There was a pause, and the answer snapped back quickly. “Working without rest or sleep. Cases will be ready in time.”
Sleep banished from their eyes, Bill and Eddie stared at the slip of paper whereon Bill had written the two messages.
“Make another copy of that,” said Eddie. “No one knows what will happen to either of us and the other one wants to have the message to show Ernest.”
Bill wrote rapidly. “He sure does!” he agreed. “Gee, I wish Frank hadn’t gone to sleep, but I bet he would be mad if I woke him up to show him this. We will have to wait until Ernest comes.”
The boys concealed the scraps of paper on themselves, and presently even the excitement failed to keep them awake. Without meaning to, they too went to sleep, one on the big center table, and the other stretched out on the couch. For two hours they slept, utterly tired out, then awoke when Frank wandered in, announcing breakfast in a voice that would have been easy to hear a mile away, Bill declared.
“That’s all right,” said Frank. “You don’t know who is around, and our play is to be as noisy as usual. Come on in and get something to eat. I have telephoned your house, Eddie, and got them just in time to keep them from dragging the river.”
“That’s a shame!” exclaimed Eddie.
“I don’t know; it’s quite a large river to drag.”
“I don’t mean that!” said Eddie. “What makes you so foolish?”
“You, I reckon,” laughed Frank. “No, they were not up when I called, and did not know that you were not right in your own little downy cot. So it’s all right. Come on in and eat. I suppose it is nothing in your lives thatIam starving. Oh, no; what’s that to you?”
“Well, lead on, lead on!” cried Eddie. “I hope you got a good breakfast. I am starved.”
“Waffles,” said Frank briefly.
“Wow!” cried Eddie, and the boys were at the table before you could think. Now the Wolfe cook was a waffle artist. And when you had had six or eight of her waffles, crisply brown, light as feathers, swimming in real maple syrup, why, then you were just ready for a good start. And she loved to cook for hungry boys, loved to see them eat. But this morning was the triumph of her life. Never had any boys in that house eaten so much or praised the waffles so loudly.
After breakfast, Frank went out and looked his car over, and “tuned her up,” and the boys showed him the message they had picked up.
An hour later, Ernest wandered across the Park as though he had not a worry in the world. He was alone and, greeting them in the most casual and off-hand way, he watched Frank tinker with a brake for a moment or two, heard the news, then asked, “Wonder if I can go in and wash up, Frank?”
“Sure,” said Frank, dropping his tools and leading the way toward the house. “Have you had breakfast?”
“Back in Cincinnati,” Ernest assured him.
As soon as the door closed behind them, Frank demanded, “Where did you leave the kid?”
“Up at Taylor in the Provost Marshal’s office,” answered Ernest. “He is all right. The Intelligence Department took it up with the Department of Justice on the long distance. Result is five secret service men are on their way here by the fast train. They will arrive about noon.”
“That is cutting it short enough,” said Eddie.
“We will have to be on the job, every one of us, this afternoon.” In a whisper he repeated what he had heard in the garage, and Ernest said, “They didn’t say what time, did they?”
“Yes, about three this afternoon.”
“Hope they pull it off late,” said Ernest. “We had a great time, boys. I wish you had been along. Those chaps think Dee had a narrow escape.”
“I’ve got to finish the car,” said Frank. “Come on out when you get ready. I think we ought to keep in sight.”
“I am ready now,” said Frank.
They all trailed out after Frank, and proceeded to assist him by sitting on different parts of the car and giving advice.
Suddenly Bill looked down the street and gasped.
“Don’t look, fellows,” he said rapidly. “Here comes that fellow Zip! I bet he is going to speak to us!”
They bent their eyes on Frank and commenced a low chatter as the black-browed stranger approached them.
He stopped, sure enough, and said, “Good morning.”
The boys returned his greeting, and he said,
“I was wanting to ask of you if you had chanced to see Marion De Lorme this morning.”
“No, we haven’t,” said Bill and Eddie honestly enough. “Did he come up this way?” asked Eddie cheekily.
“I don’t know,” said Zip, with a queer twitch of the jaw. “Mr. De Lorme wants him. If you see him, will you say for him to come home at once?”
“I saw him this morning,” said Ernest.
“Where?” demanded Zip, scarcely able to conceal his eagerness.
“Down by the L. & N. Station,” said Ernest calmly. “Looked as though he was traveling.”
Zip somehow looked relieved.
“Thank you,” he said, and, turning, hurried back, his coat-tails flapping.
The boys looked at Ernest.
“I did see him there!” he said. “That was the truth. With me. Up in the air.”
Mr. De Lorme did not know that his stepson had escaped. When Zip discovered the empty garret he did not dare break the news to his employer. The inquiries after Dee were wholly on Zip’s own hook. He hoped to find that the boy had taken refuge with one of his chums. He could not suspect any of them knowing anything about Dee, however, after Ernest’s guiltless information. Down at the L. & N. Station! Zip smiled. The boy was thoroughly scared, after all, and had made good his escape! Somehow or somewhere he might have found out his Aunt’s address. Zip felt sure that when they wanted him they would be able to go down to the great fertile farm in the Blue Grass and find the boy.
Zip went back to the house with a light heart. He took the daily chunk of bread and set it on the attic stairs; then, for fear Mr. De Lorme might take a fancy to unlock the door and go up to see Dee, Zip took the key from the lock.
He found Mr. De Lorme in the laboratory, flushed with his labor. His keen eyes looked tired but steady as he glanced at Zip. “Well?” he interrogated.
“Nothing new,” said Zip. “Everything quiet.”
“How is the prisoner?” asked Mr. De Lorme.
“I did not bother to go up,” said Zip. “He is so sulky that I will not try to talk to him at all. I just leave his food at the bottom of the stairs.”
“Perfectly right!” said Mr. De Lorme absently as he slid a paper tube inside a small brass cylinder—and with the utmost care and a touch delicate as a jeweler’s proceeded to cap it. A heavy, thick pad of fluffy thick cotton batting covered the table and he held the cylinder close to it. Mr. De Lorme did not like to take unnecessary risks.
Zip took off his coat and arrayed himself in a tight jumper. He filled several retorts with queer-looking liquids, and fell to work. There was much to be done. The thirteenth was nearly at hand!
The whistles sounded for noon.
Up at Bill’s Ernest was rapidly outlining his part of the plans for the capture of the dynamiters. At the Aviation Field, at Camp Taylor, his little plane was “parked” ready for action. Safe in the Provost Marshal’s office, near a couple burly M.P.’s, Dee, well guarded, was waiting for the next act in his life.
At the L. & N. Station a fast express was drawing in. Among the throngs that hurried from the cars came a young clergyman, a traveling man loaded with sample cases, a couple of enlisted men, and a laborer in his blue overalls. These five lost themselves in the crowds and were gone. That they were Secret Service men picked for the difficult task of taking a dangerous gang and breaking up a lot of dynamiters, the crowd with whom they mingled did not guess, nor would they have believed if they had been told.
