No more words were exchanged as the two machines tore onward back toward the starting-point.
The others had lost so much time getting into the air at the Harrowbrook grounds that they were practically out of the race. The contest lay between the Buzzard and the Golden Eagle.
Suddenly, as they were racing high above a road that showed far below them like a bit of white ribbon. Harry uttered an exclamation and pointed downward.
Directly beneath them an automobile was moving along, and as Frank gazed downward for a fraction of a second he saw a man, seated in the tonneau, place a glittering object to his shoulder.
"Zi-i-i-p!"
Something that sounded like a big bee sang by the boys" ears.
"A bullet!" cried Harry.
"They are shooting at us!" exclaimed Frank.
"I know that automobile," suddenly cried Harry, "it"s Luther Barr"s."
"So it is."
"And," shouted Harry, bringing his gla.s.ses to bear on the car, "the man with the rifle is that sneak Sanborn."
Before Frank could reply another bullet sang by them.
This one ripped a hole in the upper plane, but fortunately a hole of such size did not affect the machine.
"They are trying to hit the engine," cried Harry the next minute as a third bullet whistled unpleasantly near.
"Or more likely the fuel tank," corrected Frank.
"The cowards," cried the indignant Harry.
Whatever the intentions of the men in the auto had been, however, they came to nothing, for a sudden turn in the road compelled them to turn off almost at right angles from the course taken by the air-craft. As a last farewell bullet whizzed harmlessly by, Harry, through the gla.s.ses, saw a familiar figure spring upright in the tonneau and shake his fist upward in impotent rage.
It was Luther Barr.
His features swam in the field of the gla.s.ses as clear as if he had been standing ten feet away. His lean, mean face was convulsed and gray with rage. He seemed to be furiously berating Sanborn, whose rifle, Harry now observed, was equipped with a silencer. With this appliance bullets can be fired from an ordinary rifle without even as much sound as an air-gun. It is a murderous device.
But now the boys" attention was imperatively centered on the rival aeroplane. The wind had suddenly become gusty and the Buzzard was behaving in a most eccentric manner. To the boys several times it looked as if Malvoise had lost entire control of her.
The tents and aeroplane sheds of Mineola were now plainly in view, and the boys could see the black ma.s.s of the crowd as it raced out to meet them.
"It will be bad for a landing if they don"t keep them back," exclaimed Frank, as he saw this. "Someone will get hurt."
Suddenly, as a sharper puff than usual came, the Buzzard gave a lurch that Malvoise in vain tried to counteract by using his ailerons. These balancing devices are almost automatic in their control, and usually can be depended on to control an airship to keep an even keel, but this time not even Malvoise"s skill could save the Buzzard.
Down she sped, straight as a plummet, for fully fifty feet.
Desperately her driver strove with levers and guiding wheel. But his efforts were of no more avail than if he had idly surrendered to disaster.
Like a stricken bird the Buzzard dropped downward. All her occupant could do was to check the awful speed of her fall by spreading his ailerons to their fullest extent.
Luckily for Malvoise a clump of willows, about a shallow pond, were directly below him in his fall and the Buzzard crashed into these, throwing him out into the soft pond mud in which he received a ducking, but no great harm.
It was the end of the great race.
A few minutes later the Golden Eagle swept to the ground almost at the very door of her aerodrome, and Billy Barnes, Le Blanc, old Eben Joyce and Bluewater Bill rushed excitedly forward to greet the young aviators. Madly the excited crowd pressed about them, among them many reporters from New York and Philadelphia papers, who had been sent to report the details of the great race.
It was an hour or more before a wagon arrived with the remains of the Buzzard, and Malvoise followed, mud-covered and angry clear through.
He cast a malevolent scowl at the boys as he pa.s.sed their aerodrome, in front of which the crowd still lingered, unable to gaze enough at the victorious Golden Eagle and her young drivers.
