Airship Andy; Or, The Luck of a Brave Boy

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[Illustration: THE RACING STAR PASSED TWO OF THE CONTESTANTS (Page 172)]

Airship Andy

Or

The Luck of a Brave Boy

By

Frank V. Webster

AUTHOR OF "ONLY A FARM BOY," "BOB THE CASTAWAY," "COMRADES OF THE SADDLE," "TOM THE TELEPHONE BOY," ETC.

Illustrated

New York Cupples & Leon Company Publishers

Books For Boys

By FRANK V. WEBSTER

12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.

ONLY A FARM BOY TOM, THE TELEPHONE BOY THE BOY FROM THE RANCH THE YOUNG TREASURE HUNTER BOB, THE CASTAWAY THE YOUNG FIREMEN OF LAKEVILLE THE NEWSBOY PARTNERS THE BOY PILOT OF THE LAKES TWO BOY GOLD MINERS JACK, THE RUNAWAY COMRADES OF THE SADDLE THE BOYS OF BELLWOOD SCHOOL THE HIGH SCHOOL RIVALS AIRSHIP ANDY BOB CHESTER'S GRIT BEN HARDY'S FLYING MACHINE DICK, THE BANK BOY DARRY, THE LIFE SAVER

Cupples & Leon Co., Publishers, New York

Copyright, 1911, by CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY

AIRSHIP ANDY Printed in U. S. A.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE I The Young Chauffeur 1 II Breaking Away 11 III Runaway and Rover 21 IV Down the River 30 V Tramping It 38 VI The Sky Rider 48 VII John Parks, Airship King 55 VIII The Aero Field 61 IX The Airship Inventor 67 X Learning To Fly 74 XI Spying on the Enemy 82 XII Traced Down 88 XIII Jiu-jitsu 99 XIV The Old Leather Pocketbook 108 XV Behind the Bars 115 XVI Bail Wanted 124 XVII A True Friend 132 XVIII Out on Bail 138 XIX A Disappointment 145 XX A New Captivity 153 XXI A Friend in Need 161 XXII "Go!" 169 XXIII The Great Race 175 XXIV A Hopeful Clew 183 XXV Good-by to Airship Andy 195

Airship Andy

Chapter I--The Young Chauffeur

"Hand over that money, Andy Nelson."

"Not on this occasion."

"It isn't yours."

"Who said it was?"

"It belongs to the business. If my father was here he'd make you give it up mighty quick. I represent him during his absence, don't I? Come, no fooling; I'll take charge of that cash."

"You won't, Gus Talbot. The man that lost that money was my customer, and it goes back to him and no one else."

Gus Talbot was the son of the owner of Talbot's Automobile Garage, at Princeville. He was a genuine chip off the old block, people said, except that he loafed while his father really worked. In respect to shrewd little business tricks, however, the son stood on a par with the father. He had just demonstrated this to Andy Nelson, and was trying his usual tactics of bluff and bluster. These did not work with Andy, however, who was the soul of honor, and the insolent scion of the Talbot family now faced his father's hired boy highly offended and decidedly angry.

Andy Nelson was a poor lad. He was worse off than that, in fact, for he was homeless and friendless. He could not remember his parents. He had a faint recollection of knocking about the country until he was ten years of age with a man who called himself his half-brother. Then this same relative placed him in a cheap boarding school where Andy had to work for a part of his keep. About a year previous to the opening of our story, Dexter Nelson appeared at the school and told Andy he would have to shift entirely for himself.

He found Andy a place with an old farmer on the outskirts of Princeville. Andy was not cut out for hoeing and plowing. He was willing and energetic, however, and the old farmer liked him immensely, for Andy saved his oldest boy from drowning in the creek, and was kind and lovable to the farmer's several little children. But one day the old man told Andy plainly that he could not reconcile his conscience by spoiling a bright future for him, and explained why.

"If I was running a wagon-shop, lad," he said enthusiastically, "I'd make you head foreman. Somehow, you've got machinery born in your blood, I think. The way you've pottered over that old rack of mine, shows how you like to dabble with tools. The way you fixed up that old washing-machine for marm proves that you know your business. Tell you, lad, it's a crying wrong to waste your time on the farm when you've got that busy head of yours running over with cogs, and screws, and wheels and such."

All this had led to Andy looking around for other employment. The old farmer was quite right--Andy's natural field was mechanics. He felt pretty happy the day he was accepted as the hired boy in Seth Talbot's garage.

That position was not secured without a great deal of fuss and bother on the part of Talbot, however. The latter was a hard task-master. He looked his prospective apprentice over as he would a new tool he was buying. He offered a mere beggarly pittance of wages, barely enough to keep body and soul together, and "lodgings," as he called it, on a broken-down cot in a dark, cramped lumber-room. Then he insisted on Andy getting somebody to "guarantee" him.

"I'll have no boy taking advantage of me," he declared; "learning the secrets of the trade, and bouncing off and leaving me in the lurch whenever it suits him. No sir-ree. If you come with me, it's a contract for two years' service, or I don't want you. When I was a boy they 'prenticed a lad, and you knew where you could put your finger on him. It ought to be the law now."

Fortunately, Andy's half-brother happened to pass through the village about that time. He "guaranteed" Andy in some manner satisfactory to the garage proprietor, and Andy went to work at his new employment.

Talbot had formerly been in the hardware business. He seemed to think that this entitled him to know everything that appertained to iron and steel. When roller skating became a fad, he had sold out his business, built a big rink, and in a year was stranded high and dry. The bicycle fever caught him next, but he went into it just as everybody else was getting out of it. The result was another failure.

Now he had been in the automobile business for about six months. He had bought an old ramshackly paint-shop on the main street of the town, and had fixed it up so that it was quite presentable as a garage.

There were not many resident owners of automobiles in Princeville. Just at its outskirts, however, along the shore of a pretty lake, were the homes of some retired city folks. During the vacation months a good many people having machines summered at the town. Some of them stored their automobiles at the garage. Talbot claimed to do expert repairing, and as a good road ran through Princeville he managed to do some business with transient customers who came along.

Before he had been in the garage twenty-four hours, Andy was amazed and disgusted at the clumsy clap-trap repairing work that Talbot did. He half-mended breaks and leaks that would not last till a car reached its destination. He put in inferior parts, and on one occasion Andy saw his employer substitute an old tire for one almost new.

Andy tried to remedy all this. He was at home with tools, and inside of a week he was thoroughly familiar with every part of an automobile. He induced Talbot to send to the city for many important little adjuncts to ready repairing, and his employer soon realized that he had a treasure in his new assistant.

He did not, however, manifest it by any exhibition of liberality. In fact, as the days wore on Andy's tasks were piled up mountain high, and Talbot became a merciless tyrant in his bearing. Once when Andy earned a double fee by getting out of bed at midnight and hauling into town a car stuck in a mud-hole, he promised Andy a raise in salary and a new suit the next week. This promise, however, Talbot at once proceeded to forget.

It was Andy who was responsible for nearly doubling the income of his hard task-master. He heard of a big second-hand tourist car in the city, holding some thirty people, and told Talbot about it. The latter bought it for a song, and every Saturday, and sometimes several days in the week, the car earned big money taking visitors sight-seeing around the lake or conveying villagers to the woods on picnic parties.

Later Andy struck a great bargain in two old cars that were offered for sale by a resident who was going to Europe. He influenced Talbot to advertise these for rent by the day or hour, and the garage began to thrive as a real money-making business.

This especial morning Andy had arisen as usual at five o'clock. He cooked his own meals on a little oil-stove in the lumber room behind the garage, and after a cup of coffee and some broiled ham and bread and butter, went to work cleaning up three machines that rented space.

It was a few minutes before six o'clock, and just after the morning train from the city had steamed into town and out of it again, when a well-dressed man, carrying a light overcoat over one arm and a satchel, rushed through the open door of the garage.

"Hey!" he hailed. "They told me at the depot I could hire an automobile here."

"Yes, sir," replied Andy promptly.

"I want to cut across the country and catch the Macon train on the Central. There's just forty-five minutes to do it in."

"I can do it in twenty," announced Andy with confidence. "Jump in, sir."

In less than two minutes they were off, and the young chauffeur proved his agility and handiness with the machine in so rapid and clever a way, that his fare nodded and smiled his approval as they skimmed the smooth country road on a test run.

Andy made good his promise. It was barely half-past six when, with a honk-honk! to warn a clumsy teamster ahead of him, he ran the machine along the side of the depot platform at Macon.

"How much?" inquired his passenger, leaping out and reaching into his vest pocket.

"Our regular rate is two dollars an hour," explained Andy.

"There's five--never mind the change," interrupted the gentleman. "And here's a trifle for yourself for being wide-awake while most people are asleep."

"Oh, thank you, sir!" exclaimed Andy, overjoyed, but the man disappeared with a pleasant wave of his hand before the boy could protest against such unusual generosity.

Andy's eyes glowed with pleasure and his heart warmed up as he stowed the handsome five-dollar tip into his little purse containing a few silver pieces. He had never had so much money all his own at any time in his life. Once a tourist in settling a day's jaunt with Talbot in Andy's presence had added a two-dollar bill for his chauffeur, but this Talbot had immediately shoved into his money drawer without even a later reference to it.

Andy got back to the garage before seven o'clock. He whistled cheerily as he made a notation on the book of his fare and the collection, unlocked the desk, put the five dollars in the tin cash box, and relocked the desk.

Then he busied himself cleaning up the machine that had just made such a successful spin, for the roads were pretty dusty. As he pulled out the carpet of the tonneau to shake, something fell to the floor.

It was an old worn flat leather pocketbook. In a flash Andy guessed that his recent passenger had accidentally dropped it in the car.

He opened it in some excitement. It had a deep flap on one side. From this protruded the edges of a dozen crisp new banknotes. Andy ran them over quickly.

"Two hundred dollars!" he exclaimed.

"What's that?" spoke a sharp, greedy voice at his ear.

It was Gus Talbot, his employer's son, who had just appeared on the scene. It was pretty early for him, for Gus paraded as the cashier of his father's business and stayed around the garage on an average of about three hours a day. Most of his time was spent at a village billiard room in the company of a bosom chum named Dale Billings.

Andy was somewhat taken off his balance by the unexpected appearance of his employer's son. It was really the shock of recognizing in the face of the newcomer the manners and avarice that he shared with his father. Almost instinctively Andy put the hand holding the pocketbook behind him. Then he said simply:

"I took a quick fare over to Macon to catch a train. He paid me five dollars. It's in the cash drawer."

"Oh, it is," drawled out Gus, "and what about all the money I just caught you counting over?"

"It's a pocketbook containing two hundred dollars," replied Andy clearly, disdaining the slur and insult in the tones of his low-spirited challenger. "It was dropped by the man I just took over in the machine. I've got to return it to him some way. I might get to the station here in time to notify him by telegraph before his train leaves Macon that I've found the pocketbook."

