CHAPTER X.SIGNS OF TROUBLE.
“I just knew how it would be!” said Andy, as he came in an hour later, after having eaten his dinner at the house.
Frank, who was still pottering around the aeroplane, though careful about having the lamp anywhere close to the gasolene tank attached to it, looked up.
“What’s ailing you now?” he demanded. “Got a line on that disappearing monkey wrench yet?”
“Shucks! I only wish I had,” replied his cousin. “But I was referring to what Larry told us about those bold, bad men, who cleaned out poor Leffingwell. You know he said they must be hanging around somewhere not many miles from Bloomsbury, and that the police were hunting everywhere for traces of their hangout?”
“Why, yes, I believe he did say something like that,” Frank went on. “But what’s that worrying you for? Have you got an idea you know where they’re hiding? If so, why not call police headquarters up on the phone, and let the Chief know? I’m sure he’d thank you, Andy.”
“It wasn’t that at all, you see,” explained the other. “But what Larry said has got on my nerves, just as I expected. I’m seeing things, that’s what!”
“Things that don’t happen to exist, you mean, I reckon?” asked Frank.
“Well, I suppose so. That’s always the way with me when I get anything on my mind. I just imagine I see it everywhere. Now, would you believe it, when I was coming across the field just now in the dark, for the old moon is just peeping up over the trees, I thought I glimpsed a figure that scuttled out of sight.”
“You did, eh?” said the other, eyeing him closely.
“Sure,” replied Andy. “Of course it was an optical delusion, as Professor Jarvey at high school would say, and there wasn’t anything there at all. But it gave me some start all the same. Hope I don’t dream about those desperate chaps tonight. If I wake you up by shouting, you’ll know it’s only a mild attack of nightmare. Just douse me with the contents of that water pail, and I’ll come out of it all right. I always do.”
“I’ll remember,” grinned Frank. “And as the bucket is nearly full just now, make up your mind, my boy, that you’re in for a jolly good swim if I’m compelled to upset it overyou. I’d advise you to go slow about dreaming such things.”
“I will,” remarked Andy. “You give me cold feet already; but that isn’t a circumstance to what a beaut of a chill I’ll get if you douse me tonight.”
“But see here, perhaps youdidsee something?” observed the other, seriously.
“Nope,” said Andy. “The more I think of it the more I’m inclined to believe it was just my imagination that made me think I saw a fellow duck down behind that fence corner.”
“Did you go over to investigate?” continued Frank.
“Nixey. That would have been your way, I know, old fellow; but I don’t happen to be built along the same plan. If it was one of those crooks I didn’t want to meet up with him; and if my brain was only working overtime why, what was the use bothering.”
“You can argue yourself out of any hole, Andy. But I think I’ll just take a little walk out, to see if I can glimpse anything,” and Frank picked up his cap.
“Be careful, Frank,” said the other, a little alarmed. “Just remember Larry said the Chief called them desperate characters. So if you do run up against the precious pair, let ’em have the better part of the road. We’renot looking for any share in that reward, you know.”
“Oh! I’ll take care,” smiled the other, as he passed out.
Left alone, Andy grew nervous. He would go to the door and listen every minute or so; for he had taken the pains to close the means of entrance, and put up the long heavy bar that secured it from the inside.
Finally, unable to stand the suspense any longer he picked up the big monkey wrench.
“I think I’d better step out myself,” he muttered. “Perhaps Frank may run across those scoundrels, and need help. There, was that a call? Did he mean to signal to me then?”
His heart beating wildly, Andy halted just back of the doors. If there came a repetition of the sound he meant to throw them open and rush out, regardless of everything.
Instead there came a faint tapping, just as though some little woodpecker were getting in his work, boring holes in which to hide grains of corn. Andy listened.
“It’s our code,” he whispered, with a sense of relief. “Frank is there, and he wants me to open up. Yep, there it goes again—‘open the door!’ Hello! Frank, is that you, and are you coming in?”
“It’s all right, so open the door, Andy,” came the voice of his chum.
