“Some display for the opening of the roadhouse dance floor,” Curt replied, tightening down the tape and clipping off the end with his pocket knife.
“I don’t mean yonder. I mean here.”
“Oh! A little trouble. Crossed wires.”
The youth did not understand; but he accepted the explanation.
“Ain’t you awful young to be a aviation flyer?” he asked.
“I don’t—I’m not the pilot,” Curt stated. He explained. Then, his task finished, he clambered down to see the glow of the distant, concealed ground flares, and to guess that the sky rider was going to land.
“This is gettin’ to be a regular aviators’ place,” said the youth to Curt. “Guess pa ought to put up signs, ‘Places to land for rent.’”
“Do many crates land here?” Curt was surprised.
“Well—look at them tracks!”
Thus having the spot indicated, even in the dim light Curt was able to see that deep ruts had been made, not only in the soft, ploughed edge of the field, but also on the turf.
“Hm-m-m!” he had no explanation to comment. It was unimportant. Something of greater concern was on his mind.
“See here, buddy,” Curt said, “will you help me ‘warm up’ this ship?” He was searching for two stones or blocks big enough to hold the airplane still while the propeller revolved. “The pilot might want to take off now that I’ve fixed the damage.” The boy agreed. Curt, locating several rocks near where the brown ‘plane had once been hidden, set them under the wheels, and then, realizing that the ship must take off facing into the wind, he got the youth to help him drag the tail around, to pull the whole ship as far up at the end of the turf as possible.
“First time I ever worked around a—er—‘grate’——”
“‘Crate,’” Curt corrected, smiling in the darkness. “That’s a slang way of speaking of an airplane, and it means either a term of fondness, or of disgust, according to how the user feels about his ‘ship.’”
“I see. Gee! Wisht I could be one of them aviator flyers.”
“You can, if you are willing to study enough,” Curt said. “It means hard work. There’s a lot to learn. But a fellow who has ambition can get to be anything he likes.”
“Not without being educated more than me.”
“You can pick up some education while you’re studying in ‘ground school,’” Curt explained. “After you learn the parts of the airplane, the way each one works, what it is for, and so on, and how they are put together, you have to study about airplane engines—the principle of the internal combustion engine and what all the parts are for and how they work. There has to be study of—let’s see—oh, yes!—aerodynamics—how a ship flies, and why, and what different air currents do, and how to know their effects. There’s navigation, too—the beginnings of it, anyway.”
“All that? I thought you got in and pushed something and——”
“If there weren’t so many people who thought that,” Curt said soberly, “we wouldn’t have so many accidents. Flying is a science; and there’s more to it than getting into the air and going somewhere. It takes ground school study to learn the foundation part, and instruction flights to learn how things are handled, and solo flights and stunting to show you how to handle a crate in an emergency—and navigation in its practical applications, for long flights. But if you are in earnest, you can get all that, and pick up practical arithmetic and grammar and so on, in night school at the same time.”
“Not without money!”
“No—unless—you might come over to the Tredway aircraft plant and I’d introduce you to Barney—Mr. Horton, the manager. He might give you a chance to work as a ‘grease monkey’ in the field, for he is awfully nice. He helped all of us.”
The youth agreed eagerly, and then, with the chocks set and the ignition switch off, Curt told him how to work the propeller around, and got him back to safety as the ignition switch followed the gas “on.”
The engine took up its roar, and Curt knew enough to shut down the throttle to idling speed, allowing the slow revolutions to warm up the power plant. He knew little about oil pressure and instrument readings, but he knew that an engine, to function safely and steadily, in flight, must be warm.
While he busied himself getting everything as nearly ready as his ability allowed, Bob and Al reached the roadhouse.
The airplane had already “set down.”
“It’s the brown one, and no mistake!” Al was thrilled.
“Yes,” said Bob. “Now, Al, the pilot must have gone inside the roadhouse. I don’t see him around the dance place. You could go in to ask for his autograph. I see you still carry that little book. It ought to be easy to get a look at him, have him pointed out to you. That’s really all we need.”
Al agreed. He had no difficulty in getting a busy waiter to jerk a thumb toward one of the private compartments.
Al went to its door, pushed aside the curtains—and stepped back.
What he saw stunned him!
Three men faced one another in the small compartment, made to look like a passenger ‘plane cabin.
As Al, at the curtained entrance, recognized the one facing him, all three turned to look.
With a mumbled apology Al backed out.
