long time it did not seem possible to the boys that they were
sailing on a river instead of an ocean.

"Ned and the boys must be over Paraguay now," Jack said, one day,
after they had been on the river nearly a week without accident or
important incident of any kind.

"Yes," Frank replied, "they must be there by this time. Jimmie said
they were to leave San Francisco on the 7th, or about that time. It
would take a week or more to get to Lima, for they couldn't remain
in the air long at a time, and the resting spells would set them
back a little. Suppose they got to Lima on the 14th, which was last
Monday, they could rest up and go prowling over that dirty little
republic--which is not a republic at all, but a despotism tempered
by revolution."

"I'd like to know just what course Ned has decided on," Harry said.
"I don't see how he's going to get to Mr. Lyman."

"He'll find a way," Jack insisted. "He always has, and he always
will."

It will be seen that the boys were tolerably accurate in their
estimates of the speed of the Nelson. On the day they were
discussing the possible location of the big airship, which was the
18th of August, the Nelson was in the center of as pretty a muss as
Ned had ever mixed with.

The boys in the Black Bear put on all speed, traveling nights as
well as days, and before long began watching the heavens, for an