Up on Confederate Place the usual afternoon began with just a few variations. An understudy took Eddie’s place on the tennis courts. Frank’s father, Mr. Wolfe, drove to his office in Frank’s little flivver, and left at the curb in its stead his own powerful touring car, and Frank was engaged in his pet recreation of “tuning her up.”
Eddie and Ernest, taking a trolley, were well on their way to Camp where they expected to await developments at the Aviation Field.
Bill, whose easiest job was collecting an admiring circle of girls, went down to the Crowleys, next door to the De Lorme house, and proceeded to fascinate Elizabeth Crowley, a delicate little blonde beauty, and Virginia Rowland, whose big black eyes sparkled and whose merry laugh tinkled out at the least of Bill’s rare sallies of wit. At intervals—and of course this was part of the plan—Bill whistled lustily and once or twice yelled, “Hey, Dee!”
In the Park sat a couple of enlisted men, young fellows who soon started a bantering conversation with two girls passing. The four had a jolly time. It was not hard for the secret service men to “jolly” and keep hawk-eyes on the De Lorme house at the same time.
At the extreme point of the Park, facing the monument, was the wreck of a beautiful drinking fountain which had been shattered by a runaway automobile. The pieces of broken stone were being gathered in a pile by a workman who seemingly had no eyes for anything but his work. His overalls were roomy and loose; otherwise someone might have noticed the bulging pockets underneath where he carried two big revolvers and handcuffs, as well as heavy shackles for stubborn ankles. At the station a man with two suitcases sat patiently reading the paper, while close to his elbow a meek-looking young clergyman watched the crowds or looked at a long railroad ticket which he held in his hand.
And here and there bells in the city churches struck one!
Nothing happened. Time dragged on. The clocks struck two. Bill was worn to a frazzle. He commenced to wonder why men ever married. The girls prattled on and Bill “entered into the silence” as they talked in a chorus. He lost track of their remarks and answered so at random that Virginia demanded to know what was on his mind. At that Bill, who was trying to disguise the fact that he had a mind, braced up with a long, long story of a transaction in ginger ale and pop between himself and Eddie one night when the Community singers were at the Park.
It certainly was a long and complicated tale, and when the clocks struck three Bill was weaving uncertainly through a maze of incidents which meant as little to him as they did to his listeners.
But as the clock struck three ... Bill saw a familiar automobile approaching the De Lorme curb. Once more he cried, “Hey, Dee!” but this time he went down the steps and looked up at the De Lorme house. His young voice rang out and carried across to the Park, where the four young people on the bench had passed from jokes to a quiet conversation. One of the soldiers was telling blood-curdling tales of a front he had never seen, gas he had never been subjected to, and trenches he had only dreamed of. But he was a born talker, and his listeners shuddered and thrilled. At the call from Bill, the two soldiers glanced quickly across the street and shifted positions a little. The workman at the broken fountain, tired out, sat down on the curb and lighted a short pipe.
Then a large car drove up before the De Lorme house—a beautiful touring car. On the front seat sat a chauffeur in livery. A stunningly dressed woman and a thin man, both enveloped in large, loose dust coats, sat on the back seat. The three scanned the houses, and the man spoke to the chauffeur. He jumped out and approached Bill, who stood staring on the steps of Elizabeth Crowley’s house.
“Does Mr. De Lorme live near here?” he asked.
“Next door!” piped the two girls together.
“Thank you,” said the chauffeur, raising his cap.
The lady on the back seat smiled. The girls fluttered.
With a flourish the chauffeur opened the door, the man descended and assisted the lady to alight. Her loose cloak floated around her. She was very beautiful, and she smiled at the girls and Bill. Then she ran lightly up the steps and the two disappeared.
The chauffeur, carrying a bulky auto robe, followed them.
Bill immediately lost interest in the charming damsels who had been so attractive for two hours or more. He said, “Well, gotta skip! Goo’bye!” and ambled off toward home, whistling.
Frank, still tuning the car, gave a sigh of relief.
“Now there is a mix-up,” said Bill anxiously. “There is a car in front of the house, but it’s got a lady for one of the passengers and, say, she is some looker!”
“Them same,” said Frank sagely, “is sometimes the worst kind. On our way, brother, on our way!”
“All right,” said Bill cheerfully, and dashed into the house, returning straightway with a small bundle which he tossed into the car as he hopped in. Frank turned and they went slowly down the block. The large empty car still stood before the house as Frank drew in at the curb in front of the Crowleys. Elizabeth still sat serenely rocking, her face toward the De Lormes’.Shedid not intend to miss a second view of the radiant stranger.
“Hello, Elizabeth!” said Bill affably. “Care if I telephone? I’m in a hurry and hate to go back home.”
“Help yourself!” said Elizabeth. “Right in the hall.”
Bill, frantic for fear the strangers would come out before he did, called, “Taylor 5000” and when they answered, he continued, “Is this the Provost Marshal’s office? Well, I want to speak to Mr. Beezley, please. Yes, Lieut. Beezley. Oh, Ern? Get busy! Ready to start, guess. Two men and a lady; abird! All right. Try the Dixie Highway. Goo’bye!” He hurried outside and stood talking to Elizabeth, while Frank patiently waited in the car, head down, as though he intended to stay there all day. His brilliant red-and-blue plaid cap was pulled well down, and under it keen eyes scanned the car ahead.
The workman, rising from his seat on the curb by the broken fountain, idly knocked the ashes out of his pipe and looked around for his crowbar. In the park two young soldiers said good-bye lingeringly to two reluctant girls, and with many promises for picture postals walked away.
Everything was very peaceful.
Zip came out and looked in the postbox. It was all very peaceful, very natural. He did not recognize Frank by the top of his spotty cap, but he saw Elizabeth, and nodded affably to Bill across the lawn. He was glad they were there to see the well-dressed visitors coming and going so casually. He went inside, and in a moment the lady appeared, followed by the man, and behind him the chauffeur bearing the bulky blanket.
They walked slowly down, Bill having all the acute symptoms of apoplexy. Elizabeth stared.
“She is fatter than I thought,” she said scornfully. “I thought she was real thin. And the man! What a funny, careful way he has of walking, as though he might break himself!”
“Do you think so?” said Bill. “Oh, Elizabeth, I do hope you think so! I certainly do!”
“How funny you are!” exclaimed Elizabeth. “You act as though you cared how he walks. I don’t see—”
But here something happened that took Bill a long, long time to explain away. When Elizabeth looked up, Bill was gone. The strange car had gone too, and Bill was leaping into Frank’s car and he looked as though he had forgotten every single thing about her. The strange car turned the first corner and so did Frank, but he slowed down as he reached it, and Elizabeth, angrily looking after, saw two soldiers leap on the running board and a blue-clad workman tumble into the back seat.
