Chapter XXV: A Race to Cloudland

Scudding before the wind, for the half gale that was blowing had shifted during their battle with the waves, the aerial voyagers made fast time beneath the storm wrack racing by overhead. In fact, it appeared to the boys that they actually outflew the wind. At any rate, it was not long before the thunder of the great breakers on a low, sandy beach told them that they were close to the shore.

An instant later houses and streets came into view, and Dr. Perkins began looking anxiously about beneath for a place to land. He soon spied a spot,--a large ball-ground, or at least it appeared to be one, not far from the center of the city. Calling to Frank to "stand by" the engines, he began to descend in a series of circles.

Coming to earth in a high wind is a risky bit of business for the air man, about as dangerous a maneuver, in fact, as can be imagined. But in this case there was no choice for Dr. Perkins and his young friends, unless they wanted to be carried clear across the cape and into Delaware Bay.

Below them they could now see excited crowds racing toward the ball-ground, as soon as it became evident that that was the spot where the air men intended to alight. This did not please Dr. Perkins at all. A crowd was the last thing that he wished to have about when he made his drop earthward. But there was no help for it, and he kept on descending, trusting to the good sense of the throngs below to get out of the way when the time came.

But crowds have never been remarkable for their common sense, and this one was no exception. The last "bank" had been made with safety, and the _Sea Eagle_ was making a clean-cut swoop to earth, when the crowd rushed in right below her. To have kept the craft on its course would have meant much injury, and possible loss of life. On the other hand, Dr. Perkins knew that in the wind that was blowing it would be dangerous in the extreme to the air craft to change her course.

"Get out of the way!" he shouted.

"Out of the way unless you want to get hurt!" yelled Frank and Harry.

But the crowd, like foolish sheep, only stared and gaped, and made not the slightest effort to avoid the on-driving _Sea Eagle_.

There was only one thing to do, and Dr. Perkins did it. There was a quick twist of his steering wheel, and the _Sea Eagle_, instantly obeying her helm, darted off in an opposite direction to the one in which she had been advancing. Like a flash Dr. Perkins pulled the rising lever, at the same time shouting to Frank to stop the engines momentarily. He thought that the _Sea Eagle_ would rise of her own volition, and knew that if the engines kept driving at top speed that his craft would be plunged prow first into the earth.

So he chose the lesser of the two evils, and the maneuver might have been successful but for one thing. There was not room in which to execute it.

The _Sea Eagle_ hesitated, half rose, and then crashed down to the ground, landing heavily on one wing tip and smashing it to bits. Frank and Harry were pitched clean out of the hydroplane substructure when the impact came, and a cry of alarm went up from the crowd. But Dr. Perkins clung to his seat and brought the big craft to a stop.

Fortunately neither Frank nor Harry had been much injured, beyond being badly shaken up and bruised, and they were both on their feet again in a jiffy after the accident. The crowd, as if realizing that its actions had had a good deal to do with the accident, forebore to press in, and they made their way to Dr. Perkins' side without difficulty.

"Is she much injured?" was Frank's first question.

"By good luck I think we have escaped serious damage," rejoined Dr. Perkins, "but only an examination can tell."

At this moment a well-dressed, prosperous-looking man came elbowing through the crowd. He came straight up to Dr. Perkins with hand extended.

"Well, Perkins!" he exclaimed. "I always told you you'd have a tumble some time, and now you've had it; right in my back yard, too. But I'm sincerely glad to see that neither you nor your machine appears to be much injured."

The newcomer was Mr. James Studley, an old acquaintance of the inventor's, who was summering at Cape May. The doctor was very glad to see him and accepted his cordial invitation to spend the night at his house, the boys, of course, being included in the invitation.

In the meantime, a squadron of police had arrived, who drove back the crowds, and arrangements were made to keep a guard on duty all night till an examination of the wrecked machine could be made.

"The accident, if it had to happen, could not have occurred more conveniently, so to speak," Dr. Perkins confided to his companions as they followed Mr. Studley to a handsome house not far away. "Mr. Studley is a manufacturer of aeroplanes, and has started a factory here, so that very probably we can get material to repair our damages without much trouble."

