The Bird boys

“Hurrah! Great news, lads!” shouted the colonel, as he waved a paper over his head, when he could stop his forward movement for a second or two.

“Oh, what if it is about father?” gasped Andy, turning pale, for the unrevealed fate of the daring aviator had always borne heavily on the poor lad’s mind, and in the silent watches of the night he often allowed himself to think of the great joy that would come to him should his parent ever be found again.

Frank turned to him quickly.

“Don’t allow yourself to think it can be that, Chum Andy,” he said, softly, for he knew what the dream was that his cousin kept nurturing deep down in his heart, and also how impossible of fulfillment it must ever be; “I have an idea it’s only something connected with our little adventure of last night. But here’s Colonel Josiah at hand and we shall soon know the worst.”

“Bully news for you, my bold young aviators!” cried the old man as he came hobbling along, his smooth face aglow and his long white hair floating over his shoulders. “And I made ’em do it, too! When they heard about that balloon dropping that message and how Bloomsbury was destined to become famous as the center of aeronautic doings, they just couldn’t hold back. And so they had the printer strike off fifty of these circulars, and they’re going to be posted all around the county.”

“What did I tell you?” said Frank, smiling, but nevertheless he reached for the paper the old man extended with a hand that shook a little.

“Why,” he said, “it’s issued by the Committee on Sports for the Old Home week of this month, when they expect to have all sorts of athletic stunts going on to interest the crowds of people who will flock to Bloomsbury.”

“Just so,” observed the old man, with a broad smile. “And I finally showed ’em what a tremendous thing it would be to have an aviation meet at the same time.”

“An aviation meet!” ejaculated Andy, his eyes almost popping out of his head with new interest.

“And we talked it over,” went on the old man, “with the result that a prize is to be offered to any one who first plants an American flag on Old Thunder Top, landing on the little plateau where the foot of man has never yet trod, from an aeroplane built in Bloomsbury and piloted by Bloomsbury boys!”

“Whoop! It’s great! And did you originate that clever stunt, Colonel Josiah?” shouted Andy, wringing his guardian’s hand as though it were a pump handle.

“To be sure I did,” replied the veteran, proudly. “I’ve had it in my mind for some little time now, and what you told me this morning about that other machine being constructed here just capped the climax, as I may say. But she’s all fixed now, lads. The prize is to be a silver cup. And unless I miss my guess, that trophy is bound to be kept in the Bird family, to be handed down to future generations of bird boys.”

He did not mention the fact, but Frank suspected it on the spot and afterwards discovered it to be true, that his money had gone to purchase the said trophy and have it suitably engraved.

“When is this great day to be?” demanded the excited Andy, leaning over, the better to scan the little poster that told in as few words as possible what the several conditions of the contest would be.

“July fourteenth, and at two p. m. the word will be given to go,” replied Frank.

“Whew! That gives us a scant five days to get ready and one of them Sunday, too, when there’s nothing doing. Can we get the machine in trim and master her by that time, Frank?” asked his cousin, anxiously.

“We certainly can and will!” came the steady reply from the boy who believed in his own powers to accomplish things. “Besides, you must remember that our only competitors are likely to be Puss Carberry and his crony Sandy, who know far less than we do about running an aeroplane.”

“That’s right,” agreed Andy, his confidence returning again, as it always did after being bolstered up by his chum’s unwavering determination and faith. “With only those two against us seems to me we ought to have a walk-over.”

“Now, don’t jump to the other extreme and underrate the enemy,” warned Frank. “You know that’s always a dangerous business. Besides, Percy has a certain amount of perseverance and cunning that often carries him along. He’s in dead earnest about this aviation business and bent on making a success of it. I never knew him to show so much interest in anything before. And it strikes me as funny, now that I look back, how neither of us ever suspected that he was up to beating us at our own game. He’s a sly one, all right.”

“Yes,” Andy went on, “and we might still be as much in the dark as ever if it hadn’t been for my silly blunder in starting to open his package of freight, without examining the tag first. That gave the secret away and put us on to their slick game.”

“Perhaps,” replied his cousin; “not that it would make much difference in the end, though, for they couldn’t have kept their secret much longer. But I’m going over to town now and see if that canvas has arrived at Spencer’s Emporium.”

“This time,” said Andy, “my wheel ought to hold out, for you put the plug in yourself, and I humbly confess that I’m far from a success as a mechanic. My jobs look well, but hang the luck, they don’t just seem to hold good.”

Frank was quickly off. He never felt so happy before in all his life. Everything seemed to be as fine as the weather. Their little monoplane was about ready for its trial spin, once they fastened the new canvas to the planes. There was this competition, which pleased him more than words could tell. And then the indefinite future beckoned beyond, holding all sorts of wonderful possibilities for a couple of bold spirits, fully devoted to solving the secrets of the upper air.

“I only hope the weather is just like this on that same Old Home day,” he was saying to himself, as he pushed on the pedals and went spinning along the road to town. “Not a breath of air stirring around and just a few clouds lazily floating up yonder above the crown of Old Thunder Top.”