The strange car cut across to Fourth Street and turned down. On the side street one of the soldiers and Bill leaned out and ripped off a narrow piece of tire-tape that ran around the whole top, just at the edge. Then the workman, who made himself wonderfully at home, reached out the back window and hauled down a large piece of black oilcloth that had been lying flat on the top and that had been secured by the tire-tape.
Then for the first time someone spoke. It was the workman, and he addressed Frank. “Sure you painted that white panel good and large?” he asked.
“Sure!” said Frank. “Fact is, Ernest did it himself, and he said it would be pie to follow it. They don’t seem to be in a hurry, do they?” he added, his eyes on the strange car ahead.
“No, they won’t dare to speed up on account of the load they have. And traffic is pretty thick.”
They carried the game of follow-my-leader down through the heart of the city, stopped at the Seelbach Hotel for twenty minutes and then turned and headed for the old Dixie Highway. “It’s them, all right,” said the workman joyfully. “Wonder where they are really going?”
With a swift motion Frank swept the brilliant cap from his head, donned a black one and adjusted a pair of large goggles. He slid down in his seat and watched the car ahead.
The miles rolled by.
“Wonder what makes the guy so slow?” remarked Frank presently. “Suppose we should bust a tire?”
“Never anticipate trouble,” said the workman. “It looks to me as though they were pretty busy ahead there. I shouldn’t wonder if they might be changing their general appearance a little, but I don’t suppose we had better draw nearer.”
There was a faint humming in the air and a plane soared high above them. It was very high, but as they watched it, something white fluttered down from it, and Bill gave a sigh of relief as he saw the prearranged signal. “It is Ernest and he has seen our white panel. Now he will look after the car, I suppose, according to agreement but I declare it doesn’t seem fair to have him haveallthe fun. What are we going to do? Can’t we go on?” he asked.
“No, indeed,” said the workman and a soldier repeated, “No, indeed! An aviator’s luck!”
“We will turn back as soon as we come to a store where drinks are sold, or a gasoline station, or anything of the sort.”
Bill gave a deep sigh.
“No need to do that, son,” laughed the workman. “We will have 'fun’ in plenty, if you call it that. Why, what do you suppose we are going to do about those people back there in Louisville? Did you expect to let them get away so they could cook up more deviltry? I say not! We have some arrests to make on your nice respectable street, and that house to search. And we want you to have all credit of this affair, young fellow, you and your mates. If it hadn’t been for your precious wireless!”
“I wonder where they were talking the time I caught the messages,” Bill said as their car stopped at a little place where soft drinks were sold.
“The way the Bureau dopes it out,” said the workman, “is that they have a chain of short-circuit wireless stations, so they don’t have to trust anything to letters; not even to word of mouth. That is how all these frightful attacks on innocent persons are arranged so safely.”
He took out a clinking handful of shiny handcuffs and shackles and looked at them lovingly before he tossed them down in the bottom of the automobile.
“I hope if we catch him that we will be able to persuade Mr. De Lorme to talk.” he said.
While the car carrying the Secret Service men and Frank and the disgruntled young Bill dashed back to the city, the car with the dynamiters and their terrible load rolled smoothly on toward Camp Knox at Stithton. They were a clever lot, hiding their infernal machines within the very boundaries of the Government camp, and if it had not been for the boys and their wireless, they might have operated forever. The country was so rough, so uninhabited, that the wandering hoboes strolling along the mountain trails so near the camp never raised a question in the minds of the M.P.’s. And luxurious cars bearing pretty women driving back and forth between Louisville and Camp Knox were so numerous that even the people living along the road had ceased to look after them as they passed.
A couple of miles from West Point the car stopped beside the road, and a young woman in sport skirt and sweater jumped out, a book under her arm, and strolled up into a little grove. The car went on. The lady sat down, felt into a silk work-bag for a piece of candy, and fell to reading.
A couple of miles out of Stithton, in a deep gully where the road was bad the car stopped again. There was a long wait, but no one got out, and an airplane far overhead turned and in a series of circles went humming far to the left. When the car started, the plane, strangely enough, was once more high overhead. But the men in the car did not notice that. Airplanes from Stithton were always buzzing around. The Station at the Camp flew from four to six planes all of every day. The man at the wheel looked up in an interested, casual way, and drove his car carefully forward. A half mile from the Camp the car stopped again and a stout man stepped from the brush. He took the driver’s seat, and the man who had been driving crawled over into the tonneau.
In a couple of minutes, two tramps hustled out of the machine, as though they wished to swing free of it before anyone saw them. One of them carried a large bundle carelessly done up in a red bandana of extra size, the other a frayed and torn knapsack.
They strolled leisurely toward the Camp, and the new driver, starting the car, went on, entered the Camp, and stopped at the Adjutant’s office, where he asked for an officer, but who was away on sick leave. The stranger was sorry. They were old classmates, he explained. He was passing through, and thought he would look the Captain up.
The Adjutant was sorry too, but cheered up over the cigar the stranger gave him. Cigars like that were like a patent of nobility. Wouldn’t the stranger like to look over the Camp? The stranger had some time to kill and he would be delighted. The Adjutant joyfully steered him around. When the stranger finally drove off, the Adjutant made haste to lock four more of those amazing cigars in his locker.
Up in the airplane, Ernest sat at the wheel, while Eddie and Dee, each armed with powerful glasses, watched the car far below.
Everything had gone with the utmost smoothness. Thanks to the white panel which Ernest had painted on the top of Frank’s car, he had been able to pick them up without the least trouble. And once on the Dixie Highway he followed the other car easily. Ernest listened to the reports of the boys without interest. He thought that the lady passenger would be dropped in some safe place, and was not surprised at the appearance of the third man.
But when the two hoboes got out and dawdled along toward Camp, the boys and Ernest felt that the plot was unfolding fast. They watched the car enter the Camp, while the tramps trudged along in the rear, and when the Adjutant, after talking to the driver, sallied out with him, Ernest growled. “Now we will have to do all our sleuthing up in the air. We can’t come down and chase those fellows up while that guy is on deck. The very minute the airplane started down to the Field they would come hustling over. That Adjutant is nutty on flying, and this is the only plane out today. Keep your eyes on the tramps, boys!”
He brought the plane directly over the Adjutant’s office and, cloud-high, commenced a series of lazy manoeuvers.
“It is getting near sundown,” he said. “If they don’t know it is me, they will think some of those kids are crazy. They are supposed to come down by four o’clock. Well, they will have to work it out! Do you see the hoboes?”
“They have just turned in at the gate, and are going toward the hill trail,” reported Eddie.
“Wish ’em a pleasant journey!” said Ernest hopefully. “I want them to get wherever they are going before dark. If they don’t suspect us, they will, too, because there is no reason for them to wait for dark. You can’t see a step of that mountain road from the Camp.”
They hung high in the air, watching the two tiny figures, invisible except through the glasses, move ever so slowly up the winding road. Imperceptibly Ernest allowed the plane to settle until with the naked eye they could see the face of the mountain with the dark gashes along the trail here and there, where the openings to the caves smeared the rock. Then a violent start and gasp from Eddie startled Ernest so that the plane ducked.
