"Easy!" laughed Dick. "I guess we may as well make a family party of it while we're about it. Of course we'll see the girls. In fact I half-promised Miss Hanford I'd call on her if I could get my airship to work." "Oh, you sly dog!" mocked Innis. "And you never said a word!" "I didn't know I could get it to work," laughed Dick, as he stood at the wheel. The Abaris was cleaving through the clear air at a fast rate of speed, though she was not being sent along at her limit. The aviator wanted to test his machinery at moderate speed for some time before he turned on full power, and this trip to New York for the start gave him the very chance wanted. It was a journey of about five hundred miles from Hamilton Corners to New York City, and, as Dick and his friends had planned it, they would be in the air all night. They had set for themselves a rate of progress of about fifty miles an hour, and if this was kept up it would take ten hours to the metropolis. Of course the journey could have been made in much less time than that, for Dick's motor was calculated to give a maximum speed of one hundred miles an hour. But this was straining it to its capacity. It would be much more feasible, at, least on this trial trip, to use half that speed. Later, if need be, they could go to the limit. They had started late in the afternoon, and by journeying at fifty miles an hour they would reach the upper part of New York city in the morning; that is if nothing occurred to delay them. But the weather predictions were favorable, and no storms were in prospect. "I think I'll take her up a bit," remarked Dick, when they had passed out over the open country, lying outside of Hamilton Corners. "We might as well get used to good heights, for when we cross the Rocky Mountains we'll have to ascend some." "That's right," agreed the lieutenant. "Take her up, Dick." The young millionaire pulled over the lever of the vertical rudder, and as the nose of the Abaris was inclined upward, she shot aloft, her big propellers in the rear pushing her ahead. "I'm going out on the outer deck and see how it seems," said Larry. "I want to get some new impressions for the paper. I told the editor we'd pull off a lot of new stunts. So I guess I'll go outside." "No, you won't," said Lieutenant McBride, laying a detaining hand on the arm of the reporter. "Do you see that notice?" He pointed to one over the door. It read: "No one will be allowed on the outer deck while the airship is ascending or descending." "What's that for?" Larry wanted to know. "So you won't roll off into space," replied Lieutenant McBride. "You see the deck is much tilted, when we are going up or down, and that makes it dangerous. Of course the cabin floor is tilted also, but there are walls here to save you from taking a tumble in case you slip. Outside there is only a railing." "I see," spoke Larry. "Well, I'll stay inside until we get up as high as Dick wants to take us."