"Hold on," ordered Gus Talbot. "Hand over that money, Andy Nelson."

And then followed the conversation that opens this chapter, and Andy had barely announced that the pocketbook would go back to its owner and to no one else, when Gus made a jump at him.

"Give up that money, I say!" he yelled, and his big, eager fist clutched the pocketbook.

Chapter II--Breaking Away

"Let go of that pocketbook!" ordered Gus Talbot angrily.

"When I do, tell me," retorted Andy.

The young chauffeur knew that once the money got into the hands of the Talbots, father or son, its return to its rightful owner would be extremely dubious. He had proven himself a match for Gus in more than one encounter in the past, and that was why Gus hated him. Andy reached out one hand not at all gently. He gave his opponent a push under the chin.

Gus Talbot went flat to the floor of the garage with a howl. He had not, however, let go his grip on the pocketbook. The result was that it had torn squarely in two. Andy directed a speedy glance at the half in his own hand. He was reassured, for he had retained the part holding the banknotes.

"You can keep what you have got," he advised Gus, with a little triumphant laugh. "I'll put this where you won't get your paws on it."

With the words Andy ran through the front open doorway of the garage and down the street in the direction of the business section of the village.

Primarily anxiety to bestow the money in a safe place impelled his flight. Three other reasons, however, helped to influence him in leaving the field ingloriously.

In the first place, Gus Talbot was a wicked terror when he got mad. It was nothing for him to pick up a hatchet, a wrench or an iron bar and sail into an enemy when his cowardly fists failed him. Andy might have remained to give the mean craven a further lesson, but chancing to glance through a side window he saw the chosen crony of Gus approaching. Dale Billings was the bully of the town. He had left Andy severely alone after tackling him once. With Gus and Dale both against him, however, Andy decided that there would be little show of retaining possession of the money.

The third reason was more potent and animating than any of the others. Just crossing lots from his home and headed for the garage direct was its proprietor. If Andy had had any confidence in the sense of justice and rectitude of Talbot he would have stood his ground. He had none, and therefore made a rash resolve. It was open defiance of his harsh employer, and there would be a frightful row later on, but Andy's mind was made up. He had reached the next corner and flashed around it and out of sight before Gus Talbot had gained his feet.

Fifteen minutes later Andy Nelson reappeared at the end of a secluded street near the edge of the village. He was slightly breathless, and looked excited, and glanced back of him keenly before he sat down on a tree stump to rest and think.

"I've done my duty," he murmured; "but it will make things so hot at the garage I don't think I'll go back there."

Andy indulged in a spell of deep reflection. For some time he had realized that he was giving his best energies to a man who did not appreciate them. His work had grown harder and harder. Whenever a complaint came in about imperfect work, due to the sloppy methods of Talbot, the garage owner made Andy shoulder all the blame.

"He talks about a two-years' contract, and tries to scare me about what the law will do to me if I leave him," soliloquized Andy. "Has he kept his part of the bargain? Did he give me the increase in pay and the suit of clothes he promised? No, he didn't. I've got something in me, but it will kill it all out to stay in this place. I've got five dollars as a nest-egg, and I'm going to start out on my own hook."

Andy was fully determined on his course. Perhaps if the incident of the morning had not come up, he might have delayed his decision. He knew very well, however, that if he went back to the garage Talbot would raise a big row, and he would also get hold of the two hundred dollars if it were possible for him to do so. Some day Andy feared the Talbots would play one too many of their uncertain tricks and involve him in an imputation of dishonesty.

"It's straight ahead, and never turn back," declared Andy decisively, and started down the road.

"Hold on there, young man!" challenged a voice that gave Andy a thrill.

Running around the curve in the road Andy had just traversed, red-faced and flustered, Seth Talbot came bearing down upon him.

Andy might have halted, but the sight of Gus Talbot and Dale Billings bringing up the rear armed with heavy sticks so entirely suggested an onslaught of force that he changed his mind. He paid no attention whatever to the furious shouts and direful threats of Talbot.

Andy put ahead at renewed speed. At a second turn in the highway a man was raking up hay, and he suspended his work and stared at the fugitive and his pursuers, as Talbot roared out:

"Stop him, Jones--he's a runaway and a thief!"

Farmer Jones was not spry enough to shorten the circuit Andy made, but he thrust out the rake to its full length. Andy's foot caught in its tines, dragged, tripped, and the boy went flat to the ground.

"I've got him!" hailed Jones, promptly pouncing down upon him.

"Hold him!" panted Talbot, rushing to the spot, and his hard, knotty fingers got an iron clutch on Andy's coat collar and jerked him to his feet.

"What's the trouble, neighbor?" projected the farmer curiously.

"A thief isn't the matter!" shot out Andy hotly, recalling the words of his employer.

"You'll have to prove that," blustered Talbot. "If you're innocent, what are you running for?"

"I was running away from you," admitted Andy boldly, "because I want to be honest and decent."

"What's that?" roared the irate Talbot. "Do you hear him, Jones? He admits he was going to break his contract with me. Well, the law will look to that, you ungrateful young cub!"

"Law! contract!" cried Andy scornfully, fully roused up and fearless now. "Have you kept your contract with me? You don't want me, you want that two hundred dollars----"

"Shut up! Shut up!" yelled Talbot, and he muzzled Andy with one hand and dragged him away from the spot. Farmer Jones grinned after them, and he shrugged his shoulders grimly as he noticed Gus Talbot and Dale Billings halted down the road, as if averse to coming any nearer.

"'Pears to me you're having a good deal of trouble with your boys, Talbot," chuckled Jones. "That son of yours got a few cracks from my cane last evening when he was helping himself to some of my honey among the hives."

Once out of hearing of the farmer, Gus Talbot edged up to his father.

"Has he got the money?" he inquired eagerly. "Make him tell, father, search him."

"I'll attend to all that," retorted the elder Talbot gruffly. "Here, you two fall behind. There's no need of attracting attention with a regular procession."

Talbot did not relax his hold of the prisoner until they had reached the garage. He roughly threw Andy into the lumber room. Then, panting and irritated from his unusual exertions, he planted himself in the doorway. Gus and Dale hovered about, anxious to learn the outcome of the row.

"Now then, Andy Nelson," commenced the garage owner, "I've just a few questions to ask you, and you'll answer them quick and right, or it will be the worse for you."

"It has certainly never been the best for me around here," declared Andy bitterly, "but I'll tell the truth, as I always do."

"Did you find a pocketbook with some money in it in one of my cars?"

"I did," admitted Andy--"two hundred dollars. It belonged to my fare, who lost it, and it's going back to him."

"Hand it over."

"I can't do that."

"Why not?" demanded Talbot stormily.

"Because I haven't got it."

"Who has?"

"Mr. Dawson, the banker. I took it to him when I left the garage."

"Oh, you did?" muttered Seth Talbot, looking baffled and furious.

"Yes, sir. I told him that it was lost money, explained the circumstances, and that if a certain Mr. Robert Webb called or telegraphed for it, to let him have it."

"Is that the name of the man you took over to Macon?"

"That is the name written in red ink on the flap of the pocketbook," and Andy drew out the former receptacle of the banknotes. "'Robert Webb, Springfield.' I shall write to him at Springfield and tell him where the money is."

Seth Talbot fairly glared at Andy. He got up and wriggled and hemmed and hawed, and sat down again.

"Young man," he observed in as steady tone of voice as he could command, "you've shown a sight of presumption in taking it on yourself to lay out my business system. Here you've gone and implied that I was not fit to be trusted."

Andy was silent.

"I won't have it; no, I won't have it!" shouted the garage-keeper. "It's an imputation on my honor! I'll give you just one chance to redeem yourself. You go back to the bank and tell Mr. Dawson that we've got on the direct track of the owner of the money, and bring it back here."

"That would be a lie," said Andy.

"Don't we know where he is?"

"In a general way, but so does the bank. It would be a cheat, too, for I don't believe you want to get the money back to its rightful owner any more than you wanted to pay me the tip that passenger left here for me last week."

Andy had been too bold. Talbot rose up, towering with rage. He sprang upon Andy, and threw him upon the cot, holding him there by sheer brute strength.

"Here, you Gus--Dale!" he shouted. "Off with his hat and shoes. And his coat--no, let me look that over first. Aha!"

Gus Talbot considered it high sport to assail a defenceless and outnumbered adversary. He and Dale snatched off cap and shoes without gentleness or ceremony. Talbot had got hold of Andy's little purse and had brought to light the five dollars so carefully folded and stowed away there.

"Honest? Ha, ha! Decent? Ho, ho!" railed the old wretch. "Where did you get this five dollars without stealing it?"

"Bet he got ten dollars for the run to Macon and held back half of it," chimed in Gus.

"My fare gave it to me for making good time," explained Andy. "If you don't believe it, write to him."

"Yah!" jibed Talbot; "tell that to the marines!"

He kicked Andy's shoes and cap under a bench in the outer room and threw his coat up among a lot of old rubbish on a platform under the roof.

"Get the strongest padlock and hasp in the place," he ordered his son, "and secure that door. As to you, young man," he continued to Andy, "I'll give you till night to make up your mind to get back that money."

"I never will," declared Andy positively.

"Boy," said Seth Talbot, fixing his eye on Andy in a way that made his blood chill, "you'll do it, as I say, or I'll thrash you within an inch of your life."

Chapter III--Runaway And Rover

The door of the lumber room was slammed shut on Andy and strongly locked, and the lad resigned himself to the situation. The Talbots, father and son, aided by brutal Dale Billings, had handled him pretty roughly, and he was content to lie on the cot and prepare for what was coming next.

"They've pretty nearly stripped me, and they've got all my money," reflected Andy. "I wish now I had dropped a postal card to Mr. Robert Webb at Springfield. I'll do it, though, the first thing, when I get out of this fix."

Andy was bound to get out of it in some way. It would be rashness complete to try it right on the spur of the moment. However, he had till night to think things over, and the youth felt pretty positive that long before then he would hit upon some plan of escape.

In a little while Andy got up and took stock of his surroundings. The partition that shut in the lumber room was made of common boards. With a good-sized sledge, Andy could batter it to pieces, but he had no tools, and glancing through a crack he saw Talbot and his son in the little front office ready to pounce on him at a minute's notice.

There was a long narrow box lying up against the inside surface of the partition boards. Andy had used this to hold his little kit of kitchen utensils. He removed these now, and lifted the box on end under the only outside aperture the lumber room presented. This was a little window, way up near the ceiling. When Andy reached this small, square hole, cut through a board, he discerned that he could never hope to creep through it.

Glancing down into the rear yard he made out Dale Billings, seated on a saw-horse, aimlessly whittling at a stick, and he decided that the ally of the Talbots was on guard there to watch out for any attempted escape in that direction.