“Look, look!” he screamed. “There it is! There is the face in the rock! See the eyebrows made of the bushy trees? That was what all the messages and the writing in the book was driving at! I bet there is where the tramps will land!”
“I bet you are right,” said Ernest, no less excited than the boys. “Where are they now?”
“Just coming around the bend! Oh, gosh, they are going to sit down!”
“Well, if they are loaded up with dynamite and infernal machines, I bet they are good and ready to rest,” said Dee.
However, in a couple of minutes the men plodded on and soon, as the boys watched breathlessly, they reached the queer face, and like shadows disappeared and were gone.
“They have gone in, sure as shooting!” exclaimed Eddie in awed tones. “Now what next, Ern?”
“More watchful waiting, kid,” replied Ernest. “Don’t take your glass off that face. If they leave, we will go down and explore. If they stay, we will get some help from Camp and take ’em alive.”
For what seemed an eternity the plane hung there, swinging idly on the air currents, the boys straining their eyes at the glasses.
Then at last, one after another, two figures appeared, stood for a moment, and passed rapidly down the trail. Ernest with a sigh of relief settled a little more and saw the big car of the stranger turn and make rapidly out of the Camp.
Ernest flew over to the landing field and came down. Leaving his plane in the care of one of the men, the three made their way across the Camp.
“Now, remember, boys, not a peep to anyone! We will go sit on the trail, and see if the tramps come down and start toward the highway. Then we will go up.”
In ten minutes the tramps appeared, passed unsuspiciously, and were lost to sight.
“Now!” said Ernest. “Are you ready?” The boys were on their feet in an instant. They swept up the hill, and reached the narrow opening all out of breath. All three had flashlights and Ernest leading, they squeezed inside.
They looked the space over carefully but saw nothing suspicious. Then one after another they wriggled through another small opening into the second and larger room. This too was empty, but Ernest, flashing his light about, brought it to a standstill in one corner.
“The heap of shale!” said Eddie breathlessly.
They went over, and carefully dug into a corner.
“For goodness’sake, don’t joggle asingle pebble!” said Ernest. “You don’t know how they have cached this stuff. Perhaps they have fixed it so if any stranger touches it, it will go off.”
“You are a cheerful chap, aren’t you?” demanded Eddie as he took stone after stone gently from the pile and laid it down behind him.
“It is there!” said Ernest. “Don’t uncover any more of it. Now I tell you what. Are you boys game to stay here with me on guard tonight? If so, I will go down and wireless to Bill, and the Secret Service men can grab the gang back there in Louisville.”
“Of course we are game!” said Dee cheerfully. “Anything that will help to break up this gang goes with me.”
Ernest paused at the opening.
“I willtelephone,” he said. “I won’t wireless on account of old De Lorme getting the message game as we have picked up his now and then. Don’t light a light in here unless you have to. No one knows who is prowling around.”
He went off, and the two boys sat down in the inner chamber and whispered together. A cave is never a cheerful spot. Even in daytime it gives you queer thrills and chills, and at night, without a light— Well, Bill and Dee sat close and said little. Every little while they heard strange sounds like someone stepping on the gravel outside. Or sounds inside like sniffles, or grunts, or breathing! Once, near them on the hillside, a fox screamed, and Eddie felt, as soon as he was able to feel anything at all, that his hair had turned white. He could tell by the chilly, creepy feeling at the roots that the damage was done. He wondered what Virginia and Elizabeth would say when they saw his snow-white head.
He thought that he was alone in his terror until he heard Dee whisper shakily: “S-s-s-s-say, E-e-e-eddie, w-what w-was t-that?”
“A fox,” said Eddie, smoothing his pompadour.
“Gosh!” sighed Dee. “I thought it was a woman crying.”
“Naw, that’s only a fox,” said the country-wise Eddie. “They make a fierce racket when they yell.”
“I wonder if that one wants to get in here. Perhaps it has a den in here somewhere,” whispered Dee.
“Shoo!” whispered Eddie hoarsely. He did not care to have a fox galumping in, in the dark. He was notafraid, but he carefully drew in his feet. He knew that Dee’s were well under him. But the sound was not repeated.
When Ernest presently said “Hi!” in the entrance, both boys leaped and then sighed so loudly with relief that Ernest heard them, and laughed. “Not scared, were you?” he asked.
“Naw, of course not!” the boys hastened to assure him, and to change the conversation quickly Eddie asked, “Did you get them on the telephone?”
“Yes. They were waiting to hear from me,” said Ernest, sitting down. “I don’t believe there will be any trouble out there. I am going to sleep. I don’t see any reason for any of us to sit up. There is no suspicion afloat, I will be bound. I brought three blankets up from my quarters, and the floor isn’t hard. It is certainly bone-dry,” he added, kicking up a little dust. “And here are some sandwiches,” taking some parcels out of his pockets.
“I don’t think this is so worse,” grinned Eddie, biting out a neat semi-circle.
Ernest brought in the blankets and threw himself down on the floor.
“We heard a fox screech,” said Eddie, “and you should have seen Dee jump. I thought he would go through the ceiling.”
“Aw, what makes you say that?” objected Dee. “Eddie, here, threw a fit!”
“You both got a good scare, if it was anything like some of the foxes I have heard,” said Ernest, laughing. “Now, let’s go to sleep. I want to get up sort of early because the Secret Service men will be here to take charge of this stuff soon after daybreak.”
“That suits me!” said Eddie, and soon they were all sleeping peacefully.
In Louisville things were happening. Even while the car Frank was driving was still on the Dixie Highway, things happened! The workman opened the bundle that Bill had thrown into the car, and in a few moments there was no workman there at all! Just a well-dressed, kindly looking, middle-aged man with glasses who sat back and looked with interest at the scenery. The two soldiers faded too, and in their places two officers, a Major and a Captain of Infantry, flecked the dust from their boots and exchanged pleasantries.
“Gosh!” said Frank when he had taken in the changed appearance of his passengers. “WishIcould turn into something! Wish I could turn into a millionaire!”
The others laughed. “That’s a hard turn to make,” said the Major. “But we change so often that sometimes it is hard to tell what we really are.”
“I would like to turn into a Secret Service man,” Bill said smiling.
“That is what you are very likely to turn into, my boy,” said the Captain, “if you keep up your present trick of catching dynamiters by the heels.”
“Gee, I would like that!” said Bill longingly. “How do you go about it? What do you have to study?”
“Your daily lessons in High for one thing,” said Frank, laughing.
“Yes, indeed,” seconded the Major. “Lessons in High, and then some! You will use all you can possibly learn and then you will spend a good part of your time kicking because you don’t know ten times more.”
“What are we going to do next?” Bill asked. Remarks about school bored him to tears.
“If you will drive down to the L. & N. Station, I will send the fellows there up to watch the hotel, where the men and the woman are staying. As soon as it is dark we three will call on Mr. De Lorme.”
