THE BOY AVIATORS' TREASURE QUEST

Or, The Golden Galleon

By

Captain Wilbur Lawton (pseudonym for John Henry Goldfrap)

Author Of "The Boy Aviators In Nicaragua." "The Boy Aviators On Secret Service," "The Boy Aviators In Africa," etc.

Boy Aviators' Series

By Captain Wilbur Lawton

Six Titles. Cloth Bound. Price 50c

Uniform With This Volume

1 THE BOY AVIATORS IN NICARAGUA; or, In League with the Insurgents.

2 THE BOY AVIATORS ON SECRET SERVICE; or, Working with Wireless.

3 THE BOY AVIATORS IN AFRICA; or, An Aerial Ivory Trail.

4 THE BOY AVIATORS' TREASURE QUEST; or, The Golden Galleon.

5 THE BOY AVIATORS IN RECORD FLIGHT; or, The Rival Aeroplane.

6 THE BOY AVIATORS' POLAR DASH; or, Facing Death in the Antarctic.

CHAPTER I.

THE EAGLE AND THE BUZZARD.

"Hurrah!"

The shout went upward in a swelling volume of sound as a thousand voices took up the cry.

"Say, those boys can fly!"

"I should say so."

"Did you see that swoop!"

"Did I? I thought they were goners sure."

"They handle that sky-clipper like a bicycle."

These admiring exclamations came in a perfect hailstorm as the big biplane air-craft, which had called them forth, swept earthward, bearing her two young occupants downward in a long graceful glide, and landing them at the door of their red aerodrome with the precision of an automobile being driven up to its owner's front steps.

The drone of the engine ceased and little spurts of dust shot up from the landing wheels as the young aviator at the helm of the beautiful craft applied his brakes, threw out the spark and cut off the engine. The plane ran about one hundred feet on its wheels and then came to a standstill.

"Hurrah for the Golden Eagle!" shouted a voice. The enthusiasm was echoed all over the crowded field. From the long rows of autos, parked at the edge of the field and crowded with applauding men and women, came the "honk! honk!" of horns in a deafening clamor.

Smilingly making their way through the enthusiasts who swept down on them, Frank and Harry Chester, the Boy Aviators, who had just concluded a tuning up flight for the Hempstead Plains Cup—the contest for which was to take place in a week's time—entered the shed and, making their way to a screened-off room in the corner, shed their leather coats and woolen caps and removed the grime from their hands and faces. Their mechanics, in the meantime, had shoved the Eagle into the shed and closed the doors on the horde of the inquisitive.

The boys' flight had taken place above the aviation grounds of the Aeronautic Society, situated at Mineola, on Long Island, a few miles outside New York city. For several days they, and several others who had announced their intention of competing for the coveted Hempstead Plains Cup, had been making flights that had attracted vast crowds from the metropolis and filled the papers with air-ship news. The city was aviation mad.

The wide sweep of green flats was dotted at the end where the town encroached upon it with the sheds in which were housed the different aerial craft that were to take part in the great contest. Some of them had tents snuggled closely up to them in which the machinists, and others employed on them, made their temporary homes. Some were elaborate structures of galvanized iron, carefully fireproofed and covered with notices warning against smoking; others, again, were plain, hastily erected wooden structures. The Boy Aviators' shed was one of the latter, for they had returned from their adventures in Africa only a short time before this story opens.

In that far-off country, as told in "The Boy Aviators in Africa; or, an Aerial Ivory Trail," they had outwitted a wicked old man named Luther Barr, who tried to steal from them the ivory that they had recovered from the grip of an Arab slave-dealer. In Luther Barr's yacht, which they had acquired in a surprising manner, they had brought the ivory back to America and saved Mr. Beasley, the father of their chum, Lathrop Beasley, from financial ruin. After a short rest, they had announced that they would contest for the Hempstead Plains Cup. There was an interval of impatient waiting and then the freight steamer, which carried the Golden Eagle II from Africa, arrived safely and the work of setting the biplane up for the great contest had been at once begun.

The boys' first craft, The Golden Eagle, had been destroyed in a tropical storm in which they were blown to sea, as described in Volume One of this series: "The Boy Aviators in Nicaragua; or, Leagued With The Insurgents." The Golden Eagle II was the same craft in which, besides their African adventures, they had accomplished the dangerous mission for the Government, with the details of which our readers became conversant in "The Boy Aviators on Secret Service; or, Working with Wireless."

Their hasty toilet completed, the boys donned street clothes of neat fit and pattern and hastened to an automobile, halted at the roadside, in which their father and mother were seated. The two lads, as they leaned against the side of the car and chatted, made a pleasant picture of vigorous, adventurous youth. The eldest, Frank, was a little over sixteen, Harry, the younger boy, was about two years his junior. Both lads had crisp, curly hair and frank, blue eyes. Their faces were tanned to a dark tinge by their African trip.