He turned to cast a glance toward the peak that hung over the waters of peaceful Lake Sunrise, and memory carried him back to several occasions when he had been baffled in trying to scale the upper tier of frowning cliffs, that up to now had made the top of the peak inaccessible to climbers.

It was a positive fact that so far as was known to the oldest inhabitant of Bloomsbury no one had ever attained that summit, though many had tried. The upper cliffs made a complete circle around the crown and were something like eighty feet in height.

It had long been the one desire of Frank’s boyish heart to find out some method of surmounting the difficulties that had thus far debarred any one from planting a flag up on that lofty summit.

And to think that the idea had also come to Old Colonel Josiah, who possibly in his younger years may have climbed the Matterhorn or scaled some of those awful peaks in the northern Himalayas.

It would indeed be a proud day for Frank if he were ever allowed to put foot on that elevated plateau of solid rock, up to now only the lonely eyrie for the eagles that sailed through the blue vault of heaven.

And strangely enough at about that same moment Andy was standing outside the shed that sheltered the idol of their hopes, with his eyes also glued upon the indistinct crown of Old Thunder Top.

In imagination doubtless the sanguine bird-boy was seeing their monoplane gently dropping like a feather on that hitherto inaccessible rocky fortress, soon to yield its secrets to modern, up-to-date methods of exploration.

And again would the honored name which his late father bore be crowned with a measure of success.

“I’d just be as happy as a clam at high tide,” muttered Andy, “if it wasn’t for that measly monkey wrench getting away from me. Never had such a sad thing happen. And just when I had saved enough money to get out a patent, too. But, as Frank says, there’s no use crying over spilt milk. I can make another model if given time. And then who knows but what it might pop up again in some unexpected place. Sometimes I am a bit careless, I admit. But better that than to believe it went in that mud to land in China, as Larry Geohegan said.”

From the contemplation of the mountain peak he allowed his thoughts to slip off to that other subject which was never long out of his mind.

“If we can drop down on that plateau so easy,” he said to himself, Colonel Josiah having betaken himself back to the house and his book, “what’s to hinder our scouring the whole range of the Andes in the hope of finding some trace of any one who might have been lost there? I haven’t said much to Frank about that, but it’s the dream of my life. If I only could know how he died—oh, if I could only learn where his poor body lies! That uncertainty is what hangs like a load on my soul. But some day, please Heaven, I mean to go down there were he was last seen and devote my whole energies to solving the riddle.”

When Frank came back, which was shortly, he found his cousin tinkering at the planes and getting the last remnant of old canvas off in readiness for the new material soon to be fastened there.

“I see you got it all right, Frank,” remarked Andy, cheerily, for it was not in his nature to remain for any length of time in the dumps.

“Yes, it came in yesterday after all. But then we haven’t really lost any time, you know. And by tomorrow morning I calculate we’ll be in good trim to make the first real test of our ship in her natural element, the air. I tell you, Andy, the prospect looks mighty good to me.”

“And to me,” promptly said the one addressed. “Given two days to make little flights around our field here, and we ought to be able to rise to higher things.”

“Well, I learned something just now that rather took my breath away,” Frank went on saying.

“What was that?” asked the other, curiously.

“You remember that Puss was off somewhere a week ago. I heard that he was down in the city, but no one knew what for. And now it develops that he spent two days around the aviation field over on Long Island, watching the way they ran the aeroplanes. And it is said that he went up several times with Curtiss in one of his biplanes, so as to learn how to handle the wheel!”

“You don’t say?” ejaculated Andy, his eyebrows denoting the most intense astonishment. “Well, in that case he has got the bulge on us, for a fact. Why, if he had such an experienced aviator for a teacher Puss must be in the swim right now. And we’ve just got to dig for all we’re worth to get on even terms with him.”

“Don’t worry,” said Frank, composedly. “In the first place I don’t believe the story. If he went up with any one it was a man less famous than Curtiss, who certainly wouldn’t bother taking a boy up with him while exhibiting his machine and what tricks it could do. Even if Puss did go up, that doesn’t make him an aviator. We’re going to learn our little lesson by slow degrees and without the help of any outsider, too.”

They were soon busily employed in cutting out the wings and starting to secure them to the planes. It was a particular job, for upon those essential parts of the monoplane almost as much depended as on the engine itself. If the latter broke down while in flight or stopped while “banking” the aeronaut could save himself by volplaning down toward the earth; but should his planes suddenly give way, he would drop like a plummet!

Frank was a cautious lad, who never forgot that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. And he would certainly omit nothing that could add to the safety of himself and his chum.

They had just concluded it must be time for dinner, when Andy, who had started for the house to wash up and be the first to partake, uttered a loud cry that brought his companion hurriedly forth.

“I guess it’s all true, Frank,” the other was crying, as he pointed his finger at some unwieldy object that seemed to be moving unsteadily along just over the tops of the trees where the balloon had vanished; “because there’s Puss and Sandy in their new biplane, starting out to make their first little flight. Oh, my! look at that dip, would you? I thought it was going to smash that time, but they lifted her all right. You see, Frank, they’ve got us beat a mile in being first afloat!”