“Aw,” said Bill pleadingly, “can’t I be in on that? Are you going to arrest him?”
“We are going totrypretty hard,” said the Major, smiling. “Well, it is rather unusual, to be sure, but if you happen to be on the next porch working hard, the way you were this afternoon, we will see what we can do.”
“Aw!” said Bill again. “Aw, I did that for the Cause, Major!”
“Certainly, and I hope you will never have to do anything harder.” He clapped Bill on the back. “Just be there, and see what happens.”
At the L. & N. Station the Secret Service agent who had been the workman went in and presently came out saying thatthatwas all right. And then Frank headed for home, and arriving there, took the three strangers to a room where they made certain additions to their attire in the shape of revolvers and handcuffs. The one-time workman strolled out into the alley a little later as a good-natured looking policeman, who squinted into the garbage pails on the block, to the distress of several well-meaning but forgetful maids who could not remember the hard and fast rule of the city about the division of garbage.
And soon after supper Bill, smooth of hair and rather pale of face, donned white flannel trousers and a clean white shirt, and in this gala attire went down to call on Elizabeth Crowley.
Elizabeth looked rather surprised when Bill wandered up to her steps a second time in one day. But she was a wise little girl, oh, much, much wiser than her kind, and she said nothing; just greeted him in her pleasant low voice, and gave Bill the chair she had been sitting in. If Bill had not been a mere boy, this in itself would have made him wonder. Elizabeth’s chair faced the De Lorme house. It was Elizabeth’s silent little sarcasm to offer it to Bill when he was pretending that he had come to call on her.
And Bill, being a mere boy, did not even notice that Elizabeth had changed seats, but took her chair and felt lucky to think that he could have an unobstructed view of the house next door!
In three quarters of an hour, when two spruce looking officers came up the street, Bill had talked himself to a standstill. He only wished the man who had said slurring things about his work that afternoon was about ...
But up the streets at last came the two officers and went up the steps of the De Lorme house, and rang the bell. Bill stopped trying to talk.
It seemed a year before the door opened, and then Bill could not see who was standing within, but he saw the heavy portal suddenly swing shut, and at that moment both men sprang forward and pressed it open. With a scuffle they both plunged into the hall, and Bill could stand no more. Again Elizabeth found herself alone.
Bill leaped across the lawn and was close on the detectives’ heels when they closed on Mr. De Lorme. But that gentleman was not yet in their grasp. With the quickness of a trained athlete, he sprang into the parlor and stood with a table between them.
“What does this intrusion mean?” he asked harshly. “Are you drunk? Have you mistaken the house?”
“Neither!” said the Major. “We are here to arrest you. Better come quietly. It will be better for you in the end.”
“Arrest me?” said Mr. De Lorme, smiling. “Arrest me for what? Why should you arrest an old and harmless student like myself?”
“You know why,” said the Captain bitterly. “Don’t try to escape! If you are curious, we can tell you where your dynamite is hidden, and where your accomplices in this city are located. Come, step up here, and get these bracelets on. Why, we know you! It is nearly the thirteenth, and you are known as 'The Avenger.’ Does that convince you?”
He took a step forward, and De Lorme found himself looking into the muzzle of a revolver.
With a queer, nervous motion, he fussed with his watch chain for a moment, then clapping his hand over his mouth, dropped into a chair. He looked at the men strangely, his face twitched, and his outstretched legs jerked for a moment. Then he straightened up and laughed aloud, a jeering, sneering laugh, looking from one to the other, and past the men at Bill, whose flesh crept at that sardonic sound. Then his head dropped, bobbed queerly, and both men sprang to his side, crying “Poison!”
De Lorme was dead.
The body slid to the floor and lay there crumpled up. The glasses fell from the staring eyes; a bit of white powder lay on the sneering lips.
“As quick as that,” said the Major bitterly. “I never thought he would try that!”
“He—he’s dead!” gasped Bill, shuddering as he looked at death, death that is meant to be peaceful and lovely, lying there in its most unlovely form, a man dead by his own hand.
“Yes, he is dead,” said the Captain. “He will wait for us now, I reckon. Where is the other one, do you suppose?”
“Zip?” asked Bill. “Upstairs probably.”
The three walked out into the hall and turned toward the stairs just as a door above opened, and Zip appeared at the head of the flight. He took one glance at three faces below and instantly a flash of flame leaped at them; he had fired from his hip. An answering flame from the Major’s revolver, and Zip’s right arm hung useless.
“It is all up!” said the Major. “Come down here and take your medicine!”
Groaning, Zip descended the stairs, holding his uninjured hand above his head. The detectives shoved him into a chair, shackled his ankles and handcuffed the well arm to the back of the chair. He was unable to move if he had wished to do so, and sat shivering a little as he stared at the form of his former employer on the floor.
“You will get the electric chair, I suppose,” said the Major, “and the man on the floor, who deserves it as much or more than you do, has escaped it.”
Zip quite suddenly and horribly commenced to cry.
“Stop that snivelling,” finally commanded the Major.
“Oh, oh, oh!” cried the prisoner. “I shall not go to the electric chair! I shall turn state’s evidence. I shall tell all!”
“You can commence right off then,” said the detective, and turning to Bill, asked, “Where is your brother?”
“Here!” said Frank from the hall, where he too had been a witness to the encounter.
“You know shorthand, don’t you? Take down whatever he says.”
Frank whipped out a notebook and pencil, and Zip, staring at his captor, asked with chattering teeth, “What do you want me to say?”
“Tell all about everything!”
“Then shall I go free?” begged the man.
“I will do all I can for you,” the Major promised. “Go on!”
“We made it here ... the dynamite .. and those infernal machines that went through the mails. They were an invention of Mr. De Lorme’s.” He glanced shudderingly at the dead man. “They were very powerful. One would blow a house up easily. We made them all. The cases were cylinders of brass, and the top was screwed on. They never failed unless they were wet. Water spoiled them. We could never invent a top that could be screwed on easily enough not to send the blast off and that yet was tight enough so water would not enter. Otherwise they were perfect.
“Mr. De Lorme stored the infernal machines and the dynamite in small cases in a cave out at the Camp at Knox. No one would think to look for anything ofthatsort right in the bounds of a military camp. We had friends, members of our Order, who came in and took the stuff out there.
“They are preparing for a great dynamite plot on the thirteenth. All the material out there will be taken away and distributed, and all the public buildings in many cities will be destroyed. But you will let me go, and I will tell you where it is.”
“You needn’t trouble about that,” said the detective. “We know. What did you use that wireless for?”
“We did all our communicating by means of wireless,” said Zip. “We have a network of plants all over the city and throughout the country so we can use one short circuit after another, and communicate from sea to sea.
“It was too dangerous ever to write, and still more so to telephone. No one knew that our wireless was anything more than a lot of boys talking. A great many boys have little wireless plants.”