Mrs. Chester looked eagerly about her at the shifting, colorful scene. There was certainly plenty to be seen and every minute held its own bit of interest. As they watched, another 'plane soared into view, black as a crow against the evening sky; it showed first as a mere speck, rapidly grew larger, and dropped to earth like a tired bird, while the crowd applauded once more.

"Whose 'plane is that?" asked Mr. Chester, as the machine was trundled into its shed—a pretentious affair built of corrugated iron and painted dark blue.

"Why, that's a mystery," laughed Frank, "but it's a dandy flyer. In fact it's about the only rival we really fear."

"What do you mean by 'a mystery,' Frank?" asked his mother.

"Well, mother, nobody knows who owns it. Its black-covered planes have earned it the name of The Buzzard and it can glide like one too, but as to its owner we are all in ignorance, though we should like to know."

"Whoever he may be he has made a lot of money," chimed in Harry. "Several enthusiasts who have watched the Buzzard fly have placed orders for similar machines."

"How much does such a craft cost?" asked his father.

"Oh, ones patterned after the Buzzard sell for $25,000," was the reply; "and if that machine wins this race, of course, it will give the mysterious manufacturer a tremendous prestige. But I think at that," he broke off with a merry smile, "that the Golden Eagle II is going to prove more than the Buzzard's match."

"Did you go over the whole course this afternoon?" asked his father.

"Yes, and the Eagle handled like a race-horse," replied Frank; "if she makes a like performance on the day of the race I think we have the cup as good as won."

"Don't be too sure, my boy," warned his father. "There's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip—or rather the aeroplane, you know."

"That's so, father," replied the lad, somewhat abashed, "it doesn't do to be overconfident. There's only one thing I don't like about the course."

"What is that?"

"Why, the 'take off' at the Harrowbrook Club links."

"What do you mean by 'take off'?" inquired his mother.

"I mean the space in which an aeroplane makes its preliminary run, as you might call it, before it takes the air," rejoined the boy. "You see the rules of the race are that we fly from here to the Harrowbrook Club—a distance of twenty miles, alight there and refill our gasolene tanks, drink a cup of coffee in the club-house and then rise up once more and fly back."

"You mean that you are afraid that there will be difficulty in starting back from the Club grounds?" asked his father.

"Yes, father. You see, while we did it all right this afternoon, on the day of the race there will be a lot of 'planes all on the ground at the same time, and it's going to make it more difficult. However, I daresay we shall be able to manage it all right."

"Oh, Frank, do be careful," cautioned his mother.

"Of course I will, mother," the lad reassured her. "If I thought there was any serious risk I would not cause you anxiety by competing."

After a little more talk the elder Chesters drove off, as the boys had decided to sleep in their aerodrome that night, on the two camp cots they had provided for such emergencies. They intended to get an early start in the morning, on another practice sail, as at that hour there was usually little wind.

As they strolled across the grounds which were now rapidly being deserted, as all the aeroplanes were housed for the night, they encountered Armand Malvoise, the French driver of the mysterious Buzzard. He was a heavy-set, blue-chinned man with eyebrows that met in a black band, lending his face a perpetual scowl.

"You made a fine flight this evening," cried Harry cheerfully.

"You think so?" replied the Frenchman. "I shall make a better one on the day of the race. I mean to win that cup."

"Well, give us at least a look-in," laughed Frank good-naturedly.

"Bah, you are boys. I am a seasoned aviator. I have flown at Rheims and Vienna and in the south. It is absurd for you to compete with me."

"Personally I should like to see an American carry off the trophy, but if the best flyer wins I shall be quite satisfied," was Frank's quiet reply.

"You will see the colors of La Belle France floating over my aerodrome after the race," was the rejoinder.

"We shall see," was Frank's quiet answer, as the Frenchman strode off toward the village, where he usually remained gossiping in the hotel and complacently receiving the adulations of his admirers till late at night.

"Ach, he is as goot-natured as a caged lion, dot feller!" came a sudden exclamation behind the boys.

They turned about and faced old August Schmidt, the German aviator, who had started his career as a builder and operator of dirigibles, but was entered in the Hempstead Cup race as the flyer of a monoplane of his own design; and which, on account of its peculiar appearance, the crowds had already nicknamed the Grasshopper. As if in furtherance of this idea the German had painted his queer craft a bright green.

"Vell, you boys have a good chance for der cup got," the old man went on, between puffs at an enormous pipe with a china bowl that formed his inseparable companion when he was not in the air.

"Do you think so?" asked Frank.

"Ches, I do. Der Grasshopper is a goot leedle monoplane, but I am afraid dat some of der principles I have worked oud in her iss all wrong. Some day I break mein neck by der outside I am afraid much."

"Why you've done some good flying in the Grasshopper," consoled Harry.

"Ches, she is a goot leedle ship, bud she vont vin dees race, I dink. By der vay, boys, I have been meaning to warn you aboud dot Frenchman."

