The Boy Aviators on Secret Service

me

the Navy's Bureau, at Washington, D. C., as he spoke. He was evidently anticipating callers of more than usual impo

, Pin

ve come

show them i

r he reappeared and ushered in two bright looking youths of sixte

ank and Har

rank, was a well-knit, broad-shouldered youth. Both boys were tanned to an almost mahogany tinge for they had only returned a few days before from Nicaragua, where they had passed through a series of strange adventures a

held by the gray-haired man, looked at the two yout

rd so much of?" he inquired at length wit

of a smile playing about his lips at the great man'

he Secretary of the Navy, who had obser

k, "that we are very young to undertake such exacting

ng them into such exact words, "but your youth has evidently not interfered with your progress if all the reports I hav

themselves in two chairs facing the grizzled o

Nicaragua the very agents we wanted for a particularly dangerous and difficult mission," he said, "I at once sen

olored wit

he went on impressively, "the government has been experimenting for some time in secret with Chapinite, a new explosive of terrific power, the

the archives of the department and, what is still m

make it almost undoubted that the stuff is Chapinite. By a tedious process of observation and deduction the men have traced the shipments as far as the west Florida coast but there all clues have ended. Weeks of work have left us as much in the dark as ever a

l I happened to come across a paragraph in a newspaper calling attention to your wonderful flights in the Golden Eagle, and then followed Admiral Kimball's dispatch. It struck me at once that here indeed was a way of locating

ccept the a

ys off their feet so to speak. They e

sir, our first aeropla

dent, from a camp in which he was held prisoner," remarked

we were driven off the land in a tropical electric storm and it was only the fact that she was eq

designs partially drawn up. She would be a more powerful craf

listener enthusiastically, "then

escribed the situation it looks rather like a wild-goose chase; however, I

. The very mention of anything that promised exciting ad

d the Secretary. "The thing is now, how l

at least three wee

tary almo

it seems so," he corrected, "

a suitable aeroplane in a lesser period;"

," remarked the secretary. "You will of course nee

le for less than ten thousand dollar

repeated the secretary

see that it is not exorbitant. Everything that enters into the construction of an air craft must be of the very best and stro

ee that arrangements are made to provide you with everyt

in every way suited for our purpose. It is off any main road and we can work there in quiet. We built the first

ay with him, poor fellow. My own idea is, however, that he has been kidnapped and forced to take charge of the work, as without his direction it would be impossible, even with the aid of the formula, to manufacture the explosive. What I fear is, that after they have made a sufficient quantity to stock up the arsenals of

ce you have of the pl

ood on his table at his elbow. When in response

Flynn

h the neck of a bull and powerful physique. He was on

huge bulk, "these young men are Frank and Harry Chester, the Boy A

up against a dead wall

to do now is to outline to these young men the discoveries you made following the morning on which we found the safe

s a ship broker who had bought the craft on telegraphed instructions from Washington. We trailed up the telegram and found that it had been sent from the Hotel Willard by a Captain Mortimer Bellman, who, from what we can find out about him, was considerable of an adventurer and had at one time lived

st remarkable, however, was that the boat seemed to have been deliberately wrecked, for everything had been taken off her except her coal and ballast and all the boats were gone. There was no indication that she had been abandoned in a hurry and the reef on which she lay was such an obv

at while he was stopping at the Willard he received several letters from the government in question and that he paid twenty thousand dollars for the Mist. Now a man isn't going to pay that much out for a boat and wreck her unless he does

a nutshell," remarked the

ank. "Why should they make the stuff in the Everglades. Why no

tolen formula had been discovered there it would have led to a serious international breach and possibly war. By manufa

atch. It was twelve o'clock. "There is a t

have lunch with me?"

have a lot of work before us. Building an aeropl