Motor Matt and his Dutch chum, Carl Pretzel, were sitting by a quiet country roadside, in the shade of some trees. Drawn up near them was a light touring-car.
The boys were several miles out of the city of Chicago, from which place they had started about the middle of the forenoon, and they had halted in that shady spot between Hammond and Hegewisch to eat the lunch they had brought with them. Carl had just finished the last piece of fried chicken when, happening to look skyward, he saw something that brought him to his feet with a jump. As he called to his chum, he pointed with the "drum-stick," at which he had been nibbling.
Matt's surprise was nearly as great as Carl's, and he likewise sprang up and gazed at the air-ship, which was coming toward them from the north and east, making smart headway against the wind.
"Great spark-plugs!" exclaimed Matt. "That's the first air-ship I ever saw."
"Vat's der tifference bedween a palloon und a air-ship?" asked Carl.
"Well, you can navigate an air-ship with the wind or against it, while a balloon is at the mercy of every current that blows. A round gas-bag and a basket is a balloon, Carl, but when you add a gasolene-motor and a propeller you have an air-ship."
"Dot's blain enough. Der air-ship iss sky-hootin' dis vay to peat four oof a kindt. Say, it looks like a pig cigar. Vat a funny pitzness! Und you nefer seen vone pefore, Matt?"
"I never saw one that would travel successfully. This one, though, seems to be going in good shape."
"More than I can count," said he. "I've been up in balloons a dozen times. When I was in the Berkshire Hills they used to have races, and start from Pittsfield. That's where I began making ascensions."
Carl dropped his wondering eyes to Matt for a moment.
"You vas der plamedest feller!" he exclaimed. "You haf tone more t'ings as any feller I ever see, und you nefer say nodding ondil it shlips oudt, like vat it toes now."
Motor Matt made no answer to this. Just then his attention was completely absorbed by the air-craft.
As near as he could judge, the cigar-shaped gas-bag was more than a hundred feet long. Beneath the bag was suspended a light framework. Midway of the framework was an open space, containing a chair in which sat the man who was handling the motor. Out behind the driver the framework tapered to a point, and at the end of this rearmost point was the whirling propeller. The glittering blades caught the sun in a continuous sparkling reflection, which made the air-ship appear to be trailed by a glow of fire.