Jack bent forward and snapped a button switch. A hooded light above the various gauges and instruments on the dashboard shone out, shedding a soft but bright light on the appliances, but not striking up into the young leader’s eyes. “All ready?” queried the lad, giving a backward glance. “Ready as we ever will be, old top,” quoth the slangy Mr. Bangs. “Let her go,” said Tom in a tense voice. Jack’s pulses throbbed, and his heart beat a bit quicker than was comfortable as he turned the valve that admitted gas to the bag above them. With a swishing sound, not unlike escaping steam, the folds of the great gas container began to fill out. It gradually assumed shape, swelling till it reached what appeared to be vast proportions. When Jack shut off the gas the huge, cigar-shaped balloon above them looked like an immense dark cloud, superimposed over their heads. The bag took just fifteen minutes to inflate. During this time not a word was spoken on board the Flying Road Racer. The tension was far too great for speech. As Jack shut off the gas a tremor ran all through the novel craft. She tugged and swayed at the single rope, reeved through a ringbolt, that still bound her to the deck. The suspension wires thrummed musically under the pressure. “Let go!” yelled Jack suddenly. Tom, who had been holding the end of the rope, dropped it. Instantly the Flying Road Racer gave a bound upward. “Bust my toplights!” bellowed Captain Andrews in excitement at the novel sensation. Jupe’s lips might have been seen to move. He appeared to be praying. Ned Bangs’ hands were clenched tightly. He was very pale. “Look out for the tree tops!” cried Tom suddenly. The wonderful craft, with her precious freight, swayed drunkenly toward the crests of a group of giant ceiba trees. For one instant disaster, at the very outset of their voyage, appeared inevitable. But suddenly there was a whirring sound, like the drone of a monstrous night beetle. The engine was driving the propeller round at top speed. Jack twisted the steering wheel over, and the Flying Road Racer, rising at the rate of a hundred feet a minute, shot clear of the menacing tree tops. Up and up into the night she rose, while her occupants, forgetting their first alarm in their enthusiasm, gave a mighty cheer, careless, for the minute, of who might hear it. The voyage of the Flying Road Racer had begun under a fortunate star indeed. Directly the tree tops were cleared Jack set the planes at a rising angle, and the upward course of the Flying Road Racer was more rapid. She seemed fairly to shoot up into the ether. “How do you like it?” asked Tom, turning his head-to speak to those in the tonneau. “Ah’d like it better, Marse Tom, ef I didn’t feel I done lef’ mah insides behin’ me,” faltered Jupe. “You’ll soon get over that feeling,” declared Tom confidently. “Just hark at that engine! She’s running as true as a human heart.”