“But that fellow at the roadhouse knows you’re afraid of your dad, I guess,” asserted Curt.
“Yes, and when I said I had paid the money——”
“I overheard that,” Al stated, and related what he had heard through the open office window at The Windsock.
“You fellows have been on the job!” There was a note of admiration in Griff’s voice, then he sobered and went on. “Yes, that fellow, out there, knows about me being afraid of Father, and he said if I didn’t have the money tonight, before midnight, he’d tell my ‘old man’ as he calls Dad. They’re opening a dance place and he said the cash was essential tonight.”
“So you told Lang and he went to get it,” ended Curt for him.
“Yes, and he’s going to call me, long distance, as soon as he gets there, and I was getting the money out so I could start for The Windsock the minute he calls up.”
“What’s your father doing out there so much?” demanded Al, suspiciously.
“Trying to ‘get a line’ on me, I guess!”
Curt turned to his comrades with a rueful grin.
“That explains everything,” he stated, almost regretfully. “Griff has cleared himself, and his father’s motive is logical.”
“It leaves us ‘up in the air’—and not in any ‘crate’ either!” agreed Al.
“Yes,” nodded Bob. “Barney said the case was all sewed up—but the threads must have been weak, because here’s our case all torn apart!”
“Well,” said Curt, “for my part—I’m glad!”
Since Griff and Mr. Parsons were cleared of suspicion, the other two agreed promptly.
“I may be cleared,” said Griff sadly, “but I’m not out of trouble. If I don’t get this money to that man—Jenks is what we all call him, Toby Jenks!—why, he’ll call up Dad—and then——”
“We said we’d help if you could clear yourself,” stated Bob.
“And we will!” agreed Curt.
“With all our heart!” added Al. “But—how?”
“Let me take the money out there!” urged Griff. “Just keep quiet about catching me here——”
“Even if the money belonged to your father, which the stockholders of the corporation might argue out with you,” said Bob seriously, “taking it, just overnight, would be—wrong, to say the least.”
“Why don’t you go to Mr. Parsons—to your father?” suggested Curt.
“He’s got all this worry on his mind, trying to see what’s wrong——”
“Yes,” admitted Al, “I guess it would be better not to worry him about this, if we could see how to get around it and still not let you take this money.”
“We suspected him,” Curt said, rather ashamed but anxious to be as frank as Griff, whose manner and actions convinced them that he had been absolutely honest with them. “We suspected him of being mixed up in something.”
“Everybody suspects everybody else,” admitted Griff. “Dad suspects Barney, Barney suspects me, I suspect the supply clerk and the bookkeeper of working together to get cheaper supplies here, and they suspect each other and everybody else—even you three!”
“Well,” Bob waved the statement aside, “that isn’t getting down to brass tacks. Think, for five minutes, everybody. We’ve got to help Griff!”
Seeing their case destroyed, their chief suspect cleared, they turned loyally to help to retrieve themselves by aiding him.
For five minutes no one spoke.
CHAPTER XXII
THE “MYSTERY CRATE”
“Father ordered us to drop this part of things,” said Al finally, “but I’m glad we disobeyed if it helps Griff to get out of trouble.”
“So am I,” admitted Bob. “But that isn’t what we were quiet for, to talk about what we’ve done.”
“We want to know what to do!” Curt commented.
“That’s what I was coming to,” defended Al. “Let Griff stay here with you, Bob, while Curt and I ride out to The Windsock. We can call up as soon as we arrive, and then wait outside, hiding. Then Griff can take this money and come out, and pay it, and then we will jump in from outside the door and grab it and jump through the window and——”
“Is that the best you can do?” scoffed Curt. Al grinned.
“It looked good till I said it,” he admitted, “then——”
“That’s you, all the way!” his brother challenged. “Quick on the trigger and sorry when the bullet hits the wrong target.”
