On a Torn-Away World (ePub)

"Hurrah!" shouted Jack Darrow, flicking the final drops of lacquer from the paintbrush he had been using. "That's the last stroke. She's finished!" "I guess we've done all we can to her before her trial trip," admitted his chum, Mark Sampson, but in a less confident tone. "You don't see anything wrong with her, old croaker; do you?" demanded Jack, laughing as usual. "'The proof of the pudding is in the eating thereof; not in chewing the pudding bag string'," quoted Mark, still with a serious countenance. But like Jack he stood off from the great body of the wonderful airship, and looked the completed task over with some satisfaction. Having emergency wings, she was also a plane. She was white all over and her name was the Snowbird. Jack and Mark had spent most of their time during this vacation from their college in building this flying machine, which was veritably an up-to-the-minute aerial vehicle, built for both speed and carrying capacity. The hangar in which the machine had been built was connected with Professor Amos Henderson's laboratory and workshop, hidden away on a lonely point on the seacoast, about ten miles from the town of Easton, Maine. At this spot had been built many wonderful things - mainly the inventions of the boys' friend and protector, Professor Henderson; but the Snowbird, upon which Jack and Mark now gazed so proudly, was altogether the boys' own work.