However, when Andy had done a little more looking around in his prison-room, he made quite an encouraging discovery. Where the box had stood originally there was a broad, loose board. Dampness had weakened one end, and a touch pulled it away from the nails that held it. With one or two vigorous pulls, Andy saw he might rip the board out of place its entire length. This, however, would make a great noise, would arouse his captors, and he would have to run the gantlet the whole reach of the garage space.

"It's my only show, though," decided Andy, "and I'll keep it in mind for later on."

Towards noon Andy made a meal of some scraps of food he found in his little larder. It was not a very satisfying meal, for his stock of provisions had run low that morning and he had intended replenishing it during the day.

About two o'clock in the afternoon Andy fancied he saw his chance for making a break for liberty. Talbot was in the office. There was only one automobile in the garage. This was a car that the proprietor's son had just backed in. Andy could figure it out that Gus had just returned from a trip. He leaped out of the machine, simply throwing out the power clutch, with the engine still in motion, as if intending to at once start off again.

Gus ran to the office, and through the crack in the partition Andy saw him scan the open page of the daily order book. Our hero determined on a bold move. He leaned down in the corner of the lumber room and seized the end of the loose plank at the bottom of the partition with both hands, and gave it a pull with all his strength.

R--r--rip--bang!

Andy went backwards with a slam. The board had broken off at the nail-heads of the first rafter with a deafening crack. He dropped the fragment and dove through the aperture disclosed to him. He could hear startled conversation in the office, but it was no time to stop for obstacles now. Andy came to his feet in the garage room, made a superb spring, cleared the hood of the automobile, and, after a scramble, landed in the driver's seat.

With a swoop of his right hand, Andy grasped the lever, his left clutching the wheel. The car shot for the door in a flash. Gus Talbot had run out of the office. He saw the machine coming, and who manned it. Andy noticed him poising for a spring, snatched up the dust robe in the seat by his side, gave it a whirl, and forged ahead.

The robe wound around the face and shoulders of Gus, sending him staggering back, discomfited. Andy circled into the street away from town, turned down the south turnpike, and breathed the air of freedom with rapture.

"All I want is a safe start. I can't afford to leave the record behind me that I stole a machine," he reflected. "It's bad enough as it is now, with all the lies Talbot will tell. She's gone stale!"

The automobile wheezed down to an abrupt halt. It was just as it came to a curve near the Jones farm, and almost at the identical spot where Andy had been captured that morning. He cast a quick glance behind. No one was as yet visible in pursuit, and there was no other machine in the garage. One was handy not a square away from it, however. Andy had noticed a physician's car there as he sped along. The Talbots would not hesitate to impress it into service. At any rate, they would start some pursuit at once.

Andy guessed that some of Gus Talbot's careless tactics had put the magneto or carburetor out of commission. It would take fully five minutes to adjust things in running order. No one was in view ahead. There were all kinds of opportunities to hide before an enemy came upon the scene.

Right at the side of the road was the hayfield of the Jones farm. Andy leaped a ditch and started to get to the thin line of scrub oak beyond which lay the creek. He passed three haystacks and they now pretty well shut him out from the road. As he was passing the fourth one, he stumbled, hopped about on one foot with a sharp cry of pain, and dropped down in the stubble.

Andy had tripped over a scythe blade which the stubble had hidden from his view. His ankle had struck the back of the blade, then his foot had turned and met the edge of the scythe. A long, jagged gash, which began to bleed profusely, was the result. Andy struggled to his feet and leaned up against the side of the haystack in some dismay. He measured the distance to the brush with his eye.

"I've got to make it if I want to be safe," the boy decided, wincing with the pain of his injured foot, but resolute to grin and bear it till he had the leisure to attend to it.

A shout halted Andy. It came from the direction of the barn, and he fancied it was Farmer Jones giving orders to some of his men. Half decided to make a run of it anyway, he made a sudden plunge into the haystack and nestled there.

A clatter had come from the direction of the roadway he had just left. Glancing in that direction, through a break in the trees, Andy had caught a flashing view of Gus Talbot, bareheaded and excited, in a light wagon, and lashing the horse attached to it furiously.

Andy drew farther back in among the hay, nesting himself out a comfortable burrow. He ventured to part the hay as he heard a great commotion in the direction of the road. He could trace the arrival of Gus, his discovery of the stalled automobile, and the flocking of Farmer Jones and his men to the spot.

Then in a little while the garage-keeper and Dale Billings arrived in another machine. Some arrangement was made to take the various vehicles back to the village. Then Seth Talbot, his son, and two of the farm hands scattered over the field, making for the brush. They went in every direction. A vigorous hunt was on, and Andy realized that it would be wise for him to keep close to his present cover for some time to come.

His foot was bleeding badly, and he paid what attention to it he could. He removed his stockings, bound up the wound with a handkerchief, and drew both stockings over the injured member.

It was pretty irksome passing the time in his enforced prison, and finally Andy went to sleep. It was late dusk when he woke up. He parted the hay, and took as good a look around as he could. No one was in sight, apparently, but he had no idea of venturing forth for some hours to come.

"I'm going to leave Princeville," he ruminated, "but I can't go around the world hatless, coatless and barefooted. I don't dare venture back to the garage for any of my belongings. That place will probably be watched all the time for my return. Talbot, too, has probably telephoned his 'stop thief' description of me everywhere. It's the river route or nothing, if I expect to get safely away from this district. Before I go, though, I'm going to see Mr. Dawson."

This was the gentleman to whom Andy had entrusted the two hundred dollars. Andy had a very favorable opinion of him. The village banker was a great friend of the boys of the town. He had started them in a club, had donated a library, and Andy had attended two of his moving-picture lectures. After the last one, Mr. Dawson had taken occasion to pass a pleasant word with Andy, commending his attention to the lecture. When Andy had taken the two hundred dollars to him that morning, the banker had placed his hand on his shoulder, with the remark: "You are a good, honest boy, Nelson, and I want to see you later."

"I'll wait until about nine o'clock," planned Andy, "when most of the town is asleep, and go to Mr. Dawson's house. There's a lecture at the club to-night, I know, and he won't get home till after ten. I'll hide in the garden and catch him before he goes into the house. I'll tell him my story, and ask him to lend me enough to get some shoes and the other things I need. I know he'll do it, for he's an honest, good-hearted man."

This prospect made Andy light of heart as time wore on. It must have been fully half-past eight when he began to stir about, preparatory to leaving his hiding-place. He moved his injured foot carefully. It was quite sore and stiff, but he planned how he would line the timber townwards and stop at a spring and bathe and dress it again. He mapped out a long and obscure circuit of the village to reach the home of the banker unobserved.

Andy was just about to emerge from the haystack when the disjointed murmur of conversation was borne to his ears. He drew back, but peered through the hay as best he could. It was bright moonlight. Just dodging from one haystack to another at a little distance, Andy made out Gus Talbot and Dale Billings.

"Come on," he heard the latter say--"now's our chance."

"They must be still looking for me," he told himself.

There was no further view nor indication of the proximity of the twain during the next hour, but caution caused Andy to defer his intended visit to the banker.

"The coast seems all clear now," he told himself at last, and Andy crept out of the haystack, but promptly crept back again.

Of a sudden a great echoing shout disturbed the silence of the night. Some one in the vicinity of the farmhouse yelled out wildly:

"Fire!"

Chapter IV--Down The River

"Fire--fire!"

The cry that had rung out so startlingly was repeated many times. Andy could trace a growing commotion. His burrow in the haystack faced away from the buildings of the Jones farm, but in a minute or two a great glare was visible even through his hay shield.

Andy did not dare to venture out from his hiding-place. From increasing shouts and an uproar, he could understand that the Jones household, and then the families of neighbors were thronging to the fire. Some of these latter, making a short cut from the road, passed directly by the haystack in which he was hiding.

"It's the barn," spoke a voice.

"That's what it is, and blazing for good," was responded excitedly, and the breathless runners hurried on.

Andy made up his mind that he would have to stay where he was for some time to come, if he expected to avoid capture. Very soon people from the village came trooping to the scene. He could trace the shouts of the bucket brigade. He heard one or two automobiles come down the road. The glare grew brighter and the crowd bigger. Soon, however, the stubble-field began to get shadowed again, he noticed.

It must have taken the barn an hour to burn up. People began to repass the haystacks on their return trips. Andy caught many fragments of conversation. He heard a man remark:

"They managed to save the livestock."

"Yes," was responded; "but Jones says a couple of thousand dollars won't cover his loss."

"What caused it, anyhow?"

"It was a mystery to Jones, he says, until Talbot came along. They seemed to fix up a theory betwixt them."

"What was that?"

"Why, Jones was sort of hot and bitter about some boys who have bothered him a lot of late. He walloped one or two of them. Young Gus Talbot was among them. Jones was hinting around about the fire being set for revenge, when Talbot spoke up and reminded him that he had headed off that runaway apprentice of Talbot's this morning."

"Oh, the boy they're looking for--Andy?"

"Yes, Andy Nelson. He's the one that set the fire, Talbot declares, and Jones believes it, and they're going to start a big hunt for him. Talbot says he's beat him out of some money, and Jones says he's just hung around before leaving for good to get even with him for stopping him from getting away from Talbot." And, so speaking, the men passed on.

"Well, this is a pretty kettle of fish!" ruminated Andy. "What next, I wonder?"

The refugee felt pretty serious as he realized the awkward and even perilous situation he was in. As he recalled the fact that Gus and Dale Billings had crossed over the field an hour before the fire broke out, he was pretty clear in his own mind as to the identity of the firebugs.

"It's no use of thinking about seeing Mr. Dawson now," decided Andy. "It's too late in the evening, and too many people will be looking for me. There's so much piling up against me, that maybe Mr. Dawson wouldn't believe a word I say. No, it's a plain case. They haven't any use for me in Princeville, and the sooner I get out of the town and stay out of it, the better for me."

Andy's foot was in no condition for a long tramp. He realized this as he stretched it out and tested his weight upon it. He was not seriously crippled, but he was in no shape to run a race or kick a football.

"It's going to be no easy trick getting safely away from Princeville and out of the district," the boy told himself. "I'll wait until about midnight, then I'll make for the river. There's boats going and coming as far as the lake, and I may get a lift as far as the city. I can lose myself there, or branch out for new territory."

Everything was still, and not a sign of life visible anywhere on the landscape, when Andy at length ventured to leave his hiding-place. There was a smell of burned wood in the air, and some smoke showed at the spot where the barn had stood, but the town and the farmer's household seemed to have gone to bed.

No one appeared to see or follow him while crossing the stubble field, but Andy felt a good deal easier in mind as he gained the cover of the brush.