“I have a plan, though,” suggested Curt. “Al and I can go out to The Windsock, as Al said, to get a good place under that office window. Then, when Griff pays the money, we will be witnesses, and if the man tries not to give a receipt we’ll be on Griff’s side.”
“Better, but not perfect,” said Bob.
“I suppose the head Sleuth of the Sky Squad has the one perfect plan!” Al was sarcastic.
“No,” Bob was honest, “I haven’t! I thought of having Griff call the man and say he’d be there bright and early with the money——”
“I did tell him that, when Lang left. He said it would be tonight, whether he got it from me or from my father.”
“Um-m-m!” Curt was thoughtful. “Bad! Well——”
“If we could keep that Jenks man so busy, keep his mind so much occupied he’d be too excited to think about Griff—” Al was not very sure of himself.
“We could!” Curt astonished Al by accepting the idea. “Look here! If he isn’t the ex-pilot, maybe the ex-pilot wrote that other autograph. Whether he did not or did, anyhow the Jenks man had something to conceal, or he wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of giving Al two specimens of writing to get mixed up with. Now—if we were out there, and Griff tried once more to stave off payment till morning, if he agreed, all right, we could come home and this money in the safe would be all right.”
“Logical so far,” agreed Bob.
“All right. If the man refused to wait, we could telephone in to Griff to find out, and if Jenks refused to wait, we’d walk in on that Jenks fellow and say we knew he was mixed up in something wrong about the airplane crash, and throw out hints, and so on. I think, myself, he is in it somehow. He’d bluster, maybe, but if he has anything to conceal, we could scare him, and then tell him to let Griff alone for the present or tell his story to a policeman—and we might hint that he could explain a lot about the crash——”
“I like it as well as anything you’ve suggested,” said Griff. “If you could ‘get way with it.’”
“Trust us to scare him good and proper!” declared Al. “I’d ask him ‘how about the brown ‘plane’——”
“No good,” argued Bob. “We looked that craft up in the official registry and she’s from out West, and while we know her markings we haven’t found her and I don’t believe he——”
“I do,” Al defended his deduction. “I think he had it brought here for him to use, and then taken away again, and that accounts for his note—‘Everything O.K.’ when the pilot left it there and he put the note on the seat to show he had been there!”
“Then maybe this Jenks hopped off, in the morning, met the ‘plane Mr. Tredway was flying, forced it into trouble, rode it down——”
“But we saw the big cabin ship!” objected Bob to Curt’s theory. “There was no other ship around.”
“You can’t be sure!” argued Al. “That brown crate might have been up above, against the dark clouds in the sky! You couldn’t tell if we heard one or two engines. He could have surprised Mr. Tredway, could have driven him into a dive—something may have gone wrong——”
“But Barney examined the craft when it was hauled in,” urged Bob. “Nothing was wrong with it at all!”
“Well,” Al was obstinate, “I think what I think!”
“Who owns the brown ‘plane?” asked Griff. “Did you look that up?”
“Yes, we did! No name we know. No one mixed up in the case. It was probably hired by wire, or telephone, from somebody we don’t know.”
“It isn’t important, anyhow,” Curt declared. “Not right now. What do you think of my idea, Griff?”
“I’m for anything that will tide me over till Lang gets back.”
“Then—let’s do it!” Al jumped away from the group and was already at the door. Bob hesitated a moment, then, seeing how eager Curt was to echo Al’s enthusiasm, he agreed.
After the two started for The Windsock, Bob sat with Griff, giving him the facts they knew, the theories they had formed for awhile.
“It’s tangled up, and no mistake,” Griff, recovered somewhat, but no longer fidgety, feeling that aid was being given him in his trouble, rose. “Look here, Bob—I was so excited, I didn’t eat any dinner. What say you stay here in case a call comes in, while I run out and get some coffee and sinkers?”
“Lock the desk first! I don’t want to be caught here with it open.”