This was good news indeed to the boys, who had begun to fear that the trip might be abandoned.

They enjoyed a good dinner and a change into dry clothes as the guests of Mr. Studley and his wife, and bright and early the next morning repairs were made to the splintered wing tip, which was not so badly damaged as had at first appeared. Mr. Studley, who had provided workmen and materials for the task from his aeroplane factory, refused to hear of any compensation.

"Such services should be rendered freely and gladly by one birdman to another," he declared laughingly. "Who knows that some day I may not drop in on you at your island, in more senses than one."

As every trace of the storm had vanished, and the morning was bright and clear, no obstacle opposed itself to the continuance of their journey as soon as the repairs had been completed. So fine was the weather, in fact, that Mr. Studley declared his intention of accompanying them in a light "runabout" aeroplane of the monoplane class, for a short distance.

The machine, a pretty little affair of the Bleriot type, was soon wheeled out, and Mr. Studley declared all was ready for the start. As on the evening before, a large crowd had gathered, but the police kept them back, and gave the two vastly different aeroplanes a clear field in which to rise. A greater contrast could not well be imagined than that presented by the heavy, rather cumbersome-looking _Sea Eagle_ with her substantial underbody and huge wing spread, and the trim, dainty little monoplane, which was named the _Green Firefly_.

"We're all ready when you are," exclaimed Dr. Perkins, turning to his friend, who was already seated in his long-bodied, gauzy-winged air craft.

"All right! Clear the way!" cried Mr. Studley with a wave of his hands.

His mechanics gave the propeller of the monoplane a twirl, as it was not provided with self-starting mechanism, and a moment later the roaring fusillade of the _Sea Eagle's_ motor was drowning the sharp, angry, hornet-like buzzing of the _Green Firefly_.

"Go!" yelled Mr. Studley, and simultaneously, as it seemed, the two sky ships dashed forward over the smooth sward.

"Hooray!" shouted the crowd.

"They're off!" shouted others.

And then, a minute later:

"Look! They're going up!"

"So they are!" cried the spectators, as if there was any room for doubt about the matter.

The light _Firefly_ was first, by the fraction of a second, to point her sharp nose up toward the tranquil blue dome of the sky. But the _Sea Eagle_ was not tardy in following.

"Come on!" shouted Mr. Studley, casting a swift glance back over his shoulder at his large comrade of the air. He appeared to think that he would have little difficulty in distancing the huge machine.

"We haven't begun yet!" cried Dr. Perkins back to him, with an answering wave of the hand.

Nor was the _Sea Eagle_ as yet making a quarter of the speed she was capable of. On account of her great weight, and general size of her wing spread, it was not advisable to "open everything up" at once when she made an ascent from the land.

The _Firefly_ darted ahead like some creature that rejoiced to be sporting in its element. But close behind came a roar and whirr as Frank let out another notch on the _Sea Eagle_. Up and up they flew, while the crowd below dwindled to pigmies, and the houses looked like so many toy Noah's Arks. It was plain enough that Mr. Studley was engaged in a good-natured effort to show his friend that the _Firefly_ was an infinitely faster craft than her cumbersome rival. He darted this way and that, making spirals and doing rocking-chair evolutions with the perfection of aerial grace.

Dr. Perkins attempted none of these stunts, but from time to time he turned back to Frank and nodded as a signal to give the craft a little more power.

By the time the twin propellers were developing their top push and speed, the owner of the _Firefly_ realized that he had a tussle on his hands. He ceased his graceful evolutions and settled down to real flying. But he had not gone a mile over the aerial race track before the _Sea Eagle_ thundered past him like a "Limited" of the skies.

"Good-by and thank you!" Dr. Perkins found time to yell, as they flashed past, bound due south once more.

"Good-by. Good luck to you!" came from Mr. Studley, as he waved his hand in the realization that he was beaten.

There was no time to exchange more words. In a few minutes the boys, looking back, could only see a black speck like a shoe button against the sky to mark where the defeated _Firefly_ was turning about and heading for home.

As for the _Sea Eagle_, at sixty miles an hour, and with her motor going faster every minute, that staunch and speedy craft was winging her way at top speed for her distant goal.