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[Illustration: FRANK READE WEEKLY MAGAZINE Containing Stories of
Adventures on Land, Sea & in the Air]

       _Issued Weekly—By Subscription $2.50 per year. Application
           made for Second-Class Entry at N. Y. Post-Office._
       No. 16.        NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 13, 1903. Price 5 Cents.

[Illustration: FRANK READE, JR., AND HIS ENGINE OF THE CLOUDS; OR,
CHASED AROUND THE WORLD IN THE SKY. _By “NONAME.”_]

                      “Climb up that ladder to the
                   airship!” exclaimed the detective.
                  “Very well,” said Murdock, and up he
                    went. Frank and Reynard followed
                    him, and the ship sped on. Pomp
                    received the prisoner. “Wha’ yo’
                    gwine ter do wif him?” he asked
                                 Frank.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

                              FRANK READE

                            WEEKLY MAGAZINE.

     CONTAINING STORIES OF ADVENTURES ON LAND, SEA AND IN THE AIR.

  _Issued Weekly—By Subscription $2.50 per year. Application made for
    Second Class entry at the New York, N. Y. Post Office._ _Entered
  according to Act of Congress in the year 1903, in the office of the
 Librarian of Congress._ _Washington. D. C., by Frank Tousey. 24 Union
                           Square, New York._

 No. 16.              NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 13, 1903.       Price 5 Cents.




            Frank Reade, Jr., and His Engine of the Clouds;
                                  OR,
                  Chased Around the World in the Sky.


                              By “NONAME.”




                                CONTENTS


                CHAPTER    I. SHOT FOR MONEY.
                CHAPTER   II. THE ENGINE OF THE CLOUDS.
                CHAPTER  III. A STOWAWAY.
                CHAPTER   IV. A LIGHT FROM THE SKY.
                CHAPTER    V. FOUND AND LOST.
                CHAPTER   VI. FOILED AGAIN.
                CHAPTER  VII. SAVED FROM DEATH.
                CHAPTER VIII. BAFFLED AGAIN AND AGAIN.
                CHAPTER   IX. THE OASIS IN THE DESERT.
                CHAPTER    X. BUYING A SHIP’S CREW.
                CHAPTER   XI. IN A TIGER’S JAWS.
                CHAPTER  XII. LOSS OF A WHEEL.
                CHAPTER XIII. A BOMBSHELL.
                CHAPTER  XIV. CONCLUSION.




                               CHAPTER I.
                            SHOT FOR MONEY.


It was a bitterly cold night in March.

The bleak, gloomy streets of Chicago were almost deserted.

A poor little boy in rags was slinking along an aristocratic avenue,
shivering with the cold and looking very wretched.

His pallid, emaciated face showed poverty and privation, an air of utter
misery surrounded him, and he had a mournful look in his sunken eyes.

Nobody noticed poor Joe Crosby but the police.

He was then only one of the many waifs of the great city.

Tom Reynard, the detective, had seen him stealing along like a thief,
and the zealous officer became so suspicious of the boy’s actions that
he began to follow him.

Perhaps he was justified in doing this, for the hoodlums of Chicago were
a pretty bad set of rowdies, as a rule.

The detective was a middle aged, sharp, shrewd fellow, of medium size,
clad in a black suit and derby hat, his bony face clean shaven, his keen
blue eyes snapping with fire, and his reputation for ability the very
finest.

He kept the skulking boy well in view and was a little bit startled to
see him mount the stoop of a very handsome brown stone house, through
the parlor windows of which, partly open at the top, there gleamed a
dull light.

Instead of the poor little wretch making an attempt to break into the
house as the detective expected, he boldly rang the bell.

A servant answered the summons, and, seeing the boy, she cried:

“What! Joe Crosby—you back home again?”

“Yes, Nora,” the boy replied, in firm tones, “and I am going to stay,
too. My stepfather, Martin Murdock, is a wicked man. He lured me to a
wretched tenement in West Randolph street, where an Italian villain has
been keeping me a prisoner. But after a month of captivity I escaped
from there to-night, and now I have come back to make Martin Murdock
tell me why he did this?”

“Oh, the rascal!” indignantly cried the girl. “He told us that he sent
you off to boarding-school. Come in