“Right! I shan’t need the slip that has the combination on it, any more.” He put a paper in a small drawer, closed down the roll top, adjusted his cap at a more confident, rakish angle, and sauntered out, while Bob made himself comfortable at the desk in the swivel chair.
The minutes dragged along.
In the deserted office building there was almost no sound—a rat crept toward a wastebasket, ran back as Bob moved in his chair; but otherwise the place was very still.
“There’s an airplane engine!” Bob mused, as, in the silence, he caught the faint, steady drone coming from the sky.
It grew louder—rapidly, much louder!
“It can’t be Lang, coming back!”
Bob went to the window. The sound seemed to come from the other side of the building. He ran across the hall into the directors’ room and got to the window, which had a fire escape stairway outside it.
Just as he peered through the bars of the fire escape, he saw a craft swoop down, quite low. It did not land! Instead, it seemed to zoom along and to rise swiftly.
“Overshot the field,” Bob mused. “Why doesn’t he drop a Verey light to signal the watchman to turn on the landing floods? Or—maybe the watchman isn’t out there. I’d better see.”
He ran down the stairs and out into the yard, across it and onto the small landing field. The craft had passed, but he could still hear the engine. It seemed from its change of location, that the craft was coming around in a spiral.
Bob ran toward the switch controlling the flood lights. One of the large, hooded lamps was near it. As the sound of the engine came closer he switched on the floods.
To his surprise the sudden light seemed to startle the pilot—at least the craft seemed to waver, to skid, to drop, and then, to catch its flying speed and control. But it did not spiral as he expected a pilot who had waited for light would do.
Instead it began to climb.
Swiftly, eagerly curious, Bob caught hold of the handle on the adjusting mechanism of the flood light. It could be lifted, or set lower, to govern the range and height of its beam.
Bob proposed to use it as a searchlight, to illuminate the craft if he could swing the heavy lamp upward in time.
Eagerly he labored with the mechanism.
Slowly the beam lifted.
Its intense rays caught the craft’s underwings.
“What’s going on here?” The watchman ran up.
For answer Bob pointed excitedly toward a brown, sharply outlined craft, climbing, growing dim in the fainter beam as it receded.
“It’s—it’s—” he gasped, “—it’s the mystery crate—the brown airplane!”
CHAPTER XXIII
BOB PURSUES!
Realizing that the watchman did not know what he meant by “the mystery crate,” Bob hurriedly told of the earlier experiences: all the while he talked his mind was busy, underneath, wondering why the pilot of the brown ship had flown over the plant, why he had appeared to lose control when the light flared up, why he had climbed to get away.
“He’s gone!” said the watchman. “Anyhow, that’s clear!”
“I hate to see him get away!” Bob said, sorrowfully.
“Whyn’t you chase him?”
“I?” Bob was startled by the idea.
“Sure—you! Didn’t I see Lang giving you lessons, and Griff, too?”
“Yes—but, at night—and Lang has the small ship.”
The watchman seemed to have caught the excitement of a chase.
“Look here, though!” he cried, beckoning as he ran. “In the hangar is a crate just like Griff’s model—belonged to Mr. Tredway. He—he won’t need it no more. Whyn’t you?——”
“At night?”
“Sure! Once you get off the ground, the air’s all the same, day or night, ain’t it?”
Not exactly, Bob demurred, There were many considerations to be thought out, but his father had said “locate the brown ship.”
Here it was, flying away!
It seemed to be “up to him.”
“Can we get the crate out? Can we get it started? Is there any fuel aboard?”
Already the watchman had hold of the tail assembly of a trim, slender, dark fuselage.
“Grab on!” answered the watchman, jockeying the fuselage so that a wingtip missed the span of the cabin ‘plane’s spreading airfoils. “Grab on! I know you lads is detectiffs, and here’s your chance for a medal or somethin’.”
Bob “grabbed on!” with spirit. He had caught the enthusiasm of the older person. It took them only a short time to jockey the craft into the open, to get its gauges checked, to see that it had oil and at least a tank of gas three-quarters full.