While Frank and Harry were still trying to tear themselves away, a blue-garbed messenger boy pushed his way through the crowd and extended a yellow envelope.
"Message for you," he grinned, "Mr. Chester." Frank took the envelope in wonderment. He had no idea whom it could be from. The look of astonishment on his face froze into one of amazement as he perused the contents of the message, which read:
You have beaten me once more. Next time you will not be so fortunate. I"ll drive you cubs off the earth yet.
Luther Barr.
"Well, what do you know about that?" exclaimed the slangy Billy Barnes, as he in his turn conned the remarkable doc.u.ment from the old man, who seemed destined to be checked at every point by the boys.
CHAPTER XI.
LOST IN THE FOG.
It is a week after the race and the Hempstead Plains cup proudly reposes in a place of state in the Chester boys" home. On the morning in question the boys and their chums are getting ready for a test of Frank"s pontoons, which, as our readers know, he had already begun to figure on as soon as Bluewater Bill had unfolded his strange tale of the Golden Galleon of the Sarga.s.so.
In a quiet bay on the north sh.o.r.e of Long Island the tests were to be made, and a launch had been engaged for the occasion. At the commencement of this chapter our readers are to imagine the boys on a train speeding toward Lone Cove, where they plan to embark. In the baggage car are the "pontoons," which in reality are two cylinders of aluminum, about twenty feet in length by three in diameter and capable of sustaining a weight of almost a ton. To the bottom of each, Frank had riveted a thin "keel" of manganese bronze with a heavy fin of lead affixed to it. This was to give stability in the rough waters they ran a chance of encountering on the outskirts of the Sarga.s.so.
A s.p.a.ce of about two feet at each end of the pontoons had been part.i.tioned off, so as to form four tanks in which water and gasolene could be stored. Caps screwed over vent-holes provided opportunity to insert a small pump when it was necessary to draw on the emergency supplies or water ballast thus carried.
Lone Cove, a small sand-bordered inlet off the Sound, was reached after a run of about two hours and the tanks--boxed in long wooden cases so as to avoid the scrutiny of any villagers who might prove too curious--were transferred to a wagon and carried to the small wharf where the Ocean Spray, the launch the boys had chartered for their experiments, lay at anchor.
Her owner, an old beachman, at once turned the craft over to the party and expressed a lot of curiosity, which was not gratified, as the boys knocked the cases off the "pontoons" and then floated them. With the boards from the cases, a sort of platform was then constructed between the floating tanks and lashed to them with stout wire. The wonderment of the old waterman was in no wise decreased when he saw the boys then fall feverishly to work and load the dinghy, attached to the launch, with large stones. When they had her piled to the water line, they pulled out to where they had anch.o.r.ed the tanks with their bridge-like platform, and commenced to place the rocks on board till Frank estimated that there was as much weight reposing on the pontoons as they would be called upon to bear when the Golden Eagle was super-imposed on them.
As Frank had figured, the tanks were immersed for about a third of their depth under the weight, and when the burden of the boys and Bluewater Bill was added, they sank till about half their circ.u.mference was above and half below the water. The whole contrivance was then taken in tow of the Ocean Spray, in order to ascertain just how she would behave under the speed at which it was hoped the propellers of the Golden Eagle would drive her when the contrivance was affixed to her bed plates.
It was a perfect day, and as the boys emerged from the mouth of the inlet and the blue expanse of the Sound spread before them, they fairly shouted with delight at the sparkling water and invigorating air.
"How long are you going to stay out?" asked Bluewater Bill, as the Ocean Spray plunged bravely forward and the sharp-nosed pontoons, to the boys" delight, clove the water behind without making any noticeable resistance.
"The Golden Eagle will drive over any seaweed that ever floated on these," shouted Billy excitedly as he gazed back.
"How long are we going to stay out?" repeated Frank, in reply to Bluewater Bill"s question. "Oh, not more than an hour or so, but it"s such a glorious day I"d like to keep on going for a while."