Richard Bonner

“ The Electric Monarch, they knew, was without question the most unique craft of its kind that had ever been constructed. Perfect in every detail as the great craft was, the boys felt a thrill of pride run through them as they viewed their completed handiwork. Professor Chadwick had spared no expense in aiding the boys at their task and the result was as perfect a bit of mechanism as had ever been assembled. ”

“ Jack swung the Electric Monarch in a sharp circle and they could feel the equilibrium devices [Pg 197] grate and vibrate as the big craft was “banked” at a sharp angle. By this time the steamer had put quite an interval between herself and the Electric Monarch. But Jack let the hydroaeroplane out a notch more than he had been doing.
The Electric Monarch answered the quickened impulses of her propellers like a race horse. In a flash, as it seemed, she was once more abreast of the steam vessel.
“Look,” cried Ned, suddenly, “there’s a man clambering up on the jack-staff.” ”

“ With a deep whirring roar the propellers began to beat the air faster. As they churned the atmosphere at fifteen hundred revolutions a minute, the Electric Monarch responded nobly to the powerful impulse. She was making faster speed than ever before. The hand of the indicator crept up and up.
“Fifty—fifty-five—sixty—sixty-five—seventy!”
“Seventy miles an hour!” gasped Ned. “Will she hold together?”
“She’s got to,” said Jack grimly, as he grasped the spokes of his wheel more firmly. At that speed the “pull” of the rudder was terrific. ”

“ Sam came and went to his work as usual, and as he, as well as the other workmen, had given their words not to let anything leak out about the Electric Monarch till she was ready for a flight, no uneasiness was felt about this circumstance.
As a matter of fact, even if it had been known that a big air craft was being constructed at High Towers, it would not have excited much comment in the village. The inhabitants of Nestorville had grown too used to hearing about strange inventions being built at the big house on the hill to feel any undue curiosity about them. ”

“ Do you think we are blind?” roared Hank. “What kind of bungling is this? Didn’t you get the lever? How did they come to start?”
“Just what I’d like to know,” said Sam with equal heat. “I did my part of the work all right. I detached the lever and hid it in an old well. They must have had another one some place and put it on at the last moment.”
“I guess that’s it,” said Miles pacifically, but Hank refused to calm down. It galled his bitter nature to the quick to see the Electric Monarch in successful flight when he had hoped and schemed for a failure. ”

“ In the meantime Henry Tyler, the machinist and engineer of the Sky Eagle, had been staring at Ned Nevins with an amazement that was akin to unbelief.
“Surely you are Ned, Jeptha Nevins’s nephew?” he exclaimed at length.
“Yes, and you are Henry Tyler, his dearest friend!” replied Ned, as the two warmly shook hands.
“So it was the same Tyler after all,” smiled Jack, after they had all been introduced.
“It certainly is a small world,” declared Mr. Morse smilingly. [Pg 279] “So this is the lad whose uncle designed this wonderful craft and left him the plans of it! ”

“ The morning passed uneventfully, and shortly before noon Heiny Dill announced that lunch was ready. They took this in relays, Ned relieving Jack at the wheel while the young skipper ate. They passed over several towns and small villages, and through the glasses they could plainly see the flurry they were causing down below. It amused them to watch the scurrying atoms which they knew were human beings rushing about and pointing upward as the Electric Monarch passed high above their heads. ”

“ With a feeling of anxiety such as he had never before known, Tom leaned out over the stern framework. He had hazarded a guess that Ned might have been rash enough to have attempted to gain the stern propeller bearings.
But his surprise and relief were not any the less on that account when he saw, lying limp and senseless across the slender stern shaft supports, the body of his young chum, for such Ned had grown to be in their weeks of work and association.
“Great Glory!” he exclaimed in his relief. “Heiny, hurray! he’s alive. ”

“ My poor uncle had many such, or it may not be all that he thought of it. There were many reasons why I couldn’t consult any one in my own town about it, and as I’d read of you and felt I could trust you and your advice, I sought you out. But if the invention, for that’s what the legacy was, is worth anything or not, I want a job.”
“Come on inside, Nevins. You seem to have the right stuff in you. We’ll have a talk.”
And with a wide-eyed youth behind him, Jack led the way into the workshop. Sam Hinkley viewed his young employer and the latter’s companion with marked disfavor from his work bench. ”

“ Sam made a sound resembling “G-r-r-r-r-r” and went on with what he was doing.
“As I suppose you know,” resumed Ned, “we shall see a good deal of each other in the future. Why can’t we be friends?”
Sam’s face contorted with rage as he dropped the tool he had been using and faced round on Ned.
“Because I hate you, that’s why. You’re nothing but an interloper and a faker and Jack Chadwick will find it out before very long.” ”

“ There was but one thought uppermost in the minds of each of the eager young constructors of the Electric Monarch.
Would she live up to expectations?
Possibly Ned, who was new to aerial work, was more nervous than his companions over the thought of the trial trip. This was not surprising. It requires courage of a rare sort to attempt for the first time to climb the air in an absolutely untried craft. ”

“ THE BOY INVENTORS’ WIRELESS TELEGRAPH.
Blest with natural curiosity,—sometimes called the instinct of investigation,—favored with golden opportunity, and gifted with creative ability, the Boy Inventors meet emergencies and contrive mechanical wonders that interest and convince the reader because they always “work” when put to the test.
THE BOY INVENTORS’ VANISHING GUN.
A thought, a belief, an experiment; discouragement, hope, effort and final success—this is the history of many an invention; a history in which excitement, competition, danger, despair and persistence figure. ”

