For a few moments Alan and Roy eyed Ned in silence.
“I guess you’re right again,” said Roy soberly as he turned to his desk and took up his chart.
“If you’re quite through,” said Alan in turn without a smile and bringing the _Flyer_ toward the sea again, “I suggest you ask Buck to bring up some food.”
“That must be Amherst now,” exclaimed Ned sobering instantly as the noise of a puffing engine sounded through the fog. In a moment there was no doubt of it. The _Flyer_, less than four hundred feet in the air, shot over the edge of the little city. Ned threw open the port door and hung over the gallery rail to get more details. As the fog rolled in Alan shouted:
“Come in here, you Blue Nose pork, and shut the door.”
“Well, it’s Amherst, anyway,” answered Ned laughing as he hobbled in again, “I made out the brick yard on both sides of the railroad track.”
Alan and Roy gave him little attention. They were busy confirming time, speed and location.
“New course, east by one-half north,” exclaimed Roy.
“Make it so,” quickly continued Roy in a tone of pride that was plainly meant for Ned. “Cold Springs in Northumberland Straits, twenty miles ahead. Weather cool and foggy,” he concluded as he entered the same in his log.
“Sounds like a yacht,” remarked Ned, still laughing. “I guess I’ll go below.”
“Hurry up some supper,” repeated Alan who was again intent on the flight ahead. “Buck must be asleep.”
But Buck wasn’t asleep. For four hours, almost without quitting his chair, Bob had not left his gauges and indicator board. He was still there, the close room now hot and stifling with its closed doors. Buck, on the contrary, since half past four, had been busy in the storeroom in the forward end of which was the galley.
“How’s the eats, Buck?” called out Ned opening the door to the galley. There was no need to ask. The odors that rolled out were positive evidence that, whatever might be Buck’s culinary skill he was at least a miscellaneous and prodigal provider.
“How you feelin’?” were Buck’s first words.
“I guess you needed a bracer worse than I did,” answered Ned.
“Gettin’ scared don’t hurt. I’m all right.”
The embarrassed young men faced each other a few moments in silence.
“There’s pea soup and hot crackers, hot pork and beans, steamed frankfurters with rye bread and pickles, orange marmalade and some o’ them fancy preserved pears, hot plum puddin’, coffee, and strawberries. How’ll that do?” exclaimed Buck wiping his perspiring forehead with a black looking handkerchief. “Bob says I ought ’a’ cut out the puddin’ but I put that in for myself.”