programme!" he begged, again insisting upon gripping a hand of each.
Jack found himself carried along with the current. He could not well have
resisted had he so desired, which was far from being the case. It seemed
to him as though he were on a vessel which had drifted for hours in the
baffling fog, and then all of a sudden the veil of mist parted, to show
him the friendly shore beyond, just the haven for which he was bound.
"It is, perhaps, a desperate attempt to make such a flight on short
notice," Jack said. "But think! If we succeed! And think, too, of that
schemer winning the prize! Yes, Tom, since you've already agreed to stand
in with me, I say--_go_!"
After that a fever seemed to burn in Jack's veins, due to the sudden
revulsion of feeling from despair to hope. He asked many questions, and
for an hour the three talked the matter over, looking at the
possibilities from every conceivable angle.
Tom was not so sanguine of success as either of his mates; but he kept
his doubts to himself. As an ambitious airman he was thrilled by the
vastness of the scheme. As Lieutenant Beverly had truly remarked, while
it held chances of disaster, they were accepting just as many challenges
to meet their death every day of their service as battleplane pilots.
Then again it seemed to be the only hope offered to poor Jack; and Tom
was bound to stick by his chum through thick and thin. So he fell in with
the great scheme, and listened while the flight lieutenant touched upon
every feature of the contemplated flight.
Luckily it was no new idea with him, for he had spent much time and labor
in figuring it all out to a fraction, barring hazards of which they could
of course know nothing until they were met.
"I've got all the charts necessary," he assured them, after they had
about exhausted the subject, with Jack more enthusiastic than ever. "And
while you boys are waiting to receive your official notifications, which
ought surely to come to-morrow, since there was a hurry mark on them, I
noticed, I'll rush over to the coast and see that additional supplies of
fuel and food are put aboard."
"Don't stint the gas, above everything," urged Jack. "We'd be in a pretty
pickle to run out while still five hundred miles from shore. If it was
only a big seaplane now, such as we hear they're building over in
America, we might drop down on a smooth sea and wait to be picked up by
some ship; but with a bomber, it would mean going under in a hurry."
"Make your mind easy on that score, Jack," came the lieutenant's reply.
"I'll figure to the limit, and then if the plane can carry another fifty
gallons it'll go aboard in the reserve reservoir. I'm taking no chances
that can be avoided. There'll be enough to bother us, most likely. And,
for one, I'm not calculating on committing suicide. I hope to live to
come back here aboard some ship, and see the finish of this big,
exciting scrap."
Tom liked to hear him talk in that serene way. It showed that Lieutenant
Colin Beverly, while a daring aviator was not to be reckoned a reckless
one; and there is a vast difference between the two. Tom was of very much
the same temperament himself, as was proved in past stirring incidents in
his career, known to all those who have followed the fortunes of the Air