More than anything else, he wanted to get away, to see Bob!
The man who had faced him was Mr. Parsons, partner in the aircraft plant.
The man to his right was the mysterious stranger whom Al had seen in the supply room!
The third man——
Before Al could form his mental picture of a face that seemed familiar, a bus-boy, with a heavy tray of soiled dishes, bumped against him.
“Get out o’ the way,” the youth grunted, to Al, and gave him an angry push with his free hand. Al, his balance disturbed, stumbled forward—into the arms of Mr. Parsons at the door.
Struggling, squirming to get out of the powerful grip on his arm and shoulder, Al found himself held as if in a vise.
Suddenly his whole body went limp. His head dropped, his eyes closed. He sagged down, and surprised and disconcerted, imagining that the youth he held might have fainted in his fright, the man released him, lowered him to the floor while he looked up, intending to call for aid.
Behind him another face looked out, the bearded face of the man Al had seen previously in the supply room.
“What’s up?” asked the latter.
“I am!” cried Al, shrilly, as he tensed his muscles, swung free of Mr. Parsons as the latter bent over him. Like the leashed spring of a panther Al’s squirming, swift move took him out of danger.
To cries, to shouts of surprise and of inquiry, Al eluded the grasping hands of a waiter, dodged a diner’s gripping fingers, evaded the move of a man to block him at the door, and was free!
Quick thinking and a ruse had prevailed where strength was not enough to accomplish his wish.
Speeding along, outside, after vaulting the veranda railing, Al quickly located Bob. With a wave of his hand Al signaled. His progress was swift as he scampered across the parking space, between standing automobiles, toward an old barnlike structure backed into the grove. Bob, seeing the wave and Al’s progress, dodged, on his own part, among the cars until he rejoined Al in the open door of the old, dilapidated barn.
“What happened?”
Al, pulling his brother back out of sight, recovered his breath.
“I bumped into Mr. Parsons——”
“No!”
“Yes—and the man we saw in the supply room——”
“Well! What happened then?”
“There was somebody else with them. And—I didn’t recognize him, because I was so surprised and excited—but his face ‘rang a bell’ and I’ll think who he was when I get quieted down.”
“What made you run?”
Al explained.
“Yes, and there comes Mr. Parsons! He’s looking for me,” he ended.
“He has something in his hand—a package——”
“Listen!” Al drew Bob further into the dark interior. “Bob—when I blundered in on them, those men had—what do you suppose?—the company books!” Al clutched Bob’s arm tighter. “You remember, we hid when Mr. Parsons was in the offices—he took those books!”
“Yes,” Bob’s whisper agreed. “Now he’s been showing them to that man we saw, and to somebody else.”
“Mr. Parsons isn’t as honest as Griff wanted us to believe.”
Bob shook Al’s arm reassuringly. “No,” he admitted, “I thought Griff’s story was part of—what did they say in the war?—oh, yes! It was ‘camouflage.’ Fancy paint to conceal something.”
“If we could only get the books away from them—and tell Barney!”
“They may be coming to look for you. Mr. Parsons must have recognized you, Al. I wonder if there’s a haymow over this old floor?”
“You go along one wall and I’ll take the other. We’ll see!”
They hurried away from one another. Presently Bob called out softly and, following the wall, with one hand touching to hold his place, the other extended ahead to avoid bumping into any obstruction, the youngest of the Sky Squad found his way to Bob.
There was a ladder against the wall. Bob whispered instructions and started up the dark, uncertain ladder. Bob had hardly reached the top and called down a low reassurance when Al almost scrambled in his eagerness to get up quickly.
Voices were growing louder. Some one was coming! It must be Mr. Parsons.
At the top of the ladder, Al fell softly onto the upper floor boards, and he, with his brother, bent attentive, strained ears to catch the low murmur from below.
“He’s from the plant,” a voice called, and Bob recognized the quick, sharp tones of Mr. Parsons. “He was a boy from the plant.”
“You got those books wrapped in record time!” someone else chuckled. Then, as the youths drew their heads back, turtle fashion, to avoid the glare, a match was struck.
“Nobody here—but yonder’s a ladder.”
“Better go up and have a look,” said a third, deeper voice. “We can’t afford to have those kids snooping. I think Barney brought them into the thing. They’re only kids—but they have eyes!”