“What about this boy Marion that De Lorme has been calling his son? And what about his blindness?”
“The blindness was his safeguard. Everyone who saw him thought him half helpless. It was for that reason that he made Marion make friends all over the neighborhood. The ladies around here sent him jellies and good things, because they like the boy, and are sorry for his father. Not a soul suspected us. I don’t see how you got on.”
The detective smiled, but said nothing. Zip went on.
“About Marion; he is Mr. De Lorme’s stepson. Mr. De Lorme married Marion’s mother when he was only a baby. She died soon, and the boy has been a care and a drag, and yet a great safeguard. We have travelled widely, and everywhere the boy has made friends, and people have pitied him because of his half blind father and his apparent loneliness. The boy was never abused, although Mr. De Lorme hated him. And he was getting beyond us. He did not tell what his pursuits were, or where he spent his time. Then all at once he heard the hidden wireless in my room, and answered it. And Mr. De Lorme put him up in the attic, and told me to get rid of him.”
“How?” asked the detective, his steely eyes hypnotizing the man into the truth.
“He ordered me to kill him,” said Zip. “I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t harm anyone.”
“Why, you fool!” exclaimed the Major. “Wouldn’t harm anyone? What do you think happened when your infernal machines exploded in San Francisco, in Detroit, in Newark, and Syracuse and New York?”
“That is different,” said Zip. “That is part of our creed. It must be for the good of humanity.”
“Of course!” said the Captain bitterly. “Well, go on! Did you finally accept the boy as part of your creed, and kill him?”
“No,” said Zip. “He escaped. A fellow up the street here saw him going into the L. & N. Station. I suppose he found out the address of a relative in the Blue Grass country and has gone down there.”
“If he is not up in an airplane headed for Louisville,” said the Major, “he is now sitting on or near a pile of dynamite in a cave out at Camp Knox.”
Zip paled. “So he—why—how—” he said and stuttering, stopped.
“What about the plot for the thirteenth?” the detective demanded.
Zip turned sullen. “I have said enough,” he muttered.
“Enough to electrocute you all right,” the detective agreed. “But not enough to save your life.”
It galvanized the man into speech. “I will tell you!” he babbled. “Be sure to put it all down!
“We have been preparing for a great stand here in America. The time is ripe for the overthrow of the Government and all in power. Sixty thousand anarchists have come to this conclusion.”
“Do tell!” murmured the detective.
“These men and women, devoted to their Cause, are stationed all over the United States, and from several stations like ours explosives are to be distributed. Then, at a busy hour, eleven A.M. on the thirteenth, as though struck by a single blow, these bombs and delicate infernal machines will explode.”
“AuntMerriar!” whispered Frank as his pencil flew over the paper. “I would like to see about sixty thousand electrocutions done Dutch.”
The Captain looked at him questioningly. He did not understand; but Zip was speaking.
“Mr. De Lorme was the greatest chemist of them all; and aside from the fact that we could never manage to make the infernal machines waterproof, he invented a number of ingenious and deadly toys. They were all to be used on the thirteenth. He used to send prescriptions all over; formulas for the lesser men to pattern after.”
“I want the names of all these men, their workshops, and also a list of as many anarchists as you have,” said the Major.
“Not that,” Zip said. “I can’t be a traitor!”
“You’re one already!” and the detective shoved his revolver hard into Zip’s meager stomach.
“Take that away!” he gasped. “Let me say what you want, and for mercy’s sake get me a doctor! My arm is killing me. The lists, complete to date, with names of the inner circles, and the addresses of the men who were to handle and distribute the bombs, are on a typewritten memorandum under the marble top of the stand in my room.”
The detective turned. “Go up and see if he is telling the truth, Bill,” he ordered.
Keeping as far away from the dead man on the floor as he could, Bill left the room and hurried up the stairs. There was only one room with a marble top table and, lifting the slab, Bill found several typewritten sheets fastened together. These he carried to the detective, who glanced at them, placed them carefully in his pocket and asked, “Is there a telephone here in the house?”
“No,” said Zip.
“You know the people next door,” said the detective, smiling meaningly at Bill. “Perhaps the young lady will allow you to call up the police station. Tell them S. S. Detective Harris wants a patrol and six officers sent here. And the ambulance. Say there is a dead man here.”
Elizabeth still sat on the porch rocking. She rose when Bill came leaping up the steps.
“What is going on, Bill?” she demanded. “I heard a pistol. What has happened?”
“Lots of things!” said Bill, tantalizingly. And then he added hastily, if importantly, “Tell you all about it soon as I can! A Government affair we are mixed up in. Let me use your telephone, will you?”
While he was getting central, Elizabeth murmured, “Government affair indeed! Well, I reckon you will tell all about it, Bill Wolfe!”
The ambulance arrived first, and the dead man, decently covered and laid on a stretcher, was carried through the crowd that had assembled about the door and hurried away.
Then the patrol thundered up, and Zip, still shackled, was carried out and placed in it. Stationing a policeman at the front and another at the back of the house and calling, “See you later!” to Bill, the detectives and Frank got into the patrol and went rattling down the street.
Bill heard a voice; a determined, quiet voice at his elbow. “Now, Bill Wolfe, what is it all about?” said Elizabeth.
The night passed quickly to the tired trio in the cave.
Eddie was the first to wake. He rose, stretched himself, and went to peer out of the cave mouth. He did not like to go out until Ernest gave the word. Ernest and Dee slept on and on, and Eddie fumed, not liking to disturb them. At last the pangs of hunger so beset him that he shook Dee and then Ernest into wakefulness. Just as he succeeded in persuading that last named person to open both eyes at the same time and sit up the two Secret Service men appeared. They had been thoughtful enough to bring some breakfast for all hands, and as they themselves had driven from Louisville without stopping to eat, they sat down in a circle near the mound of shale and consumed innumerable sandwiches and hot coffee from the thermos bottles.
Breakfast over, the detectives carefully scooped the shale away from the canvas cases containing the explosives. Lifting one of them, with the greatest gentleness and care they opened it. Inside, wrapped in rolls of cotton, were rows of little brass cylinders.
The sight of them seemed to excite Eddie. He started, stared and pointing a shaking finger at them, managed to ask in a dry whisper:
“What are those?”
“Infernal machines!” said one of the detectives.
“What?” cried Eddie, still pointing.
“Sure!” said the detective. “The worst ever! Give that a tap and see where we would be. Angels, every one of us!”
“Don’t joke!” cried Eddie, such agony in his voice that they all looked at him in surprise.
“I am not joking, kid! It is true! What did you think they were??”
For reply, Eddie turned to Ernest and shook him violently by the arm.
“Take me home, Ern: take me home! Come on, I got to go right now! Oh, don’t, don’t wait!” he begged.
“What ails you? They won’t go off if we are careful,” said Ernest.
“Oh, it’s not that! I have one of those things in my Sunday pants! They are hanging up where Jack can get at them if he takes a notion. He is always going through my pockets to find pennies. Oh, come on! I will tell you as we go!”
