Two minutes later they were in the air, all of them but Ballard. Skimming along over the narrow meadow, they rose higher and higher until the whole beautiful panorama of the Blue Ridge—Big Black Mountain, Little Black, Pine Ridge, and all the rest, lay spread out beneath them.
Little Bexter drew in a long, deep, breath, then shouted in Johnny’s ear: “I never dreamed it could be like this. I—”
He broke off. A pair of keen, gray eyes, were studying his face. Malcomb MacQueen had apparently regained consciousness.
Johnny too saw those eyes and liked them. “Keen eyes,” he thought. “He knows a great deal. Hope I can get to be his friend.” Then again came that haunting question: “How could this man go down into a mysterious space beneath a grist mill and by setting some sort of machinery in motion, produce something very valuable out of nothing but air and water?
“Perhaps he will tell me,” he thought. “But at least, not now.” He saw those gray eyes close, whether in unconsciousness or sleep, he could not tell. Sleep under such unusual circumstances appeared impossible, but this, he realized was a remarkable man.
It seemed to Johnny that the time consumed in that journey was remarkably short. To his utter surprise, he found himself circling over the roofs and chimneys of a sizeable city. Next moment, with a speed that was startling, they were shooting downward for a landing.
“Qui—quick trip,” he said to the pilot a moment later.
“Been quicker if my new motor were complete!” was the mysterious pilot’s strange reply.
But here were officers, doctors, an ambulance, all ordered in advance by two-way airplane radio. The little gray haired man was lifted out tenderly, then whisked away.
“You making a new kind of motor?” Johnny asked the pilot when everyone had departed.
“Motor’s not as new as the fuel I’ll use,” was the reply.
“You’d be surprised!” The pilot looked away. “More foot pounds of energy for its weight than any yet discovered. Go around the world in non-stop flight—perhaps.”
“Say! I’m starved!” the pilot exclaimed. “Guess we’ve done all we can for your friend, at least for the present. Want something to eat, you boys?”
Did they? Little Bexter grinned from ear to ear.
Early next morning they found themselves once more standing beside the airplane. A boy about Johnny’s age had just arrived.