Bob, with a twist of his neck, looked around in the dim upper room. Its end window, dirty and cobwebby, allowed the moonlight to stream in. The shaft of dull light streamed across, slantwise. Bob, following its path with his eyes, touched Al’s arm. Gently he directed his brother’s gaze toward a corner.
Sacks, used for packing corn or other cereals, were piled up there.
By common consent the two began a slow, cautious movement toward the sacks; but Bob, quick in an emergency, drew the whole pile, very cautiously, partly lifting the lower ones, to a darker place.
Al, close beside him, divined his idea. They could hide under the large cluster of heavy burlap bags.
By the time that a match was struck in the upper floor they were lying, crouched, under a number of the burlap bags.
“Not here! Guess the kid was scared and ran away.”
“Wait, though.” Bob’s breath almost stopped. Had the other man who came up discovered the sacking?
“Wait, though,” the man repeated. “We meant to compare the books tonight; that’s why I took all the trouble with those stunts, to have a logical excuse for landing here. We can’t, now! Those kids may have telephoned somebody—whoever they’re working for. Suppose we hide the books, and get together tomorrow night. I’ll take the crate back and come over by train.”
“Good way.”
In their stuffy concealment the brothers heard steps, low muttered suggestions. Evidently a place to sequester the company records was selected. The youths quivered and Al nearly screamed aloud as a sack was dragged from the top of the pile. But the sack did not pull off the ones they clung to over their perspiring heads.
“That’s the stuff! On that shelf, and cover ’em up. Nobody would think of that place.”
“Won’t Barney miss them?”
“Let him worry a little. It will do him good!”
The voices receded. The heavy tread ceased. Scuffling sounds told the brothers that the men had descended the ladder.
“Well,” whispered Al, “we’re safe——”
“And we can take the books back——”
“Can we find them?”
“They said ‘on the shelf.’ Feel around, as soon as they are out—wait! Al, I’ll slip over and spy out through the window——”
Al sat on the floor, among the sacks, mopping his brow which was wet with hot perspiration that had, a moment before, been ice cold. Bob waved across the bar of moonlight. The trio of seeming conspirators was safely away, he indicated.
Again using their hands, they felt along the walls.
With his head, though jarred only slightly, Bob found the shelf. A quick exploration defined the books, in a compact roll of tape-tied cloth, hidden under the sack. It was a second’s work to remove them and to rejoin Al.
“Now—how can we get them away? Won’t they be watching?”
“Let’s go down and see.”
Alertly, and with caution, Bob protruded his head over the edge of the opening by the ladder. He was fortunate! In the doorway stood the unrecognized member of the party, smoking. Evidently he had returned.
Bob watched, holding Al in check by his grip on the younger one’s arm. The man did not propose to leave, it appeared.
The sound of an airplane motor starting conveyed the truth. He was waiting until his ship was ready before going into the open.
Bob waited, Al at his side. Neither moved more than was absolutely essential.
But Al, try as he would, could not suppress the horrible inclination to sneeze, induced by the dust in his nostrils from the dirty burlap.
“Huh—sh—huh—sh!” he tried to hold back, but Nature got the better of his will.
“Huh—shoosh!”
“Now you’ve done it!”
“Couldn’t help it—look—the window will open. You could drop!”
The sound of the man ascending the ladder came clearly.
Like two swift gazelles the youths dashed across to the window, wide and old. It was part of the door through which hay was drawn up, they discovered. They tugged at it. On rollers, but stiff from disuse, it stuck. Panting they struggled. Closer came the ascending steps, a call to know who was “up there!”
The window slid open a foot—another foot.
“I’ll have to drop,” said Bob. “You get back and hide again.”
“Too late! I’ll drop the books to you! Go on—quick!”
Bob hung by his hands, gave a swift glance down, let go! No sooner did he land, with loosened muscles to avoid the shock as much as he could, than the package of heavy books landed beside him.
Swiftly he grasped the package, and ran.
Al, almost caught, doubled with a swift, bending squirm, as the angry man reached to grapple with him in the moonlit doorway. By his quickness Al was able to get away for an instant.
He tried the same ruse he had used so well before, but in another form. Every ounce of weight he could put into it he gave to a run away from the ladder. Then, doubling on himself, but tiptoeing and bending as low as he could, avoiding the moon ray, Al crept softly along. The man, following the direction of the footfalls, and thus trying to locate his quarry in the dark, did not see the silent, gloom-hidden form slip along the wall. Al was down the ladder before his ruse was detected.
But the man ran to the doorway, shouting through its opening.
