With that the publisher and Bob drove home, but the latter came back in the afternoon, and all four young men immediately repaired to the Yonkers Public Library with a blank tablet, there to work out the route and schedule.

It was no easy task. In the first place, they wished the route to be as close to the equator at all times as possible, so that their line of travel would approximate in distance the world's estimated circ.u.mference of 24,899 miles. In the second place, for stops they must choose cities or towns with either established landing-fields, or with grounds level enough for this purpose. In the third place, these airports must be so divided that they would not have to be visited during the hours of darkness, for few if any of them would be likely to have efficient enough lighting systems to make night landings safe.

Within fifteen minutes the boys had the long table in front of them literally covered with geographies, atlases, loose maps, and encyclopaedias. Paul even brought up a globe as large as a pumpkin, while Bob was not content until he had secured a score of back numbers of travel magazines. Into this divers collection of diagrams and reading matter they dove with an avidity which would have surprised the teachers they had when they were in grammar school, if they could have seen them. It soon became evident that they would not only need a route and schedule to make their journey successful, but also an enormous amount of general information about the countries they would pa.s.s over.

"We'll have to study trade winds, oceanic storm conditions, temperatures, inhabitants, topography, and so forth, and so forth,"

drawled Tom Meeks. "Say, fellows, I feel like kicking myself to think I didn't study my geography more and shoot paper-wads less, when I was a kid at school."

"We'll have to do a lot of cramming, that's sure," averred John; "but we have several months for that. Just now we want to jump into this route and schedule."

They made up several tentative routes, only to discard them. Finally, after several hours' work, they had one which everybody seemed to agree was the best that could be picked out. With the schedule, which was figured on the basis of 120 miles an hour airplane speed, the draft looked like this:

_Miles Airport Arrive Leave_ ---- PANAMA ------------ 1:00p 20th 1672 Georgetown 5:30a 21st 7:30a 21st 1154 Para 6:00p 21st 9:00p 21st 2402 Freetown 6:15p 22d 9:15p 22d 1980 Kuka 1:00p 23d 8:00p 23d 2015 Aden 6:00a 24th 9:00a 24th 2116 Colombo 5:30a 25th 8:30a 25th 1612 Singapore 6:00p 25th 9:00p 25th 2218 Port Darwin 5:30p 26th 8:30p 26th 3826 Apia 5:45a *27th 8:45a 27th 2100 Nukahiva 9:00a 28th 12:00n 28th 3154 San Cristobal 6:00p 29th 9:00p 29th 650 PANAMA 5:30a 30th ------------- ----- 24899

* Gain of 1 day by reason of crossing 180th Meridian, or International Date Line, between Port Darwin and Apia.

Bob Giddings carried home a copy of this schedule, and the following Monday morning all four young men met by appointment in the private office of the publisher of the _Daily Independent_. After they were seated, Mr. Giddings brought forth the tentative draft, studied it a few moments, and then asked:

"What is your fuel capacity, boys?"

"Our tanks will hold enough gasoline and oil to carry us a little better than five thousand miles, throttled down to an average of one hundred and twenty miles an hour, the basis on which we figured out this schedule, sir," answered John.

"Would it make a difference if you flew faster than that?"

"Oh, yes," said John; "the faster a pilot flies the more fuel he uses per mile. Full out--that is, going at the limit of her speed--the Sky-Bird probably would not cover more than three-thousand miles."

"I am glad to know this," said Mr. Giddings. "I see that your cruising radius is sufficient to cover your longest jumps at any reasonable speed. Let me see; you allow yourselves three hours' stop at each airport; will that be long enough?"

"Plenty, sir," said Tom; "we figure that we can easily refuel in that time, and attend to any local affairs we may have."

"I notice your total mileage is exactly equal to the estimated circ.u.mference of the world," remarked the publisher. "That shows great care in the selection of this route to meet my viewpoint; but may I ask how you know your distances between airports, as here recorded, are correct? From whence did you get these mileages?"

"Bob and I figured them out, sir," spoke up Paul.

"How?"

