Chapter 13

THE STRANGE AIRPLANE

The first thing the boys did the following morning, after spending the night at the home of Mr. Choate, was to go down to the beach and see if their airplane was all right. They found one of the two negroes asleep, but the other fellow was faithfully on guard, and everything about the Sky-Bird seemed just as they had left it, although the watchers said that a considerable number of curious townspeople had come to look at the machine the day before and they had been very busy keeping venturesome boys off the craft.

Our friends let the negroes go to get their breakfasts and some sleep, and engaged two others to take up the watch. Following this, in company with Mr. Choate, they all retired to the bathhouse, secured bathing suits and had a fine time disporting themselves in the warm surf for the next hour. The youths had never experienced Gulf Stream bathing before, and the water was so enticing that it was hard to drag themselves out of it.

As they were in the act of emerging to dress themselves, a black speck, which all had noticed in the northern sky, had developed by nearer approach so that they thought they could recognize it as an airplane. It was coming down the coast very rapidly. Wondering if its pilot intended to land in the vicinity, they gathered on the beach and curiously waited for it to come nearer.

At times they were puzzled to know whether the approaching object were really an airplane or a great bird, for it surely looked like a bird with its swelling breast-line and slightly tilted broad-shouldered wings. Closer and closer it came. It was flying very high.

When it was almost over them, Mr. Giddings uttered a startled ejaculation; "My stars, boys! It's _our_ machine!"

Paul and John Ross and Tom Meeks were equally astonished. They had noticed the strong resemblance at the same moment. Involuntarily, with Mr. Giddings and Mr. Choate, they turned their heads up the beach to see if the Sky-Bird II was where they had left it.

They saw its huge outline and its patrolling black guards. It had not changed position. Even a group of gaping Miami citizens lent reality to the situation, and some of the latter were gazing aloft at the other flying-machine, as our friends had been doing.

The stranger above them evidently had no intention of stopping. Instead of circling the town, as he would have done had he intended to land, he swept straight over and kept on his southward course, heading across Florida Strait.

On the face of every one of our friends, as they saw this image of the Sky-Bird II cross the sky overhead and disappear in the mists beyond, was a look of amazement, incredulity, and finally dark suspicion.

"Can it be--?" Mr. Giddings hesitated, and looked inquiringly at his younger companions.

"It looks that way," said John Ross, with a reluctant nod.

None needed to explain that the same thought had struck him, also. The stolen blue-prints--the skulking man with the swarthy face! He had duplicated the Sky-Bird!

More than that, each recalled the _Clarion's_ secrecy about the kind of airplane it planned to use; and its willingness to attempt the long "hops" which ordinary machines would have had difficulty in negotiating. It all pointed to but one logical meaning. And Bob Giddings expressed the opinion of all when he observed:

"Dad, I believe there goes our prospective competitor in the race around the world! He's making for Panama now!"

Further comment on the situation would have been useless. All hands, each with disturbing thoughts of his own, went silently into the bathhouse and resumed his regular garb.

Mr. Choate and his wife begged them so hard to remain over another day at least that Mr. Giddings assented. That afternoon they went for a long automobile ride along improved roads, both sides of which were lined with palms in places, luxuriant tropical grasses in others, and towering forests covered with creeping vines. They stopped the car a number of times to visit great orange groves, and the boys had their first taste of the luscious fruit just as it ripened on the trees.

The following morning, directly after breakfast, they were besieged by two or three local newspaper reporters. Seeing no use of further concealing their identity, Mr. Giddings gave out a little information to the gleeful newspaper men, but was careful to wire in to his own newspaper much more detail of their doings since leaving Yonkers, even mailing some photographs which they had taken of the tussle with the big devil-fish.

In the afternoon our party paid a visit to the aquarium again, extending it to the Biological Laboratory nearby; and took supper in the beautiful white casino, which fronts the beach, after they had had a refreshing plunge in the ocean's waters. Then Paul and Bob took up Mr. and Mrs. Choate for a short flight in the airplane.

Early the next morning they bade their Miami friends good-bye, and once more took to the air, this time to complete the last leg of their journey to Panama. It was found that the Sky-Bird's fuel tanks were apparently still full enough to carry them to their destination, so it had not been necessary to store either gasoline or oil in Miami. This was very gratifying, as it showed quite conclusively that, later on in the race, the Sky-Bird would be able to make her longest jumps without the peril of fuel shortage.

At a height of close to two thousand feet they headed across Florida Strait, with Paul at the throttle. It was a real joy to be looking through the glass panels of the airplane's cabin once more, to hear the muffled roar of her engine and propeller, and to realize that probably before dark they would be across the five hundred miles of blue waters of the Caribbean and hovering over the world-famous Canal Zone.

