As he drove, his boots, well-kept and freshly polished, rarely touched the brake, an infamously ineffective Locomobile accessory. His long hands and fingers moved nimbly between throttle and shifter. His eyes, ordinarily a compelling violet shade of blue, were dark with concentration. A no-nonsense expression and a determined set of his jaw were tempered by a grin of pure pleasure as he raced the auto at breakneck speed, overtaking trolleys, trucks, horse carts, motorcycles, and slow automobiles.

In the red-leather passenger seat to Bell’s left sat the boss, Joseph Van Dorn.

The burly, red-whiskered founder of the nationwide detective agency was a brave man feared across the continent as the scourge of criminals. But he turned pale as Bell aimed the big machine at the dwindling space between a coal wagon and a Buick motortruck stacked to the rails with tins of kerosene and naphtha.

“We’re actually on time,” Van Dorn remarked. “Even a little early.”

Isaac Bell did not appear to hear him.

With relief, Van Dorn saw their destination looming over its shorter neighbors: Preston Whiteway’s twelve-story San Francisco Inquirer building, headquarters of the flamboyant publisher’s newspaper empire.

“Will you look at that!” Van Dorn shouted over the roar of the motor.

An enormous yellow advertising banner draped the top floor proclaiming in yard-high letters that Whiteway’s newspapers were sponsoring the

WHITEWAY ATLANTIC-TO-PACIFIC CROSS-COUNTRY AIR RACE

The Whiteway Cup and $50,000
To be awarded to the
First Flier
To Cross America in Fifty Days

“It’s a magnificent challenge,” Bell shouted back without taking his eyes from the crowded street.

Isaac Bell was fascinated by flying machines. He had been following their rapid development avidly, with the object of buying a top flier himself. There had been scores of improved aerial inventions in the past two years, each producing faster and stronger aeroplanes: the Wright Flyer III, the June Bug, the bamboo-framed Silver Dart, the enormous French Voisins and Antoinettes powered by V-8 racing-boat engines, Santos Dumont’s petite Demoiselle, the cross–English Channel Blériot, the rugged Curtiss Pusher, the Wright Signal Corps machine, the Farman III, and the Celere wire-braced monoplane.

If anyone could actually navigate a flying machine all the way across the United States of America—a very big if—the Whiteway Cup would be won in equal parts by the nerve and skill of the airmen and by how ingeniously the inventors increased the power of their engines and improved systems of shaping their wings to make the airships turn more agilely and climb faster. The winner would have to average eighty miles a day, nearly two hours in the air, every day. Each day lost to wind, storm, fog, accidents, and repairs would increase dramatically those hours aloft.

“Whiteway’s newspapers claim that the cup is made of solid gold,” Van Dorn laughed. “Say,” he joked, “maybe that’s what he wants to see us about—afraid some crook will steal it.”