The Air Ship Boys : Or, the Quest of the Aztec Treasure

reporter was baffled by the r

Bob Russell, as he hastened from

k consisted only in describing such notable personages as passed through the city and now and then in interviewing the mor

he boys. This was a simple thing, done in that manner, for even the passengers in a special or private car must have regular tickets. The conductor at once revealed the

lessly, approached the head brakeman who had helped bring the train from Chicago. It was Tom Smi

Placida with you?" b

axles. All except passengers. She's runn

y offering the brakeman a cigar. "Pretty dusty, eh?" A

st be next-running a c

y for a surreptitious smoke. "Not on your life. No

Bob. "The place is so jammed full of stuff. I could

man then gave Bob what

ame back I took my time. They got a case of powder or dynamite in there marked 'Explosive.' I didn't bother that but the

s the ca

onsulted me,"

Placida would be dropped on the only siding at the little town of Clarkeville in New Mexico. He had al

ad presented these scattere

estion of the editor he telegraphed to the representative of the Comet in Chicago: "Who is Ned Napier?" In a little over an hour he had a h

nce, brilliant, with good deductions, good guesses and good amb

and fertile prairies of middle Kansas in blissful ignorance of what Bob

in this country. Accompanied by an assistant, Alan Hope, and on board a special car packed with $50,000 worth of apparatus he will proceed to Clarkeville, an insignificant town in New Mex

ict pledge of secrecy. The knowledge that such an expedition is under way was made known for the first time to the representative of the Comet by M

s the Pacific. I hope it will accomplish what the department has planned, but you know that we who are in this profession are always prepared

sent out as a 'rain maker,' or 'cloud breaker' in an attempt t

carried a large can of a new and powerful explosive. In ex

exact character of this new explosive. B

aborate experiments in the unpopulated wilderness of the region to which t

vering what all the eastern papers have missed-that a stupendous thing is p

After this was a detailed account of the car, not omitting little Mary Hope's bouquet of faded roses,

s. Sharp at six o'clock that evening the Chicago correspondent of the New York World sent advice to his paper that he had

World in New York took the account just r

o'clock that night Bob Russell was awakened to respond to a teleph

itor, Comet

n man and discover mission. Advance funds

ditor, New

ing. He was just twenty-four hours behind in the race, but he meant, if he could, to execute his or