“And now, boys,” Mr. Havens said after a short time, “the machines are packed, it only remains for you to take your seats and beat the friends of Phillips and Mendosa to the Pacific coast.”
“We can beat ’em to the Pacific coast, all right!” Jimmie laughed. “Look here,” he went on, pointing to the _Louise_, now being run out of the hangar by the workmen. “There’s a flying machine that’s going to be a world-beater. I ran fifty miles an hour this afternoon, and didn’t put on full power, at that! She’s a bird, is _Louise_!”
“It isn’t always the speed that counts in a flying machine,” smiled Havens. “The perfect flying machine is one that is constructed for endurance—one which will fly for days and nights without breaking down—one which can be trusted in the air as you trust a faithful horse on a country road.”
“Well,” laughed Jimmie, “I think the _Louise_ has had plenty of endurance tests, that is so far as her separate parts are concerned. Every piece in her, down to the last screw, has been tested time and again, and the run yesterday afternoon showed that she worked like a full-jeweled watch.”
“And what about the _Bertha_,” laughed Havens, turning to Ben.
“Aw, the _Bertha_ isn’t in it with the _Louise_!” shouted Jimmie. “I’ll race the _Bertha_ to Monterey bay for a thousand dollars,” he added with a grin. “And I’ll win the money, too.”
“That will never do, boys,” Havens advised. “You’ve got to keep together and work together all the way across.”
“And now,” asked Ben, as they all turned toward the machines, glistening now in the brilliant moonlight, “where are we going to land?”
“I’m afraid I haven’t explained the details of the trip as thoroughly as I should,” answered Havens, “for the reason that I expected to go with you from the start. However, I’ll be along before you get to the Mississippi river and post you fully.”
“But suppose anything should happen that you should be delayed,” suggested Jimmie. “What then?”
“Well,” Havens went on, “south of the bay of Monterey, in Southern California, close to the Pacific coast, lies the Sierra de Santa Lucia mountains. On one side the rock runs almost vertically to the ocean, from three to five thousand feet below. On the other side there is a slope of oak and pine and sycamore to a great canyon which stretches between the mountains and the foothills to the line of the Southern Pacific railroad, sixty or seventy miles away.