CHAPTER XV

“Sneak is the word all right,” said Eddie.

“Well, I had a right to, didn’t I?”

“Of course you had! Go on!” said Ernest.

“Course! Well, I came to a narrow split in the rock, and I squeezed in and had my lunch, and there was a little box there, a flat box, and that thing you are so dippy about was lying in the dirt beside it. So I took it. And what of it, hey?”

“That’s what we are going to tell you right now,” said Eddie. “This is an infernal machine. One of the worst ever! And we have been chasing it all over the map. It ’most fell off the preacher’s desk in Sunday School, and mom darned dad’s glove over it, and Jack had it, and now you go skyshooting all over with it. What do you say to that?”

“I say it isn’t even funny,” said Fatty. “That’s as much an infernal machine asIam.”

“But itis!” Eddie declared stubbornly. “I saw a big case of them just like this, just this morning. You might have blown up the whole block!”

“But it’s not an infernal machine,” repeated Fatty.

“Oh, give up; it is, all right!” said Ernest.

“Well, then so am I!” sighed Fatty, leaning back on his pillows. “There is a rubber eraser and two pencils in it, and I don’t believe they will explode. Now I will tell you about how I got it back, and then you can look in and see for yourself.

“I went over by the pond, and Jack was lying on his face and he had this in his hand. He was snivelling, and I asked him what ailed him. He said he had a 'funny sing’ he had found in mother’s basket, and he thought he would wash it off. Well, it slipped out of his hand, and out of sight in the water. His arm was too short to reach it, and by-and-by, Jack said, a fellow came along and felt down for him and got it, but the cover had come off, and that was what ailed him when I arrived. So I felt around in the water, and found the end cap thing, and gave Jack a penny, and brought it home. And that’s all there is to your old infernal machine!”

Eddie went limp, and Ernest shook his head.

“Say, Ern, wouldn’t that take the spots off a cat? Such luck! Did you ever hear anything like it? Well, Fat, I would trust you anywhere to get out with a whole skin. But just think of Sunday School, and mother, and Jack. Wow!”

“And me,” said Fatty, “carrying it around all that day at Camp! What if I fell? I might have!”

“Sure you might!” Ernest agreed. “'And great would be the fall thereof,’ as some eminent author has said.”

“And it might have exploded!” said Fatty in a hushed voice.

“Wouldhave exploded; notmighthave,” corrected Ernest.

“And Jack did the only, the one thing that could make it harmless—dropped it in the water,” said Eddie. “Well, I never was so thankful in my life!”

“I want my eraser and pencils back,” declared Fatty. “Give ’em over!”

“Let me see it, Ed,” said Ernest, taking it with a good deal of respect. He examined the top, gave it a slight twist, and the end came off in his hand.

Sure enough, there were two pencils and Fatty’s cherished eraser.

“Well, I declare!” exclaimed Ernest.

“I want to get somewhere there is a telephone,” said Eddie, “and put dad out of his misery. He will worry for fear we are all blown up.”

“What’s the use?” said Ernest. “We can start back soon, and it will only take two hours, you know.”

“I want to telephone now,” said Eddie. “You don’t know dad!”

“All right,” said Ernest. He got up. “So long, my merry, merry little friends!”

“Where you goin’ then?” demanded Fatty, hoisting his striped pinkness out of bed.

“Back to Louisville,” replied Ernest. “I want to see what is going on over there. This life-saving trip made us lose a lot of fun and excitement.”

“Why can’t I go too?” said Fatty. “I never had a ride in a plane. There is room for three, isn’t there?”

Eddie groaned. “Have a heart, boy!” said he. “You and I will have to sit in one seat.”

“I won’t mind,” said Fatty generously. “Idon’t mind being a little crowded.”

“Of course not!” said Eddie ruefully. “You never get crowded! It is the other fellow who comes out looking like a cancelled stamp. But you can tag along if Ern don’t mind.”

“Of course he can go as far as I care,” said Ernest.

“That’s good,” said Fatty. “That will save my carfare.”

“Were you ever up before?” asked Ernest.

“Never!” said Fatty, “but I won’t be afraid. I have seen a lot of close-ups of airplanes in the movies, and they are just as steady as rocks. I always thought I would like to be an aviator.”