Bob, racing toward the bicycles, realized that the other two men, catching the warning shout, were bearing down on him. Like a rabbit he reversed his route, slipping in among the trees behind the barn. But Mr. Parsons and the other mysterious stranger were determined men. Bob could not run and be silent. He dared not creep. They were too close behind him.
Al, seeing that this pursuit was close, tried to divert attention by shouting as he ran, openly, across toward the bicycles.
But this did not draw the others away; they felt that Bob had a parcel for which they meant to catch him. On and on, through the grove, dodging, squirming past trees, through briers, Bob went.
Curt, at the field, with the engine idling on the airplane, did not hear the pursuit until Bob, almost worn out, nearly done, came racing along. Then, seeing him, Curt ran to meet him. From the grove behind came the crash and shout of pursuers.
“The books—hide!—” Bob could say no more.
Curt caught the package as Bob hurled it. Then, with an instinct that amounted to genius, Bob noted a flattish stone, and as he ran he bent, pausing an instant, and came up tugging along the small, flattish boulder that, in the dark could be mistaken for the package of books. Unconcernedly, as though watching in the role of a spectator, standing on the parcel of books, Curt remained quiet, and the men raced past him.
From the road, where he flung his bicycle, knowing well where Bob would head for, Al arrived. He raced toward the airplane just as Bob ran in the same direction with his boulder.
Al, not unnerved by his excitement, realized that if the propeller was turning, some chocks or other means of holding back the ship were in place. He bent under the wheels as Bob arrived.
“Get in!” he cried. Bob, pretending to drop the books in, let the boulder fall beside the turf. While he was climbing in, the men paused for an instant by Curt who said, sharply, “There he goes!”
They turned, saw Bob was making for the airplane, and ran toward him.
Al tumbled into the rear cockpit, determined not to be caught after the enmity he had awakened.
“Take me!” he cried, but the roar of the engine drowned his voice as Bob, risking everything, in the dark, opened the throttle.
Up went the elevators enough to lift the tail as the propeller stream swept against them.
Along the turf the ship began to move. The men, aware of the sinister menace of the whirling blades, fell aside. Bob, sensing the near approach of the end of his runway, lifted the elevators again, felt the ship going light, gave her the gun, holding her just long enough on the level after the take-off to get his speed—then up he roared.
And a boulder beside the turf remained, while Curt, with the books under his arm, among the trees, went to Al’s bicycle—and delivered the books to his uncle’s study.
But he didn’t stay at home. Mr. Wright was not there. Bob and Al would fly to the plant. Thence, on tired feet, Curt pedaled.
Almost as soon as he lifted the airplane above the grove beyond that cornfield, Bob recovered his wind and his confidence.
Al, of a more nervous type, was still trembling in his after-cockpit seat, but his excitement was changing from that of the recent adventures to the thrill of sky-riding at night with his brother. There was not only the elation of the climb to keep his nerves quivering; also there was the uncertainty of what might happen because of Bob’s lack of skill and experience.
Climbing steadily until he was over five hundred feet above the earth, Bob felt none of his brother’s uneasiness or excitement. He was confident that he could control the airplane as far as straight flying was concerned; his only difficulty would be the landing, not the easiest thing for a skilful pilot unless a signal could be given that would make the plant watchman illuminate the small field.
Bob, making a long swing, banked gently, to head back for the plant, calmly considered the elements of the situation and tried to plan, as well as he could, how to meet whatever came up.
Al, giving more attention to sky and earth, as they straightened their course, correctly pointed for the field at the plant, saw a tiny set of glinting lights far away in the sky.
Impulsively he caught the stick of the dual control to waggle it. That was the only way to attract Bob’s attention; but Al, in his quick way, shook the stick and then held it pretty far to one side, and Bob, not expecting the move and unaware at first that Al did it, felt his heart sink for an instant, fearing that something had gone wrong with the controls.
Al, horrified at the effect of his move, sat, tensely still, waiting for a crash. Bob, alert, decided in a flash that he would do all he could to avert the smash before he gave up hope. He made the necessary moves to correct the slip.
To his delight the craft obeyed promptly, coming back into its proper position quickly. Turning to reassure Al, Bob saw his brother violently gesturing toward the sky to one side. As he looked Bob saw tiny lights and knew them for the flying lights of a craft.
