The Motor Boys Over the Rockies

A Mystery of the Air (Volume 10 of 22)

The popular adventure story in 20th century.This is one of the Motor Boy series.

Example in this ebook

CHAPTER I
THE AIRSHIP STOLEN

“Well, we ought to settle this question about our vacations, one way or another, fellows,” remarked a tall, good-looking lad, with something of an air of worriment, as he glanced at his two comrades who were stretched out in the shade of a big maple tree one hot afternoon. He plucked some blades of grass from the well-kept lawn, that extended back to a large, white house, with big pillars, put the spears of green into his mouth, and chewed them reflectively. Then he added: “Why can’t you and Chunky agree, Ned? What’s the use of disputing? It’s too hot.”
“Of course it is,” answered the smaller of the two lads thus addressed.
“Hot nothing!” puffed the stout youth, whom the first speaker had called “Chunky” in tribute to his fleshiness. “It’s only hot because you imagine it, Ned Slade.”
“Bob says that because he wants to go South,” retorted Ned. “Eh, Jerry?”
“Now don’t you agree with him, Jerry Hopkins!” cried Bob Baker. “Be on my side for once,” and he looked an appeal at his tall chum. “Ned wants to go to Canada.”
“I’d like to go to the North Pole to-day,” responded Ned, turning over, as if to find a cooler place in the grass. “But, speaking seriously, I think I’ve got as much right to insist that the next trip we take in our airship shall be to some new locality, as Bob has to suggest that we go South.”
“Of course you’ve got a right to insist,” agreed Bob, puffing over his exertion of turning on one side. “Of course you have, Ned. Who started this argument, anyhow?” and he spoke rather sharply.
“Guess I’ve got as much right to start an argument as you have, Bob,” was Ned’s retort, and there was an unpleasant tone in his voice, at which Jerry looked troubled.
“Come, fellows,” spoke the tall lad, soothingly. “It’s too warm to bicker. Get down to business. We’ll take a vote on it. Where shall we spend this vacation in our airship?”
“I say South!” exclaimed Bob quickly.
“He’s thinking of the Florida everglades, where the Seabury girls had their houseboat, or else he wants to try to locate another buried city in Mexico,” broke in Ned.
“I do; eh? Well, what attracts you to Canada?” demanded the stout lad.
“Maybe he’s heard that the Seabury girls are going there,” suggested Jerry, with a smile.
“No,” answered Ned. “I only thought it would be cooler. I’m willing to leave it to you, Jerry.”
“So am I,” agreed Bob, more amiably, and the little cloud that seemed to threaten to come over the friendship of the chums, had almost vanished.
“I was going to suggest a Western trip,” proposed Jerry quickly, wishing to strike while the iron was hot, “but as we have been there before, perhaps Ned will object.”
“It depends on what part of the West you’d aim for,” came from Ned. “Go ahead, Jerry, and tell us some more.”
“Sure,” agreed the tall lad, pleasantly. He glanced quizzically at his two chums. Bob was idly chewing a leaf, and Ned was gazing up into the blue sky through the leaves of the maple tree.
The three chums, whose devotion to vehicles of the gasolene type, from motor cycles to airships, had gained for them the title of “The Motor Boys,” lived in the town of Cresville, not far from Boston. Bob Baker’s father was Andrew Baker, a rich banker; Ned was a son of Aaron Slade, who was the proprietor of a large department store, and Jerry Hopkins was the only child of Mrs. Julia Hopkins, a wealthy widow.

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