BILLY AS A DIPLOMAT.
A few minutes after Fred Reade had left the _Planet_ offices he was
followed by Billy Barnes. The young reporter boarded an open Madison
Avenue car, preferring it to the stuffy heat of the subway, and in due
time found himself at the home of Mr. Chester, the wealthy banker, and
father of Frank and Harry Chester, the Boy Aviators. The lads need no
further introduction to our readers, who have doubtless formed the
acquaintance of both the young air pilots in previous volumes of this
series. To those who have not it may be as well—while Billy Barnes is
ringing the doorbell—to say that Frank and Harry Chester were graduates
of the Agassiz High School and the pioneers among schoolboy aviators.
Beginning with models of air craft they had finally evolved a fine
biplane which they named the _Golden Eagle_. The first _Golden Eagle_
was destroyed in a tropical storm off the coast of Nicaragua, as related
in The Boy Aviators in Nicaragua; or, In League with the Insurgents. To
carry out an important commission affecting a stolen formula the lads
then constructed a second _Golden Eagle_, in which they met many
adventures and perils in the Everglades of Florida. These were set forth
in The Boy Aviators on Secret Service; or, Working with Wireless, the
second volume of the series. In the third and fourth volumes the boys
had aerial adventures in Africa, and in the Sargasso Sea. What these
were will be found in The Boy Aviators in Africa; or, An Aerial Ivory
Trail; and The Boy Aviators’ Treasure Quest; or, The Golden Galleon.
Before the servant who answered Billy’s ring had time to announce him
there was a rush of feet down the hallway and two tall lads, with crisp
wavy hair and blue eyes, were wringing Billy’s hand till he laughingly
shouted:
“Hey, let up! I’m not the India-rubber man with the circus.”
At this moment a door opened and a gray-haired man stepped out. It was
Mr. Chester.
“Why, how do you do, Billy Barnes,” he exclaimed heartily, “glad to see
you; but I hope you haven’t come to take my boys off again on some
wonderful trip or other. You know their mother and I like to see them at
home sometimes.”
“Well, sir,” began Billy somewhat abashed, “the fact is I—you see—I
mean—well, the long and short of it is, sir, that I _have_ an
adventurous proposal to make to them.”
“Hurray!” shouted Harry. “Good for you, Billy!”
Mr. Chester, however, assumed his—what Frank called—“official face.”
“Really, I——” he began.
“Now, father,” interjected Frank, “don’t you think it would be a good
idea if we heard what Billy’s proposal, or whatever you like to call it,
is before we say anything more?”
“Perhaps you are right, my boy,” said his father, “but I am busy now,
and——”
“We’ll take Billy out to the workshop and make him tell us all about it,
and then we’ll submit it to you,” suggested Harry.
“That’s a good idea,” assented his father.
Five minutes later the three boys were closeted in the big room above
the garage of the Chester home, which served them as a workshop, study
and designing plant all rolled into one. The blue prints, aeroplane
parts, chemicals, and tools scattered about or ranged in neat racks
against the walls in conjunction with a shelf of books on aviation and
kindred subjects, the table illumined by movable drop lights shaded by
green shades, gave the room a very business-like appearance. It was
clearly a place for work and not for play—as a sort of framework newly
erected in one corner showed.
“What’s that?” asked Billy, indicating it.
“Oh, just an idea we were working on for a wireless adapted for auto
use,” rejoined Frank, “but never mind that now. What’s this wonderful
plan of yours?”
“Simply this,” replied Billy briskly, “how’d you fellows like to get
$50,000?”
“Would we?” exclaimed Harry. “Lead us to it.”
“You’ll have to lead yourselves,” laughed Billy.
“Oh, come on, Billy, put us out of our suspense. What do you mean?” said
Frank.
“Well, my paper, _The Planet_, you know,” began Billy, “has decided to
offer the amount I named for a successful flight from here to San
Francisco, or as near to that city as can be attained. There are no
conditions—except get there first, or travel furthest.”
“Well?” said Frank.
“Well,” repeated Billy, “I’ve come here to interview you. Are you ready
to announce yourselves as competitors for the _Planet’s_ contest?”
Not so much to Billy’s surprise Frank shook his head.
“I don’t know what to say,” he rejoined. “It isn’t a thing you can make
your mind up to in a minute. I’d like to do it, but it would require a
lot of preparation. Then, too, there would be maps to get up and a
thousand and one details to arrange. It’s a big task—bigger than you
imagine, Billy.”
“Oh, I know it’s a big proposition,” said the young reporter, “that’s
one 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.