As Andy Leighton prepared for bed that night, one idea possessed his mind. He would in some manner penetrate Ba’s ignorance and learn the story of Timbado Key and its king.

Then he fell asleep to dream of a tropic isle whereon, beneath palms, a band of ghoulish savages, black, and clad in skins and feathers, knelt in groveling obeisance before a chief, their king, the cannibal Cajou.

His brain was yet full of these things in the morning, but the first smell of the shavings in the shop was an antidote; Ba and Timbado, for the moment, were put aside.

“Since I’ve got you started,” said Andy to the captain, after an hour of replanning, “I guess I’ll go over to my own factory. I’m goin’ to make the wooden part of the tail guide here, but I’ve got to do the metal work, the cogwheels, shaft-guides, and lever joints on the forge and lathe.”

This was Wednesday morning. Friday evening[98] when the Red Bird returned from the Leighton cottage, it carried a box of shaft cogs and other metal parts. In the shop that evening, stood, in the rough, the frame of the future car—Captain Anderson’s handiwork.

The spread of this frame was a little over thirty-six feet, and, despite Andy’s fortunate find of spruce, the four horizontal beams were of pine, each cleverly spliced in three places with one-quarter inch stove bolts to a short, thinned under piece. But the stanchions holding the two planes together, and the struts connecting and bracing the front and back beams were of spruce, as were all the rib pieces. Pine weighs as much as spruce, but it is only five-eighths as strong.

Captain Anderson, having acquainted himself thoroughly with the plans, set about the actual work of construction in his own manner.

The four car beams were each 36 feet, 4 inches long. They were to be the basis of a car 6 feet deep and 5 feet high. After two of the light, slender beams had been laid on the floor, and the eight struts had been laid across them, the latter were made fast to the beams by liberal coats of glue and close winding with the waxed seine thread. The other beams were[99] treated in the same manner. This required a full day’s time, and the big, fragile-looking frames were set aside to dry.

The next morning, Andy’s impatience to test the engine could be no longer restrained.

“What’s the use of an aeroplane, if that don’t work?” he argued.

The engine responded slowly when started, stopped after a few revolutions, and then fell to work with an exhaust of thick, black smoke.

“What’s the trouble?” exclaimed the captain.

“No trouble,” answered the boy. “It’s only oil in the cylinders—it’ll be out in a short time. She’s fine and dandy.”

With regret, Andy shut off the engine to help with the other work. The task of connecting the upper and lower frames was then undertaken. Sixteen stanchions had been rounded and sandpapered until the wind-friction-corners had been removed. The ends of each of these had been slightly slotted. They were then set upright between the upper and lower frames, and, after being liberally painted with glue, screwed to the beams opposite each stanchion end. The attached ends were carefully wrapped with the seine thread, which was also glued, and another day’s work was at an end.

[100]

“Kind o’ light and flimsy,” suggested the captain, when they finally quit work.

“Sure,” admitted Andy. “It wouldn’t hold at all that way. It won’t be rigid until we get the wire braces on. Then we’ll tune her up like a fiddle. This string and glue don’t do much but hold the frame together until we get the wires attached. They’ll brace her like a bridge span.”

The sawing of the spruce strips for ribs—pieces 6 feet long by ? inch thick and an inch wide—was the program for the next day. Captain Anderson adjusted the small power circular saw that was a part of his outfit, and the roughing of the slender pieces was soon accomplished. As each had to be delicately planed, sandpapered, and shellacked, this job ran into night again.

That evening, Mrs. Leighton began to wonder if she might not get a letter from her husband the next day in relation to the little estate and its disposition.

“I hope not,” whispered Andy to his friend, the captain. “He’ll likely put a crimp in my airship plans.”

“Put a crimp in your airship plans?” repeated Captain Anderson soberly. “What[101] have you got to do with the airship? Aren’t you working for me? It’s your father and I who are partners.”

“Oh, of course,” replied the boy. “Of course—I forgot. But he may not want me to work on it.”

“That needn’t stop the work,” exclaimed the captain. “I think I’ll go ahead just the same. I reckon I’ve got a sort of interest in the engine, and, as for the bird-tail rudder, I can give that up if he wants it. But he won’t; he’s a mechanic.”

The letter did not come the next day, but when it did, in the middle of the following week, it was even enthusiastic about the possibilities of the discovered model, and congratulated Mrs. Leighton on her good luck in being able to make an arrangement with Captain Anderson to work out the idea. It said nothing about Andy’s work on the testing apparatus. This was probably because of Mr. Leighton’s special interest in his wife’s description of her brother’s estate. How much this was, was indicated by his suggestion that no part of the property be sold, as he was arranging, if possible, to come to Florida in about two weeks.

When Mrs. Leighton read this, Andy did not[102] “hurrah.” Instead, he made a quick calculation. Then he smiled. In two weeks the aeroplane would be completed, and someone would have tested it.

There were over eighty ribs to be attached to the two frames of the aeroplane. At intervals of about a foot, the front end of each strip was screwed to the top of the forward beam. Extending the strip back over the rear beam, it was made fast there with screws. Two feet of the free end of each strip extended beyond the rear beam. These having been put in place, there was a hasty smoothing of all timbers with sandpaper and another coat of shellac and when Saturday night came, the big skeleton-like, fragile-looking frame, which almost filled the big boatshed, was locked up with the feeling that the hardest work had been accomplished.

By Tuesday night, both planes had been covered. The muslin, cut in full six-foot pieces, had been soaked in Andy’s waterproof solution (equal parts of alum and sugar of lead) and dried. Then one end of a piece was glued to the front edge of the beam and fastened with copper tacks. Carefully the strip was drawn back, and, as it was stretched skin tight, made[103] fast with small tacks to the ribs............