"How do you mean—'warn us'?" asked Frank.

"Vell he means to win dis race. I know dot he has bet a lot of money on himself. Den also the manufacturers of der Buzzard will make a lot of money already if der Buzzard wins der cup. If she does not—abend, dey lose. Yah, der is a lot to vin and much to lose for der Buzzard, and dot Frenchman vill do anything to make sure of vinning."

"Well, I guess we can take care of ourselves," laughed Frank, as he and his brother bade the queer old man good-night and entered their shed. It was filled with the appetizing odor of frying steak. On the top of the blue flame stove in a screened-off corner, Le Blanc, one of their mechanics, was cooking the simple meal with the loving care of a ten-thousand-dollar chef.

"Smells good!" remarked Harry sniffing. "Where's Sanborn?"

Sanborn was the other machinist and had been taken on in the place of their faithful old Schultz, who had fallen heir to a large sum of money in Germany, and gone home to spend his days in a cottage on the outskirts of Berlin.

"He has gone down to the village," replied Le Blanc, vigorously shaking the pan of sizzling potatoes.

"He seems to spend a lot of time down there lately," remarked Frank.

"I'd rather see him about the aerodome," put in Harry; "we don't want everybody to know all the details of our trials."

"That's so," assented his brother, "I'll speak to him about it when he comes in to-night."

The two lads fell to with keen appetites on their supper, which was served on tin plates and washed down with coffee out of tin mugs. Not a very aristocratic service, but the boys rather liked roughing it than otherwise, and you may be sure that the "dinner set" off which they ate did not engross a fraction of their attention. The meal disposed of, Le Blanc and the boys fixed up the folding camp cots and spread their blankets. There was still no sign of Sanborn. Frank was still struggling to keep awake in order to read the man a sharp lecture when he returned when drowsiness overcame him and he dropped off to sleep.

It was an hour later, and not far from midnight, when two dark figures crossed the deserted aviation field and threaded their way among the various aerodromes. They paused in front of the one in which the boys were asleep. Had the lads been onlookers they would have seen that one of the men was Sanborn, the new machinist, and the other was Malvoise, the driver of the sable Buzzard.

"You won't lose your nerve?" said the Frenchman.

"Not me. I'm sore at those kids, anyhow," was the reply. "The eldest one undertakes to call me down for going out at night all the time."

"Well, you have a good chance to get back at him and make some money at the same time," was the other's rejoinder.

"You are sure the money will be forthcoming?"

"Well, I should say! Old man Barr, who bought the patent of the Buzzard dirt cheap from her inventor, has a pile of it. He's going to manufacture the Buzzards to make money out of 'em and he'll stop at nothing to gain the prestige of winning this Hempstead Plains Cup."

"I've heard of old Barr before. He's a regular skinflint, but I suppose, if you say it will be all right about the money, I'll have to take your word for it. I need some coin too badly to stick at anything."

"That's the way to talk. By the way, talking of the inventor of the Buzzard, I saw a piece in the paper about him to-night."

"What was it?"

"Why it seems that the poor beggar applied for shelter at the Municipal lodging-house in New York and told them a long tale of Barr having robbed him of his invention. They sized him up as being just another of those inventor bugs and so sent him to the booby hatch in Bellevue."

"A good place for him," was the rejoinder, "these inventors are all crazy."

"Well, Luther Barr's found a way to make this particular crank pay," was the reply.

"That's so. Well, good-night. Oh, say what was the name of the man who planned the Buzzard?"

"Oh, Eben something—let's see—Eben—it began with a J. I've got it—Eben Joyce, that's it—Eben Joyce."

"Queer name that—Eben Joyce," was Sanborn's comment. "Well, good-night."

"Good-night. You won't fail us."

"Not I," responded the machinist, as he slipped into the aerodrome and was soon wrapped in slumber as profound as if the thought of committing a treacherous act had never entered his mind.

CHAPTER II.

BILLY'S STRANGE TALE.

The next morning, as soon as the alarm clock rang out its summons at four-thirty, the boys were up and stirring, dashing the sleep out of their eyes with plenty of cold water. Le Blanc and Sanborn soon joined them, the latter heavy-eyed and sleepy-looking from the late hours of the night before. He was smoking a cigarette.

"Look here, Sanborn, I don't want to be too strict, but you know there's too much gasolene around here for it to be safe to smoke in the shed," said Frank, with some irritation, as he spied him.

Sanborn threw the cigarette away with an ill-tempered exclamation.

"Gee! It's a wonder you don't start a Sunday-school in here," he said.

"Well, I don't think it would do you any harm to attend one for a while," answered Frank, "and by the way, can't you make it possible to come in a little earlier? You are a valuable man to us and you can't do your best work if you are sitting up till all hours at the village hotel."

"You ain't got no complaint about my work, have you?" was the surly rejoinder.

"No, I think that you are a very capable mechanic but I hate to see you wasting 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.