The Boy Aviators Treasure Quest | Page 5

your time and opportunities this way," replied Frank. The boy was in some doubt as to the wisdom or the utility of calling Sanborn's attention to the latter's bad habits, but having embarked on his admonition he was not going to quit just because the man was surly.
"When are you going to go up?" asked Sanborn, changing the subject abruptly.
"Right after breakfast," was the boy's reply, as he looked out of the big sliding doors and surveyed the cloudless sky. "There doesn't seem to be a breath of wind and it's ideal weather for a good long flight."
But if the boys were up early they were not the only ones astir. Gladwin, who was an experimenter and who, although he had only been up a few times, meant to compete in the big race, was already busy outside his aerodrome, lovingly adjusting the engine of his queer-looking monoplane which had already been wheeled out. Malvoise, his hands in his pockets and a red sash about his waist, was also studying the sky. As Frank gazed about in the crisp morning air a dozen other aviators opened up their sheds and the day-life of the aviation camp began.
After breakfast had been despatched the boys at once went to work on their engine, a hundred horse-powered, eight-cylindered machine which was capable of driving their twin-screwed craft through the air at a rate of sixty miles an hour. One of the cylinders needed a new gasket and they were engaged on the task of fitting it when a sudden hail outside the shed made them look up inquiringly. A short, fat youth with a pair of spectacles bestriding his round good-natured face stood in the doorway. The boys recognized him instantly.
"Why, hullo, Billy Barnes!" they cried, "come on in."
"Hullo, Frank, hullo, Harry," grinned the newcomer, frantically shaking hands. "I'm an early caller, but I slept at the village hotel last night and the beds there are as hard as a miser's heart. So I decided to get out early and take a chance on finding you fellows up and about."
After the first hearty greetings between the boys and the young reporter--with whom the readers of the other volumes in this series have already formed an acquaintanceship--the boys started asking questions.
"What are you doing here anyhow?" demanded Frank.
"Yes, you mysterious scribe, tell us what you are after--a scoop or a story of how it feels to ride in an aeroplane?"
"Well," laughed Billy in response, "I've had so many flights in the Golden Eagles--both one and two--that I really believe I've had too much experience to write a story about it from the novice's standpoint. No, the fact is that I am down here on a story--a good one too."
"You can't keep away from the newspaper field, can you?" laughed Frank.
"No, that's a fact," agreed Billy ruefully; "I've tried to, but it's no good."
"Well, you ought to be 'a man of independent fortune' now, as the papers say," cried Harry.
"You mean with the percentage I got of the recovered ivory?"
The others nodded.
"I always felt I didn't really deserve that money," urged Billy. "You fellows did most of the work in Africa, I just trailed along."
"Oh, get out, Billy Barnes!" cried Frank. "You did as much as any of us in overreaching old Barr."
"Go ahead and tell us about this story of yours," demanded Harry.
"Well, it sounds like a weird dream and perhaps you fellows will laugh at me for taking it seriously, but a few days ago an old fellow in a tattered blue suit called at the Planet offices and said he wanted to see the city editor. Of course nobody ever does see the city editor, so I was sent out to ascertain what the visitor wanted. I saw at once he had been a seafaring man. He told me his name was Bill Hendricks, known better as Bluewater Bill. He beat about the bush a good while before he would tell me what he was after, and finally he unfolded the wildest tale about buried treasure you ever heard--that is, I don't mean buried treasure--floating would be a better word to describe it. He told me that he had been one of the crew of a sailing vessel that had drifted, after being dismasted in a storm, into the Sargasso Sea."
"You might tell us where the Sargasso Sea is," struck in Harry. "I never heard of it."
"Why, it's a vast expanse of floating seaweed brought together by circling ocean currents," explained Billy. "There are hundreds of miles of seaweed in it and from the name of the weed it gets its title of Sargasso. It is in the north Atlantic, just about off the Gulf of Mexico roughly speaking, though many hundred miles from land. It is shifting all the time though,