The Bird boys

There no longer existed the slightest doubt in the mind of Frank Bird that their rivals had indeed stolen a march on them and were the first of the Bloomsbury brand of aviators to mount upward in the realms of space.

“It’s Puss Carberry beyond a question, and he’s flying all right,” he said.

Naturally there was a trace of disappointment in his voice, for he had never dreamed, while working at the monoplane, but what he and his cousin would be the pioneers along these lines in that part of the state.

Still, Frank was a good loser. He knew how to fight down that feeling when it threatened to grip him.

“They certainly deserve a lot of credit,” he continued.

“What for—stealing our thunder?” demanded the indignant Andy.

“Oh!” Frank remarked, laughingly, “I guess they had as much right as any one to build an aeroplane. And if they managed to keep the secret it was to their credit. Perhaps we’ve been doing a little too much talking. And it looks as if Puss did pick up some points down at the aviation field. He seems to be managing the biplane fairly well for a new beginner.”

“Well,” admitted Andy, grudgingly, “he is going around after a fashion; but lots of times it makes a swoop down at the ground like it meant to whack them into a cocked hat. But somehow the fellow at the wheel, which I reckon must be Puss, manages to recover just in time.”

“And he’s doing better all the while,” Frank pursued, still watching. “When he gets used to it that fellow will run an aircraft decently, and we’d better make up our minds to that. I only hope we come out as well when our turn arrives to make the trial spin.”

Indeed, the biplane seemed to be behaving quite handsomely. Its evolutions, as it was sent around the field where Puss must have taken it for a trial, were by degrees assuming a more positive form. It no longer dodged and shot sideways, but acted more like a wild colt that has recognized the hand on the bridle rein.

So deeply interested were the Bird boys in watching that they even forgot how the lunch hour had arrived. The ringing of a bell from the back stoop of the Whympers domicile aroused them, and Andy, with a look of disappointment on his face, trotted off to eat first, since they would not leave the hangar together.

“I wonder,” said Frank to himself, noticing his cousin’s downcast appearance, “whether that boy is really disappointed because we’re not the first in the aviation field here at Bloomsbury, or if he feels a bit sore because the Carberry biplane failed to get in trouble on its novice flight. But I’d better get to work on those planes. We must have our machine ready today and if tomorrow looks good, try it out.”

So he went energetically to work, trying to put the other aeroplane out of mind for the time being. And yet it might have been noticed that several times Frank found an excuse to issue forth from the shed on some errand, and that on every occasion his eyes naturally sought that region where the strange bird had been so lately soaring.

On his last trip it had vanished and he supposed that the boys, satisfied with having shown what they could do, had alighted again.

Just then Andy came hurrying forth, devouring a wedge of pie as he advanced and crooking his neck in the vain endeavor to locate the biplane.

“Where did she go to?” he exclaimed. “Don’t tell me they took a cropper and that it’s all off? That would be a big disappointment, for I’ve made up my mind that I don’t want to see Puss and Sandy get hurt. Because, in that case there couldn’t be any race on Old Home day. And I’ve just set my heart on beating ’em to the top of the mountain.”

Frank laughed.

“I must say your heart has become mighty tender of late, Andy,” he remarked, as he washed his hands at the tin basin they kept at the shed. “But make your mind easy, for I reckon they only dropped down to get dinner. You’ll see them enough this afternoon. And ten to one they fly over us here, just to laugh.”

“I’ll make sure to be inside then,” grumbled Andy, dejectedly. “But get along with you, Frank. Colonel Josiah is dying to ask you a whole lot of questions. He tired me out, and besides, I wasn’t feeling like explaining just how we came to play second fiddle to those sneaks.”

Evidently Andy felt pretty “sore,” as he expressed it. When Frank later on came out of the house he found that Elephant Small had arrived, being deeply interested in the construction of the monoplane.

Elephant had, of course, seen the biplane in the air. He had even increased his customary snail’s pace in order to reach the field of the flight before the boys came down.

