As for Washington White, he gazed down to the dusky earth below them
and his eyes rolled.

"Gollyation!" he muttered. "If Buttsy should fall down dere, he'd suah
jounce himself some; wouldn't he?"




CHAPTER IV

"WHO GOES THERE?"

With the moonlight lying like a benediction over the fields and forests
of Maine, the _Snowbird_, her motor humming like a huge bumble-bee,
and her propellers and controls working in perfect order, swept on her
course into the northwest. The lights of Easton, ten miles from their
home, melted into the earth-shadow behind the sky-voyagers within the
first hour of the sure-to-be eventful journey.

Jack Darrow did not force the pace of the flying machine. They had a
long and trying flight before them. The machine as a whole had been
tried out only two or three times during the few days that had elapsed
since she was completed and this present expedition had been planned.
These short flights had served merely to put the parts in good working
trim; but the lad knew better than to make the pace that of top-speed
from the start.

He wanted her to "warm up." He knew that the _Snowbird_ could make one
hundred twenty-five miles an hour. But such speed was likely to shake