The Motor Boys Over the Rockies, Or, A Mystery of the Air

Well, we ought to settle this question about our vacations, one way or another, fellows,” remarked a tall, good-looking lad, with something of an air of worriment, as he glanced at his two comrades who were stretched out in the shade of a big maple tree one hot afternoon. He plucked some blades of grass from the well-kept lawn, that extended back to a large, white house, with big pillars, put the spears of green into his mouth, and chewed them reflectively. Then he added: “Why can’t you and Chunky agree, Ned? What’s the use of disputing? It’s too hot. The three chums, whose devotion to vehicles of the gasolene type, from motor cycles to airships, had gained for them the title of “The Motor Boys,” lived in the town of Cresville, not far from Boston. Bob Baker’s father was Andrew Baker, a rich banker; Ned was a son of Aaron Slade, who was the proprietor of a large department store, and Jerry Hopkins was the only child of Mrs. Julia Hopkins, a wealthy widow.

The boys had had many adventures together, and the beginning of them was told of in the first book of this series, entitled “The Motor Boys.” Their activities started in a bicycle race, but they soon exchanged their wheels for motor cycles, and a short time after that they won a touring car, offered as a prize. In that they made a long trip overland, and, later, went to Mexico, to which trip Ned referred when he mentioned the buried city, for the boys actually did discover one, for which a friend of theirs, Professor Uriah Snodgrass, a noted scientist, was in search.

They returned home from Mexico across the western plains of the United States, and then, using some money they had made from a gold mine they had located, they bought a speedy motor boat.

The fifth volume of this series, entitled “The Motor Boys Afloat,” took up their adventures in connection with the speedy craft Dartaway. They had some stirring times around home, and then took quite a long trip along the Atlantic coast. From there they journeyed to the mysterious Florida everglades, to which Ned had also referred. But the happenings there, strange and weird as they were, seemed, to the boys at least, to be more than equalled in a trip they made on the Pacific, though this voyage was in a motor boat they hired, as their own was smashed in a freight wreck.