The boy was entirely at home here--along the river as well. He had found little time for recreation while working for Talbot, but whenever a spare hour had come along he had made for the woods and the creek as a natural playground. Now he went from thicket to thicket with a sense of freedom. He knew a score of good hiding-places, if he should be suddenly surprised.

Andy looked up and down the creek when he reached it. He hoped to locate some barge ready to go down the river with some piles of tan bark, or a freight boat returning from the summer camps along the lake. Nothing was moving on the stream, however, and no water craft in view.

"I'll get below the bridge. Then I'll be safe to wait until daylight. Something is bound to come along by that time," he reflected.

Andy reached and passed the bridge about a mile below Princeville. There was no other bridge for ten miles, and if he had to foot it on his journey to the city, he would be out of the way of traversed roads. He walked on for about half a mile and was selecting a sheltered spot to rest in, directly on the stream, when, a few yards distant, he noticed a light scow near shore.

Andy proceeded towards this. It resembled many craft of its class used by farmers to carry grain and livestock to market. Andy noticed that it was unloaded and poles stowed amidships. He stepped aboard. No one was in charge of it.

"I might find some of the abandoned old skiffs or rafts the boys play with, if I search pretty hard," soliloquized Andy, stepping ashore again.

"Hey!"

Andy was startled. Tracing the source of the short, quick hail, he discovered a man seated on a boulder near a big hazel bush. Andy was startled a little, and slowly approached his challenger.

The man who had spoken to him sat like a statue. He was a pale-faced individual, with very large bright eyes, and his face was covered with a heavy black beard. A cape that almost covered him hung from his shoulders, completely hiding his hands. He looked Andy over keenly.

"Did you call me, mister?" inquired Andy.

"Yes, I did," responded the man. "I was wondering what you were doing, lurking around here at this unearthly hour of the night."

Andy mentally decided that it was quite as much a puzzle to him what the stranger was doing, sitting muffled up at two o'clock in the morning in this lonely place.

"I was looking for a boat to take me down stream," explained Andy.

"Are you willing to work for a lift?" inquired the man.

"I should say so," replied Andy emphatically.

"Do you know how to manage a craft like this one here?"

"Oh, that's no trick at all," said Andy. "The river is clear, and there's nothing to run into, and all you have to do is to pole along in midstream."

"Where do you want to get to?"

"The city."

"I'm not going that far. I'll tell you what I'll do, though," said the stranger--"you pole me down to Swan Cove----"

"That's about fifteen miles."

"Yes. You take me that far, and I'll make it worth your while."

"It's a bargain, and I'm delighted!" exclaimed Andy with spirit.

"All right," said the man; "get to work."

He never got up from his seat while Andy cast free the shore hawser. When everything was ready he stepped aboard rather clumsily. Andy thought it very strange that the man never offered to help him the least bit. His passenger seated himself in the stern of the barge, the cloak still closely enveloping his form, his hands never coming into sight.

It was welcome work for Andy, propelling the boat. It took his mind off his troubles, and every push of the pole and the current took him away from the people who had injured his good reputation and were bent on robbing him of his liberty.

The grim, silent man at the stern of the craft was a puzzle to Andy. He never spoke nor stirred. Our hero wondered why he kept so closely covered up and in what line of transportation he used the barge.

They had proceeded about two miles with smooth sailing when there was a sudden bump. The boat had struck a snag.

"Gracious!" ejaculated Andy, sent sprawling flat on the deck.

The contact had lifted the stranger from his seat. He was knocked to one side. Andy, scrambling to his feet, was tremendously startled as his glance swept his passenger.

The man struggled to his feet with clumsiness. He was hasty, almost suspicious in his movements. The cloak had flown wide open, and now he was swaying his arms around in a strange way, trying to cover them up.

"Why!" said the youth to himself, with a sharp gasp, "the man is handcuffed!"

Chapter V--Tramping It

"Gracious!" said Andy, and made a jump clear into the water.

The pole had swung out of his hands when the barge struck the snag. He got wet through recovering it, but that did not matter much, for he had little clothing on.

By the time he had got back on deck his mysterious passenger had resumed his old position. The cloak again completely enveloped the upper portion of his body and his hands were out of sight. Andy acted as though his momentary glance had not taken in the sight of the handcuffs.

"Sorry, mister, we struck that snag, but the moon's going down and a fog coming up, and I couldn't help it."

"Don't mind that," was all that the man at the stern vouchsafed in reply.

The moon had gone down as Andy had said, but enough of its radiance had fallen on the squirming figure of the stranger a few minutes previous to show the cold, bright glint of the pair of manacles. Andy was sure that the man's wrists were tightly handcuffed. A sort of a chill shudder ran over him as he thought of it.

"An escaped convict?" Andy asked himself. "Maybe. That's bad. I don't want to be caught in such company, the fix I'm in."

The thought made the passenger suddenly repellant to Andy. He had an idea of running close to the shore and making off.

"No, I won't do it," he decided, after a moment's reflection, "I'm only guessing about all this. He's not got a bad face. It's rather a wild and worried one. I'm a runaway myself, and I've got a good reason for being so. Maybe this man has, too."

Andy applied himself to his work with renewed vigor. It must have been about five o'clock in the morning when the stranger directed him to navigate up a feeder to the stream, which, a few rods beyond, ran into a swamp pond, which Andy knew to be Swan Cove.

A few pushes of the pole drove the craft up on a muddy slant. It was getting light in the east now. Andy came up to the man with the question:

"Is this where you land, mister?"

"Yes," nodded his passenger. "Come here."

Andy drew closer to the speaker.

"I told you I'd make it worth your while to pole me down the river," he said.

"Oh, that's all right."

"I haven't got any money, but I want to pay you as I promised you. Take that."

"What, mister?" and then Andy learned what the man meant. The latter hunched one shoulder towards the timber on which he sat, and there lay a small open-faced silver watch.

Andy wondered how he had managed to get it out of his pocket, but he had, and there it lay.

"It's worth about eight dollars," explained the man. "You can probably get four for it. Anyhow, you can trade it off for some shoes and clothes, which you seem to need pretty badly."

"Yes, I do, for a fact," admitted Andy, with a slight laugh. "But see here, mister, I don't want your watch. I couldn't ask any pay, for I wanted to come down the creek myself, and I was just waiting to find the chance to work my way when you came along."

"You'll take the watch," insisted the stranger in a decided tone, "so say no more about it, and put it in your pocket. There's only one thing, youngster--I want to ask a favor of you."

"Yes, sir."

"Forget you ever saw me."

"That will be hard to do, but I will try."

"What's your name?"

"Andy Nelson."

"I'll remember that," said the man, repeating it over twice to himself. "You'll see me again some time, Andy Nelson, even if I have to hunt you up. You've done me a big favor. You said you were headed for the city?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, if you'll follow back to the river, and cut south a mile, you'll come to a road running in that direction."

"Aren't you going to use the barge any farther, mister?" inquired Andy.

"No, and perhaps you had better not, either," answered the man, with a short nervous laugh.

"Well, this is a queer go!" ruminated Andy, as the man started inland and was soon lost to view. "I wonder who he is? Probably on his way to some friends where he can get rid of those handcuffs. Now, what for myself?"

Andy thought things out in a rational way, and was soon started on the tramp. His prospective destination was the city. It was a large place, with many opportunities for work, he concluded. He would be lost from his pursuers in a big city like that, he theorized.

Andy soon located the road his late passenger had indicated. He looked at the watch a good many times. It was a plain but substantial timepiece. It was the first watch Andy had ever owned, and he took great pleasure in its possession.

"I don't think I'll part with it," he said, as he tramped along. "I feel certain I can pick up enough odd jobs on my way to the city to earn what clothing I need and enough to eat."

It was about seven o'clock when Andy, after a steep hill climb, neared a fence and lay down to rest in the shade and shelter of a big straw stack. He was asleep before he knew it.

"What in the world is that!" he shouted, springing up, wide awake, as a hissing, flapping, cackling hubbub filled the air, mingled with shouts of impatience, excitement and despair.

"Head 'em off--drive 'em in! Shoo--shoo!" bellowed out somebody in the direction of the road.

"Geese!" ejaculated Andy--"geese, till you can't rest or count them! Where did they ever come from? Hi, get away!"

As Andy stepped out of range of the straw stack, he faced a remarkable situation. The field he was in covered about two acres. It was enclosed with a woven-wire fence, and had a gate. Through this, from the road, a perspiring man was driving geese, aided by a boy armed with a long switch.

Andy had never seen such a flock of geese before. He estimated them by the hundreds. Nor had he ever viewed such a battered up, dust-covered, crippled flock. Many, after getting beyond the gate, squatted down as if exhausted. Others fell over on their sides, as if they were dying. Many of them had torn and bleeding feet, and limped and hobbled in evident distress.

The man and the boy had to head off stupid and wayward groups of the fowls to get them within the enclosure. Then when they had closed the gate, they went back down the road. Andy gazed wonderingly after them. For half a mile down the hill there were specks of fluttering and lifeless white. He made them out to be fowls fallen by the wayside.

The man and boy began to collect these, two at a time, bringing them to the enclosure, and dropping them over the fence. It was a tiresome, and seemed an endless task. Andy climbed the fence and joined them.

"Hello!" hailed the man, looking a little flustered; "do you belong around here?"

"No; I don't," replied Andy.

"I don't suppose any one will object to my penning in those fowls until I find some way of getting them in trim to go on."

"They can't do much harm," suggested Andy. "I say, I'll help you gather up the stray ones."

"I wish you would," responded the man, with a sound half-way between a sigh and a groan. "I am nigh distracted with the antics of those fowls. We had eight hundred and fifty when we started. We've lost nigh on to a hundred in two days."

"What's the trouble? Do they stray off?" inquired Andy, getting quite interested.

"No; not many of them. The trouble is traveling. I was foolish to ever dream I could drive up to nearly one thousand geese across country sixty miles. The worst thing has been where we have hit the hill roads and the highways they're ballasting with crushed stone. The geese get their feet so cut they can't walk. If we try the side of the roads, then we run into ditches, or the fowls get under farm fences, and then it's trouble and a chase. I say, lad," continued the man, with a glance at Andy's bandaged foot, "you don't look any too able to get about yourself."

"Oh, that isn't worth thinking of," declared Andy. "I'll be glad to help."

He quite cheered up the owner of the geese by his willingness and activity. In half an hour's time they had all the disabled stray fowls in the enclosure. Some dead ones were left where they had fallen by the wayside.

"I reckon the old nag is rested enough to climb up the rest of the hill now," spoke the man to his companion, who was his son. "Fetch Dobbin along, Silas, and we'll feed the fowls and get a snack ourselves."

Andy curiously regarded the poor crowbait of a horse soon driven into view attached to a ramshackly wagon. The horse was put to the grass near the enclosure, and two bags of grain unearthed from a box under the seat of the wagon and fed to the penned-in geese.