“All right,” said Ernest. “Keep cool, youngster! They are all asleep at this hour, and you know Jack is always the last one up.”
“Well,Iwould like to know about this,” said the detective.
“I will tell you all I know in a word,” said Eddie, putting on his coat. “Fat Bascom had it, and he brought it to Sunday School and I gave him a nickel. I meant to pry the top off, because it wouldn’t unscrew, and I was going to keep pen and pencils in it. It looked sort of pretty and funny with those pointed ends like a torpedo. But I was busy and left it in the pocket of my Sunday pants, and it is where Jack can get it. And if he hasn’t been through ’em by this time, he will do it any minute. Oh, come on, Ern!”
“Better go,” said the detective soberly.
They rushed for the Aviation Field, rolled the plane out of its hangar, and were off.
The engine was not working right, and Ernest was obliged to coax it along. Eddie, with a set and anguished face, stared ahead as though he could pull the city towards them. It took them twenty-five minutes to reach the landing field at Camp Taylor. Then Eddie, leaping from the plane, dashed for the road. He threw himself at the first automobile with such earnestness that they stopped for him. He rode down silently, and when the car turned into Third Street, where Eddie could look across the Park and see his home, his courage failed him and for a fearful moment he closed his eyes, unable to look at the wreck he felt sure was there. But when he forced his eyes to scan the familiar scene, he found the scheme of things entire. The house, his dear home, stood intact.
He leaped from the automobile, and with a fervent “Thank you!” raced over the tennis courts, pushed through the bushes surrounding the Park and leaping across the narrow pavement, burst open the door.
He could hear his mother in her room, and his father was in the bath-room shaving. Eddie ran up the stairs three at a time, and bolted into his own room. There in his own small bed, young Jack slumbered peacefully. What a darling he was! Eddie’s heart filled with manly tenderness and love for the small brother, and with a racking sigh of relief he went over to the clothespress and felt carefully in his pocket.
The cylinder was gone!
Eddie staggered back and with hands that commenced to shake pawed his clothes over, looked on the floor among his shoes, and went through the bureau. Then without knocking, without a salutation, he burst into his mother’s room.
She was a pretty woman, dark and sparkling, and her black eyes grew round and astonished as Eddie breezed in with a wild cry of: “Where is it? Did you take that brass thing out of my pocket? Where is it? Where is it?”
“Good gracious, Eddie, what a fuss! I don’t like you to burst in like this. It is rude,” she said, beginning to coil her long, wavy hair.
“Where is it, Mother? That round brass thing that was in my pocket?”
“Why, I took it,” said Mrs. Rowland. “Why not? It was sticking in your pocket. I saw it when I brushed your clothes, and it was just what I wanted to mend your father’s glove over. Its round end just fitted the thumb.”
“Where is it now?” cried Eddie.
“I left it in my work basket,” said Mrs. Rowland. “If it is not there now, I don’t know where it is.”
Eddie seized the basket and carefully dumped its contents on the bed.
“What’s the excitement?” said Mr. Rowland, coming in. “Eddie lost something? No use being so noisy, Ed, no matterwhatyou have lost.”
Eddie had been trying to get the infernal machine back without frightening the family, but now he was stung into an explanation. He talked as he felt through the socks, underwear, embroidery and uncut materials that filled his mother’s basket.
“Well, it is an infernal machine, if you want to know!” he said with a sob in his voice. “And it isn’t here!”
“Infernal machine! Infernaljoke!” said Mr. Rowland, scolding. “Talk sense, Eddie!”
“That’s just what itis,” said Eddie. “Some detectives and us just found a whole case of them in a cave. They are the most powerful machines that have ever been made. Oh,wheredo you suppose that is?”
“What were you doing with it in your pocket if it is an infernal machine?” demanded Mrs. Rowland, looking through the pile of things on the bed.
“I traded for it in Sunday School last Sunday. Gave Fat Bascom a nickel for it. I meant to pry off the top and use it for pencils and pens.”
“I suppose Jack has it,” said Mr. Rowland, forgetting the line of lather still decorating his dark jaw. He went to Jack, and woke him up. Jack objected, and was only made to sit up and talk by many promises of ice-cream cones.
“Ess, me toot it! Ittle tin fing. Wanted it to teep marbles in, and me touldn’t det de end off. And me was doin to hit it wif a tone, and toot it out-doors.”
“Going to hit it with a stone!” groaned Eddie, shivering. “Well, you didn’t anyhow, Jack, so where is it now?”
Jack dimpled and shrugged his shoulders.
“Done! All done!” he said.
“Gone where?” coaxed Eddie, but Jack, feeling that his information had already brought in huge promises of reward, shrugged and dimpled again, and was silent.
“Gone where?” begged Eddie. “Tell you what, Jack, if you show me where you put that funny thing, I will buy you an ice-cream cone every day for a week!”
At this glorious prospect Jack burst into tears.
“I tay it’s DONE!” he repeated. “Fatty Bastum buyed it for a penny.”
“Fatty Bascom bought it back!” cried Eddie. “I suppose he thought that was a joke on me. My soul, dad, what will we donow?”
For answer, Mr. Rowland ran down to the telephone and sent in a frantic call for Fatty Bascom’s house, only to find the telephone “temporarily discontinued.” Mr. Rowland did not wait for his necktie. He turned up the collar of his coat, cried, “Come along, Ed!” and opened the garage where his powerful car waited.
Fatty had once, long ago, been a Confederate Place boy, but had moved into the Highlands. Driving as fast as he could, Mr. Rowland crossed the city and approached the Bascom place. Once more Eddie looked to see a pile of racked and shattered timbers where a house had been.
The house was there, but no Fatty, although Eddie whistled and called as they drove up.
Mrs. Bascom herself came to her door. She was scarcely taller than Eddie, but smoothly fat as a little butter ball.
“Why, Mr. Rowland, how are you?” she exclaimed, shaking hands and dragging them into the house. “And Eddie too! Come right out to the dining-room. Mr. Bascom is just getting a taste of breakfast. I declare that man doesn’t eat more than a sparrow! And early as this, I know you have come off without your breakfast. Come right out and join. There’s plenty, always! I tell Bascom you never know when a friend or neighbor will drop in, and I always believe in being on the right side.”
Mr. Rowland plunged into the monologue.
“We can’t stay, Mrs. Bascom. We are just on an errand,” but she interrupted as she threw open the dining-room door and pushed them in.
“Simply nonsense! As if you can’t eat and talk at the same time! Bascom, here’s somebody you will be glad to see.” She drew up a couple of chairs and firmly sat her unwilling guests down as soon as they had greeted Mr. Bascom. After shaking hands, that gentleman sat down and picked up his fork.
