All three boys were sons of wealthy parents, with country estates near the far end of Long Island.  Frank’s parents, in fact, were dead, and he lived with the Temples.  Mr. Temple was his guardian and administrator of the large fortune left by his father, who had been Mr. Temple’s partner in an exporting firm with headquarters in New York City.  Jack Hampton also was motherless.

The boys were keenly interested in scientific inventions, and were given every facility by Mr. Temple and Mr. Hampton for indulging their hobbies.  Such indulgence required considerable sums of money, but the men believed the boys were worth it.  In fact, both gentlemen were scientifically inclined themselves, and were able to give the boys much valuable advice.

When Mr. Hampton decided to go to Texas and New Mexico as the representative of a group of “independent” oil operators engaged in a bitter war with the Oil Trust known as the “Octopus,” Jack begged so hard to be permitted to go along that his father let him quit Harrington Hall Military Academy two months before the end of the term.

It was agreed that when school ended, June 28, Frank and Bob should join Jack in the Southwest for their summer vacation.  The two boys owned an airplane in which they hoped to make the trip when the time came.  Mr. Temple, however, was dubious about letting them attempt to make so long a flight alone.

“But, Dad,” Bob would argue, whenever the matter was discussed, “we’ll be all right.  We’ve made lots of flights without any accidents.  We’re as capable as anybody.  You know yourself what the instructors up at Mineola told you.  You say we are too young to fly away alone.  But look at the young fellows that got to be ‘aces’ in the War!  Not much older than we are now.”

It must be confessed that Mrs. Temple thought little of the matter one way or the other.  She had so many social duties to take up her time that there was little left for the boys.  Accordingly, the boys had only Mr. Temple to persuade and they felt pretty certain of doing that in time.  So the last two months of school were spent in poring over maps and routes, and in studying up on landing fields and flying conditions generally throughout the territory they would have to cover.

Much of this study for the proposed flight was carried on at the radiophone station on the Hampton estate.  Mr. Hampton was an enthusiast about the development of radio telephony and it was through him the boys first had become interested in the subject.  A year earlier he had built a powerful station for the purpose of making experiments in talking across the ocean.  On that account the United States Government had granted him a special permit to use an 1,800 metre wave length.

Before leaving for the Southwest, Jack told the boys his father intended to build in Texas or New Mexico another radiophone station of similar wave length.  This would enable Mr. Hampton to communicate with his New York confreres through his Long Island station.  The big thing to the boys, however, was that they would be able to talk to each other across 2,000 miles of territory.  Delays in construction in the Southwest had occurred, however, and communication between the two stations had not yet been established when our story opens.