Next Silas produced a small oil-stove, a coffee-pot and some packages, and, seated on the grass, Andy partook of a coarse but substantial breakfast with his new friends.

"There's a town a little ahead, I understand," spoke the man.

"Yes," nodded Andy; "Afton."

"Then we've got twenty miles to go yet," sighed the man. "I don't know how we'll ever make it."

Andy gathered from what the man said that he and his family had gone into the speculation of raising geese that season. The nearest railroad to his farm was twenty miles distant. His market was Wade, sixty miles away. He had decided to drive the geese to destination. Two-thirds of the journey accomplished, a long list of disasters spread out behind, and a dubious prospect ahead.

"It would cost me fifty dollars to wagon what's left to the nearest railroad station, and as much more for freight," said the man gloomily.

Andy looked speculative. In his mechanical work his inventive turn of mind always caused him to put on his thinking-cap when he faced an obstacle.

"I've got an idea," declared Andy brightly. "Say, mister, suppose I figure out a way to get your geese the rest of the way to market quite safely and comfortably, and help drive them the balance of the distance, what will you do for me?"

"Eh?" ejaculated the man eagerly. "Why, I'd--I'd do almost anything you ask, youngster."

"Is it worth a pair of shoes, and a new cap and coat?" asked Andy.

"Yes; a whole suit," said the man emphatically, "and two good dollars a day on top of it."

"It's a bargain!" declared Andy spiritedly. "I think I have guessed a way to get you out of your difficulties."

"How?"

"I'll show you when you are ready to start."

Andy set to work with vigor. He went to the back of the wagon and fitted two boards into a kind of a runway. Then he poured corn into the trough, and hitched up the old horse.

"Now, drive the horse, and I'll attend to the corn," he said. "I won't give them as much as you think," he added, fearing the farmer would object to the use of so much of his feed.

It was not long before they were on the way. As the corn dropped along the road, the geese ran to pick the kernels up. Andy scattered some by hand. Soon he had the whole line of geese following the wagon.

"Now drive in the best spots," he said.

"I'll take to the fields," answered Mr. Pierce.

He was as good as his word, and traveling became easy for the geese, so that they made rapid progress. They kept on until nightfall, passing through Afton, where Andy bought a postal card and mailed it to Mr. Webb, stating his money had been left with Mr. Dawson. By eight o'clock the next morning they reached Wade, and there, at a place called the Collins' farm, Andy was paid off and given the clothing and shoes promised. He changed his suit in a shed on the farm, and then the youth bid his new friends good-by and went on his way.

Chapter VI--The Sky Rider

"Hold on, there!"

"Don't stop me--out of the way!"

"Why, whatever is the matter with you?"

"The comet has fallen----"

"What?"

"On our barn."

"See here----"

"Run for your life. Let me go, let me go, let me--go!"

The speaker, giving the astonished Andy Nelson a shove, had darted past him down the hill with a wild shriek, eyes bulging and hair flying in the breeze.

It was the afternoon of the day Andy had said good-by to Mr. Pierce and his friends. He was making across country on foot to strike a little railroad town, having now money enough to afford a ride to Springfield.

Ascending a hilly rise, topped with a great grove of nut trees, Andy got a glimpse of a farmhouse. He was anticipating a fine cool draught of well water, when a terrific din sounded out beyond the grove. There were the violent snortings of cattle, the sound of smashing boards, a mixed cackle of all kinds of fowls, and thrilling human yells.

Suddenly rounding the road there dashed straight into Andy's arms a terror-faced, tow-headed youth, the one who had now put down the hill as if horned demons were after him.

Andy divined that the center of commotion and its cause must focus at the farmhouse. He ran ahead to come in view of the structure.

"I declare!" gasped Andy.

Wherever there was a cow, a horse, or a chicken, the creature was in action. They seemed putting for shelter in a mad flight. Rushing along the path leading to the farmhouse, a gaunt, rawboned farmer was sprinting as for a prize. He cast fearsome glances over his shoulder, and bawled out something to his wife, standing spellbound in the open doorway, bounded past her, sweeping her off her feet, and slammed the door shut with a yell.

And then Andy's wondering eyes became fixed on an object that quite awed and startled him for the moment. Resting over the roof of the great barn at the rear of the house was a fantastic creation of sea-gull aspect, flapping great wings of snowy whiteness. Spick and span, with graceful outlines, it suggested some great mechanical bird.

"Why," breathed Andy, lost in wondering yet enchanting amazement, "it's an airship!"

Andy had never seen a perfect aeroplane before. Small models had been exhibited at the county fair near Princeville, however, and he had studied all kinds of pictures of these remarkable sky-riders. The one on the barn fascinated him. It balanced and fluttered--a dainty creation--so frail and delicately adjusted that his mechanical admiration was aroused to a degree that was almost thrilling.

Blind to jeopardy, it seemed, a man was seated about the middle of the tilting air craft. The barn roof was about twenty-five feet high, but Andy could plainly make out the venturesome pilot, and his mechanical eye ran over the strange machine with interest and delight.

A hand lever seemed to propel the flyer, and this the man aloft grasped while his eyes roved over the scene below.

How the airship had got on the roof of the barn, Andy could only surmise. Either it had made a whimsical dive, or the motive power had failed. The trouble now was, Andy plainly saw, that one set of wings had caught across a tin ornament at the front gable of the barn. This represented a rooster, and had been bent in two by the tugging airship.

"Hey, you!" sang out the man in charge of the airship. "Can you get up here any way?"

"There's a cleat ladder at the side."

"All right, come up and bring a rope with you."

Andy was only too glad to be of service in a new field that fascinated him. The doors of the barn were open. He ran in and looked about busily. At last he discovered a long rope hanging over a harness hook. He took possession of it, hurried again to the outside, and nimbly ascended the cleats.

"Look sharp, now, and follow closely," spoke the aeronaut. "Creep along the edge, there, and loop the rope under the end of those side wings."

"I can do that," declared Andy. He saw what the man wanted, and it was not much of a task to balance on the spout running along the edge of the shingles and then climb to the ridge-pole. Andy looped the end of the rope over an extending bar running out from the remote end of the last paddle.

"Now, then," called out the aeronaut in a highly-satisfied tone, "if you can get to the seat just behind me, fetching the rope with you, we'll soon be out of this tangle."

"All right," said Andy.

"And I'll give you the ride of your life."

"Will you, mister?" cried Andy, with bated breath and sparkling eyes.

The boy began creeping along the slant of the barn roof. It was slow progress, for he saw that he must keep the rope from getting tangled. Another hindrance to rapid progress was the fact that he had to be careful not to graze or disturb the delicate wings of the machine.

About half the directed progress covered, Andy paused and looked down. The door of the farmhouse was in his range of vision, and the farmer had just opened it cautiously.

He stuck out his head, and bobbed it in again. The next minute he ventured out a little farther. Now he came out on the stoop of the house.

"Hey, you!" he yelled, waving his hands up at the aeronaut.

"Well, neighbor?" interrogated the latter.

"What kind of a new-fangled thing is that you've stuck on my barn?"

"It's an airship."

"Like we read about in the papers?"

"Yes."

"Sho! and I thought----Who's afraid?" and he darted back again into the house. Immediately he reappeared. He carried an old-fashioned fowling-piece, and he ran out directly in front of the barn.

[Illustration: "IT'S AN AIRSHIP!"]

Andy read his purpose. He readily guessed that the farmer was one of those miserly individuals who make the most out of a mishap--the kind who think it smart to put a dead calf in the road and make an automobilist think he had killed it. At all events, the farmer looked bold enough now, as he posed in the middle of the road, with the ominous announcement:

"I've got a word for you up there."

"What is it?" inquired the aeronaut.

"Who's going to settle for this damage?"

"What damage?"

"What damage!" howled the farmer, feigning great rage and indignation; "hosses jumped the fence and smashed down the gate; chickens so scared they won't lay for a month; wife in a spasm, and that there ornament up there--why, I brought that clear from the city."

"All right, neighbor; what's your bill?"

"Two hundred dollars."

The aeronaut laughed.

"You're not modest or anything!" he observed. "See here; I'll toss you a five-dollar bill, and that covers ten times the entire trouble I've made you."

The farmer lifted his gun. He squinted across the long, awkward barrel, and he pointed it straight up at the sky-rider and his craft.

"Mister," he said fiercely, "my bill is two hundred dollars, just as I said. You pay it, right here, right now, or I'll blow that giddy-fangled contraption of yours into a thousand pieces!"

Chapter VII--John Parks, Airship King

"Keep right on," ordered the aeronaut to Andy in a low tone.

Andy squeezed under a bulge of muslin and wood and reached what looked like a low, flat-topped stool.

"Do you hear me?" yelled the farmer, brandishing his weapon and trying to look very fierce and dangerous.

The aeronaut, Andy noticed, was reaching in his pocket. He drew out two small bills and some silver. He made a wad of this. Poising it, he gave it a fling.

"There's five dollars," he spoke to the farmer.

The wad hit the farmer on the shoulder, opened, and the silver scattered at his feet. He hopped aside.

"I won't take it; I'll have my price, or I'll have the law on you, and I'll take the law in my own hands!" he shouted.

Snap!--the fowling-piece made a sound, and quick-witted Andy noticed that it was not a click.

"See here," he whispered quickly to the aeronaut; "that man just snapped the trigger to scare us, and I don't believe the old blunderbuss is loaded."

"All ready," spoke the aeronaut to Andy, as the latter reached the seat.

"Yes, sir," reported Andy.

"When I back, give the rope a pull and hold taut till we clear the barn."

"I'll do it," said Andy.

"Go!"

There was a whir, a delicious tremulous lifting movement that now made Andy thrill all over, and the biplane backed as the aeronaut pulled a lever.

Andy gave the rope a pull and lifted the entangled wing entirely clear of the weather-vane.

"Now, hold tight and enjoy yourself," spoke the aeronaut, reversing the machine.

"Oh, my!" breathed Andy rapturously the next moment, and he forgot all about the farmer and nearly everything else mundane in the delight and novelty of a brand-new experience.

Andy had once shot the chutes, and had dreamed about it for a month afterwards. He recalled his first spin in an automobile with a thrill even now. That was nothing to the present sensation. He could not analyze it. He simply sat spellbound. One moment his breath seemed taken away; the next he seemed drawing in an atmosphere that set his nerves tingling and seemed to intoxicate mind and body.

The aeronaut sat grim and watchful in the pilot seat of the glider, never speaking a word. He had skimmed the landscape for quite a reach. Then, where the ground began to slant, he said quickly:

"Notice my left foot?"

"I do," said Andy.

"Put yours on the stabilizing shaft when I take mine off."

"Stabilizing shaft," repeated Andy, memorizing, "and the name of the airship painted on that big paddle is the _Eagle_. Oh, hurrah for the _Eagle_!"

