He hurried into the engine room.  The noise of the gas generating machine increased.  The gasolene engine went faster, and the motors and dynamos added to the noise.  There was a loud hissing sound.  The professor had opened a valve admitting the full force of gas into the oiled silk bag.  Then came a snapping sound as several anchoring ropes that had not been cut, broke.

Up rose the Monarch like some immense bird, through the opened shed roof.  Out into the air went the big yellow bag.  And then a strange thing happened.

Andy Sudds, the hunter, and Bill Jones and Tom Smith, the two farm hands, who had been peering over the edge of the shed down at the airship, leaned over too far in their anxiety to observe everything.  As the gas bag brushed past them they were startled.  They lost their balances and the next instant all three toppled right into the bow of the Monarch as she arose, and were lifted up into the air with her.

“Hold on, there!  Stop!” cried Taggert, who by this time had come close to the shed.

“It’s too late!” shouted back the professor, poking his head from a window in the engine room.

“Hey, there!  You’re carrying me off in your ship!” yelled Andy Sudds as he scrambled to his feet after his tumble into the bow of the Monarch.

“And me!” ejaculated Bill Jones.

“And me!” exclaimed Tom Smith.  “I didn’t figure on coming with you.”

“It’s too late!” the old inventor cried.  He turned some wheels and levers and the airship arose faster.  Then he switched on the electric machinery.  The big propeller began to revolve.  Swifter and swifter it went.  The Monarch, which had risen several hundred feet, started forward at a swift pace.  “We are off for the north pole!” shouted the inventor.  “Hurrah!  The ship works!  I knew it would!”

“Here!” roared Andy Sudds.  “I don’t want to go to the north pole.  I want to hunt muskrats down by the creek.”

“You can hunt seals and whales up north,” the professor called to him.

“But I’ve lost my gun!” the hunter exclaimed, soberly, yet a little appeased at the prospect of big game.

“I’ll give you a better one,” promised Mr. Henderson.  “You shall have all the hunting you want.”

“I can’t go to the north pole,” fairly yelled Bill Jones, starting back toward the engine room.  “I had a job plowing on a farm.  If I don’t go back I’ll lose my place.”

“You can hire out to me,” suggested the professor.  “I need a crew, and I didn’t have time to ship one.”

“What about me?” asked Tom Smith.  “I was working on a farm like Bill.”

“I’ll hire you also,” spoke the inventor of the Monarch.

“Hi, Perfessor!  Shall I shut off de gas?” Washington suddenly cried.

“For a while,” was the inventor’s reply.  “We are high enough now.  Then oil up the engines and dynamos, they need it.  You boys can help,” he said to Mark and Jack.  “I must see to my instruments and find whether everything is working right.”