The Bird boys

When Andy thus wildly rushed out of doors he fell over some object which he did not chance to see. Perhaps in his excitement he even imagined some one had given him a clip alongside the head with a club, for he struck the ground with a bang that must have made him see stars.

“Frank! Frank! Come here, quick!” he shouted.

The other, who had been thrusting his head out of the window of the hangar, immediately made a break for the door. Doubtless he half expected to see his cousin wrestling with some daring intruder, whom he had caught in the act of setting fire to the shed or some such caper.

“Where are you? What’s going on here?”

Calling in this strain Frank arrived in time to see Andy still on his hands and knees just as he had fallen. He seemed to be staring up at the starry heavens as though he had taken a sudden intense interest in the planets of the universe.

“Did you see anything?” he questioned, as he managed to clamber to his feet and clutch hold of the other.

“Not a thing!” came the ready reply; “but it seemed to me I heard shouts. And they seemed to be getting fainter and fainter, as if the fellows were running away.”

“That’s it, Frank, voices that sounded like they were sailing along overhead!” exclaimed Andy, excitedly.

“What’s that?” demanded the other, turning upon him; “overhead, you say? Ginger! Now that you mention it, seems to me there might be something in that. But how could anybody get above us, when there isn’t a single tree in this big field?”

“Frank,” Andy went on, earnestly, “I saw something just disappearing over yonder, where the woods begin to poke up in the east. And I give you my word that was where the voices came from!”

“Disappearing? Do you mean over the tree-tops, Andy?” cried the other, just as if the announcement he listened to nearly took his breath away.

Andy nodded his head several times, while his face, seen in the moonlight, appeared to be covered with an eager grin.

“Yep, went over the tops of those same trees just like a bird—poof! and it was gone. I couldn’t make head or tail out of it, because, you see, I was nearly standing on my own head just then. But it wasn’t a bird, I’ll take my affidavit on that! It sure must have been some sort of flying machine, Frank!”

His listener whistled to express his surprise.

“Here, let’s go and get some clothes on over these zebra stripes,” he suggested. “Then we can come out and look into this thing a little closer.”

In less than three minutes they issued forth again, better able to stand the chilly air of the night.

“Did you hear anything more than the shouts?” asked Andy, as they emerged.

“Why, yes; some sort of racket woke me up. Don’t just know what it was, but I thought somebody might be banging on the side of the shack, and I jumped. I guess that’s what woke you, too,” continued the taller lad.

“But Frank,” declared Andy, impressively, “I couldn’t say for certain, and yet it seemed to me as I lay here, after tumbling over that wooden bucket I forgot to carry indoors, I heard some sort of sounds that made me think of the popping of a little motor!”

“A motor!” cried the other, “and up there in the air, too!”

They stared hard at each other. Some startling thought must have instinctively lodged in each brain, for almost immediately Andy went on sadly, saying:

“Just to think, they’ve beaten us a mile! And after all the talking we’ve gone and done, too. However will we hold our heads up after this?”

“See here, you don’t mean that those fellows have got their biplane rigged up already and are soaring around in the moonlight?” demanded Frank.

“Well,” Andy continued, “it looks like it, don’t it? Something that can fly and carry passengers certainly passed over our hangar just then. And not only that, but they let loose at us, no doubt intending to smash in our roof with a great big dornick.”

“Hold on, you’re jumping too far ahead, Andy. Let’s go slow and not get off the track so easy. If you were on the witness stand could you swear that you saw a biplane just disappearing over the trees yonder?”

“Well, no; perhaps not exactly,” said the other; “but I saw something that was moving along just as neat as you please.”

“Yes, and the moonlight is mighty deceiving, I know,” remarked Frank. “But we’ll say that you did see something, that might have been a flying machine or a cloud. Will you declare that you heard the popping of a motor?”

“I think I did, but perhaps it may have been the blood rushing through my brain, for I came down pretty solid. Still, it wouldn’t surprise me if we learned, after all, that it was a motor in an aeroplane. Then think what they tried to do to us, will you?”

“There you go, Andy. Don’t be a false alarm all your life. We’re going to investigate that same noise presently, when we’ve threshed this other thing dry. It may be that they’ve gone and done it. But if two greenhorns can start up in an aeroplane by moonlight and sail around just as they please, flying must be easier than I ever dreamed of, that’s all.”

Frank did look puzzled. He could not bring himself to believe such a wonderful thing had happened. Knowing both Percy and his crony as he did, he doubted their ability to accomplish the feat in broad daylight, let alone night, with its deceptive moonlight.

And that was why he frowned as he tried to figure the thing out.

“We both heard the big row,” he mused. “Then Andy here declares he saw something floating off above the trees yonder; he can’t say for sure whether it was an airship or a nighthawk. And he kind of thinks he heard something like the crackling of an aeroplane motor! Now, what happened? That’s what we’ve just got to find out.”