"When I whistle once, press down with your foot. Twice, you take your foot off. When I whistle twice, pull over the handle right at your side on the center-drop."

"'Center-drop'?" said Andy. "I'm getting it fast."

Z--zip! Andy fancied that something was wrong, for the machine contorted like a horse raising on his rear feet. Toot! Andy did not lose his nerve. Toot--toot! he grasped the handle at his side and pulled it back.

"Good for you!" commended the aeronaut heartily. "Now, then, for a spin."

Andy simply looked and felt for the next ten minutes. The pretty, dainty machine made him think of a skylark, an arrow, a rocket. He had a bouyant sensation like a person taking laughing gas.

The lifting planes moved readily under the manipulation of an expert hand. There was one level flight where the airship exceeded any railroad speed Andy had ever noted. Farms, villages, streams, hills, faded behind them in an endless panorama.

Toot!--Andy followed instructions. They slowed up over a town that seemed to be some railroad center. Beyond it the machine skimmed a broad prairie and then gracefully settled down in the center of a fenced-in space.

Its wheels struck the ground. They rolled along for about fifty yards, and halted by the side of a big tent with an open flap at one side.

"This is the stable," said the aeronaut, showing Andy how to get from his seat on the delicate and complicated apparatus of the flyer. "Dizzy-headed?"

"Why, no," replied Andy.

"Wasn't frightened a bit?"

"Not with you at the helm," declared Andy. "Mister, if I could do that, I'd live up in the air all the time."

"You only think so," said the aeronaut, the smile of experience upon his practical but good-humored face. "When you've been at it as long as I have, you'll feel different. What's your name?"

"Andy Nelson."

"Out of a job?"

"Yes, sir."

The aeronaut looked Andy over critically,

"That little frame building at the end of the tent is where we keep house," he explained. "The big rambling barracks, once a coal-shed, is my shop. I'm John Parks. Ever hear of me?"

"No, sir," said Andy.

"I'm known all over the country as the Airship King."

"I can believe that," said Andy, "but, you see, I have never traveled far."

"I've made it a business giving exhibitions at fairs and aero meets with this glider and with a dirigible balloon. Just now I'm drilling for a prize race--five thousand dollars."

"That's some money," observed Andy, "and I guess you'll win it."

"I see you like me, and I like you," said John Parks. "Suppose you help me win that prize? I need good loyal help around me, and the way you obey orders pleases me. I'll make you an offer--your keep and ten dollars."

"And I'll be near the airship?" asked Andy eagerly. "And learn to run it?"

"Yes."

"Oh, my!" cried the boy, almost lifted off his feet. "Mr. Parks, I can't realize such good luck."

"It's yours for the choosing," said the aeronaut.

"Ten dollars a month and my board for helping run an airship!" said Andy breathlessly. "Oh, of course I'll take it--gladly."

"No," corrected John Parks, "ten dollars a week."

Chapter VIII--The Aero Field

"That's settled," said the Airship King. "Come, Andy, and I'll introduce you to our living quarters."

Andy felt as if he was treading on air. He was too overcome to speak intelligently. Clear of the spiteful Talbot brood, the proud possessor of a new suit, a watch, five dollars, and the prospect of a princely salary, he felt that life had indeed begun all over for him in golden numbers. He caught at the sleeve of his generous employer.

"Mr. Parks," he said with emotion, "it's like a dream."

"That's all right, Andy," laughed the aeronaut. "I'm pretty liberal, they say--that is, when I've got the money. I've seen my hard times, though. All I ask is to have a man stick to me through thick and thin and I'll bring him out all right."

"I'll stick to you as long as you'll let me," declared Andy.

"Yes, you're true blue, Andy, I honestly believe. I've staked a good deal on the aero meet next month. I've just got to get that five-thousand-dollar prize to make good, for I've invested a good deal here."

"I hope I can help you do it," said Andy fervently.

"The _Eagle_ is only a trial craft. Over in the workshop yonder, I've got a genius of a fellow, named Morse, working for me, who is turning out the latest thing in airships. Here's our living quarters."

Mr. Parks led Andy into the shed-like structure that formed the back of the tent which sheltered the aeroplane and also a dirigible balloon. They passed through several partitioned-off spaces holding cots. Then there was a comfortable sitting room. Next to it was a kitchen.

This room was sizzling hot, for it held a big cooking-range, before which an aproned cook stood with an immense basting spoon in his hand. He was the blackest, fattest cook Andy had ever seen. His eyes were big with jolly fun, and his teeth gleamed white and full as he grinned and nodded.

"I've brought you a new boarder, Scipio," said Mr. Parks. "His name is Andy Nelson. You'll have to set another place."

Then he stepped through a doorway outside, and Scipio took a critical look at Andy.

"'Nother plate, eh?" he chuckled. "Dat's motion easy, but what about de contents of dat plate? Fohteen biscuit do de roun's now. Yo' look like a likely healthy boy. I reckon I have to double up on de rations."

It was a royally good meal that was spread out on the table in the sitting room about four o'clock in the afternoon.

"Where's Mr. Morse, Scipio?" inquired Mr. Parks, as the cook brought in a smoking roast.

"Mistah Morse have to be excused dis reflection, sah, I believe," responded Scipio. "I ask him 'bout noon what he like foh dinnah. He dat sorbed in his work he muttah something bout fractions, quations and dirigible expulsions; I hab none ob dose to cook. Jus' now I go to call him to dinnah, an' I find him deeper than ever poring over dose wheels an' jimdracks ob machinery, and when I say de meal was ready, he observe dat de quintessimal prefix ob de cylinder was X. O. plus de jibboom ob de hobolinks. It sounded like dat, anyhow. Berry profound man, dat, sah. I take him in his meal later, specially, sah."

From this and other references to the man in the shop, Andy decided that Mr. Morse must be quite a proficient mechanician. He longed to get a peep into his workshop. After dinner, however, Mr. Parks said:

"Would you like to stroll over to the big aero practice field, Andy?"

"I should, indeed," responded Andy.

He found the aviation field to be a more or less shrouded locality. It was reached only by crossing myriad railroad tracks, dodging oft-shunted freight-cars, scaling embankments and crossing ditches. The field was dotted with shelter tents for the various air machines, trial chutes and perfecting shops.

There were any number of monoplanes, biplanes and dirigible balloons. On the different tents was painted the name of the machine housed therein. There was the _Montgo_, _Glider_, the _Flying Dutchman_, the _Lady Killer_, and numerous other novelties with fanciful names.

"Every professional seems to be getting up the oddest freak he can think of," explained Parks. "Do you see that new-fangled affair with the round discs? That is called the helicopotol. That two-winged, one-hundred-bladed freak just beyond is the gyropter. Watch that fellow just going up with the tandem rig. That's a new thing, too. It's of the collapsible type, made for quick transportation, but not worth a cent as a racer."

Andy was in a realm of rare delight. He passed the happiest and most interesting hour of his life looking over and studying all these wonderful aerial marvels about him.

When they got back to camp, the aeronaut showed Andy where he would sleep, and told him something about the routine.

"I am making test runs with the _Eagle_," he explained, "and will want you to sail with me for a day or two. Then you may try a grasshopper run or two yourself."

"I shall like it immensely," declared Andy with enthusiasm.

When Mr. Parks had left him, Andy wandered outside. The sound of a twanging banjo led him to the front of the kitchen quarters.

Seated on a box, his eyes closed, his face wearing an expression of supreme felicity, was Scipio. Strains of "My Old Kentucky Home" floated on the air. The musician, opening his eyes, happened to spy Andy.

"Tell you, chile," declared the portly old cook, with a rare sigh of longing, "des yar Scip could play dat tune all night long."

"Keep right at it, Scipio," smiled Andy. "You go on enjoying your music, while I do up any little chores you have to attend to."

"If it wouldn't be a deposition on yo'," remarked Scipio thoughtfully, "dar's de suppah dishes I'd like brung back from Mistah Morse's quarters."

"Can I find them?" inquired Andy.

"Yo' jess follow yo' nose down through the big shed," directed Scipio. "Mistah Morse nevah notice yo'. He's dat substracted he work all night."

Andy proceeded on his mission. Passing through one shed, he saw a light at the end of one adjoining. In the second shed he came to a halt with sparkling eyes and bated breath.

Across a light platform lay the skeleton of an airship. Its airy elegance and fine mechanism appealed to Andy intensely. He went clear around it, wishing he had the inventive faculty to construct some like masterpiece in its line.

Just beyond the machine was a small apartment where a light was burning. Near its doorway was a table upon which Andy observed a tray of dishes and the remnants of a meal.

He moved forward carefully to remove them, for seated at a work-bench and deeply engrossed in some work at a small lathe, was a man wearing great goggles on his eyes.

"It must be Mr. Morse, the airship inventor," thought Andy.

Just then the inventor removed his goggles, rubbed his eyes and turned his face towards Andy.

With a crash the boy dropped a plate, and with a profound start he drew back, staring blankly at the man at the bench.

"Oh, my!" said Andy breathlessly.

Chapter IX--The Airship Inventor

Morse, the inventor, made a grab for his eye-goggles. He had become a shade paler. He did not take up the goggles, however. Instead, he turned his back on Andy.

Our hero had a right to be startled. He stood staring and spellbound, for he had recognized the inventor in an instant. He was the handcuffed man he had poled down the river from Princeville the night of the flight from the Talbots, and who had given him the very watch he now carried in his pocket with such pride and satisfaction.

The man had shaved off his full beard since Andy had first met him. This made him look different. It was the large, restless eyes, however, that had betrayed his identity. Andy would know them anywhere. He at once realized that the inventor had sought to disguise himself. Probably, Andy reasoned, he had caught him off his guard with the goggles off his eyes.

"What did you say 'oh, my!' for?" suddenly demanded the inventor.

"I--I thought I recognized you--I thought I knew you," said Andy.

"Do you think so now?" inquired the inventor, turning sharply face about.

"I certainly thought I knew you."

"And suppose you was right?"

"If you were really the person I supposed," replied Andy, "I would have done just exactly what I promised to do when I last saw that person."

"And what was that?"

"To forget it."

"You'd keep your word, eh?"

"I generally try to."

The man's eyes seemed riveted on Andy in a peculiar way that made the boy squirm. There was something uncanny about it all. Andy experienced a decidedly disagreeable creeping sensation. The inventor was silent for a moment or two. Then he asked:

"Who sent you here?"

"I wasn't sent by any one. I just came."

"How?"

"With Mr. Parks--in his airship."

"Are you going to stay here?"

"He has hired me at ten dollars a week and board," proudly announced Andy.

"He's a good man," said Morse. "I don't think he'd pick you out if you were a bad boy. What time is it?"

This question was so significant that it flustered Andy. He drew out his watch in a blundering sort of a way, fancying that he detected the faint shadow of a smile on the face of his interlocutor.