Andy had evidently been pumping him for all he was worth, because just as Frank arrived the newcomer was saying:

“Why, yes; they did come down with something of a bump, but nobody was hurt, and Puss said he’d know how better next time. She’s a dandy, too, boys, I tell you. Of course, not any finer looking than the one you’ve got here, but built along entirely different lines. Ginger! I’d be tempted to go into this flying business myself, only I’m afraid the pace would be a little too hot for me.”

Those who knew Elephant’s slow ways and habits of procrastination would have certainly agreed with him. He could never keep up with the procession. Aviators must necessarily be built on the order of athletes, for their very lives may depend on instantaneous action and speedy thought that springs from intuition. It is not the profession for a lazy or clumsy individual.

Soon the two were hard at work, with Elephant looking on, crouched in his favorite attitude of sitting on his haunches and encircling his knees with both arms.

The talk, of course, soon turned upon the great race of such aircraft as had been fashioned by enterprising sons of Bloomsbury.

“It’s going to be a pretty race,” ventured Elephant.

“Huh!” grunted Andy, without looking up, “that remains to be seen. I’ve got a hunch right now that it will be a clean walkaway; if a fellow can say that about an aeroplane that makes circles around another aircraft.”

“I was just thinking, Andy,” continued the other, reflectively and soberly, as if he really meant every word, “that when you do make that landing up on the little plateau crowning Old Thunder Top, you can satisfy yourself of one thing anyhow.”

Andy did raise his head at that.

“Now, what in the dickens do you mean, Elephant?” he asked.

“Why,” went on the other, to the secret amusement of the listening Frank, “don’t you recollect what I said yesterday when we were talking about your missing that cute little aluminum monkey wrench you invented—and how I believed that old robber of a bald eagle might have grabbed it, because it was shiny. Well, you know that pair have a nest somewhere on the cliffs up on Thunder Top. What’s to hinder you taking a peek to see if I wasn’t right?”

“Oh, rats!” said Andy, with a shrug of his shoulders. “You know I don’t take any stock in that yarn, Elephant. I’m only afraid Larry hit closer when he said I might have dropped that jewel out of my pocket at the time I was hanging from that limb over the sink hole.”

Frank put down his knife which he had been using.

“Now that the subject has come up again,” he said, quietly, “I might mention something that occurred to me while you were in at dinner, Andy.”

“About my lost wrench?” demanded the other, quickly.

“That’s it. Stop and think now—do you remember laughing at me for trying my big tool on that tiny nut that holds the main guy of the rudder?”

“Sure I do,” replied the other, promptly.

“And you did the job like a charm with your little wrench, for I complimented you on the way it worked. You remember that, of course?” Frank went on.

“Sure I do,” repeated Andy, his eyes beginning to glow with anticipation.

“Well,” Frank continued, “it wasn’t last Friday that happened, nor yet Saturday. I’m positive it was on Monday of this week, just the day before the glorious Fourth, and if you doubt it I can prove the same.”

Andy sprang up, cracked his heels together, and gave a shout.

“You’re right, Frank; it was Monday!” he cried.

“Say, what’s all this row about?” demanded Elephant, looking puzzled. “I don’t see what difference it makes whether it was Friday or Monday, so long as the little wizard wrench is lost, dead sure.”

“Why, you slow coach!” cried Andy, “don’t you understand that if I sure had it right here in the shop on Monday it never could have been lost on Saturday. So both you and Larry guessed off the hook. It didn’t drop from my pocket into that blessed old muck hole.”

“And then the old eagle couldn’t have lifted it either!” observed Elephant, with a look of disappointment on his face, as he saw the one bright idea of his life vanishing in smoke.

“And if I had it here it ought to be around somewhere!” observed Andy; whereupon he started overturning everything that chanced to be lying on table or floor, until Frank begged him to desist or else they would find themselves in a peck of trouble regarding other things that could not be found.

“But hope has revived, anyhow,” asserted Andy, doggedly, “and I’m never going to give over the hunt. That invaluable little tool has just got to be found. And I’m the Peary that will get there sooner or later.”

“All right,” said Frank; “but I can see Larry coming whooping along the road out yonder on his wheel, and he looks as if he had something to tell us. Yes, whenever Larry grins like that all over his face he is bursting with information. So get ready to be surprised, fellows.”