“Did you find anything?” demanded the keeper of the fort, as Frank glided in through the opening.
“No, not exactly,” replied Frank, dropping into a seat.
“But you say that as if you weren’t quite sure,” expostulated his cousin.
“I went over to the place you mentioned. There was certainly nobody there,” continued the late scout, positively.
“Just as I said,” declared Andy, “it was one of my freaks. I’ll just have to put a brake on that imagination of mine. It’ll get me in trouble one of these days.”
“But the grass seemed trampled down, and in one place I found where it looked as if somebody might have been stretched out looking through between the bars of the fence. I struck a match, and picked up this thing.”
Frank held up a partly burned cigarette.
“Which shows,” he went on, “that after all perhaps some onewashiding in that corner, watching the hangar. And when you stopped to look, it alarmed him, so that he scurried off.”
“A cigarette, eh? Well, we know who uses that sort of thing all the time. And his nameis spelled Sandwith Hollingshead, too,” Andy declared emphatically.
“Perhaps,” admitted Frank; and he would not continue the discussion further.
Andy knew from the signs that his chum must be thinking about something connected with this matter; but if so, Frank kept his suspicions to himself. He really had nothing sound on which to base them, and did not wish to alarm Andy unnecessarily. Andy was an explosive sort of fellow, and at times only a spark was needed to set the magazine off.
Both the boys expressed their intention of getting to bed early, being tired, and not having slept any too well on the preceding night.
Frank took to his board pile again, though Andy had fetched out more blankets so that he could stack a lot beneath him to relieve the hardness.
He heard the regular breathing of his cousin close by, long before he could get to sleep himself. The moon had begun to mount quite high, and sent more or less light through the little window. Frank several times raised himself on an elbow, and looked around the dim shop; but nothing seemed amiss.
Finally he must have dropped off, nor could he imagine how long he had slept, when heopened his eyes suddenly. It was no loud bang, as on the preceding night, that aroused him this time. Indeed, he did not believe he could have heard any sound at all, and that it was only some intuition that made him awaken.
He seemed to just be possessed with a conviction that some sort of danger was hovering over them. There was no tangible reason why he should believe this; but the fact seemed to be impressed upon his sub-consciousness as he lay there and listened, almost holding his breath with suspense.
Had there come no sound, doubtless, after lying there for five minutes, Frank must have become sleepy again, and laughing at his fears, turned over on his rude bed to drop off again.
But he did hear something. It sounded like a whisper, too, and positively came from over toward the doors. Frank looked closely, but so far as he could see, they were closed and barred, just as the boys had left them.
There it was again. Could it be Andy murmuring in his sleep? He was sometimes given to talking at such times; but Frank felt sure the sound did not come from the cot at all.
He slipped quietly off his bed. Fortunatelythe night was warm, and not like the preceding one, when they had shivered in their pajamas. So he crept over toward the double doors.
As Frank bent his head close to the rough wood in order to listen he felt the door quiver. It went through him like a shock of electricity that some one was trying to see if the entrance to the hangar was kept locked, since there was nothing in sight outside to indicate the fact.
Could it be Puss Carberry and his shadow, coming back again to attempt further destruction? Frank had another suspicion flash through his brain that gave him more of a shock than this first thought. The two robbers who were said to be in hiding somewhere close by—might they not have conceived the idea of stealing the completed aeroplane of the Bird boys, and in this fashion making an escape, outwitting the officers of justice, who would never dream of a flight through the air?
He listened further. They seemed to be whispering together again, though he was quite unable to catch a single word of what was said. But he fully believed that if his last thought proved to be the truth these desperate men would not give up a cherished schemebecause of such a little obstacle as a barred door.
Then his first duty must be to arouse Andy, and without making any noise, if it could be accomplished. After that they would have to adapt their movements to circumstances.
So Frank cautiously made his way back to the cot where his cousin was peacefully slumbering, possibly dreaming of future triumphs that would fall to the portion of the Bird boys when they became masters of the air.