“Holler out!” The watchman stood by the “prop.”
“Ready!”
“Gas on?”
“Gas on!”
“Switch off?”
“Switch off!”
The watchman spun the propeller.
“Contact!” he yelled, stepping swiftly beyond the range of those deadly sharp blade tips.
There came the snap and bark of the motor. Cold! But Bob, feeling that for all the precious seconds it must waste, he ought to be safe before he might be sorry, allowed it to warm up, checked his instruments as he had observed Lang and Griff do, and then, as the watchman, obeying his signal, kicked away the chocks so the wheels could move forward, the amateur pilot, steady and cool all at once, glanced at the windsock, saw that he could take off straight down the short field, pulled open the throttle, tipped the “flippers” so the tail ceased to drag, as the propeller blast caught the elevators, and began to race down the field.
As he went he tipped the elevators sharply, felt the ship sway a trifle, realized he was off the ground and moving steadily, climbing to the roar of the engine!
He smiled a little. He had not forgotten to hold the ship level for the brief seconds that it needed to assume flying speed after the first hop from earth. He had not climbed her at too steep an angle, there was no indication, at least to his inexperienced hand, of any logginess of the controls presaging a stall. He was away!
“Now,” he thought, with a sharp glance around the sky spaces, “I am in for it. If nothing goes wrong with the machinery or the prop I guess I can keep this crate level and get somewhere.”
But where?
In those precious moments the brown ship could have gone ten miles.
“He was mightily interested in the aircraft plant,” Bob reflected, letting the ship “fly herself,” as most well balanced aircraft will do in steady air, as long as flying speed is held. “Now all that we have found out, so far, has centered about the aircraft plant and—and The Windsock! Could he be around there? Or——”
As a new thought struck him he gripped the stick a tiny bit tighter.
“—Or, maybe he’s brought the brown ship back for some new stunt! It might be hidden in that field again!”
He pushed the stick a trifle to the side, thus operating the ailerons, while he used his rudder experimentally, meaning to swing in a circle.
Whether a good Providence watches over amateurs, in sports or in professions, or whether Bob had actually learned from his lessons, the fact is that he did not overbank or use too much rudder, and neither felt the wind of a skid on one cheek nor the breeze of a slip on the other. Around went the ship, in a wide swing.
Bob kept his eyes on the sky, with momentary glances at the instruments, not all of which were understandable to him yet; however, he knew the altimeter, the tachometer which records engine speed, the gas and oil pressure gauges and such important ones.
They seemed all to record satisfactorily. His altitude was six hundred feet; a little low for safety, so he climbed to twice that. The revolutions were even and plenty for his need, as he watched the fluctuations of the tachometer when he eased the throttle forward in his climb, or backed it gently in the level-off.
Gas and oil recorded without a hitch or a diminution of supply.
But where was his quarry?
Far ahead Bob saw a tiny flare of red in the sky.
He nearly lost control in his excitement, but with the true air-sense he caught the tendency of the sideslip by opposite rudder and aileron and then banked and circled till his nose pointed straight for the dying flare.
Someone in the sky was signaling for something!
“I’ll get there soon! And see!” Bob told himself. He held the ship level, glancing at the “bubble” in the spirit level, as he gave the gun, opening the throttle steadily.
To the roar of the engine, the sing of cool wind in taut wires, the sting of pulsing blood pounding a thrill-song in his temples, Bob took up his quest, and soon saw, ahead, the dim outline of a circling ship. It was dark. Was it brown?
He dared not get too close. Rather, he preferred to climb, so as to be safely out of the other fellow’s way if he maneuvered.
From above Bob planned to light a white flare, by whose light he could identify the ship.
But the other fellow saw him too!
Bob needed no flare to tell him that he had discovered the brown craft—its action was indication enough! The pilot dived, and then went into a barrel-roll, dangerous at a low altitude, Bob thought.