“Well, you will love it more than ever after you have flown back to Louisville,” promised Ernest. There was something so longing and wistful in his voice that Eddie looked sharply up, but Ernest’s face was calm and guileless.

They arranged to have Fatty meet them in an hour at the Landing Field, and said good-bye.

“Are you ever afraid in the air?” asked Ernest as they walked down the street.

“Never,” said Eddie truthfully. “Why?”

“Because,” said Ernest, scanning the sky, “I am not sure that the trip home won’t be rather a rough one.”

Eddie looked at him and laughed.

“Oh,that’sit then,” he said.

Fatty arrived nearly on time, evidently delighted. His pockets bulged as usual.

“I thought we might be hungry,” he said, “so I bought some chocolate. Here’s a cake for you fellows. On me,” he added.

“I don’t like to take your chocolate,” said Ernest, drawing back.

“That’s all right,” said Fatty, “I have a lot more.”

“It looks a little windy up there,” said Ernest, squinting at the sky. “I will put extra straps on both you boys.”

“Don’t strap us together,” said Fatty. “I wouldn’t want Rowland to drag me with him if he should get dizzy and fall out.”

“That’s what I would do, of course,” said Eddie. “But you are so fat and full of wind that you would be a regular parachute.”

“We won’t take chances,” laughed Ernest. “You will each be strapped to the car, and you take your chances with her.”

Fatty stepped jauntily in and Ernest adjusted the heavy harness. Then Eddie wedged himself into the small corner of the seat that was not full of Fatty. He too was strapped in, and when Ernest settled down on the pilot’s seat, a couple of attendants raced the plane along the field until it soared smoothly upward.

Fatty’s face was full of delight. He sat perfectly quiet, watching buildings drop away and all the land resolve itself into a beautiful map done in colors.

“This,” thought Fatty to himself, “this islife.”

A half hour passed, and without warning the plane commenced to buck. Hop, hop, hop, it went through the air, and the color faded from Fatty’s apple cheeks. Then there was a stretch of smooth going, and Fatty relaxed, but soon the plane was hopping again.

“What makes her do like that?” said Fatty in Eddie’s ear.

“Rough air currents, I suppose,” said Eddie. “Great, isn’t it?”

“I like it better smooth,” said Fatty and added, “You can see the scenery so much better.”

“Yeh, those mountain ranges over there, and the bridge we just crossed.”

“You know what I mean,” said Fatty. “All the clouds and things.”

Higher and higher they flew. Then the plane commenced to tip, first one wing and then the other lifting and dipping, the ailerons clapping as Ernest changed them. Next, nose pointing straight up, Ernest climbed and climbed into the very realm of the sun.

“What makes him do that?” asked Fatty anxiously.

“To get out of the air currents,” explained Eddie.

When they had climbed until Fatty thought they would bump into the Celestial Gates at any moment, the plane gave a strange heave, changed direction and swept downward in a long incline. Fatty was sick. He leaned over the side, and was very sick indeed. And presently he turned his heavy head to Eddie, and said in a hopeless tone, “I want to get out. Tell him I want to walk the rest of the way. I feel very bad. Just ask him to let me out.”

“Outwhere?” demanded Eddie. “Do you want to get out up here? Why, man, we are about a mile up. We can’t landhere!”

Ernest glanced at the boy, and fortunately the bothersome air currents seemed to subside. The plane sailed like a feather, smooth as a swallow. Fatty breathed a sigh of relief.

Just before they were able to make out the distant buildings of Louisville, Ernest asked, “Want me to loop the loop?”

“Oh do!” cried Eddie.

“No,no, no!” yelled Fatty.

“Why, what ails you?” said Eddie.

“It’s dangerous,” said the shaking fat boy. “I don’t want to see him break his machine. He must have paid a lot for it.”

But with a roar from the engine over they went. Once, twice, three times, and then sailed on as though nothing had happened.

When they landed at the Field at Camp Taylor, Ernest said:

“Well, boys, I gave you a special treat. I did some pretty dangerous stunts up there. Once I nearly lost control. But I wanted you to see what flying is like. I knew you would want to know, Fatty, if you think seriously of going in for flying.”