It was a fine morning. What clouds could be seen were well above them--light, billowy, and white, reflecting the sunlight so strongly upon the white-capped waters below, that the sea seemed much closer to the voyagers than it really was.

Shortly after eight o'clock they crossed over the long, low-lying island of Cuba, dipping down close enough to get a fairly good view of the topography. Then rising to three thousand feet, they swerved a little to the eastward and made off across the Caribbean Sea itself.

At a few minutes of eleven they sighted the shore of Jamaica, five miles or so to the eastward of them. Then John took the throttle, both engines were put into the work, and they began to whizz through the air at a clip which would have made them gasp for breath had they been in an open cockpit. As it was, the rush of air as it swept along each side of the fuselage and off its narrowing tail, became a veritable howl in whose noise they found conversation very difficult. Tom Meeks, who was leaning over John's shoulder and watching the instrument-board, triumphantly announced presently that they were traveling at the rate of 280 miles an hour!

For thirty minutes or more John Ross kept the Sky-Bird going at this terrific speed, then he slowed up, and transferred into mono-engine gear, as there was no use in unnecessarily heating the power-plants. As the indicator of the speedometer retreated to 150 miles, he turned the throttle over to Bob Giddings, and said: "Hold her at this rate, Bob; it's plenty fast enough for the present."

It was a little after one o'clock when Paul and Tom announced land to the westward. After looking at the object, which surely had the appearance of land, Mr. Giddings laid down the glasses and consulted the chart.

"That's undoubtedly the outer point of Nicaragua," he said; and upon taking a look themselves with the binoculars, the others all agreed with him.

Keeping the low-lying coastline of the continent on their right, and buffeted considerably by contrary winds which now began to make themselves manifest, Bob threw the automatic-pilot into gear at a suggestion from John, as this insured greater safety, and steered with the rudder only. At once the riding became easier, for the moment a gust of wind hit the machine on one side, the elevators and ailerons shifted and counteracted its uneven effect.

After a while Bob turned slightly to the eastward, and about mid-afternoon they came in sight of Colon, the Atlantic terminal city of the great Canal. Sweeping over its collection of houses, at an elevation of about fifteen hundred feet, they passed the big white Gatun locks, and followed the trail of the Panama Railroad across the great neck of rugged land which joined North and South America--followed, too, the tortuous, wonderful channel which American enterprise had cut through.

Thus over Gatun Lake they flew, over the Chagres River; along the course of Culebra Cut, with its high banks, across the Pedro Miguel and Miraflores locks on the other side of the isthmus; over Ancon; and finally below them lay clustered the white-robed buildings of Panama itself, with the swelling blue reaches of the big Pacific to the southward and westward, and the bold shore-line of South America to the southeastward.

Looking down as they circled the narrow tongue of land on which the city proper nestled, our friends soon made out the big Government landing-field and airdrome, distinguished by its whitewashed cobblestone markers at either end. And, now, as the Sky-Bird II swooped downward, several attendants in white pantaloons could be seen running out of the building.

When the airplane had settled, these men came up. Two were short, black fellows, probably San Blas Indians; but the other two were whites, though well-burned by the tropical suns. The taller of the white men introduced himself as Henry Masters, superintendent of the landing-field, and was extremely courteous when he learned the identity of the new-arrivals.

"We have been looking for you gentlemen," said he, "and I'm glad to know you had such a fine run from Miami. There are a lot of strangers in town--been arriving for the last three or four days--all to witness the start of this big race. Most of them seem to be newspaper men from the States, though there are a number from South America, and even Africa and Europe. Is this the plane that you fellows representing the _Daily Independent_ are going to fly in?"

"This is the one, Mr. Masters," responded John.

"It is a beauty," said the superintendent with enthusiasm, as he glanced over the graceful outlines of the Sky-Bird. "I never saw one built on these lines until the other day, when what seems to be its twin came in."

"Much like-um lot," remarked one of the natives, and his companion, added more concisely: "Same like-um lot."

In spite of the fact that our party had been fearing some such information as this upon reaching Panama, the actual announcement of it made their hearts jump wildly.

"Where is this machine now?" asked Mr. Giddings as calmly as he could.

"In the hangar," was the reply of Masters. "It is the one that is going to fly against you."

"Who is in charge of it?" inquired John Ross.

"Five arrived in it. Four of them are to be in the contest, they say. The other gentleman is Mr. Wrenn, of the New York _Clarion_."

A few minutes later, when they pushed the Sky-Bird into one of the big double hangars, their suspicions were conclusively clinched. For there at one side stood the very counterpart of their own airplane, differing only in the name painted upon its sides and under its big hollow wings. These letters spelled "_Clarion_"!