"Why, like this, dad," explained Bob. "We knew there were 360 degrees to the world; we divided the circ.u.mference of 24,899 miles by 360, and obtained approximately 69.5 miles to a degree. By taking a map of the world and finding the number of degrees between any two airports it was not difficult to come pretty close to the actual distance in miles between them."

"Very good; very good, indeed," approved his father. "I think I have the right sort of men on this job. But here is another thing which occurs to me: Have you based your time of arrival and leaving at each port upon local time or New York time?"

"Local time," stated Paul. "If we had not done so we could not have arranged the schedule with any accuracy at all, as regards daylight and darkness and the lapping of time. With our watches set to New York time, we might expect to land at a station in broad daylight, only to find that we were really coming in after dark. Another thing: Our figuring showed us that the lappages of time, all added together, exactly totaled one day of twenty-four hours, which we gain by traveling eastward. So, while the schedule on a calendar at home would only show ten days which we would be gone, we would in reality be away one day longer, or eleven."

"Your local times may be wrong," hinted Mr. Giddings.

"I don't think so, sir; we proved them correct," stated Paul, with conviction.

"How?"

"After the same method we used in getting the mileage, sir. You see, we knew that time eastward keeps getting later, and that this rate is four minutes to every degree. We just counted the degrees between places and figured it out on that basis."

"Splendid!" exclaimed Mr. Giddings, who was far from as ignorant of these processes as he led his visitors to suppose. "Boys, I wish to compliment you very highly upon this piece of work. When I first looked at the schedule and saw that an airplane meeting its requirements would make this trip squarely around the world in seven and a half hours less than ten days I could scarcely credit my senses, and I figured it all over to make sure you had made no mistake. I found out you had not. If you can maintain an average speed of one hundred and twenty miles, and can make up any unforeseen delays by greater speed, I must admit it really looks possible for you to be back inside of ten days. That is better than I actually hoped for, young men,--far better! In fact the situation, as I view it, contains wonderful opportunities for both newspapers in the way of sales and advertising. I do not doubt but that I can handle this affair in such a manner that I can afford to give each of you five thousand dollars if you make the journey within these ten days."

"Five thousand dollars!" cried our friends in unison, while Bob exploded: "But, dad, just how do you figure this out?"

"Mr. Wrenn and I will exploit this contest in our newspapers--let the whole universe know that it is coming off; advise the people that the aviators are to be provided with the most modern airplanes, and equipped with wireless by means of which they will keep us informed frequently of their whereabouts; that they will have cameras and send us pictures; that these bulletins shall be issued in extra editions of our newspapers at least three or four times a day; and to cap the climax, we will put up large bulletin boards in front of our buildings, on which there will be painted a chart of the trip, showing every scheduled stop, country, and ocean crossed. This will be electrically lighted at night, and as you boys fly in your machine away off in some distant part of the world, our bulletin board operators will follow your course on their huge charts, and represent you with a miniature airplane. In fact, I plan to get the _Clarion_ to 'phone over reports of their crew as fast as received, I doing likewise with them, and then we can have two dummy airplanes on each of our boards, showing the race in earnest at all stages of the journey. This would cause great excitement to the street onlookers. All in all, it would make our newspapers the most talked about in the whole country, we would gain thousands of new subscribers, millions of extras would be sold, thousands of dollars' worth of new advertising contracts could be made, and our present rates increased on account of our new prestige. Now, you see, it will be up to you young men to keep our office supplied with your whereabouts as often as you can. Do that, and beat our rival crew, and I shall be pretty well satisfied if you don't quite make the trip in ten days."

"We will do our part, sir," responded John, speaking for all.

There was a little further talk; and then they took their leave, well satisfied with the turn of events, and each determined to win his five thousand dollar trophy if it were at all possible.

CHAPTER XI

OFF FOR PANAMA

That same afternoon Mr. Giddings called upon his business rival, Mr.

Wrenn, of the _Clarion_, and presented to him the tentative program for the great race around the world's girdle, as the _Daily Independent_ had planned it. Mr. Wrenn declared that he was willing to stand by his former agreement to allow the _Independent_ to select the route, and said it was entirely satisfactory to him, and that he would at once take steps to have fuel supplies on hand at the various airports for his crew when they should arrive. He made no comments as to his own airplane, but agreed that the advertising plan his caller had worked out was a capital one, stating that he would co-operate heartily with him in carrying it to a successful conclusion.