“I did, but I don’t now,” said Fatty.

“I hope I didn’t scare you,” Ernest returned anxiously.

“Not a bit!” said Fatty, shuddering as he looked at the plane. “I don’t think I could ever afford to buy a plane. Besides, I think I would rather be a clerk in a grocery store.”

“I suppose you would get more thrills out of it,” said Ernest.

That night the Wolfes’ Matilda was in her element. Mrs. Wolfe had returned, and as soon as she heard what had been going on, she insisted on inviting the three Secret Service men who had been around with the boys, to come to her house and celebrate, and (perhaps to be sure of hearing everything about the affair that was closing so successfully) she asked Eddie to supper with the rest of the “plotters” as she called them. And because she knew that the participants would want an audience, she asked Frank’s chum Walter Fletcher, who lived next door, to come and help Mr. Wolfe and her with the listening. So Matilda cooked and cooked, and when the hungry guests sat down everybody cheered up after one look at the loaded table. When half-way through, they had reached a state of dangerous appreciation, and with dessert Walter declared that Matilda deserved the distinguished service medal, and Mrs. Wolfe a place in the Hall of Fame.

After dinner they all went out on the screened-in porch and talked and talked, and told the tale over and over.

“Zipousky, or whatever his name is, is a queer pill,” said the Major. “Actually, he would not harm Dee, yet he spent his life making bombs and spreading propaganda. There is enough evidence against him to keep him in prison for the next ninety years.”

“Why, the dub thought that just as soon as we had taken down his declaration, we would drop him at the doctor’s and bid him a fond farewell. He went on like a madman when he found himself at the station, and told me I had lied to him.”

“Where is he now?” asked Mrs. Wolfe.

“At the Infirmary at the jail. Under guard, too. We don’t want anything to happen to him. He is too valuable a witness. I think he would kill himself if he found a chance, but two men are watching him night and day.

“We sent the other Secret Service men back to headquarters, with copies of the lists, and couriers are being dispatched in airplanes to all cities noted. It will be a great scoop.”

“Did you have a scrap when you arrested the three men and the woman at the Seelbach?” asked Walter.

“Only one man tried to put up a fight,” said the detective. “The big one who drove the car out to Knox. We went up to the room and knocked. The lady in the case called, 'Come,’ and we two went in. We simply grabbed her before she could do anything, and put the bracelets on her. My, but she was mad! She never said a word, but if looks could kill we would all have been dead. She was alone, and we shut the door and waited, after warning her to keep still.

“Presently someone came down the hall. The carpet is so thick that you could not hear footsteps, but we heard the key-check jangle. And the woman started to let out a yell. We beat her to it, and gagged her. Then we waited awhile longer, first moving her chair around where it could not be seen from the door.

“After awhile someone came to the door and came in. It was the thin man, and we stacked him up beside the lady. All at once I noticed her little foot tapping the floor, and there she was sending messages right under our noses. Then I put the anklets on her and, to make sure, placed a cushion under her feet. It wasn’t long before the other two whom we expected came along. We were ready for them with revolvers, but the big one wanted to fight the worst way.

“The management didn’t want us to take a bunch of prisoners out the front, so we had to take them down the freight elevator. It seems they have been splurging round the hotel for six weeks, the woman wearing wonderful clothes, and the men posing as oil men from the west.”

“Where are they now?” asked someone.

“Safe in a nice tight cell, each of them,” said the detective, smiling. “And far enough apart so they can’t tap out any messages to each other. We went through their luggage, of course, and found all sorts of things. Sulphuric acid, and caps and fuses, and what not, and you should have seen the diamonds the woman had! All sorts of pins and bracelets in boxes in her trunk and a chamois bag fastened in her dress with ten or twelve rings, all worth at least five hundred dollars apiece. I suppose she was afraid of going broke somewhere. You can always get cash out of perfect stones. Either that, or else she was going to make a getaway to South America or Mexico after the thirteenth.”

“It is pretty tough for you, youngster,” said the detective, laying a sympathetic hand on Dee’s shoulder, “pretty tough to have this happen to the man you have always thought was your own father.”