The “stunt” enabled the ship to get to one side and out of his line of flight if he dived for it.
Clearly this showed that the unseen pilot feared to be attacked, driven down.
But Bob had no such intention, he merely followed as the small, brown craft, speedy and capable, went fleetly through the night.
Bob, easing his throttle a little more open, as he got the line of flight, held his elevation and his level position; he did not try to overtake the other, he wanted to see where he went—nothing more!
So the flight held, one about five hundred feet up, the other easily as high again. The speed was almost identical, the ships were well matched.
But the other man had some tricks up his wings, in a way of speaking!
He began to climb. Bob, fearing to be over-reached, climbed also. Higher, higher they both went, Bob still atop the other, for he had as much power, as well angled wings, as clever a ship as his adversary.
But the battle of elevation was short. At fifteen hundred feet the brown ‘plane went into a wingover, and to Bob’s dismay it was, by that maneuver, in a reverse direction to the flight of his own, and he dared do no maneuvering, no stunting, at night and alone!
Before he could swing in the easy circle which his inexperience compelled him to use, the other pilot was almost out of sight. He climbed, and thus Bob gained, but he saw that his pursuit was futile.
The man was climbing into a cloud!
In its misty vastness, surrounding a ship like a fog, an inexpert pilot could not know, without continually watching his spirit level and other instruments, if he flew level or on his back, if he was going sidewise or straight toward earth. To watch the instruments “to fly by the dashboard” was useless; he could not see to follow if he risked the feat.
Disgusted, disappointed, he cut the gun and slowed his ship, and flew around toward The Windsock. Somebody on the ground was burning several land flares, he saw.
It told him one thing! The other fellow had been expected! His signal had been seen.
For an instant Bob was tempted to try a landing, to see if they would be startled, those people down there in the glare. Did they perhaps think he flew the craft they expected? It would be worth something to discover that. Or—would it? The danger, the risk, was considerable. It was strange territory to him. The people, seeing his craft markings, its different color, might extinguish the flares, leaving him, low, to “set down hot” or to climb, too late, and land in trees!
No, it was not worth the risk.
If his adversary had gotten away that was the end of the adventure.
Only—it wasn’t.
CHAPTER XXIV
SUSPENSE!
When Al and Curt, riding easily, reached the region of the Rocky Lake Park, they hid their wheels in the well remembered field, preferring to advance on foot, to spy out conditions before arriving at the roadhouse to which they were going.
“There’s something going on, over there,” said Curt, as they walked, facing traffic, along the familiar highway.
“The new dance floor—The Hangar—is opening tonight.”
“That will make it easy for us to get in.”
“They may not allow juniors on the floor.”
“But they won’t chase people away! It would be bad for the business!” chuckled Curt. “Every young man can have—must have—at least two in his family, and they might be dancing papa and mama.”
“We can go on and see.”
They did.
The new dance floor, built in an old-looking, metal-covered addition at the side of the main hotel, was crowded. A “jazzy” orchestra, with many toots of its saxophones, howls from clarinets, trills and staccato yaps from its trumpet, put rhythm into the march of many feet.
“Makes me wish I had a girl and had her here and knew how to dance,” laughed Curt.
“What I wish more is—” Al did not get time to express his desire to have Bob along, to advise him in his rather impulsive acts. A man in a dress suit, as the drums rolled in warning to attract attention, advanced to the edge of the band platform and addressed the dancers applauding their last “number.”
“Lay—deeze—an’—gemp—mum!” Al nudged Curt and whispered that the man was Jenks. “For this opening night the manage—munt has went to the special expense—youse mus’ excuse my poor way of speakin’. ‘I’m only a simple flyer, an’ my eddication don’t go no higher’——”
Al exclaimed, and Curt scowled at the aspersion thus put on the intelligence of the most manly, most steady, best educated general class of men in industry—pilots!—but they listened, nevertheless.
