"Well, it begins to look like real business," commented Hiram.

"That's what we're here for."

"Yes, indeed."

They had no difficulty in getting the Monarch II aloft, the hollow
extending for several hundred feet. The night was ideal for a
secret sky voyage. A slight mist hung over the ground, but at a
height of five hundred feet the air was perfectly clear. There was
bright starlight, and against the radiance they could make out
flying birds quite a distance away.

Dave took a route across the lake diagonally from Anseton. They
skirted the other shore for about ten miles. Then they recrossed
the lake. The machine made a sweep along the coast line.

"Well, Dave," remarked his trusty assistant, "we've run across no
air bird so far."

"I didn't expect to, all at once," was Dave's reply. "We can only
keep at it."

"And trust to luck--I say!"

Hiram interrupted himself with a shout. Just beneath them an
excursion steamer was ploughing its way through the waves, bound
citywards on its return trip. They could hear the music of the band
aboard, until now drowned out by hoarse blare of the fog whistle.