The explanation came at once. Al had attracted his attention to the airplane knowing it must be the brown ‘plane. Probably the two men who had chased Bob had contrived to tell the pilot, before he took off, that—as they supposed—the company books were in Bob’s possession. With a wave of his hand toward Al, reassuring him, Bob set his course for the flying place belonging to the Tredway plant. He was being pursued by the ship he had, recently, followed; it suited him. He would lead the ship back there, contrive some way to attract attention, get Al to drop flares, and then, landing, telephone all the airports nearby to identify and stop the pilot who must eventually alight for fuel.
The pursuer, however had no intention of being lured.
Bob realized it, at the same time that he recalled how swiftly the other pilot had climbed to escape identification earlier at the plant.
Instead, the brown ship had some sinister intent toward himself, Bob guessed, for it was climbing rapidly, and Bob, unaware of the safe climbing angle or stalling angle of his own craft, dared not risk so steep a tilt.
Higher, always higher above him, went the other man’s lights.
The wing over him obscured Bob’s view.
He turned to Al. The younger brother leaned out and stared.
“Going up yet!” he cried, and gestured.
Climbing! Climbing faster!
Bob opened his throttle steadily to the full capacity of the engine.
He proposed to gain all he could in speed, and that meant distance ahead of the other, while that other airplane climbed. He knew he could fly faster, on the level, than a climbing ship could, and he saw the other lights slowly becoming somewhat fainter, smaller.
But that did not last long.
In a few seconds the other ship leveled off and began to approach. Bob, craning his neck to get a sight of the other craft beyond his own wing spread, saw that the other man, evidently angling down and pointing directly for a position above him, meant to overtake him and was quite capable of doing it. He had superior experience and skill.
Bob realized quickly that the better part of valor in an airplane at night, under such conditions, was to give up.
“Or, at least to pretend to give up,” he reflected.
To carry out that pretence he reached into the signal light stores and selected a light. This he tossed back to Al.
His signal and his act were understood.
Al knew that Bob wanted light. He ignited the flare, which proved to be a green signal blaze, flung it overside and watched its tiny parachute catch the air and suspend it.
In that light he swung his eyes to see what Bob meant to do.
The other pilot, arresting his dive, also flew along level, and watched, it appeared.
Bob, lighted by the glowing green flare, pointed to himself and then pointed to earth.
The other ship, coming steadily closer, was quite plain in the illuminated space. Its pilot made a similar gesture, pointing first toward the airplane Bob piloted, then downward.
Bob lowered the nose and began to spiral, as though looking for a spot on which he might safely “set down.”
On a wider swing the other pilot flew, observing his act.
Swiftly Bob summed up the situation. Beneath him, easily reached, was the wide ribbon of the asphalt highway. By heading almost directly into the wind he could “shoot” the road, and by keeping his engine running at partial speed he could make a “power stall,” letting the craft settle very gradually instead of trying to glide down, guess at the correct height and then stall and drop. To do the latter in the comparative darkness of the highway might result in smashed landing gear or worse if he stalled too high and dropped, or it might happen that he would “put her on hot,” or at too great speed and without stalling, come against the ground. In one case out of ten that might enable him to roll along, but if he struck the slightest uneven bit of road, or a bulge of the tar at the intersections of the asphalt road blocks, up would bound the ship, perhaps to stall herself and crash.
By using power he could keep flying speed while gradually settling until his wheels contacted the road. He could also rise more readily if he discovered that he had gone too far to either side of the narrow road—wide enough in fact but narrow from the standpoint of its use as a landing place.
He gave up the half-formed notion of trying to outwit the pilot.
The man meant “business” and that might spell trouble for an amateur. Better far would it be to set down and see what came of it.
As he saw the roadway ribboned out straight ahead, with no headlights observable in either direction, Bob lifted the nose a trifle, adjusted the throttle until, with the road streaming backward under him, he saw it very gradually growing wider and clearer.
Almost perfectly he landed. Being a straight road he had lots of time to taxi, with his gun cut and his only care being to hold the ship on its wheels and not let a wing-tip scrape the asphalt.
To his surprise the other pilot did not land.
Instead he seemed to be circling at a very low altitude, not a hundred feet up, and with only bare flying speed, diving ten feet to catch up his speed and then climbing back to circle again.
“We can’t leave this crate standing on the highway,” Al called as soon as Bob had the engine running at idling speed. “Suppose a Sunday driver comes along at sixty miles an hour?”
“What else can we do?” Bob swung in his seat.