“The manage—munt has put on a extra fine show for tonight. In fact, folks,” his manner became more natural, “we’ve engaged a stunt flyer to come over here tonight, to fly around up in the dark blue, and to do stunts, with rockets and colored lights so you can see what he does. I understand the whole crate is to be lit up some way. So, if you’ll all step outside, while we put tables in here for refreshments, you will have the free entertainment as soon as we can get his signal and let him know to go ahead.”
As Curt and Al were already outside, they craned their necks.
While the laughing couples gathered, a small, red flare was visible. The men who seemed to be awaiting this signal, lighted flares. But to their amazement the ship did no stunts! It went away!
“Funny!” muttered the excited, disgruntled manager, Jenks, close by Al and Curt.
As the flares brightened it seemed as though there were two airplanes dimly reflecting the light.
“But they aren’t doing any stunts!” complained a girl to her partner. “Wait!” he counseled. Waiting, however, did no good.
The dancers, murmuring, and the manager, trying to apologize, saying it must not be the right crate, went back to dance, shoving the refreshment tables roughly aside.
Al and Curt, waiting, watching, wondering, saw the men stick the stubs of their flares into the ground and walk off.
“Look! He’s coming back!” Al pointed to a speck. They listened and heard the drone of an engine.
“He’s back again!” shouted Al, and the people came out again, standing with backs to the glaring light, shaded eyes turned upward.
“No—he’s flying low, though,” commented Curt.
“Yes, he is.”
“Look!” Curt caught Al’s arm. “He’s in trouble—isn’t he?—yes, he is! Listen! His engine has stopped—dead!”
“Yes, he’s gliding!”
“He can’t land here,” said Curt. “He’s too low to spiral and shoot this little clearing—anyhow, it isn’t a place to land—not for night landing!”
“I wonder if the same things are happening that happened—when Mr. Tredway was—lost!” Al murmured. “That time, we heard the engine, and then the ship dived.”
“This one isn’t diving—it’s gliding!”
“I know, Curt—he’s getting over Rocky Lake. Come on!”
“There he does go—down!”
Off they pelted toward the road.
An airplane had been cruising over the flares. Its motor had stopped. That was sure.
And no one knew it better than Bob.
For he was the pilot whose engine stop had left him with a “dead stick.” He must glide. He had enough gliding angle, he supposed, to take him back to that providential field—if he could throw over a flare and make some sort of a set-down!——
It was dangerous—but it must be done.
For, in spite of its danger, knowing well what might happen, Bob had shut off his own engine—deliberately!
He had to—to save his life!
“Look!” gasped Curt, running. “See that glare? The ‘plane——”
“On fire!” panted Al.
Appearances are deceiving. To Al and Curt, on the ground, with darkness, distance and trees to screen the truth from them, it seemed as though the glare they saw beyond the grove must spell a blazing airplane.
Instead, the light came from a landing flare, dropped by Bob.
As he headed over The Windsock roadhouse, and decided to give up, to return to the aircraft field, he had all of his mind and attention on his craft. Because of that he was able to notice a mystifying, if tiny bluish light, intermittent and flickering, close to the pipe that conveyed fuel from the tank to the mixing carburetor.
“That’s an electric spark!” he decided. He was right.
Somehow, either through one of those malicious acts which had already been done to other ships, or from a rubbing wire, some electrical conducting wire had worn off its insulation and was bare, and each time it rubbed or touched metal it made a spark.
If there is one thing more dangerous than another in the air it is the menace of an open spark close to gasoline feed lines and carburetor mixing chambers.
Knowing it well, unable to determine the cause, but sure that the spark was electrical and dangerous, Bob took the only safe course. As Curt and Al had observed, his engine stopped. He cut off the ignition.
The sparking light ceased.
“Now,” thought Bob, “I daren’t use my motor. That means I must glide. At this height, if I remember what Lang said, the angle that will give me safe flying speed will about take me to that little field we first saw the brown ‘plane hidden in. Can I make it?”
