At first Jimmie and Carl tried to carry on a conversation, but the snapping of the motors and the rush of the wind in their faces effectually prevented anything of the kind. The moon was well down in the west, yet its light lay over the landscape below in a silvery radiance. Now and then as they swept over a city or a cluster of houses far out on a country road, lights flashed about, and voices were heard calling from below. Ignoring all invitations to descend and explain their presence there, the boys swept on steadily until the moon disappeared under the rim of the sky. At first there was the light of the stars, but this was soon shut out by a bank of clouds moving in from the ocean. By this time the boys were perhaps two hundred miles from New York. They were anxious to be on their way, yet the country was entirely new to them, and they knew that a chain of hills extended across the interior farther on, so at last Ben, who was in the lead, decided to drop down and make inquiries as to the country to the west. Of course the boys might have lifted their machines higher into the air and proceeded on their course regardless of any undulations of the surface, but they were still comparatively new in the business of handling machines, and did not care to take high risks in the darkness. Jimmie followed Ben’s lead, and the two machines groped their way along a tolerably smooth country road and finally came to a stop only a few feet from a rough and weather-beaten barn which stood close to the side of the road. The clatter of the motors almost immediately brought two husky farmers into the illumination caused by the aeroplane lamps. “What you doing here?” one of the men asked. “Came down to rest our wings,” Jimmie replied, saucily. “Where you from?” asked the other farmer. “New York,” answered Jimmie. “We’re carrying government despatches to Japan,” Carl added, with a grin. “We’re in the secret service!” Ben gave the two boys a jab in the back, warning them to be more civil, and, stepping forward, began asking questions of the farmer regarding the country to the west. The two men looked at each other suspiciously. “Is this him?” one of them asked. The other shook his head. “Might be, though!” insisted the first speaker. “No,” replied the other, “this is not the man!” Ben looked at his chums significantly for a moment. He was thinking that the farmers might be referring to an aviator who had passed that way not long before. He was thinking, too, that that aviator might be the identical one who had started out to beat the _Louise_ and the _Bertha_ to the Pacific coast. “When did you boys leave New York?” one of the men asked, in a moment. “About midnight,” was the reply. “And you’ve come two hundred miles in three hours?” asked the man, incredulously. “I don’t believe it!” “Our machines,” Ben answered, very civilly indeed, “are capable of making the distance in two hours.”