"It's half-past seven," he reported.

"Watch keep good time?"

"Yes, sir. The man who gave it to me was the man whom I took you for."

"Good timepiece."

"Splendid."

"U-m. What's your name?"

"Andy Nelson."

"I'm going to trust you, Andy Nelson; I don't think I will have any reason to regret it."

"I will try to deserve your confidence, Mr. Morse."

"Oh, you know my name?"

"Yes, sir. I heard Mr. Parks speak of you."

"I see--of course. I must be cautious after this, though. I had an idea that shaving off my beard would change my appearance, but as you recognized me, I must not be seen by outsiders without my goggles. Andy, I do not wish Mr. Parks to know anything about that handcuff affair of mine."

"All right, sir."

"I suppose it struck you suspiciously."

"It did at first," confessed Andy. "When I came to think it over, though, I remembered that I was in trouble and acting suspiciously myself. I knew that I was right in my motives, and I hoped you were."

"I'll tell you something, Andy," said the inventor. "It won't be much for the present, but later I may tell you a good deal more. A bad crowd have a hold on me, a certain power that has enabled them to scare me and rob me at times. I am an inventor. They knew that I was getting up a new airship. They captured me and locked me up. They demanded a price for my liberty--that I would disclose my plan to them. I consented. They even forced me to make a working model. The night before the day I intended to complete it I made my escape, but handcuffed. You came along and helped me on the way to freedom. After I left the barge on the creek I got to the home of a friend, disguised myself, and came here and hired out with Mr. Parks."

"But your invention the rascals got away from you?"

"Let them keep it," responded the inventor, "so long as they do not trouble me again. There was a defect in the model they stole from me. Unless they are smart enough to remedy it, they may find out they haven't made so big a haul as they anticipate. Look here, Andy."

Mr. Morse beckoned our hero over to the work-bench and showed him a drawing.

"The work you see in the big room," he said, "is the skeleton of this machine. I am basing great hopes on it. I want to make a record in aviation, for I believe it will be the most promising field for inventors for many years to come. If you are going to work with us, you should know what is going on. This is my new model."

As Mr. Morse spoke, he became intent and eloquent. He lost himself in his enthusiasm as an inventor. Andy was a ready listener, and it was delightful to him to explore this marvel of machines.

"What I hope to accomplish," explained Mr. Morse, "is to construct a combined steerer and balancer on one lever. I aim to make this lever not only tilt the flyer to which it is attached on a transverse axis, but also on a longitudinal axis. It is called a double-action horizontal rudder, and if I succeed will give instantaneous control of a flying-machine under all conditions, be it a high wind or the failing of motive power. I combine with it a self-righting automatic balance. It is a brand-new idea. I thought those villains I have told you about had stolen my greatest idea, but this beats it two to one."

"Will they try to use the invention they stole from you?" inquired Andy.

"Of course they will--to their cost--if they are too rash," declared the inventor seriously. "That was a rudder idea, too."

"Tell me about it, Mr. Morse," pleaded Andy; "I am greatly interested in it all."

"I am going to tell you, Andy," responded the inventor, "because I believe the men who imprisoned me will try to enter the prize contest, and I want to keep track of them. I don't dare venture among them myself, but I may ask you to seek them out and bring me some news."

"Yes, sir," said Andy.

"The head man of the crowd is an old circus man named Duske. It is a good name for him, for he is dark in looks and deed. The idea they have stolen from me is this: In place of the conventional airship rudder, I planned to equip the aeroplane with movable rear sections of pipe, the main sections of this pipe to extend the full length of the craft. Suction wheels at each end of the main tube force the air backwards through the tube, the force of this air explosion driving the nose of the craft into the air when the movable section of the tube is raised, lowering it when it is pointed downwards, and providing for its lateral progress on the same principle. Do you follow me?"

"I can almost see the machine right before my eyes, the way you tell about it!" said Andy, with breathless enthusiasm.

Chapter X--Learning To Fly

That was the first of many pleasant and interesting visits that Andy had with Mr. Morse, the inventor. By the end of the week the automobile boy had become an airship enthusiast. Andy was charmed. When he was not pottering about the _Eagle_ or sailing the air with John Parks, he was with Mr. Morse in a congenial atmosphere of mechanics.

Although John Parks was now engrossed in using his glider, he had not given up using his dirigible balloon, and he also gave Andy some lessons in running this.

The dirigible was shaped like a fat cigar, and had under it a frame-work carrying a thirty horse-power motor and two six-foot suction wheels. When there was no wind, the dirigible could sail quite well, but in a breeze it was hard to make much progress, and to use it in a high wind was entirely out of the question.

[Illustration: HE GAVE ANDY SOME LESSONS IN RUNNING THIS]

"The monoplanes and biplanes make the old-style balloons and the dirigibles take a back seat," said the Airship King. "But, just the same, if your motor gives out, a dirigible is a nice thing to float down in."

"I like the dirigible," answered Andy. "But for speed, give me the new kind of flying machines."

Andy was in his element among the lathes, vises, saws, and general tools of the workshop. Once or twice he made practical suggestions that pleased Morse greatly. The inventor rarely left the camp, and when he did it was generally after dark. There was material and aeroplane parts to purchase. These commissions were entrusted to Andy, and he showed intelligence in his selections. Once he had to go fifty miles on the railroad to a factory to have some special devices made. He used such dispatch, and was so successful in getting just what was wanted by staying with the order till it was filled, that Mr. Morse warmly commended him to Parks.

Andy had drifted completely away from the old life. He was fast forgetting all about the Talbots and his former troubles at Princeville. One day, in a burst of satisfaction over a trial flight Andy made alone in a monoplane, John Parks declared that he would not rest until he had made Andy the junior air king of America. Then Andy felt that he had found his mission in life, and pursued his new avocation with more fervor than ever.

About all Parks thought or talked of was the coming aero meet. Andy learned that he was investing over two thousand dollars in maintaining the camp and in building the machine with which he was to compete for the prize. His success would mean something more than the winning of the five thousand dollars. It would add to the laurels already gained as the Air King in his former balloon experience, and would make him a prominent figure in the aviation field.

"Come on, Andy," he said to his young assistant one afternoon. "We'll stroll over to the main grounds and see what new wrinkle these ambitious fellows are getting up."

They spent an interesting hour over in the main enclosure where prospective exhibitors were located. There was quite a crowd of visitors. Some of the aviators were explaining the make-up of their machines, and others were making try-out flights. Parks and Andy were passing to the outfield where the test ascensions were in progress, when the former suddenly left the side of his companion.

Andy was surprised to see him hasten up behind a sinister-looking man, who was apparently explaining to an old farmer about the machines. Parks seized the man rudely by the arm and faced him around squarely. The latter scowled, and then a strange, wilted expression came into his dark face.

"Excuse this gentleman, if you will," said Parks to the farmer.

"Why, suttinly," bobbed the ruralite. "Much obleeged to him for being so perlite in showing me 'round."

Parks drew the shrinking man he had halted to the side of a tent.

"Now, then, Gib Duske," he said sternly, "what were you up to with that greenhorn?"

"He told you, didn't he?" growled the other; "showing him the sights."

"You're given to doing such things for nothing!" rejoined Parks sarcastically. "I recall some of your exploits in that line in the rural districts when you were with the circus."

"See here," broke out the other angrily, "what is it your business?"

"Just this," retorted Parks steadily; "we're trying to run a decent enterprise here, and such persons as you have got to give an account of themselves or vacate. What's your game, anyhow?"

"I'm up to no game that I know of," sullenly muttered the man called Gib Duske. "If you must know, I've entered my airship for the race."

"You!" exclaimed Parks; "'Your airship!' Where did you get an airship?"

"I suppose I have friends to back me like anybody else when they see a show for their money. I'm an old balloonist. A syndicate, knowing my professional skill, has put up the capital to give me a try."

"Oh, they have?" observed Parks incredulously. "I'd like to see your syndicate."

"And I've got my machine," declared Duske excitedly, "I'd have you know. I've heard you're entered. Fair play, then, and I'm going to beat the field."

Parks eyed his companion in speculative silence for a minute or two. Then he said:

"You talk about fair play. Good! You'll get it here, if you're square. If you're not, you had best take my warning right now, and cut out for good. There will be no balloon slitting like there was at a certain race you were in two years ago out West. The first freak or false play you make to queer an honest go, I'll expose you to the field."

"I've got no such intentions," mumbled Duske, with a malicious glance at his challenger.

"See you don't, that's all," retorted Parks, and walked off. "You noticed that man?" he added, as he rejoined Andy, who had listened with interest to the conversation.

"Yes, particularly," answered Andy, really able to tell his employer more than he dared.

"Whenever you run across him," went on the Air King, "keep your eyes wide open. I'd like to know just how much truth there is in his talk about entering for the race."

"Is he a bad man, Mr. Parks?" inquired Andy.

"He was once a confidence man," explained the aeronaut. "When I knew him he was giving balloon ascensions at a circus. He had a hired crowd picking pockets while people were staring up into the air watching his trapeze acts. Once at a race he slyly slit the balloon of an antagonist, who was nearly killed by the fall."

"I'll find out just what he is doing," exclaimed Andy.

"You can manage, for he knows me," observed Parks.

Andy said no more. He was pretty sure from the name and description that the fellow whom his employer had just called down was the enemy that Mr. Morse had told him about. He wished he could tell Mr. Parks all that he knew and surmised, but he could not break his promise to the inventor.

"Hello, there, Ridley!" hailed Parks, as they came to where a lithe, undersized man was volubly boasting to an open-mouthed crowd about the superior merits of his machine. "Bragging again?"

"Go on, John Parks," called the little man good-naturedly. "I'm not in your class, so what are you jumping on me for?"

"Oh, just to stir you up and keep you encouraged. I hear you've got a machine that will land just as steadily and balance on top of a telegraph-pole as on a prairie."

"That's pretty near the truth, John Parks," declared Ridley. "I can't make a mile in thirty seconds, but I can get to the ground on a straight dive ahead of your clumsy old _Eagle_, or any other racer on the field."

"Why, Ridley," retorted Parks, in a vaunting way, "I've got a boy here who can give you a handicap and double discount you."

"Is that him?" inquired Ridley, with a stare at Andy.

"That's him out of harness," laughed Parks. "Like to see him do something?"

"Just to show you're all bluster, I would," answered Ridley.

"Machine in order?"

"True as a trivet."

"Andy, give them a sample of a real bird diving, will you?"

"All right," said Andy.

He had not been tutored by his skillful employer vainly. Andy was in excellent practice. He got into the clear, started up the Ridley machine, and took a shoot on a straight slant up into the air about one hundred and fifty feet.

A cry of surprise went up from the watching group as Andy suddenly let the biplane slide on a sharp angle towards the ground, shutting off the power at the same time.