He depressed the nose, watching, by his sense of touch, how the stick and rudder bar acted. As he moved through the air he elevated the nose a trifle, to get as flat a gliding angle as he dared; but his whole mind was concentrated on that feeling, that sense of heaviness in the reacting of the controls. When they began to respond sluggishly he knew enough to sense that he was losing flying speed, approaching the danger point called stalling, in which the ship gets out of control, drops or slips or does some other uncontrollable maneuver.
Always, in time, he lowered the nose, picked up the needful speed, and thus, by coming as close to the “graveyard” glide, or flat angle, as he dared, and yet conserving enough reserve speed to keep the lift of the wings more sustaining than the downward pull of gravity, he held his craft in the air.
Always the nose, pointed into the wind, went lower. Always, as he tried to penetrate the darkness of the night and of the brown earth below, his eyes, over the cockpit cowling, searched for the flattish, light spot he wanted. Along its inner side was the strip of turf he needed.
Fear-thoughts flashed through his mind:
“Can I glide that far? Will I overshoot or undershoot? Will I misjudge the height as I come down, if I do make it? Will I set the ship down too suddenly, so it will bounce off and then—with too little margin of height to get speed again—crack up? Will I stall too high and smash down? Will I be going too fast, and run too far? Can I glide in to the turf or will I set down in stubble and nose over?”
Resolutely, by all the will power he had, Bob crushed out those nerve-deadening, muscle-binding terrors.
There was the field. Where, now, did they keep the light producing flares? Oh, yes! There, in that little boxlike compartment.
He flung a detonating flare that would light in the air or on striking earth. Its light was what horrified Curt and Al.
To Bob, its glare was a great relief!
The white gleam showed, far ahead, faintly lit, the field. His course would take him toward it, but he altered the direction of his flight slightly to get over the turf, then corrected the bank, leveled his wings, depressed the nose still more, picked up speed and, with all his force, sent a landing flare into the air, as far ahead and to the side as he could fling it.
Then he “shot” the field, got his nose directly onto a line with the large trees at the end of the field, pulled up the nose more, to kill all the forward momentum he dared, and then——
Bob gasped. He was too far to one side. He would land in the stubble. Also, he was a little too high.
Wildly he flung the flare he had been getting ready.
Then, from some hidden source of remembered instructions he got the instinctive knowledge of what to do.
He dropped the left wingtip by pushing the stick sidewise, and felt the ship tilt. It went into a sideslip. That both lost speed forward and got him further over to the left.
Opposite rudder, hard! Up left wingtip, down right! Nose down a little! Speed enough to go on!
With his heart in his mouth, looking swiftly down, Bob saw the earth seem to come up at him. Up elevators! Stall. He’d have to take it! He was close to earth, over turf. He must not keep that nose down and glide into the trees or taxi beyond the end of the turf.
The ship stalled, landed with quite a jar—but the trucks held up!
And Bob, from his heart, breathed a little prayer of thanksgiving.
He had done his best, had held his head, and—he was safe!
CHAPTER XXV
CROSSED WIRES
By the time Curt and Al got their bicycles and pedaled to the vicinity of Rocky Lake, Bob’s flare was out and they had no means of ending their suspense until they had looked around in the picnic grove and assured themselves that there was no burning airplane in sight.
They rode along the highway.
“Isn’t that a flashlight, in the old field?”
“It looks like one, Al.”
“It is!”
They pedaled faster. Presently the pair reached the field; soon Bob, using a small pocket flashlamp, was telling his brother and his best friend how the electric spark had worried him.
“I knew the brown airplane was gone,” he continued his explanation, “the only thing left for me to do was to head back to the plant. But I saw that quick little flicker close to the gas line and cut off the ignition switch.”
“What are you doing now?”
“Tracing the wiring,” Bob told his brother. “And here is a wire! It ought not to be run so close to the gas line! And here is another, away back under the dash instrument board. They cross!”