“I don’t know,” said Dee. “I am glad you mentioned it. There has always been something funny about that. I have never liked him. I hated it when he leaned on my arm when we walked around the Park. I always distrusted him, and yet I didn’t. He walked feebly and leaned on me hard, but his touch felt strong.

“I used to hate myself for feeling the way I did, because of course I thought he was my own father. And I was sort of afraid of him. I suppose that sounds as though I was an awful coward, but it was so. He used to look at me so hard through those dark glasses, and lots of times I have waked up in the night and have found him standing by my bed staring at me.”

“He probably wanted to see how sound a sleeper you were,” said Frank. “Suppose he had croaked you?”

“Frank, dear!” said Mrs. Wolfe in shocked tones. “Where do you pick up such awful slang? You should think of Willie.”

“I know some worse than that,” crowed Bill. “Want to hear it, mom?”

“Certainly not!” said Mrs. Wolfe.

“Well, what are you going to do, Dee?” asked Mr. Wolfe.

“I don’t know, sir,” said Dee. “I have an Aunt down in the Blue Grass but of course I don’t know whether she wants me or not, and I feel sort of queer about going down to see her before she knows about me. It would make her feel as though she had to take me in.”

“I will tell you what to do, if you will let me,” said Mrs. Wolfe. “Come here and stay with Bill through this term of High School. That is my first plan for you. The second is this:

“Next Saturday we will go down to your Aunt’s, you and I, and we will see what she is like, and have a talk with her, and then you can decide what you would like to do.”

“Andmyplan is this,” said Frank, breaking in. “I will take you down in the flivver, and as Fatty would say, that will save your carfare.”

“Very well, we will let you,” said Mrs. Wolfe, and Frank laughed.

“That’s the way she acts when I spend my good gasoline on her: says 'We will let you.’ Isn’t that enough to make a man drink seventeen chocolate ice-cream sodas in succession? Mom, you are an inweiglin’ wampire!”

“And you are a perfect silly!” smiled his mother. “Now, Dee, what do you think of that for a plan?”

“Just the thing,” said Dee. “But I can’t go on the way I have been going. I am not sure I can go to school any more.”

“Why, why not?” demanded Bill.

“I will have to go to work,” answered Dee stoutly. “I can’t go and live on my Aunt and I can’t come here and not pay board, and I have no money at all.”

“Don’t let that worry you,” said the detective. “Your stepfather had plenty of money. He had accounts in three or four banks here, an account in Rochester, New York, and three more in Chicago. And he owns the house you are living in.”

“That was in the market when De Lorme bought it for twenty-two thousand dollars,” said Mr. Wolfe.

“I can’t take his money,” said Dee. “It is not clean.”

“Now, look here, my boy,” said the practical detective. “Let me tell you where that money came from. It was not wrung from the poor and needy. It came mostly as free offerings at the meetings he used to address, and the fees of the Order. If you are able to take the money from a lot of unbalanced half-cracked lunatics, and educate yourself so that you will be a help instead of a hindrance to this country of ours, you go ahead and do it! The money really belonged to De Lorme, and we found a will to-day giving all that he had to you. I think that will was just another blind. I don’t believe he ever in the world meant to use it, but it was a good way of proving how much he thought of you. Especially if you should disappear some fine day.

“Oh, he was smooth. Think how many years he went scot free. But he never meant to be taken. He had that poison right with him on his watch chain, all the time. You take the money with a clean conscience. If you don’t some anarchist will come prancing along and claim it. We will get that will probated before you can say Jack Robinson. Of course you will take the money.”

“Most certainly he will take it,” said Frank. “He will take it, or—or—I will take it myself.”

“Well, of course if you think it is all right,” said Dee. “Idowant to go to school and fit myself for something of the right sort.”

It was settled so, and that very night Dee came to Bill’s to stay.

The club room became a place of beauty and comfort. When the furniture from the De Lorme house was being packed for the auction room downtown, the Wireless Club went through the house from cellar to attic and selected rugs and furniture for the club room.

Dee showed them the laboratory, with all its delicate utensils and tools. And in a drawer they found a number of empty infernal machine cases. Dee gave one to each boy as a keepsake. He did not know what to do with his mother’s little trunk until Mrs. Wolfe suggested taking it down to the country. Dee showed her the letters he had found and she shed tears of sympathy over them.