“Mighty glad to have you come in,” said Mr. Bascom, cutting large slices of beefsteak for each one, and piling delicate fried potatoes beside them. “Seeing someone takes my mind off myself. Wife thinks I don’t eat the way I should; don’t seem to relish things right.” He took a large spoonful of orange marmalade, and poured thick cream in his cup of coffee.
“No, I don’t relish the way I used to. Try those muffins, Rowland. Take two! There’s only about ten bites in each one. I tell Mrs. Bascom she don’t make them as thick as she used to.”
“Where—” commenced Eddie, but Mrs. Bascom interrupted. “You are an early riser, Eddie, I will say! I do wish I could get Henry up like this. I declare, it is all I can do to drag that boy out of bed. He would sleep till noon if he could. And I do wish school hours could be changed. I say when a child needs his sleep, the way Henry does, he ought to have time to take it. Nothing like good food and rest for children, Mr. Rowland?”
“Yes, and they can sure sleep and eat, these youngsters,” said Mr. Bascom, helping himself to more fried potatoes.
“Well, they ought to,” said Mrs. Bascom, pouring quantities of thick maple syrup over a muffin which she had loaded with butter for Eddie. “Think how they have got to grow! No coffee, Eddie? Well, just you drink some milk.”
“Can’t I go up and wake Fa—Henry up?” asked Eddie, finally stemming the conversational torrent.
“Why, hon, he isn’t here,” said Mrs. Bascom. “He has gone to Cincinnati to see a cousin. He’ll be back in a day or two. I thought, and so did papa, that he looked run down; sort of peaked, and we thought the change would do him good. My sister sets a real good table. Not plain like ours, but things that would sort of tempt him.”
“Well—er, he has a sort of pencil case of mine,” said Eddie, “and I have got to have it.”
“A little brass thing, with sort of pointed ends?” asked Mrs. Bascom, reaching for the muffin plate. “Let me get some hot ones, Mr. Rowland.”
“Yes, that is it,” said Eddie, cheering up. “Perhaps it is up in his bureau. I will look while you get the muffins, Mrs. Bascom.”
“Not a bit of good to look, sweetness!” said Mrs. Bascom, patting him on the back. “Not a bit! I helped Henry pack, and he put it in his suitcase. I remember he said he didn’t want to scratch it, because he was going to make something or other of it, and his cousin has a regular workroom, with a vise and carpenter’s bench and all.”
Mr. Rowland shook his head. Eddie instantly lost his appetite. Mr. Rowland somehow got them away without more beefsteak and things, and when they were in the car, said: “No use making them worry. We will telephone Fat at his cousin’s.”
“We can’t,” wailed Eddie. “They have just moved into a new house, and there is no telephone connection yet. Fatty told me the other day. I know! Take me up to the camp, and I will get Ernest to fly over to Cincinnati. We are not needed here. Oh, gosh, I suppose there isn’t any Fatty by now! Somebody is going to swat or drop that cylinder, and that’s going to be the end of them! Here’s Ernest now,” he added as they swung round by the Aviation Field.
Rapidly he explained to Ernest, and before he had finished, the car was in place, and Ernest was at the wheel. Waving a good-bye, and calling “Explain to mother,” Eddie settled down and drew on his goggles.
Ernest’s plane had never made a prettier flight. Everything looked clear as crystal in the light of morning, and the occasional clouds through which they sailed were fleecy and thin.
Eddie enjoyed the trip in a subdued way. He had been through so many shocks since awaking and had had so many hairbreadth escapes that he put Fatty and his fate out of his mind. It would do no good to worry. His one deep hope was that Fatty, who had taken a late train, was not yet up.
On the other hand, Eddie knew that if Fatty was up, he was certainly tinkering with his cousin’s tools, and if he was, why, bythistime there was no Fatty. And worrying could not help it. It could not drive the splendid little plane a breath faster. When at the end of the second hour of smooth flight Eddie saw the city of Cincinnati lying far ahead, his thoughts returned to Fatty. If Fatty had sold that to anyone else, Eddie knew that by the time they found it out, the last owner would be well on his way to Europe or South America. And Eddie, who was tired out, vowed that after that it was up to Fatty to reclaim the dangerous tube. But all seemed to hinge on Fatty being still in bed.
Reaching the city, they descended at the Landing Field, and grabbed the first taxi. After a long ride they reached the house they were seeking. And it was all there!
“Gosh, I hate to go in!” said Ernest. “Fatty may drop that thing any second.”
“Where are the boys?” Eddie asked the maid who answered the doorbell. “We want to see Henry Bascom.”
“I don’t believe he is up,” said the girl. “He came very late last night and Mrs. Harding said the boys were to sleep as long as they wished. I think you might go right up if you are friends of theirs,” she added.
“Thank you!” said Ernest.
Quietly they went up the stairs, quietly they opened the door indicated by the maid. And there, safe and sound, looking like a young human balloon in pink pajamas, was Fatty, sound asleep.
“My, my! Gaze on that!” said Ernest. “Looks like a baby dirigible, doesn’t he?”
The other boy heard, and sat up.
“Morning, Harvey!”
“Hello, you fellows,” said Harvey Harding joyfully. “I wish you could tell me some way of making this chap wake up.”
“Tickle his feet,” suggested Eddie cruelly.
“I did,” said Harvey. “Tickled him everywhere. He’s so fat he don’t feel it.”
“I will fix him,” said Eddie. He went to Fatty’s side and in a deep, gruff voice exploded, “Class in algebra, stand!”
Fatty sat up so quickly that he nearly bowled Eddie over. Everyone laughed, and Eddie retreated to the window seat where he rolled around in glee.
Then he said soberly, “Say, Fat, you know that pencil case sort of thing you sold me in Sunday School?”
“Sure!” said Fatty. “I bought it back all square and fair from your brother Jack. Paid him money for it! Why?”
“I want it and want it quick!” said Eddie.
“It’s mine, all right,” said Fatty, sniffling and reaching over to get a handkerchief. The suit case was beside his bed.
“That’s all right! I want it!”
“All right,” said Fatty, still fumbling. “I want it myself. I was going to fix it for a pencil case, but if you want it so bad as all that, why, take it!”
Without warning, he sat up, the cylinder in his hand, and threw it across the room toward Eddie.
Eddie says he didn’t know how he managed to do it, but he reached out his left hand, and caught the cylinder.
“Sweet heavenly day!” said Ernest weakly, and flopped back in his chair. Eddie found himself near tears.
“You do that again and I will knock the stuffin’ out of you!” he said to Fatty. The hand that held the infernal machine shook.
“What ails everybody?” cried Fatty.
“I will tell you what ails us,” said Eddie savagely, “but I want to know where you got this. Where did you find it, or who gave it to you? Come on! Ern and I have come all the way in his plane to get this. Now you get busy and explain!”
Fatty looked sheepish.
“Well, I didn’t tell where I got it because I didn’t want to be guyed. Remember that day we went out to Camp Knox? Well, when you were all rushing down the hill road after seeing the caves, I thought it would be a good joke on you to sneak back and eat my own lunch.”