“Crossed wires!” gasped Curt. “That isn’t right!”
“Certainly not!” agreed Bob. “We’ve learned enough about airplane construction at the Tredway plant to know they don’t do such careless things as that!”
“Then somebody deliberately did it,” concluded Al. “It’s part of the scheme to damage the crates.”
“It’s worse than that!” Bob climbed to the ground and faced his companions. His face, hard to see in the dark, because he was saving his electric battery, was very serious. “It’s worse than just tampering! Fellows—this is Mr. Tredway’s own airplane!——”
“I see,” commented Curt soberly. “Some one wanted harm to come to the owner of the plant.”
“And the ‘some one’ made sure it would. In daylight,” Bob stated, “that spark wouldn’t be noticed. It was only by being out in the dark of night, that I could see it.”
“But crossed wires ought not to rub enough to wear out the insulation in a short time,” objected Al.
“Neither they did. Al—Curt—the insulation was scraped away!”
They were silent for a long moment. The full wickedness of that deliberate act made each of the youths feel rather cold. They were dealing with something more sinister than an attempt to make away with small airplane supplies, to damage airplanes for the purpose of injuring the reputation of the manufacturers, as they had decided the conditions seemed to indicate.
“Well,” Curt became practical, “you can’t fly that ship home, not in that condition.”
“If we had some adhesive tape,” Bob said, “I could tape the wires and get back to the aircraft field.”
“I’ve got bicycle friction tape in my little toolcase.” Al ran to get it.
“The place is hard to reach,” Bob told Curt.
“Maybe I could do it,” Curt responded. “My hands are thinner and my fingers are longer than yours.”
As soon as Al brought the roll of pitched fabric, Curt, with the flashlamp set for steady burning, located the damaged insulation and began to work with strips of the tape, having some difficulty in winding it without pulling the wires too much.
“This is going to be a slow job,” he called out. “Bob, somebody ought to go and call up Griff, to see if he has any news.”
“I think so too,” Al agreed.
“Why don’t you both go!” Curt urged. “One could stay at The Windsock and watch and the other could come back with news—or, Bob, you could ride back on my wheel, to The Windsock with Al, and then come on back here and we two could fly back to the hangars together.”
“Would you trust yourself with me, in the dark, flying this ship?” asked Bob. “Something else may be wrong with it.”
“That’s so. I’ll look it over. I know how they inspect them,” Curt suggested.
Al and Bob agreed, and went to the two bicycles. Off they rode.
“There’s that ‘plane again!” Al pointed to a tiny red flare high up over the roadhouse ground. “He has come back.”
“I suppose I frightened him away,” Bob said. “He probably thinks whoever chased him has given up, and he has come back.”
“One thing bothers me,” Al observed, forgetting his weary legs in the fresh excitement. “Why would a crate that has a pilot who flies away from pursuit come back to do stunts?”
“I can’t answer that,” Bob replied. “Let’s get there. See! He is looping, and he has lighted some sort of rocket or bomb that makes a trail of fire to show his stunt off in the dark.”
“It’s pretty, isn’t it?”
Bob agreed with his brother’s exclamation as the airplane, high above them, with fireworks leaving a comet’s tail behind it, made a series of loops, dived, zoomed, made a sort of “S” of fire by side-slipping first one way and then the other.
When they got back to the roadhouse the display was over. Ground flares were going and it was clear that the pilot meant to land.
“We’re going to see who it is, after all,” declared Bob, thrilled by the possible revelation that was to come.
Curt saw the gyrating ship and its glowing trail of sparks. He watched for a moment and then went doggedly back to his work. If Bob needed this sport craft, Curt proposed to have it ready if careful, methodical work could get it so.
Surprised, he heard himself addressed by a youth who came over from the farmhouse whose builder owned the field.
“What’s goin’ on?” asked the farmer’s son.