“That’s so. If we go up he’ll ride us down, and we might not make as good a landing—you might not, I mean.”
“Yonder comes a car!”
As Bob pointed, Al leaned out and stared.
“The headlights blind me,” he declared, shading his eyes with his cap brim and hand.
“It’s—it’s the ones who are after us,” called Bob. “See! One of them is stopping the car and the other one is jumping out.” He turned to Al.
“They think we have the books. The man in the brown ship drove us down. Mr. Parsons, in his car, with the other man, is coming to get us.”
“Well, they won’t!” exclaimed Al, scrambling out of the airplane.
“No! You run into the woods to the right of the road.”
Al, as soon as he was on the ground, used his heels to good purpose. Bob, pausing only to bundle up some folds of his coat to make it look, from a distance, as though he carried a package under it, slipped to the road and ran the other way.
Driven down, they nevertheless left the pursuers outwitted.
“Those books are off my mind,” Curt reflected as he pedaled slowly toward the aircraft plant, “but my legs aren’t. I’d go to bed and rest for a week if it wasn’t for seeing what Griff is up to.”
He had ridden only a block or two away from his uncle’s residence, where he had deposited the books, when a thought occurred to him.
“I know how to get a ‘tow’ to the plant,” Curt whispered to himself, swinging his handlebars to turn into the next cross street. “They usually get shipments of fabric on the eleven o’clock freight, and our truck is there to load it in.” He glanced at his wrist watch.
“Yes,” he told himself, “it ought to be loaded or nearly so—and that means the truck will be starting soon. I’ll ride along till it catches up with me and then let it pull me where I’m going.”
It was a reasonable notion and well-founded. That it was sound was soon proved, for Curt saw the truck turning into the street just ahead, from the direction of the station.
He had expected it to come from the street he had passed, but realized that it must have followed the direction it had been pointed instead of turning around in the station yards; increasing his speed for the moment, Curt caught up with the tail boards of the large truck, took hold with one hand, set his coaster brake, and rode in comfort, resting his weary feet.
To his great surprise the truck turned off at a crossroad.
“What does that mean?” he wondered.
He let go and dropped back a few yards, intending to let the truck go; but it bothered him to decide what caused the change of route.
Curt resuming his pedaling, following at a little distance, determined that for all his weariness he ought to find out why a truck, openly laden with cases and parcels, boxes and canvas sacks, should not go directly to its destination to be ready for unloading when the plant opened in the morning.
The ride was not more than a half mile.
Curt, keeping at good distance, let the truck get around a bend. He could follow by the sound of the motor. He did not wish to be seen.
There was in him the thrill of the discoverer of a new clue.
When the motor ceased to send its roar across the distance to him Curt laid Al’s bicycle, which he had ridden from the cornfield, beside the rutted country road and walked, screening himself carefully, to the bend.
“No truck should stop in this out-of-the-way place,” he decided. “I’d better be careful. They might have a guard set at the turn.”
There was no guard, however. Evidently the truck driver and his assistant had no suspicion that they were observed.
Openly the truck stood in the road, to one side. Curt, able to distinguish its bulk, was too far away to see through the darkness what was going on.
“Maybe a broken drive chain,” he thought. “Still, I’d better be certain.”
He made a slight detour through the pines along the byroad, being careful to make as little sound as possible, working around toward the position of the truck. Whatever sound he made was soon drowned by the roar of a motor.
“Just a repair,” he decided. “They’re going.”
Instead of getting further away the motor pulsation became louder.
“That’s another car coming,” Curt told himself, “and it’s a heavy duty motor, too.”
He made fast progress toward the edge of the trees. There, hidden behind a large trunk of pine, he could see the dim road, the dull outline of the truck, and the moving forms of men lifting things out and piling them by the road.
“They’re unloading the truck!” Curt was amazed. Was this some bold banditry, some open theft?
To his further astonishment and mystification the other truck came along and stopped. There was an exchange of low, but jovial banter between the rough drivers and their helpers, but no allusion was made to their task. Instead, the men on the truck just arrived began also to unload bolts, cases, boxes, sacks, from their vehicle.
Curt could not figure the problem to a satisfactory decision. Were they substituting one load for the other? Why?
At any rate, they would be occupied for several hours, Curt thought. He made his way quietly back into the wood and hurried toward his bicycle.
“I’ll ride to the plant, get the watchman to telephone for the police, and round up those fellows.”
