Part 7 (1/2)
He thrust the green ”dodger” he carried into the other's hand.
”What do you think of that, eh?” demanded Frank, as Paul skimmed it with delighted eyes.
The circular contained the announcement of a lecture on aeronautics by a well-known authority on the subject who had once been a resident of Hampton. To stimulate interest in the subject, the paper stated that a first prize of fifty dollars, a second prize of twenty-five, and a third prize of ten dollars would be given to the three lads of the town making and flying the most successful models of aeroplanes in a public compet.i.tion. To win the first prize it would be necessary for the model to fly more than two hundred feet, and not lower, except at the start and end of the flight, than fifty feet above the ground. The second prize was for the next best flight, and the third for the model approaching the nearest to the winner of the second money.
”Now, Paul, you are an aeronautic fiend,” went on Frank, ”So am I, and Hiram has the fever in a mild way. What's the matter with you two fellows forming a team to represent the Boy Scouts, and I'll get up a team of village boys, to compete for the prizes.”
”That's a good idea,” a.s.sented Hiram Nelson. ”I've got a model almost completed. It only needs the rubber bands and a little testing and it will be O.K., or at least I hope so. How about you, Paul?”
”Oh, I've got two models that I have got good results from,” replied the boy addressed. ”One is a biplane. She's not so speedy, but very steady; and then I have a model of a Bleriot. I'm willing to enter either of them or both.”
”And I've got a model of an Antoinette, and one of a design of my own.
I don't know just how well it will work,” concluded Frank modestly, ”but I have great hopes of carrying off that prize.”
”Let's see who else there is,” pondered Hiram.
”There's Tom Maloney. He'll go in, I know; and Ed Rivers and two or three others, and then, by the way, I almost forgot it, I met Sam Redding, Jack Curtiss and Bill Bender, reading a notice of the compet.i.tion, just before I came up. Of course, as there is a chance of winning fifty dollars, Jack is going to enter one, and Bill Bender said he would put one in, too.”
”What do they know about aeroplanes?” demanded Paul.
”Not a whole lot, I guess; but Jack said he was going to get a book that tells how to make one, and Bill said he'd do the same.”
”How about Sam?” inquired Rob.
”Oh, I guess he's got troubles enough with his hydroplane,” responded Rob, whose father had told him at dinner that day of Sam's vain visit to the bank.
”It would be just like those fellows to put up something crooked on us,” remarked Paul, who had had much the same experiences with the bully and his chums as his schoolmates generally.
”Oh, there'll be no chance of that,” Frank a.s.sured him. ”A local committee of business men is to be appointed to see fair play, and I don't fancy that even Jack or Bill will be slick enough to get away with any crooked work.”
”How long have we got to get ready?” asked Hiram suddenly.
”Just a week.”
”Wow! that isn't much time.”
”No; my father told me that Professor Charlton, whom he knows, would have given a longer time for preparation but that he has to attend a flying meet in Europe, and only decided to lecture at his native town at the last moment. Lucky thing that most of us have got our models almost ready.”
”Yes, especially as this notice says,” added Paul, who had been reading it, ”that all models must be the sole work of the contestants.”
”If it wasn't for that it would be easy,” remarked Hiram. ”You can buy dandy models in New York. I've seen them advertised in the papers.”
”Well, come on over now and put your name down, as a contestant. The blanks are in the office of the Hampton News,” urged Frank.
”I guess we're all through up here, Rob, aren't we?” asked Hiram.
”Yes,” rejoined the young leader; ”but you study up on your woodcraft, Hiram, and devote more time to your signaling. You are such a bug on wireless that you forget the rest of the stuff.”
”All right, Rob,” promised Hiram contritely. ”By the time we go camping I'll know a cat track from a squirrel's, or never put a detector on my head again.”