Mr. Giddings was considerably surprised that Mr. Wrenn made no objection to the longest "hops" on the route, which were of greater extent than the average airplane could make, and was ready to modify the arrangement if there had been any objection. But even when he particularly called this matter to the other publisher's attention, Mr.

Wrenn only smiled serenely, saying, "Those hops are perfectly satisfactory to us," leaving Mr. Giddings with a deep wonderment as to what sort of aircraft the _Clarion_ proposed using.

"I am under the impression that our contemporary has something up his sleeve, but I cannot conceive what it can be," Mr. Giddings confided to his son that evening upon reaching home; and when Bob repeated this to the Ross boys and Tom Meeks next day, they too began to wonder more than ever what type of an airplane the _Clarion_ proposed using against them, and who the crew might be.

"Did your father and Mr. Wrenn decide upon a date for the start?" asked Paul.

"Yes," replied Bob; "they made it the 20th of July, this summer, weather permitting. We start from Panama at one o'clock in the afternoon."

"Our curiosity as to the ident.i.ty of our compet.i.tors will be satisfied then, at least," laughed John.

"And their curiosity, too!" put in Tom. "I'll stake my last cent they're just as much in the dark about us and the Sky-Bird II as we are about their outfit."

"We'll hope so, anyhow," remarked Bob; "but ever since we had those blue-prints stolen, and found we had a stranger sneaking around the hangar, I've been uneasy."

At this reference, all the young men felt a strange oppression. They had talked over it more than once, and each time it had left them with a sense of peril to their interests, why they could not tell. As before, they now tried to laugh it off, and began to talk about other subjects.

There was still considerable to do in the way of preparing the Sky-Bird and themselves for the long trip, and for weeks all four boys were kept hustling to make the final installations of accessories and equipment.

Bob rigged up a wireless telegraph in connection with his telephone set, and for protection, four good repeating rifles and an automatic shotgun were put in racks in the after-cabin, while each fellow provided himself with an automatic revolver which he would carry in a holster attached to a belt. Medium-weight flying suits, with a heavy, wool-lined coat to slip on in case they flew very high, and trim flying boots and soft gloves, made up the personal toggery.

Whenever the boys found a chance they went to the public library and absorbed all the knowledge they could about the countries over which they would pa.s.s and the places at which they were destined to stop. By writing to the authorities in these localities, Mr. Giddings also secured much valuable information for them as to present weather conditions and landing-fields--information which was further supplemented by numerous special airway maps supplied by the Aero Club of America and similar aviation organizations in foreign countries.

From these maps Paul worked out a very clear chart of their own course from beginning to end. A copy was given to each of the newspaper publishers concerned, to reproduce on their large electric street boards, and another was framed and placed immediately in front of the pilot's seat in the cabin of the Sky-Bird II.

All this time the columns of the _Daily Independent_ and the _Clarion_ contained frequent vivid references to features of the trip calculated to awaken the interest of the public, and as the time slipped along into July, the attention of people all over the land was centered upon the forthcoming contest, and it became the princ.i.p.al subject for comment. The secrecy maintained by both princ.i.p.als as to the kind of aircraft to be used, and the mystery as to ident.i.ty of the members of the respective crews, only whetted curiosity and interest the more, as the sharp newspaper men knew it would. Every man, woman, and child in the wide world seemed to be eagerly waiting for the moment to come when he or she would see the promised pictures of the bold aviators and their machines in the big newspapers, and hear that they had made their first jump eastward from Panama.

All being in readiness, at daybreak on the morning of July 16th the Ross boys and Tom Meeks appeared at the Sky-Bird's hangar, and pushed the airplane outside. As they were doing so, Mr. Giddings and Bob joined them. The publisher had planned to accompany his crew to Panama in the machine, to see them officially off, while his reporters made the journey by train, in company with the writing force of the rival paper.