There was a roar and shout, and the Electric Monarch jumped forward. The crowd scattered right and left. Hank and Miles leaped after the craft. The wind from the propellers caught the former and hurled him to the ground.
“Stop ’em!” bellowed Miles, and then he turned furiously on the officer. “Why don’t you stop ’em, you--you muttonhead?”
“Keep a civil tongue in you, young feller,” warned the officer. “There’s no power on earth’ll stop ’em now. That injunction will have to wait.”
A mighty cheer from the crowd drowned Miles’s furious reply.
The Electric Monarch had taken the air in a graceful, sweeping slant. The powerful craft was off on an errand of life or death.
Entirely unconscious of the fact that they were law breakers, the boys’ hearts beat high with the love of adventure as the Electric Monarch soared above Portstown, saluted by scores of whistles, and dashed off south in the direction of Scatiute.
The lads had been in many surprising adventures, but they had never encountered such a crisis as the present one. Somewhere out above the ocean, the glimmer of which they could catch to the eastward, was drifting a crippled dirigible with three men on board. It was their task to find that craft and rescue the men.
The captain had confided to Jack the names of the men, and so, when Ned put the question to him a short time after the start he was able to inform him.
“The owner of the Sky Eagle is Mr. Holmes Morse of New York,” he said; “with him, acting as engineer, is a man named Tyler and the operator is named Jennings.”
“Tyler!” exclaimed Ned, as if the name struck a key in his memory. “It is odd, but that was the name of one of my uncle’s closest friends. He was an engineer who took up aërial work. I wonder if it could be the same.”
“It might be. But Tyler is a very common name.”
“To be sure, but the coincidence in the names and occupations struck me.”
“By the way, talking of that, didn’t I hear you say that in the crowd that gathered about us before we started, you saw your rascally cousin, Hank?”
“I did,” rejoined Ned, “but what in the world he could have been doing here I can’t imagine. Miles Sharkey was with him, too. I’ll bet they were up to some mischief.”
“Naturally; what else would they have been doing in Portstown.”