SHOT INTO THE AIR

"Hurrah!" shouted Jack Darrow, flicking the final drops of lacquer
from the paintbrush he had been using. "That's the last stroke. She's
finished!"

"I guess we've done all we can to her before her trial trip," admitted
his chum, Mark Sampson, but in a less confident tone.

"You don't see anything wrong with her, old croaker; do you?" demanded
Jack, laughing as usual.

"'The proof of the pudding is in the eating thereof; not in chewing
the pudding bag string'," quoted Mark, still with a serious countenance.

But like Jack he stood off from the great body of the wonderful airship,
and looked the completed task over with some satisfaction. Having
emergency wings, she was also a plane. She was white all over and her
name was the _Snowbird_. Jack and Mark had spent most of their time
during this vacation from their college in building this flying machine,
which was veritably an up-to-the-minute aerial vehicle, built for both
speed and carrying capacity.

The hangar in which the machine had been built was connected with
Professor Amos Henderson's laboratory and workshop, hidden away on a
lonely point on the seacoast, about ten miles from the town of Easton,
Maine. At this spot had been built many wonderful things--mainly the
inventions of the boys' friend and protector, Professor Henderson; but
the _Snowbird_, upon which Jack and Mark now gazed so proudly, was