arms of his chair and said to Latimer: