Lieutenant Duvall proved as good as his word. One afternoon, not long before cold weather set in in real earnest, Rob received word that if, on the ensuing Saturday, he and his two chums would call at the old mansion they would be enabled to see for themselves the aeroplane with which the army was experimenting, Lieutenant Duvall having been selected to make the tests. If the weather proved right, the note added, there was even a possibility that a short flight might be attempted, just to show the boys something of the newest idea in army equipment.
“Gee, I envy you fellows,” said Paul Perkins wistfully, when he heard of the contemplated excursion. “I’d give anything to see an aeroplane in action.”
“Maybe you will get a chance,” said Rob kindly, and when the banker’s son reached home that night he ’phoned to Lieutenant Duvall to know if he could bring along a member of the Eagle Patrol who was deeply interested in aeronautics. The reply was in the affirmative, and Paul’s delight was huge when he received word that he could be one of the party.
“I never saw a real aeroplane except in a picture before,” he exclaimed, “and if I can get a good look at one, I’m going to try to work out an idea I’ve got in my head.”
“What’s that, Mister Edison, Junior?” teased Tubby.
The boys were gathered in the wagon shed in which the wonderful, though untried, motor-scooter stood, awaiting the days when the Inlet would be frozen over for its trial trip.
“Well,” said Paul, rather diffidently, “I’m afraid you fellows will laugh at me if I tell you what it is.”
“No, we won’t,” Merritt assured him, tossing the core of a red-checked apple out of the open door.
“We’ll be mum as oysters,” chimed in Rob. “Go ahead, Paul, unfold thy mar-velous plan.”
“It’s a sort of variation on the ice motor car,” explained Paul. “It came to me last year when we were sledding down Jones’s hill outside the village. It’s just this, why couldn’t a fellow fit a sled with a pair of wings?”
“Gee whiz!” groaned Tubby, pretending to roll off the empty nail keg on which he was seated, and tapping his forehead meaningly. “Another bright young mind gone—clean gone.”
“Go ahead, Paul. Never mind him. He’s got a rush of fat to the head,” laughed Merritt reassuringly, for the diffident Paul had stopped and colored up at the stout youth’s ridicule.
“You know,” explained Paul, “that a sled gets an awful impetus on a long glide down a hill. Now, if only one could fix wings or planes to it firmly enough, and equip it with a balancing tail, I don’t see why you couldn’t make a skimmer.”
“Well, you might do it if you didn’t break your neck first,” chuckled Tubby. “Guess I’ll stick to the earth for a while.”
“You’re too fat to do anything else,” chortled Rob. “But seriously, Paul, the idea sounds as if it might be worked out. Maybe the aeroplane will give you some ideas.”
“I hope so,” said Paul. “I’d like to try it as soon as we get any sleighing.”
“Boo-hoo! Boo-hoo!” burst out Tubby, rocking back and forth. “And he’s so young to die!”
When the laugh, in which Paul could not help joining, had subsided, Rob spoke up.
“Seen any more of Freeman Hunt’s father?” he asked.
“Not a sign of him,” rejoined Paul. “I guess he’s given up the idea of getting an interest in my machine. What worries me a whole lot, though, is that I’ve heard nothing more from Washington.”
“Cheer up!” comforted Rob. “I’ve heard my dad say that it takes a year to do in Washington what could be done anywhere else in a month.”
“That’s why it takes the Washingtons so long to get within peeking view of the pennant,” chuckled Tubby, who was a close student of baseball scores.
With what anxiety the weather was watched on the Saturday upon which the visit to the old mansion was to be paid may be imagined. To the boys’ delight, it dawned fair and clear, with just enough of a sharp tang in the air to make it pleasant. The boys had an early lunch and then set out for the place.
“Too bad the inlet isn’t frozen, and then we could skim along in Paul’s wonderful wind-jammer,” grumbled Tubby, who was somewhat averse to walking.
It so happened that their way lay past the farm of Jack Curtiss, and, as they passed it, they saw that hulking lad strolling about the place, smoking a cigarette. In the rear of the comfortable, old-fashioned house, his father could also be seen, hard at work splitting and piling wood with the hired man to help him.
Curtiss stared at the lads as they swung by, but made no move to come toward them. By this time he, of course, knew how the adventure of the attack of Dugan and the Jap had turned out, and seemingly he had no wish to test the lads’ knowledge of who had instigated it.
About half a mile beyond the Curtiss farm lay the estate of one Horatio Jeffords, among whose possessions was a large and ferocious bull, which had given trouble on more than one occasion to passers by. For this reason, Jeffords usually kept him tied up. As the boys swung around a turn in the road and the stone-walled way lay straight in front of them for some distance, they perceived, running toward them at top speed, two girls.
“Those girls are running as if they were scared of something,” exclaimed Merritt, as they came rushing toward the boys.
The words had hardly left his lips before the lads saw what had alarmed them. Galloping across the field, with head lowered and froth flecking from his mouth, was Horatio Jeffords’ savage bull. He was emitting angry roars as he dashed on toward the girls, one of whom, the boys could now see, was wearing a red sweater.
“Oh, the bull! The bull! He’ll kill us!” they cried shrilly as they neared the boys.
Indeed it looked as if the creature was bent on inflicting serious injury upon the wearer of the flaming article of wear, which had first attracted his attention.
He leaped the low stone wall separating the pasture lot from the road as nimbly as if he had been a three-year-old colt. Then on he came, his alarming bellow ringing out shrilly and angrily. In a few seconds he was not more than a few feet behind the girls.
With a wild cry one of them stumbled and fell, and the next instant the infuriated creature would have been upon her, goring her and stamping out her life. But a sudden interruption occurred.
A boyish figure, with coat off and waving his hand, made a rapid leap forward, and before the amazed bull could turn to attack this new foe, his vision was suddenly blindfolded.
A coat had been thrown with deadly accuracy through the air and had settled on the animal’s horns. Its folds hung down over his eyes, bewildering him and shutting off his sight. The animal shook his head and emitted angry roars, but the more he endeavored to throw the coat off, the closer it hung to his horns.
“Get the girls out of the way!” shouted Rob, as coatless and flushed with his brave exertion, he stood in the center of the road. But Merritt and Tubby already had one girl upon her feet, and the other stood a short distance down the road. Both were pale and trembling at the imminence of the danger they had escaped.
“Oh, thank you!” exclaimed the girl whom Rob had saved by his quick presence of mind. The bull, with a wild bellow, swung round and went staggering off in the opposite direction, trying in vain to rid himself of the bewildering coat.
“At least—that is, I mean to say, I don’t know how to thank you,” she went on.
“Oh, glad to have been of service,” said Rob gallantly, as the other girl came up and began adding her thanks and praise to that of her companion.
“If you hadn’t worn that red sweater, you wouldn’t have attracted his attention,” quoth Tubby sagely.
“I know, but they are the fashion this fall, and, then, too, we had no idea that a wild bull would be rushing around loose like that.”
“I think I know who you boys are,” said the wearer of the red sweater, who now seemed quite recovered from her fright. “You are Rob Blake and Tub—Mr. Hopkins and Merritt Crawford.”
“And Paul Perkins, the well-known inventor,” grinned Tubby.
“I guess you have the advantage of us,” rejoined Rob.
The girl laughed merrily at his embarrassment.
“I am Dale Harding’s sister,” she said. “I only got home from the West two days ago, and my friend is a sister of Freeman Hunt’s.”
“Wow!” Tubby exclaimed, in low voice. Then he went on: “I don’t believe Miss Hunt has been here very long.”
“No, indeed. I only arrived about a week ago,” said the young lady herself. “I have been at a finishing school up the Hudson. I think it’s much nicer here, though,” she added.
“Not if you have many more experiences like that,” laughed Rob.
“Oh, I don’t know. If there are always some nice boys about to help us, I shouldn’t mind, should you, May?”
“Not a bit,” confessed Dale Harding’s sister. “But come Helen, we must be walking on or we shall be late for that appointment.”
At this juncture, Horatio Jeffords himself, red-faced and panting, came in view. He was carrying Rob’s coat.
“Cal-kerlated I’d ketch yer here,” he puffed. “I’m glad you kep’ that pesky Hercules from doin’ any harm. Had him tied up and can’t figure how in Sam Hill he got erway.”
He handed the coat to Rob, explaining that the bull had caught it in some brambles and shaken it off.
“I hope he is safely tied up now,” said Helen Hunt. “I thought every minute the dreadful creature would toss me on his horns.”
“The men hev got him up ter ther barn,” Jeffords assured her. “I’ll hitch him with er chain this time, you kin bet yer boots.”
Soon after the two parties separated, the girls hastening toward Hampton and the boys walking off with Farmer Jeffords, as he was going in their direction a short distance.
“What nice boys,” said Helen, as she and May Harding walked along. “Not a bit like what our brothers told us about them.”
“I told you when they were pointed out to us at the post office last night that they couldn’t be as mean as Freeman and Dale tried to make out,” responded Helen. “They are awfully brave, too.”
“I hope we’ll get to know them better,” went on Dale Harding’s sister.
“If it depends on our brothers we won’t,” Helen Hunt assured her.
In the meantime, the boys had parted from Farmer Jeffords.
“Say, those girls are all right,” declared Rob enthusiastically, as they strode on.
“Ho! ho! ho!” laughed Tubby. “Rob is smitten.”
“You needn’t talk,” retorted Rob, with a red face. “You were bowing and scraping around like a dancing master yourself. Yes, and Merritt, too.”
“I was only trying to be polite,” protested Merritt indignantly.
“Pity they’re not somebody else’s sisters,” grunted Tubby mischievously, dodging a clip on the ear which Rob reached out to give him.
It was not long before the dark hemlocks of the De Regny mansion came into view. From the summit of the little hill on which they stood the boys could see the broad, smooth terrace and the sparkle of the sea beyond. Hardly a breath stirred the air.
“Guess we’ll have a flight, all right,” exclaimed Paul Perkins enthusiastically. “Look! They’re busy down yonder.”
Sure enough they could see several small speck-like figures moving about below them, opening the big double doors of the green shed.
“Race you to the bottom of the hill!” shouted Rob, and off dashed the Boy Scouts, running as if their lives depended on it.
Whir-r-r-r-r-r!
What a terrific din the aeroplane’s engine created, as the white-winged cloud skimmer stood outside the green shed! It was all the four soldiers, hanging on to her stern braces, could do to hold the struggling machine back. It appeared a thing instinct with life, eager and striving to get free and try its broad pinions against the blue.
The boys stood with round eyes and beating hearts, watching while Lieutenant Duvall tuned up the powerful one-hundred horse-power motor. A smell of burned lubricants filled the air. Clouds of oily, blue smoke rolled from the exhausts, which spat lambent flames viciously as the powerful motor vibrated.
To the soldiers standing about it was an old story, but to the boys everything was new and wonderful. As Lieutenant Duvall stopped the motor to adjust a spark plug connection, they pressed forward to examine the craft. Paul, as may be imagined, was as interested in the smallest wire and coupling as he was in the mighty engine or the broad white planes.
Suddenly the small boy gave an exclamation.
“Look here, sir!” he cried to the lieutenant.
The officer hastened to his side. Paul was examining one of the cross wires. The filament, made of the stoutest drawn steel, formed an important brace to the upper plane. The lad’s sharp eyes had detected that the soldering of its connection was almost worn through.
“Good for you, boy!” exclaimed the officer, as he saw the defect to which Paul had called attention. “That would have given me a bad tumble if you hadn’t noticed it. Here, Mulloy”—addressing one of the soldiers—“get me the soldering outfit. Quick, now!”
With soldierly alertness, the man was off on his errand. Lieutenant Duvall employed the time of his absence explaining the various details of the machine to the boys.
“How about the equalizer?” asked Rob.
“It is not attached to-day,” explained the officer. “The main object of the device is to steady the plane when the operator desires to launch an explosive from his seat. He naturally has to shift, and the equalizer is to take up that shifting motion and distribute it.”
“I see,” nodded Tubby sagaciously, although it is doubtful if the fat boy did.
“Then you are going to practice dropping explosives?” asked Rob.
The officer’s face took on a queer expression.
“I guess we’ll have to call that an army secret, my boy,” he said. “If all goes well, Hampton may become a famous place.”
With this mysterious utterance, the boys had to be content. Mulloy returned at this moment with the solder, and the lieutenant adjusted the weak spot as skilfully as a machinist.
“An aviator has to know how to do everything about his engine,” he explained; “supposing he should drop in a country without a machine shop in reaching distance, or in any enemy’s country, if he couldn’t make his own repairs, he would be in a bad fix.”
“Are all these men trained in that way?” inquired Rob.
Lieutenant Duvall nodded.
“Every one of them,” he said. “They are all from Fort Myer. So was that deserting rascal, Dugan. He was the most expert mechanic I ever saw. In fact, I have heard since his desertion that there was good reason for his skill. Under the name of Beasley, he was one of the best-known safe crackers in the country before he reformed and entered the army with an assumed name. He was a splendid workman, though.”
The officer gave a sigh over the dereliction of Dugan. His professional side was affected by the man’s rascality.
“Nothing has been heard of him since he deserted?” asked Rob.
“Not a thing,” rejoined the officer, buckling on his leggings and adjusting his queer-shaped, padded cap, with goggles attached to its front part.
A few seconds later he was in the driver’s seat, and had his hands on the two levers which, by quadrants and chains, controlled the warping of the wings and rudder. The engine controls also led from these levers, while the motor could be stopped altogether by a motion of the foot on a small metal pedal.
Two soldiers ran to the propeller, a six-foot affair, and began swinging it “against the compression” of the motor. After a few rocks of the two-bladed driving apparatus, an explosion burst from the motor, and presently it was roaring away at full blast. A squad of men held it back, however, awaiting the aviator’s signal to “let go.”
At last it came—a backward sweep of one gauntleted hand.
Whir-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r!
Like some scared live thing, the winged man-bird shot forward, scuttling over the smooth surface of the bricked terrace. Absolutely enthralled, the boys stood, with eyes as big as saucers and their mouths half open, in blank astonishment. As the contrivance, after a short scud, began to lift, they broke into an involuntary cheer. The next instant a distance of several feet interposed between the flying machine and the ground. With a graceful turn, the officer brought his flier round, and now came roaring through the air directly above the boys’ heads. As he did so, he gave a shout, and before the astonished onlookers could utter a sound, a round, yellow object came hurtling down at them.
“A bomb! Look out!” yelled one of the soldiers, with well-assumed terror, leaping backward.
In his haste to avoid the explosion of the yellow globe, Tubby fairly fell over and went rolling along the smooth ground like a ball. Rob and the others jumped back with blanched cheeks and frightened eyes, in scarcely less haste. Evidently, by accident, the officer had dropped a deadly explosive—or so it seemed.
The next instant, however, a roar of laughter went up at the boys’ expense.
What had been dropped was an orange. It struck the ground with a terrific splash, scattering juice and pulp in all directions. It was a little joke of the lieutenant’s, who frequently used oranges or eggs at bomb-dropping practice.
The relieved boys could hear his merry laugh as he sailed by, far above them, and rapidly soared higher in the air.
“Huh! Won’t get me that way again,” grunted Tubby, as, amid a roar of laughter, he picked up his rotund form and joined the others.
For half an hour or more the officer swooped and circled above them, appearing to delight in the exercise as much as a wheeling hawk on a summer’s day. Then he descended, and made a landing on the terrace as neatly as if he had just driven up in an automobile. Springs, geared to the pneumatic-tired wheels, broke the force of the landing, and, after one or two light bounces, the machine came to a standstill.
“Your turn,” cried the officer, laughing and turning to Rob as the machine, for the time being, terminated its flight.
He indicated a seat beside him, with an upright back and covered with dark-green padding. Rob did not hesitate, but stepped boldly forward. One of the soldiers offered him a pair of goggles, which he drew on. Then he climbed into the seat and gripped the side handles tightly.
“I’ll break the news to your folks,” howled Tubby, but the rest of his jocose remarks were drowned in the roar of the motor. The next instant they were off. Rob’s breath seemed to be forced backward down his throat by the rapidity of the motion. He gasped and choked, and hung onto his hand rails till the paint flaked off against his palms. The aeroplane, before it arose, seemed to act just like a bucking broncho. Its motions reminded Rob very much of the cayuse he had ridden at Harry Harkness’ ranch on that memorable morning when the cowpunchers gathered to see his battle with the broncho.
Suddenly, however, the see-saw motion changed to a delightful, gliding sensation. It felt like riding along upon the softest feather mattress in the world. They had left the ground and were actually flying. Rob’s heart gave a bound at the idea. He was certainly the first boy in the vicinity of Hampton to have such an experience. His first flash of fear had left him now, and he glanced at the officer seated beside him. Lieutenant Duvall’s face was calm and unperturbed, and Rob felt ashamed of the feeling of fright he had experienced before the machine took the air.
Up and up they rose. Once Rob looked down, but he didn’t do it any more. Somehow it made him feel pale and empty to realize that between his shoe soles and the ground lay a quarter of a mile of empty space.
“Keep your eyes ahead,” the officer advised, and Rob thereafter did so.
But his ride was not destined to become monotonous with such an aviator as the army officer at the levers. Suddenly the machine gave a downward, forward dip, and began rushing to the ground, or rather the ground appeared to be rushing up toward it.
It was all Rob could do to keep from crying out. He firmly believed that an accident had happened and that they would be dashed to bits when the aeroplane struck the ground. His mouth grew dry with terror, and he could have no longer checked a terrified shout, when all at once the motion ceased; or, rather, it altered. The descent was checked when within twenty feet of the ground, and up and round they swung, landing a few minutes after as lightly as a wafted feather upon the broad, smooth terrace of the De Regny mansion. How the old marshal would have gasped if he could have witnessed the antics of this new weapon of warfare cavorting above his ancient domain, from which he had watched so many weary days for his emperor.
“Well?” said the officer, with a twinkle in his eye as Rob, a bit shaky still from his terrible fright, clambered to the ground.
“Well,” rejoined Rob, taking off his goggles, “It was pretty strenuous work, but I enjoyed every minute of it.”
“Now for your friends,” said the officer, but Tubby had strangely vanished, and only Merritt and Paul could avail themselves of the invitation. They both enjoyed rides, and Paul proved so apt a young aviator that on a second trip aloft he was even allowed to handle the levers, at a safe distance above the ground, however.
“You boys certainly have plenty of pluck,” said the officer, after the sport of the afternoon was over. “Some day I may take you for a cross-country ride, or when we start real bomb-dropping work——”
He stopped abruptly and smiled.
“I forgot—that’s a service secret,” he said mystifyingly.
Not until the aeroplane was safely housed did Tubby emerge, and then he had to undergo a fine cross fire of joshing, you may be sure.
“I don’t care,” philosophically remarked the stout youth to himself; “I’m not built for flying, and walking is good enough for me, unless I can own an automobile.”
When Rob reached home that evening his mother told him that there was a visitor to see him.
“He is in the library,” she said.
Rob hastily removed the grime and dirt of his aerial trip, and, wondering who the caller could be, hastened into the room in which the guest was waiting. He gave a cry of surprise, as, in the twilight, he recognized Dale Harding.
“I’ve come to talk things over,” said Freeman Hunt’s particular chum, extending a hand. Rob took it and shook it heartily.
“All right, Dale,” he said, “fire away.”
“My sister told me all about it,” burst out Dale, plunging into the object of his mission without any preliminary skirmishing. “It was a mighty brave thing to do, Rob.”
“Rot!” rejoined Rob. “It was just a Boy Scout good turn. Say no more about it, old fellow.”
“But I must,” hurriedly went on Dale, bringing out his words rapidly, as if he had nerved himself to the performance of an unpleasant, but necessary task. “I—I want to tell you, Rob, that I feel pretty small and cheap and mean over the way I’ve let those fellows jolly me into annoying you.”
“That’s all right, Dale. Never mind about what’s past,” Rob said; “but in the future let’s make this talk have some good effect. Let the Hawks and the Eagles get together. I know that the rank and file of the Hawks are friendly toward us, and——”
“You bet they are,” blurted out Dale. “It’s only Hunt’s influence that drew them apart, and it’s this same influence that’s keeping them there. We could get together to-morrow if it wasn’t for Hunt and one or two of his cronies. I’m ashamed to think that I was one of them, but it’s over now. I’m disgusted with Hunt—through with him for good.”
Rob saw that the boy was agitated by something more than the mere mention of Hunt’s name. He appeared to be anxious to say something more, but apparently it stuck in his throat.
“Why, what has Hunt done recently to make you so disgusted with him?” asked Rob, by way of giving the other a lead.
“Why, don’t you know?” exclaimed Dale; “haven’t you guessed who put up that job on you when that soldier and the Jap attacked you?”
“I’ve often wondered how they came to know we would be traveling by that road,” said Rob. “It puzzled me a good deal, but I attributed it to accident, for lack of a better explanation.”
“It was no accident,” Dale assured him. “Hunt and Jack Curtiss found that a secret passage ran from the beach to the grounds of the old De Regny house. They sneaked through it the day that you were out there, and lay in a clump of bushes close behind you while you talked. They thought they saw a chance to get even and hastened off to set those two fellows on you.”
“The dickens they did!” exclaimed the other. “That explains a whole lot that wasn’t clear before. Hunt is a worse young rascal than I thought him.”
“He certainly is,” agreed Dale. “I was disgusted clear through when they told me about it, and said so. But Hunt and the others threatened to do me up if I said anything to you, so I kept quiet for a while. But when my sister told me that it was you who had rescued them from that bull of Jeffords’, I just had to come and see you, and tell you how sorry I was. I hope you’ll be friends.”
“Of course, I will,” said Rob heartily, “and I hope we can make this a means of getting the two patrols together.”
“The only stumbling block now is Freeman Hunt. He’ll do all he can to work against us,” went on Dale.
“Don’t see that he can do much,” rejoined Rob, after a few minutes of thought. “If the patrol doesn’t want him and can show good cause why he should not be at the head of the Hawks, they can appeal to the scoutmasters and elect a successor.”
After some more talk the two boys separated, but that conversation proved the beginning of the end for Freeman Hunt. A proposal was made to him some days later to adjust the differences between the Hawks and the Eagles, but he stubbornly refused to retreat from his position. In the meantime, the scoutmasters, Mr. Blake and Commodore Wingate, had heard something of the difficulties of the two patrols, and the result was a peremptory order to Hunt to adjust all differences at once.
“I’ll quit first,” grunted Hunt, when this news was conveyed to him. “That kid Blake wants to own the earth.”
The leader of the Hawks finally was as good as his word, and, after a stormy scene in their armory, he strode out of the organization. Soon after Dale Harding was elected to the leadership in his place. Lem Lonsdale and Hunt’s other cronies, refusing to follow their leader out, still remained, however, as sources of trouble. Thus, for the time being, ended Freeman Hunt’s association with the Boy Scouts. But he was not the sort of lad to accept defeat any more easily than his father. It was noticed that soon after his resignation from the ranks of the Hawks, Hunt, Jack Curtiss, and Bill Bender formed an inseparable triumvirate, but for a time they gave no sign of making mischief.
With the first sprinkle of snow, the boys of Hampton began to get out their guns—those of them who possessed any—and little was talked of but rabbit hunting and the merits and demerits of various hounds. The aeroplane experiment grounds were closed till spring, only a small detachment of soldiers being left behind to look after things, and see that no one molested the place. Old Captain Hudgins, as was his winter habit, had deserted his island, except for occasional visits, and would not go back to it till the early spring. In the meantime, he meant to pass the chilly months in a small-cottage lying a little outside Hampton to the east. Of course, it was right on the coast, for the captain could not bear to be out of sight or sound of the sea.
One Saturday Rob and his inseparable companions set out for the woods with their guns, determined to bring home enough rabbits for three separate stews. Their way led them up over Jones’s Hill, where Paul meant to try out his winged sled when opportunity offered, past a few scattered dwellings on the outskirts of the town, and then into a tangle of woods and brush interspersed with sandy clearings covered with dried, brown grass.
Separating, they started through the woods, and every now and then the report of a shotgun rang out sharply on the frosty air. It was evident that they were having good sport, or at least getting plenty of shots.
Hardly had they disappeared into the brush before another group of hunters, leading a big liver-and-white pointer on leash, emerged into the roadway from a clump of bushes, behind which they had ducked as the three boys came into view.
The trio that had so suddenly appeared from what was, apparently, a hiding place consisted of Freeman Hunt, Jack Curtiss, and Bill Bender. All carried guns, and four rabbits carried by Jack showed that they had had some success.
“I suppose those brats are going to scare everything within five miles now,” muttered Jack, as they watched the Boy Scouts vanish into the woods. “They’re a fine bunch of hunters. I’ll bet there isn’t one of them could hit a barn door if he were locked in.”
“That’s right,” muttered Freeman Hunt, in a surly tone. “Young muckers, I owe them a long score, and they’ll have to settle it before long.”
“Yes, they did kind of knock you down and then rub it in, didn’t they?” grinned Bill Bender, fumbling with the breech of his gun.
Freeman did not relish this reference to his recent troubles, and an angry flush rose to his cheeks as he burst out:
“That’s the worst thing they ever did. I’ll get even with them if it’s the last thing I do. I haven’t thought up anything yet, but I will, and don’t you forget it. I hate them all.”
“Well, no use letting them have all the sport,” rejoined Jack Curtiss. “Let’s cut into the wood here, and then the old dog can nose up all the game they drive this way.”
By mid-afternoon Rob found himself alone, in a small clearing, surrounded with scrub oak and sea-stunted pines—a vegetation peculiar to that region.
He paused to listen for some sound of his companions, and, as he did so, he heard, quite near at hand, as it seemed, a crashing sound in the brush.
“That you, fellows?” he called out; but there was no answer, and in place of the crackling of the brush there was dead silence. Somewhere, far off, he could hear the steady blows of a woodsman’s axe, but that was the only interruption to the silence of the winter’s afternoon.
“Maybe it was a deer,” reflected Rob, as no answer came to his call. “They get off that millionaire Grogan’s place once in a while. Guess that must have been one.”
He looked down at the two rabbits he held.
“Not much for an afternoon’s work,” he smiled. “But they’ll have to do.”
The sun was beginning to sink quite low, and Rob thought to himself that he would have to be getting back. He was turning with this object in view when a sudden sound behind him attracted his attention, and a big liver-and-white pointer ran through the clearing. Its nose was on the ground and it paid no attention to him.
“Somebody else hunting round here,” thought Rob. “Queer, though, I’ve heard no other shots.”
A moment later he plunged into the brush, striking out toward the southwest. As he entered the tangle, and, bending low, began pushing his way through it with his broad, young shoulders, something happened.
A flash of fire, so close that it almost singed his hair, followed by a deafening report, and the whistle and spatter of shot among the leaves, brought him to halt with a gasp at his narrow escape.
Some one had fired a shotgun almost in his ear. A fraction of an inch and he would have been badly wounded, if not killed. As he stood there, angry at the unknown hunter’s carelessness and palpitating with the sudden shock, there came a great crashing in the brush. Somebody was evidently making off at top speed. Perhaps it was the man who had caused the accident.
“Hi!” shouted Rob, finding his voice at last. “Hi! come back there, you! You pretty nearly shot me.”
But the crashing kept on. Evidently whoever had fired the shot was in hot haste to escape.
“That’s a fine way to sneak out of a careless accident,” exclaimed Rob indignantly, hurling his voice after the unknown.
A sudden hot wave of suspicion and anger swept over him as he spoke. Was it an accident? Would any one who had come so close to jeopardizing a human life dash off like a detected criminal? Would he not stand his ground and explain matters?
Sorely perplexed, Rob stood a while listening to the further sounds of the retreating individual who had imperiled him. As he paused, rooted to the spot, something flashed across his path and vanished the same way as had the mysterious shooter. It was the same liver-and-white pointer he had noticed before.
