Even now the Anclote, as the Boy Aeronauts’ Club aeroplane soon came to be known, may be considered old-fashioned. But when Bob Balfour and Tom Allen bought her and shipped her to the scene of her first flight over the orange groves, palm trees and limitless swamps of mid-Florida, the Anclote represented the best ideas of not less than three of the most practical and scientific of the first aviators. These, of course, were the Wright Brothers, Curtiss and Farman.

The motor was a Curtiss 25-horsepower, with 1400 revolutions per minute, while the propellers were exact copies of Farman’s, with a spread of 7? feet. The guiding rudders were patterned after the well-tested form used by the Wrights—the forward or vertical one 15? feet long by 3 feet wide, while the two horizontal guides in the rear were 5? feet high by 1 foot wide. The entire length of the planes was 38 feet 4 inches, while the sections connecting the two planes were 6 feet deep and 5 feet high.

The rubber-faced silk plane surfaces were attached[178] in the manner of the Curtiss machine, stretched over laminated spruce ribs, at intervals of a little over a foot and then wrapped around the front cross bars of the wing frames and kept taut at the rear by wire edgings drawn tight over each rib end.

Instead of landing and starting skids as used on the Wright machine, Type No. 1 carried a running gear of four light pneumatic tired wheels mounted in ordinary bicycle forks. A spoon brake applied by a bamboo plunger to the tire of the front wheels permitted quick stopping after alighting and held the machine for the start.

Thursday evening, Bob worked until a late hour, sending Gabe home for his supper, and awaiting his return. When the tired boy reached the hotel, he found a message that at once dispelled his fatigue—Captain Joe had reached port with the Three Sisters, and he had left word where he could be found.

When Bob left the hotel, he found Jerry Blossom anxiously pacing before the entrance awaiting him. The colored boy was so full of remarkable incidents and marvelous adventures that it was with difficulty that the white[179] boy calmed him into a clear account of the cruise.

The Three Sisters had made a safe voyage to the island, which it reached early Tuesday morning. After a half day’s reconnoitering, it had found a sheltered bay on the land side of the north key, and there, in a grove of cabbage palmettoes, a landing had been made and a camp located.

The camp was immediately marked by stripping a tall palmetto and attaching to its barren summit, the schooner’s flag. The camp outfit having been disembarked, all had worked on the camp site during the day, and, leaving Mac in command, Captain Joe and Jerry had sailed for Tampa the next morning. On their way to the wharf and the schooner, Bob, in the midst of Jerry’s grandiloquent account of the beauties of Anclote Island, said to the colored boy:

“Well, Jerry, did you find it? Locate your buried treasure trees yet?”

“Look hyah, Mistah Bob,” answered Jerry, with sudden alarm, “yo’ know what Ah done gone an’ done? Ah’s had a piece o’ mighty bad luck. Ah cain’t fine mah papah no mo’.”

“You don’t mean to say you’ve lost the directions[180] for finding ole Black Pirate’s treasure box?” asked Bob in pretended alarm.

“No, sah, Mistah Bob. Ah ain’t los’ it. Ah’s too keerful o’ dat writin’ to los’ it. No, sah, not me. Somepin done come in de night an’ tooken dat paper. Yas, sah. I ain’t los’ it.”

“Can’t you remember what you wrote?” asked Bob threateningly.

“Sure, I kin, mostly. But not prezactly. Pears to me now like it didn’t say no island at all. Mebbe if Ah has time to recomembah, Ah kin—”

“Look here, Jerry,” exclaimed Bob vigorously. “If you don’t recall those directions and take me where old Black Pirate told you he buried all his gold and silver and diamonds, you’re goin’ to walk back home—or swim. You’re lyin’ to me, Jerry.”

“Mistah, Bob,” cried Jerry in a sudden panic, “Ah cross mah heart Ah ain’t tell no story. Mah ma she don’t ’low me to tell no lies.”

“You wrote old Black Pirate’s directions on a piece of paper?”

“Yas, sah, Mistah Bob.”

“What kind of paper?”

“Jes’ reg’lah papah.”
 
Without relaxing his face in the least, Bob said:

“Jerry, I’ll give you till Saturday night to remember the directions or find the paper. If you can’t do either, we’ll leave you on the island when we go home.”

“Mistah Bob,” wailed Jerry, “yo’ don’ know how sorry Ah is ’bout dat papah. Mebbe de ole pirate wif de sword done change his min’ an’ sneak up on me and taken back what he tole.”

“Saturday night,” said Bob, sternly.

The two boys walked on in silence a moment. Finally the solemn Jerry, screwing his face into a look of pain, said:

“Mistah Bob, Ah’s feelin’ purty porely this evenin’. Ah got a kind o’ misery in mah back. Ah reckon Ah bes’ go git some med’cine.”

“Well?” said Bob, still keeping a straight face.

“Ah ain’t got no change. A reckon yo’ all couldn’t lend me fo’ bits till Ah gits to mah bank?”

“I reckon you’re right, Jerry. I could, but I won’t. You come on down to the schooner, and turn in, and your misery will be all right to-morrow.”

Bob found the taciturn Captain Joe enjoying[182] his pipe in the cockpit of the schooner, and silently watching an odorous coffee pot simmering on the charcoal brazier. With the weather beaten seaman, he enjoyed an hour’s talk, and after a cup or two of Romano’s black beverage, gave directions for the next day, and returned to his hotel.

That day and the day before, the merchant from whom Bob had rented the old factory had visited the scene of the setting up. It was probably from this source that news of the aeroplane leaked out. Anyway, when Bob returned to the hotel, he found a reporter awaiting him. Remembering the exaggeration of the Pensacola reporter, Bob resolved to give no excuse for guesswork, and told briefly what the club meant to do.

To Bob’s relief, the reporter told the truth in his next morning’s story. Like as not the mere fact that a real aeroplane was ready for flight in Tampa was enough of a sensation for the young journalist. It certainly brought a mob to the factory that day. When Bob arrived, Gabe was struggling valiantly to control the good-natured sight-seers. And the crush grew worse as the day advanced. Gabe was finally sent fo............