peace treaty had been signed a number of ambitious aviators would actually cross the Atlantic, one crew in a huge heavier-than-air machine, another in an American seaplane, and still a third aboard a mighty dirigible, making the passages with but a day or so intervening between flights.
When a certain steamship left New York harbor one morning soon afterwards three pairs of eyes took a parting look through a porthole in their united stateroom at the Statue of Liberty on Bedloe's Island.
Of course the occupants of the stateroom were Tom and Jack and Colin. They had managed to interest the big-hearted captain in their scheme. He knew that he must not appear to be connected with such an escapade; but such was his admiration for their wonderful achievement, as well as his friendship for Lieutenant Beverly, that he readily consented to help them.
"And so here we are," Jack observed, after they had passed out from Sandy Hook and were heading across toward troubled Europe, "going back to duty, before our leave of absence will have expired, and the three weeks already nearly half over. Let's only hope we can slip into the traces as if nothing unusual had happened and that mad flight was only an aviator's day dream."
"It's a pleasure, too," added Tom reflectively,
