o is the pilot of this craft?" he asked.

"I am," answered Dick.

"And where is your official army timekeeper?"

"Here," answered Lieutenant McBride, saluting. "Are we the first to
cross the continent?"

How anxiously Dick waited for the answer. "No, not the first," replied
the San Francisco officer. "One biplane arrived yesterday. What is
your time?"

Lieutenant McBride made a hasty calculation.

"Sixty-two hours, forty minutes and fourteen seconds from, New York,
taking out the time of two landings," was the reply.

"Then you win!" cried Captain Weston, as he introduced himself. "That
is, unless this other craft can better your time. For the first
arrival was seventy-two hours altogether."

And Dick had won, for the biplane with which he had just had the
exciting race, had consumed more than eighty hours, exclusive of stops,
from coast to coast.

"Hurray, Dick! You win!" cried Innis, clapping his chum on the back.

"The best trans-continental flight ever made!" declared Captain Weston,
as he congratulated the young millionaire.

"I'd like to have gotten here first," murmured Dick.

"Well, you'd have been here first, only for the delay my airship caused
you," said Uncle Ezra. "I'm sorry."

"But you get the prize," spoke Lieutenant McBride.

"Yes," assented Captain Weston, of Fort Mason. "It was the time that
counted, not the order of arrival. Which reminds me that you may yet
be beaten, Mr. Hamilton, for there are other airships on the way."

But Dick was not beaten. His nearest competitor made a poorer record
by several hours, so Dick's performance stood.

And that, really, is all there is to tell of this story, except to add
that by the confession of Larson, later it was learned that he had
tampered with Mr. Vardon's gyroscope, as had been suspected. The twenty
thousand dollars was duly paid, and Dick gave the United States
government an option to purchase his patents of the Abaris. For them he
would receive a substantial sum, and a large part of this would go to
Mr. Vardon for his gyroscope.

"So you'll be all right from now on," his cousin Innis remarked.

"Yes, thanks to your friend Dick Hamilton. My good luck all dates from
meeting him."

"Yes, he is a lucky chap," agreed Paul.

"I think Uncle Ezra had all the luck this trip," put in Dick, as he
heard the last words. "That gasolene he brought along to clean the
grease off his clothes saved our bacon, all right. It sure did!"