“You belong to him,” exclaimed Rob, as the dog vanished. “I never saw you before, but I’ll know you if we meet again.”
The morning after Rob’s narrow escape, Stonington Hunt entered the Western Union office in Hampton in some excitement and filed a telegram. It was addressed to a former business friend of his, and related to what progress he had made in acquiring the right to manufacture Paul Perkins’s queer machine. Had it told the truth, it would have said, “Little hope.” But that was not the elder Hunt’s way. His dispatch read:
“Progress favorable. Think I can land it.”
As Hunt handed the message over to Blinky Dibbs, the operator, messenger boy and manager of the office, he smile grimly.
“Afraid there’s more poetry than truth in that message,” he said to himself, “but I’m not going to give up hope. The more I think of it, the more I’m convinced there is money in that motor ice sleigh. Why, one could sell them like hot cakes at winter resorts, and there’s that government contract for the Polar expedition. Stonington, my boy, you’ve got to get your hands on that machine.”
At this point of his meditations, his eyes fell on an undelivered message lying on the key table before the operator. The former financier’s sharp eyes scanned it greedily. As he comprehended what the dispatch was, his brow clouded angrily. The message was for Paul Perkins, and read as follows:
“Things here satisfactory, but Washington moves slowly. On no account consider other offer. Confident I can put deal with government through. Merrill.”
“Phew!” whistled Hunt, in a low key. “So that’s the way the wind blows.” He wrinkled his brow for a minute in deep thought, and, as Mr. Hunt’s thoughts usually materialized speedily into action, he did not remain long in meditation. He pulled a “receiving blank” toward him and rapidly wrote on it. Then he slipped it in an envelope and, having written an address on it, pocketed it.
“Get my message off yet, Dibbs?” he inquired, although his sharp eyes had seen that the operator had not yet succeeded in raising the New York office.
“Nope,” responded Blinky, pounding away at “N. Y.”
“Well, I guess I’m off,” volunteered Mr. Hunt, with his most amiable smile. “Got any messages you wish delivered in the direction in which I’m going?”
“Which way is that?” asked Blinky, keeping up his clickety-click.
“Down Beach Street. I have some business at Paul Perkins’s house.”
“Say, that’s so!” exclaimed Blinky, galvanizing into remembrance. “I’ve got a message here for young Perkins. Would you mind taking it?”
“With pleasure,” declared Mr. Hunt, emphasizing his willingness with a smile of triumph. Dibbs had fallen into the trap almost too easily. A few minutes later Mr. Hunt strode out of the office and set off at a brisk pace for Paul Perkins’s home. In his pocket he carried the message from Washington, and he intended it should not leave that receptacle till he was ready to destroy it. Mr. Hunt whistled cheerily as he walked down the street. His chest swelled with exultation till the buttons of his overcoat were seriously strained. He felt that he had accomplished a stroke of real business.
A sound of hammering from the wagon house as he reached the inventive scout’s home apprised the astute plotter that the boy he was in search of was at work on the machine he desired so ardently to acquire. Without making his visit known to Mrs. Perkins, the father of Freeman Hunt softly walked over the withered turf to the wagon shed door, and the first thing Paul knew of his presence was when his dark shadow fell across the sheet of metal on which the lad was working.
Paul gave a little start as he looked up and saw who it was that had dropped in upon him so unexpectedly. The look of his face must have told Hunt that he was not a welcome visitor, but this did not worry such a veteran of diplomacy as now faced the lad. Paul, however, had presence of mind enough to drop his hammer and come toward the door before the observant Mr. Hunt had done more than take in the outlines of the machine he was constructing.
“Ah, good morning, Paul,” Hunt had said, as the boy looked up. “Have you time for a little chat.”
“I guess so, Mr. Hunt,” was the rejoinder. “Let us go in the house.”
“I’d rather have it here. It is too early in the day to make a call, and your mother is probably busy.”
Paul quite saw through this, and acted more decisively than he would have believed it possible for him to do. Coming forward, he laid his hand on the door, stepped through the opening, and an instant later he had closed the portal on the outside and slipped a big padlock into its hasp. If Hunt was annoyed, he did not show it.