e-bee, and her propellers and controls working in perfect order, swept on her course into the northwest. The lights of Easton, ten

ut only two or three times during the few days that had elapsed since she was completed and this present expedition had been planned. These shor

make one hundred twenty-five miles an hour. But such speed w

me town, and report themselves and the nature of their flight to the authorities. This was to be done as a precaution in case they had a breakdown some

ugh they were in their beds at home. The old hunter could sleep anywhere, and awake instantly wit

ased the revolutions of the propellers a trifle and the ship responded like a spirited horse to

houted Mark, for they all wore ear-tabs a

" groaned Wash. "I'se g

o but ma tim

much sympathy. "It'll be time for you to hu

hly ain't a-gwine ter dribe me ter wo'k up in disher flyin' contra

Jack, chuckling, "and you are s

g but de quietest kind o' verisimilitude. De qualmishness dat arises in de interiorness of ma diaphragm ev'ry time I circumnavigates

at he could not speak,

of the aeroplane gives you

so mal-der-merry as I do at dis present onauspicious 'casion; an' if dat mal

ss about his own situation he would be better off. Mark insisted on his going at once into the tiny, covered "galley," as the boys c

an ingenious and skillful cook and when he got

Sudds and the professor awoke and offered to relieve the boys in their work. But Mark had taken Jack's place in the con

to a higher strata and cross the mountain than to swing around it. Therefore Mark raised the bow of the flying machine and she darted upward on a long slant, drawing ever nearer to the shining peak of the great

at which he had started to clear the summit of Katahdin did not prove sufficient, and

uddenly shot-almost like a rocket in

is it? What do

r, I declare!"

ed Jack, quickly. "A star coul

y's a-shootin' at us?"

tire, we'll suah go dow

g star" for some moments without speaking, a

oy!" he commanded. "Don't let that

ed young Sampson, as he obey

p-but what manner of ship she is, or who drives her,

ack, who overheard him. "W

w followed carried it at times much farther from the mountain side than it had been when first the strange light was noticed. That light followed the Snowbir

er them?" asked Jack. "The

seem to attract aviators of the ordinary class." "I know what he is thinking of," cried Mark, suddenly. "I read in the paper that the Department of Justice officers are

y the least. The Maine and Canadian border has for years been used by bands of smugglers, and if one of

sed using an aeroplane themselves to track the smugglers. Perhaps the vill

udden and sharp angle, there sounded the sharp crack of

. "Dem fellers is suah

night a distant voice haile

here?" was the cry, and