Every ounce of his reserve energy Curt put into his pedals as he bumped along the byroad and then raced down the main highway.
When he came within sight of the aircraft plant he was surprised at the activity displayed. The flood lights were on. Far up overhead he heard the sound of an airplane engine.
“Oh!” Curt was reassured. “It must be Bob and Al coming in. They will be glad to hear I put the books away safely, and then we can all ride back to the truck—no, we can’t!” He recalled that his own wheel was parked at The Windsock—if no one had taken it.
There was no one in the watchman’s place by the main gate, which was open. Curt decided that the man was at the flying field to give assistance to the airplane as it landed.
“Hello!” Al, turning at the door of the administration offices, hailed Curt. “Come on!”
Curt raced across the yard, joined Al and Bob at the office building doorway.
“I thought—” he gasped, “I thought you flew!”
Rapidly Bob explained. “We hoofed it back,” Al added.
“Then who is landing—or shooting the field to land?”
“Must be Mr. Parsons bringing in the ship we deserted on the road. Did you leave that parcel of books at Dad’s? Good! But why did you come back here, Curt?”
A quick explanation set everything clearly before his friends.
“We ought to go and round up the two trucks,” he finished.
“No—we must get to Griff. He must be wild, waiting without any word. I know the trucks won’t wait forever, but you can identify them in the morning. Come on.” Curt followed Bob’s lead, with Al at his heels as they entered the office corridor.
Griff’s voice came to them as they reached the upper landing. He was talking—telephoning!
“Oh—Langley! You got there! Good! What? Your uncle is gone? Gone? Gone! Lang—where? You don’t know? What’ll I do, Lang? You don’t know? Well, I do!” and he slammed the receiver on its hook.
“Hurry!” urged Bob as the trio raced to the lighted doorway.
At the safe, kneeling, was Griff. He twirled the dial, clanged back the safe door, reached for the packet of bills again.
“Here—you mustn’t! You daren’t. That isn’t yours!”
White-faced, Griff identified Al as the latter called his warning.
“I must!” he snapped, and stood up, holding the packet.
Over the offices came the drone of the approaching airplane circling for a landing. Al moved toward Griff.
“Get back!” Griff was furious. Bob, behind him, snatched the packet of bills, flung it into the safe, slammed the door. Griff, with a furious snarl, bent to recover the packet, but the door was shut.
He flung off Bob, who backed into Al and Curt.
Heedless of the roar of the airplane engine as the ship came low over the office roofs in its descent, Bob, Al and Curt disentangled themselves, got to their feet.
Already Griff was by the safe, the combination figures on the slip in his hand, the dial of the safe door twirling and clicking.
“Here—what are you doing, Griff?” Bob cried out in dismay.
With a quick glance Griff measured them. His face was white, his jaw was set, his whole attitude was that of a terrified, trembling young man who had determined on a course he knew to be wrong but which circumstances would not allow him to avoid.
“Don’t!” exclaimed Curt.
“You daren’t!” corrected Al. “Your father has stolen the books, but you shan’t——”
The safe door was wrenched open. Bob started forward, Curt at his side, to catch Griff’s hand, to prevent this thing he felt he had to do. His fear of his father’s anger was greater than his dread of the boys, it seemed.
His hand on the packet of bills, Bob tried to stop him. Griff, with a scowl and a wicked word, kicked Bob’s shin, avoided Curt’s grasp, and stood back, his face working.
There was an interruption.
“Listen!” Al, nearest the door, called the word. They were halted, frozen into statues with tense poses and straining ears.
A step sounded in the hall.
Instantly, white with terror, Griff flung the bills toward the open safe, kicked the door shut, turned like a hunted animal and ran out through an intervening door into the next office, and, with Bob in hot pursuit, raced across the hall, into the directors’ room, to its window and down the fire escape. And Bob, at the window, felt a hand grip his collar. He was caught!
Without a struggle Bob gave up. In the dark he did not know who his captor might be; but he reasoned that if it turned out to be Barney resistance would be less sensible than explanation. To struggle for escape if the hand on his collar belonged to Mr. Parsons, would be foolish and might make it harder for his chum and his brother to explain their situation.
In his mind’s eye Bob recalled how the office had looked as he left it. Griff had kicked at the safe door, believing the money had gone in; but it had not! It had dropped on the floor.
Unquestionably Mr. Parsons, or Barney, or whoever held him, had come past that office but had not stopped there, preferring to make a capture of the only person he could put his hands on.