Page:Bedford-Jones--Boy Scouts of the Air at Cape Peril.djvu/116

 interest in the improved prow and high curved tail of this biplane flying boat.

The tank filled and fishing tackle stowed, the pilot nimbly climbed to his seat, the lads scrambled to theirs just behind, the propeller set to threshing, and off went the bird skimming the tranquil waters for a hundred feet, then rose upon the air like some magic creature of Eastern fable. Over the lake she soared, left the sand bar behind, and sped along far above the combers.

For twenty minutes, that seemed but one to the enraptured scouts, she circled over the deep; then planed gracefully till she tipped the water; spanked along over the waves until she lost her momentum, and was brought to a halt as the pilot cast anchor at a point no great distance from the spot where the fishnets had been set for their prey.

Not many minutes later Turner, with a line attached to the end of his hook-tipped pole, was manipulating this clumsy instrument more as a joke than with any great expectation of results. Jimmy, sitting cross-legged on the starboard side of the boat, was line-fishing, and had already landed two mullets and a small alewife. On the