te men who were thus fleeing from arrest had
not the slightest intention of changing their plans.

"What do you think of her now, Andy?" asked the pilot, with a quiver of
pride in his voice.

"You must mean our new craft, I take it, Frank; and I want to say that
she's a real peach, if ever there was one. We never volplaned as easy as
that in our lives, and that's a fact. Why, it was like sliding downhill
on a sled, with never a single bump on the way. I could do that all day,
and never get enough."

"Dangerous business, all the same," remarked Frank; "and doubly so when
you don't happen to be well acquainted with your machine. A single
hitch, and we would have struck the water at a terrible rate."

"But all the same we didn't, Frank," the other went on, jubilantly; for
now that this peril was of the past Andy could be his old self again.

"And they did just as well," remarked Frank, always ready to give
credit, even though it might be to a rival, for his nature was generous
to a fault.

"Well, that biplane was easier to manage than our hydroplane, with the
pontoons underneath," Andy went on to say, grudgingly; for no one could
ever convince him that Frank had his superior as an air pilot; and he
would sooner go up to a record height of fifteen thousand feet in
company with his cousin, than accompany the most famous man living.

"It looks like we might be booked for Canada, Frank," he went on to say,
a minute later, after they had fallen into the new "stride" comfortably,
and were rushing forward on a level stretch, with the surface of the
lake close at hand.

"I shouldn't wonder," came the noncommital reply.

Now, Andy knew his cousin like a book. Perhaps it was something in the
words; or on the other hand there may have been an undercurrent of doubt
in the way Frank spoke, that aroused the other's suspicion.

"What is it, Frank?" he demanded, "for I reckon you see something that
is all a blank to me? Take me in, won't you?"

"Oh! I was wondering what would happen if they had an accident away out
on the lake, that's all," admitted the other.

"Well, in that event I guess it'd be up to the Bird boys to play the
rescuer act for all it was worth. But Frank, do you think this new
machine of ours could climb up off the water with four aboard? Wouldn't
that be the limit?"

"To tell you the truth, Andy, I don't know, because we've never had the
chance to try it out. With only two of us aboard you know how easy s