“ The next day Ned’s case came up before the court which had issued the injunction. Hank and Miles Sharkey, with greedy, triumphant faces, sat in front seats to witness the lad’s discomfiture. Ned, seeing their eyes fixed on him, held himself together bravely. In his eyes there was an almost excited light. However, he appeared to be awaiting some sort of a climax.
[Pg 285]
As for the other boys, they were openly shaking hands in the back of the courtroom and slapping each other on the back. Captain Sprowl bore a wide grin and Ned’s lawyer looked well pleased. ”

“ At the same instant there came a sound of rending and tearing wood as the steel points of the grapnel dug into the roof of a rickety old barn and tore it loose from the rafters. Jack acted like a flash. He set his descending planes and came to earth in a beautifully executed dive in a stubble field just beyond the farm buildings.
“The grapnel must have torn loose from its fastenings,” he said; “lucky it was no worse. As it is——”
He broke off short. Running toward them from the farmhouse came the farmer and two of his hired men. The farmer carried in his hand a formidable looking gun. ”

“ Ned Nevins turned his large eyes gratefully upon the boy he had learned within the past weeks to love and respect.
“If she succeeds it will be owing to you, Jack, and you, Tom,” he said happily; [Pg 116] “as for Professor Chadwick, I owe him a debt of gratitude I can never repay.”
“Nonsense, my lad,” spoke the Professor, with a kindly smile, “win or lose, we have all learned much during the last few weeks. Ned, your uncle, had he lived, would have been one of the world’s great inventive geniuses.”
“I know it. I am sure of it,” said Ned gratefully. “My poor uncle! ”

“ Would you like to admit to your circle of friends the most charming of college girls—the typical college girl for whom we are always looking but not always finding; the type that contains so many delightful characteristics, yet without unpleasant perfection in any; the natural, unaffected, sweet-tempered girl, loved because she is lovable? ”

“ Everybody is a boy once more when it comes to the question of hidden treasure. In this book. Captain Lawton has set forth a hunt for gold that is concealed neither under the sea nor beneath the earth, but is well hidden for all that. A garrulous old sailor, who holds the key to the mystery of the Golden Galleon, plays a large part in the development of the plot of this fascinating narrative of treasure hunting in the region of the Gulf Stream and the Sargasso Sea. An aeroplane fitted with efficient pontoons—enabling her to skim the water successfully—has long been a dream of aviators. ”

“ One day, not very long before the Electric Monarch, which had been finished in scarlet and silver, was ready for her trial trip, two strangers [Pg 83] appeared at the Hinkley House. One was a broad-shouldered, clumsy-looking young man with a shock of black hair and carelessly brushed clothes, the other a tall, cadaverous-looking person of about the same age with shifty, rat-like eyes and a general air of furtive watchfulness. ”

“ The Electric Monarch gave a dive and a swoop that caused all Heiny Dill’s qualms to come back tenfold.
“Himmel! Ve are sinking. Man der boat-lifes!” he yelled, but nobody paid any attention to him and he speedily recovered his equanimity, and with his rotund face poked out of the cabin port watched, with as much interest as any one else on board, the approach of the steamer.
“She’s a Boston and Portland liner bound north,” declared Jack to Ned Nevins who, as the motor did not need any attention just then, stood at the young skipper’s side in the pilot house. ”

“ Ned, old boy, the Electric Monarch is a success. A bigger success than we dared to hope.”
“She is indeed,” said Ned, almost reverentially, as he glanced down from the pilot house window at the landscape flying by far below them. ”

“ Suppose that the idea appears to be possible to work out, what would your plans be?”
“That we each take an equal chance in the [Pg 22] profits that may come from it,” replied Ned in quick, certain tones that showed he had thought the matter out all clearly in his own mind.
“Well, that would come later. You would be clearly entitled to more than a third share, for the invention practically belongs to you.”
“Yes, but I have no capital to put into its manufacture. My idea was that you would build the craft, with me to help, for I know my uncle’s ideas in regard to the craft backward, almost.” ”

“ Naturally interested in aeronautics as they were then, the two lads went into “executive session” over the plans of Ned Nevins’ electrical hydroaeroplane as soon as Tom Jesson returned from Boston, which was late that afternoon. He had gone to the city to order some materials needed in a new landing device the boys were working on. Far into the night the two boys pored over the plans, waxing more and more enthusiastic as they progressed. ”

“ He was in the midst of his explanations, when Sam Hinkley strolled in. Jack looked at him sharply. One of his eyes was swollen and slightly discolored. He glared at Ned savagely and the look was not lost on Jack Chadwick.
As soon as he had an opportunity, Sam drew Jack aside and demanded, in an indignant and [Pg 75] aggrieved voice, to know if Ned Nevins was to work in the shop.
“Yes, and on a partnership basis, too,” said Jack enthusiastically. “He has been the means of introducing us to a wonderful invention. We are going to start in on the work of its construction right away.” ”

“ I am under doctor’s orders and cannot disobey them.”
“I wish you could come, father,” replied the boy, “but if everything goes off all right you will have many opportunities to ride in the Electric Monarch. Now, since you can’t come, I am going to entrust to your care the plans and blue prints of the craft.”
“Yes, they will be safer here.”
“I have just brought them from the workshop. See, here they are,” and Jack produced a voluminous roll of papers. “We are responsible to Ned Nevins for the safety of these and we must see that they are looked after carefully.” ”

“ But the lads, who are, after all, typical of most young Americans of their type, are resourceful enough to overcome every one of their dangers and difficulties.
How they discover the whereabouts of little Joe, the “kid” of the patrol, by means of smoke telegraphy and track his abductors to their disgrace; how they assist the passengers of a stranded steamer and foil a plot to harm and perhaps kill an aged sea-captain, one must read the book to learn. A swift-moving narrative of convincing interest and breathless incident. ”