He looked around him.

“Yes,” he continued, as if speaking to himself, “I’m nearly sure that crash came from over yonder to the west. It seemed to reach me by way of the window, and that was why I made for that opening in such a hurry. Thought some fellow might be trying to climb in there and had fallen back.”

Again he cast his eyes upward, then slowly described a half circle.

“Andy says it disappeared over that clump of trees, which is almost due east of here. And I thought I heard the crash over at the other side of the shack, making it almost west. Now, that sounds reasonable. If they dropped something, meaning to hit the roof of the hangar, and undershot the mark, it would have fallen to the ground to the west of the building!”

“Yes,” said Andy, who had been listening eagerly, “and you remember, there’s a little pile of lumber lying there, which we meant to use if we had to enlarge the house. It must have struck those boards, Frank!”

“That’s a clever thought,” admitted the other, “and one I didn’t clutch myself. Let’s meander over that way and take a little observation. What say?”

“I’m with you every time,” declared Andy, quickly. “I never could stand having two mysteries bothering me at once. It’s enough to be always wondering where that blessed little monkey wrench could have vanished to.”

“Come on and drop that, if you please. Life is too short to be everlastingly whining about lost opportunities and monkey wrenches and such things,” said Frank, leading off as he spoke.

“Oh, splash! You haven’t got a grain of sentiment about you, Frank. Everything is too practical, according to your way of thinking. Now to my mind, there’s nothing prettier in the world than a cleverly constructed wrench that knows its business and refuses to get out of joint just when you need it to hold most.”

But Frank had declined to listen to his “chaff,” as Andy would have called it himself. Already the other had advanced toward the opposite side of the structure. Here, in the fairly bright moonlight, they could see the pile of planks that had been left in the expectation that the building might have to be enlarged sooner or later.

Straight toward these Frank strode. The nearer he came to the pile the stronger grew his impression that they must be near a plausible solution of the mysterious racket.

“It came from somewhere about here, I should say,” he remarked, as he halted by the heap of boards to glance around.

“Yes, but so far as I can see there’s no big stone lying on top of the pile. Guess after all it was a mistake. We must have dreamed it,” said Andy, ready to give up.

But Frank was very stubborn. Once he had set his mind on a thing it was hard indeed to change him. And somehow he believed more than ever that if they looked close enough they would find the explanation of the queer noise in this quarter.

“Strange!” he muttered, evidently chagrined because he did not seem to discover what he had expected as soon as he had thought would be the case.

“No big stone here, that’s sure!” declared Andy, picking himself up from the ground.

“What was that you stumbled over?” asked his cousin quickly.

“That? Oh, only a bag of sand that swift bunch of masons who laid the foundations of our shack forgot to carry away with them. They’re a punk lot. Might have knocked my nose that time and started the claret to running,” and he gave the object of his disgust a vicious kick with his toe, after which he immediately began a war dance around the spot, for he had quite forgotten that he was wearing a pair of deerskin moccasins just then and had stubbed his toe against the hard contents of the bag.

“What are you giving me?” demanded Frank. “A bag of sand! Why, you know very well those masons never brought their sand in bags. It came in a load and was dumped right over at the other side of the shack.”

“All right. This is a bag, I tell you. Perhaps it’s got gold dust in it, for all I know. Feels hard enough for that. I’ll put you wise, Frank. Just you try giving it a good kick, if you want to see,” grumbled Andy, nursing his injured toe.

“A sandbag! Whew! I wonder——”

Frank did not finish what he had on his mind, and his companion looked his surprise at seeing him drop down alongside the object in question, which he began to handle eagerly.

Then, to the utter amazement of Andy, he made to pick the heavy bag up and start away with it.

“Hey, come back here!” called the other, trailing and limping after him; “what under the sun are you going to do with that thing? Want it for a pillow? Maybe you think we can make a breakfast off it? Why, what ails the fellow? He acts like he’d struck a prize, that’s what!”

“Come along inside and I’ll show you something,” called the other over his shoulder, which, of course, only added new fuel to the fire of curiosity that was already raging in Andy’s soul.

When he got inside he found Frank in the act of scratching a match, which he immediately applied to a lamp, one of those by which they were wont to work of nights.

There upon a rude table where they planed and sawed Andy saw a small, stoutly made canvas bag that had what seemed to be a handle on one side.

“Well, I declare, it’s got a label of some sort tied to it! Nice, pleasant fellows these, trying to smash in the roof of our hangar and then sending their compliments along with it!” Andy exclaimed, for like a flash it had come to him that the sandbag had been hurled down from above!

“Here, listen while I read what it says!” exclaimed Frank.

“Butt in; I’m listening, Frank!”

Then the two boys stood there and stared at each other, as though hardly able to grasp what the whole thing meant, but the one positive fact that stood out was that this sandbag must have come down from a passing balloon!