Entirely unconscious of the fact that they were law breakers, the boys’ hearts beat high with the love of adventure as the Electric Monarch soared above Portstown, saluted by scores of whistles, and dashed off south in the direction of Scatiute.

The lads had been in many surprising adventures, but they had never encountered such a crisis as the present one. Somewhere out above the ocean, the glimmer of which they could catch to the eastward, was drifting a crippled dirigible with three men on board. It was their task to find that craft and rescue the men.

The captain had confided to Jack the names of the men, and so, when Ned put the question to him a short time after the start he was able to inform him.

“The owner of the Sky Eagle is Mr. Holmes Morse of New York,” he said; “with him, acting as engineer, is a man named Tyler and the operator is named Jennings.”

“Tyler!” exclaimed Ned, as if the name struck a key in his memory. “It is odd, but that was the name of one of my uncle’s closest friends. He was an engineer who took up aËrial work. I wonder if it could be the same.”

“It might be. But Tyler is a very common name.”

“To be sure, but the coincidence in the names and occupations struck me.”

“By the way, talking of that, didn’t I hear you say that in the crowd that gathered about us before we started, you saw your rascally cousin, Hank?”

“I did,” rejoined Ned, “but what in the world he could have been doing here I can’t imagine. Miles Sharkey was with him, too. I’ll bet they were up to some mischief.”

“Connected with the Electric Monarch?”

“Naturally; what else would they have been doing in Portstown.”

“But how could they have known that we were there?”

“I suppose they read that advertisement of the captain’s. He said he had it put in every paper of any prominence.”

“I guess that’s it. It was plain enough that they were kicking up some sort of a rumpus just as we were leaving.”

“So it looked to me. They were waving some sort of a paper.”

“Well, it isn’t our funeral. The captain gave us the word to go, and that’s all we’ve got to do with it. I’d give a good deal to know, though, just what they were trying to do.”

Perhaps it was just as well for Ned that he did not know. The knowledge that the Electric Monarch was not his any longer but had been legally left to his cousin would have made him absolutely miserable, for his whole being was wrapped up in the craft.

“Keep a bright lookout for the lighthouse at Scatiute, Ned—we ought to be sighting it at almost any moment now.”

“I’m watching for it,” rejoined Ned, as he went back to the motor platform to oil the bearings.

Not more than ten minutes later Jack’s sharp eyes caught sight of a white finger pointing upward to the sky at the extremity of a rocky point. He guessed that this must be Scatiute. The Electric Monarch had been skirting the coast, but as they swung by the lighthouse, Jack headed her straight out to sea.

Then began a period of tension that was to endure for several hours. Below them lay the glittering sea, calm and heaving gently, and flashing in the bright sunlight. But from even that height, with the extended horizon the elevation gave them, none of the watchers on the Electric Monarch could detect any sign of the craft they had come in search of.

As hour after hour went by without a sign of her, Jack’s heart began to sink. What if they were too late—if the Sky Eagle had sunk, carrying with her, into the depths of the sea, her unfortunate crew?

The thought was a serious one, and Jack, with a sober, thoughtful face speeded up the Electric Monarch a trifle so as to lose no time in case the Sky Eagle was yet above the surface of the sea.

There was but little wind, but what there was, was off shore, so that the Sky Eagle must have drifted seaward very rapidly. Her occupants would naturally have kept as much gas as possible in the bag in order to keep her above the waves. In such a case the drift would have been even more rapid than if the bag had been partially deflated.

Suddenly Joyce’s deep bass voice came booming from the forward lookout, from which position he had been scanning the sea with binoculars.

“There’s something dead ahead of us!”

Instantly the Electric Monarch fairly vibrated excitement. Ned hastened into the pilot house to Jack’s side. He found the young skipper with the binoculars at his eyes.

“Can you make out what it is?” he asked.

“I’m not quite certain, yet. Whatever it is, it appears to be almost floating on the sea. It may be a small craft, and the floating effect may be caused by a refraction of the light or it may be——”

“The Sky Eagle!” Ned finished for him.

The next moment Joyce’s voice came thrilling through the speaking tube from the foreward lookout.

“It’s a balloon! She’s almost in the sea!”

Simultaneously Jack had descried what the distant object was. “The balloon” as Joyce called it was, without doubt, the Sky Eagle. But the dirigible was perilously near to the water. In fact she appeared to be almost touching the surface. Would they be in time?

“Hold tight!” warned Jack. “I’m going to let her out every notch.”

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. He only hoped that it would not be dragged out of its fastenings.

The Electric Monarch’s frame creaked and complained, and every brace and wire in her structure hummed a separate song as they cut through the air. Luckily, the wind was with them, or the craft, strong as she was, might not have endured the cruel strain.

Every second brought them closer to the stranded and disabled dirigible. They could see the unfortunate craft quite plainly now. She lay with a shriveled and collapsed gas bag almost on the surface of the waves. A jagged rent in one side showed what had brought her down into such perilous proximity to the waves.

From time to time, so close was she to the water, a larger wave than usual would lap up against the under part of the craft’s structure, and drench the men marooned on board the sinking dirigible.

“Only just in time!” exclaimed Jack, as he manipulated his descending levers, cut down the power and landed in the water not twenty yards from the sinking Sky Eagle, with skill that resulted in hardly a splash.