Old Anna remained in the empty house, refusing to leave until the very day that the furniture was taken out. Then she appeared with a huge suit case, and said briefly, “I go.”

“Go where?” Dee demanded.

“Home,” said Anna. “I have no place here now, and I go. I am like Mr. De Lorme. I too believe in down with everything, but there is no place for that here. Americans, they growl and they sneer, but always they sing, 'My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty,’ and what can you do? They are all satisfied down in their hearts. Only the dwellers in far lands who come here are anarchists. Across the water, when an anarchist shows himself much, off goes his head! He is dead! Over here, they laugh; they say, 'Let him rave, he enjoys it, let him go on.’ It is only when they arrange for a day like the thirteenth like rattlebrains, why then America says, 'Bad child, don’t you do that or else I send you home.’”

“You must have some money anyway,” said Dee.

The old woman shook her head. “Anna has plenty.” She fumbled in her dress and pulled out a sack containing many bills of large denominations.

“There is much money,” said old Anna. “And I will go home and live like a lady. I shall not give it up to someone who has not earned it. Bah! Down with everything if you please, but Anna keeps her money.”

She turned and walked away, then as she left the room, she turned and said: “Most of the money Mr. De Lorme had belonged to your mother. Old Anna knows. Get it quick before the courts get it, and carry it about with you. That’s the only way.”

Without a good-bye, she went through the door and was gone, leaving Dee with a light heart. So the money came from his mother! Of course it was his.

He found the Aunt down in the beautiful Blue Grass country all that a lonely boy would wish. She was altogether lovely, altogether loving and he returned to Louisville for school with the feeling that at last he had people of his own and a home to go to when he was not studying. Letters came from her every week, and he found himself looking forward to Monday as his letter-day.

One day a month or so later, the Wireless Club was holding a meeting to decide whether any new members should be admitted and the club enlarged. As they were in the most heated part of the discussion, Frank and Ernest came in.

“Aha, we are all here,” said Ernest. He looked at Fatty. “Even little sunbeam over there. My word, Henry Bascom, you are certainly growing thin.”

Fatty took on a look of cheer.

“That’s what,” he said. “Glad you noticed it. Everybody does! I lost three ounces last week.”

“Break it gently, gently to me,” said Ernest. “Well, you are going down hill fast, I should say. Do you diet?”

“Yes,” said Fatty. “That’s the way I am doing it. It’s hard, but it works.”

“Let’s hear how you do it,” said Ernest.

“Well,” said Fatty, “I only eat eight pancakes every morning, and one glass of milk, and next week I am going to cut down on cereals. Only take one bowlful, you know. Cream is awfully fattening.”

“You are going to make it, sure as shooting,” said Ernest delightedly. “Gee, I am proud of you! But you want to go slow. Don’t let this diet stuff run away with you. I knew a fellow once—”

“Did he die?” asked Fatty suspiciously.

Ernest looked grieved.

“Die? No!” he said. “It was this way. He was a young chap, and fat.My, he was certainly well padded! Well, he wanted to go in for football, and he was afraid to play the way he was, because once he tried it and someone took him for the pigskin and kicked him clear off the gridiron. So he started in just as you are, cutting out part of his pancakes, then cereals, then bread and butter, and only ate a square inch of meat and so on, the way the books said to do. I forgot to say that he was doing this by the correspondence school method. After awhile he commenced to lose, and he lost and he lost, and he went down from two hundred pounds to one-eighty, and then to one-fifty and next he tipped the beam at one-ten. So it went on. He commenced eating more cakes and things, but he couldn’t stop. Poor chap, I’ll never forget the last time I saw him!” Ernest paused.

“Where was he?” asked Frank, who never failed to come across with the right question.

“Living skeleton in a side show,” groaned Ernest.

“Awful!” said Frank, and the boys roared.

“What do you do with yourself now there are no more dynamiters to lay low?” asked Ernest.

“I wish there were,” said Eddie Rowland. “Those were the good old days! I’d like ’em back. There is one thing certain. The wireless was a wonder and we did some pretty smooth spy work, but the best detective work of all was done high in the air. That’s always an aviator’s luck.”

THE END.

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