Again reaching a fair height, he tipped the biplane on an angle of five degrees and came down so fast that the spectators thought something was wrong. When the machine was within a yard of the ground, Andy brought it to the horizontal with ease and made a pretty landing.

"Well, Ridley," rallied John Parks, as the stupefied owner of the machine stared in open-mouthed wonder, "what do you say to that?"

"What do I say," repeated Ridley. "I say, look out for your laurels, John Parks. That boy is a wonder!"

Chapter XI--Spying On The Enemy

"There is that man again, Mr. Parks."

"Duske? Yes."

"Shall I follow him?"

"I'd like to know just what he is about."

"I would like to try and find out," declared Andy, with more eagerness than his employer suspected.

"All right, Andy; look him up a bit. Watch out for trouble, though, for he is a dangerous man."

It was late in the afternoon of the day succeeding Andy's sensational performance, and Parks and his young assistant were again on the aviation field.

Andy had made out the man whom Parks had called Duske carrying two cans of gasoline past a tent. He did not seem to have observed Parks, and Andy did not believe that he knew him. Andy left the side of his employer, and, circulating around kept Duske in sight from a distance.

The boy had not said anything to Mr. Morse about Duske. He felt certain that Duske was one of the enemies the inventor had described. Just at present, however, Andy considered it would be unwise to disturb Morse. The latter had almost completed the new airship. His mind was absorbed in his task, and he was working day and night.

Duske passed the last tent on the field, and then struck off beyond some old railroad sheds to the side of an abandoned switchyard. Scattered here and there over this space were several tents. They were occupied by aero contestants who had not been able to get a favorable location on the big field, or by those who had sought this seclusion because they wished to be isolated with some fancied new invention, the details of which they did not wish their contestants to learn.

Finally Duske seemed to arrive at his destination. It was where stout canvas had been stretched about fifty feet out from the blank side of an old frame shed. These strips of canvas and the shed cut out completely a view of what was beyond. The front of this enclosure was guarded by a roof set up on posts, this leading into the entrance tent of the main enclosure.

A man about as sinister looking as Duske himself was cooking something on a stove, and two others were lounging on a bench near by. Duske carried the gasoline cans out of sight. Andy got around to the side of the enclosure, way back near its shed end.

It was getting well on toward nightfall, and he felt that he was secure in making some bold, prompt investigations. There was no doubt that the large tent enclosed the airship which Duske and his crowd intended to enter for the race. Andy attempted to lift the canvas at one or two points, but found it securely pegged to the ground.

"Humph!" he soliloquized, "everything nailed down tight. Must make their trial flights at midnight. They must think they have got a treasure in there. I've got to see it."

Finally Andy came to a laced section of the canvas, which he was able to press apart a foot or more by tight tugging. He squeezed through, and stood inside the enclosure.

There was light enough to show outlines, and with a good deal of curiosity Andy walked around and inspected an aeroplane propped up on a platform in the center of the enclosure. He came to a halt at one end of the machine. Two long hollow tubes extended beyond the folding planes.

"Why," breathed Andy, "it's the idea they stole from Mr. Morse. Here's the suction apparatus, and all!"

"Hi, there! who are you?"

The challenge came so sharp and sudden that Andy was taken completely off his guard. Two men had come from the front tent, their footsteps being noiseless on the soft earth floor. One of them was the man Duske.

"Just looking around," replied Andy, edging away and pulling his cap down over his eyes.

"How did you get in here?"

"Slit in the canvas."

"Don't let him go--grab him," ordered Duske's companion quickly, and Andy began to back towards the canvas.

Duske reached out and made a grab at Andy. The latter dodged, but Duske's hand landed on his cap. His glance falling to the inside peak, he could not help reading there the words: "_Eagle_--Andy Nelson."

Nearly everything worn by Parks and Andy, as all the parts of the _Eagle_, were marked, so that in case of an accident identification would be easy.

"_'Eagle'!_" cried Duske, bristling up. "Do you belong to the _Eagle_ crowd?"

"He's a spy--head him off!" shouted the other man.

"_'Eagle'_--'Andy Nelson'," continued Duske. "That's your name, is it? Now then, what are you snooping around here for?"

"What's that, what's that?" challenged the other man quickly. "'Andy Nelson?' Say, Duske, that sounds familiar. I just read that name somewhere--I have it--in a newspaper----"

"Thunder! he's slipped us," exclaimed Duske.

Both men had started for Andy. The latter let them come on, ducked down, dove straight between them, ran to the slitted canvas, squeezed through, and sprinted away from the spot on feet of fleetness.

"I don't know how much I have mixed up affairs," he reflected, as he made for the home camp. "Those fellows know my name and that I am with Mr. Parks. What bothers me most, is what the man said about seeing my name in a newspaper. Some one here--in an automobile."

As Andy reached home he observed an automobile in front of the living quarters. A man came out as Andy stood wondering who the visitor could be. Andy noticed that he carried a small black case.

"A doctor," he decided hastily. "Can any one be sick? What has happened?" he asked, as Scipio came out.

"Hahd luck, chile, hahd luck!" replied the cook very seriously. "Yo bettah see Mistah Parks right away."

Andy hurried to the sitting room. Lying covered up on a couch, his right arm in splints, and looking pale and distressed, was the aeronaut.

"Oh, Mr. Parks! what is the matter?" asked Andy in alarm.

"Everything off, lad," replied his employer, with a wince and a groan. "I've had a bad fall, arm broken in two places, and we can't make the airship race."

Chapter XII--Traced Down

"Be careful, Mr. Parks!"

"Foh goodness sake, sah! Yo want to break dat arm ober again?"

Mr. Morse, the inventor, and Scipio, the cook, made a frantic rush for the aeronaut. They were grouped together in the center of the space occupied by their camp. The eyes of each had been fixed on an object floating about in the air over-head. All had been pleased and excited, but particularly Parks. Now as the object aloft made a skim that seemed to beat a mile a minute dash, John Parks lost all control of himself.

He forgot the fractured arm he had carried in a sling for three days, and actually tried to wave it, as he burst forth:

"Morse, you're a genius, and that boy, Andy Nelson, is the birdman of the century!"

Andy deserved the praise fully that was being bestowed upon him. That morning Mr. Morse had completed the _Racing Star_, his new airship. At the present moment it was making its initial flight.

The relieved, contented face of Morse showed his satisfaction over the fact that his work was done and done well. Scipio stared goggle-eyed. As to John Parks, expert sky sailor that he was, his practiced eye in one moment had discerned the fact that the _Racing Star_ was the latest and best thing out in aviation, and he went fairly wild over the masterly way in which Andy handled the machine.

Andy aloft, had eye, nerve and breath strained to test the splendid device to its complete capacity. He was himself amazed at the beauty the utility of the dainty creation just turned out from the workshop. What the Airship King had taught him Andy had not forgotten. After five minutes spent in exploiting every angle of skill he possessed, Andy brought the superb aeroplane down to the ground, graceful as a swan. John Parks ran up to him, chuckling with delight.

"You wonder! you daisy!" he roared, shaking Andy's hand with his well arm.

Andy was flushed with triumph and excitement.

"If there's any wonder to talk about," he said, "it's that glorious piece of work, the _Racing Star_, and the splendid man who made it."

Morse smiled, a rare thing for him. Then he said modestly:

"It will do the work, handled as you manage it, Andy."

"I feel like a caged lion, or an eagle with its wings clipped!" stormed Parks, with a glance at his bandaged arm. "Why did I go trying to show a bungling amateur how to run an old wreck of a monoplane, and get my arm broken for my pains, and lose that five-thousand-dollar prize!"

"There is time to enter a substitute, Mr. Parks," suggested the inventor.

"Who?" demanded the aeronaut scornfully. "Some amateur who will sell me out or bungle the race, and maybe smash up my last thousand dollars?"

"Mr. Parks," said Andy, in a quick breath, and colored up and paused suddenly. "I'd be glad to try it. Say the word, and I'll train day and night for the race."

"Andy, win it, and half of that five thousand dollars is yours."

From excitement and incoherency, the little group got down to a serious discussion of the situation during the next half hour.

"It's just one week from the race," said Andy. "What can't I do in learning to run the _Racing Star_ in that time?"

"Andy, you must make it," declared Parks energetically. "It just seems as if my heart would break if we lost this record."

Mr. Morse got out a chart he had drawn of the run to be made on the twenty-first of the month.

"The course is very nearly a straight one," explained Parks; "from the grounds here to Springfield, where the State fair is going on. Pace will be set by a Central Northern train, carrying assistants and repairs. The fleet will be directed by a large American flag floating from the rear of the train. It's almost a beeline, Andy, and the _Racing Star_ is built for speed."

They made another ascent the next morning. Air and breeze conditions were most favorable for the try-out. Seated amidships, wearing a leather jacket, cap and gloves, Andy had the motor keyed up to its highest speed. The quick sequence of its exhaust swelled like a rapid-fire gun.

The machine rolled forward, the propellers beat the air, and the _Racing Star_ rose on a smooth parabola. Andy attempted some volplane skits that were fairly hair-raising. He raced with real birds. He practiced with the wind checks. For half an hour he kept up a series of practice stunts of the most difficult character.

"Oh, but you're a crack scholar, Andy Nelson," declared the delighted Parks, as the _Racing Star_ came to moorings again, light as a feather.

"I think myself I am getting on to most of the curves," said Andy. "The only question is can I keep it up on a long stretch?"

"Practice makes perfect, you know," suggested Mr. Morse.

Andy felt that he had about reached the acme of his mechanical ambition. When he went to bed that night the thought of the coming race kept him awake till midnight. When he finally went to sleep, it was to dream of aerial flights that resolved themselves into a series of the most exciting nightmares.

No developments came from Andy's experience with the Duske crowd. Once in a while he worried some over the reference of Duske's companions to seeing his name in the newspapers.

"Either it was about my trouble at Princeville, or some of these reporters writing up the race got my name incidentally," decided Andy.

"Anyhow, I can't afford to trouble about it."

Andy rarely ventured away from the camp after dark. In fact, ever since entering the employment of Mr. Parks he had not mixed much with outsiders. He had his Princeville friends and the Duske crowd constantly in mind. But one hot evening he went forth for some ice cream for the crowd.

The distance to a town restaurant was not great. Andy hurried across the freight tracks. Just as he passed a switchman's shanty, he fancied he heard some one utter a slight cry of surprise. Two persons dodged back out of the light of a switch lantern. Andy, however, paid little attention to the episode. He reached the restaurant, got the ice cream in a pasteboard box, and started back for the camp without any mishap or adventure.

Just as Andy crossed a patch of ground covered with high rank weeds, he became aware that somebody was following him. A swift backward glance revealed two slouching figures. They pressed forward as Andy momentarily halted.

"Now then!" spoke one of them suddenly.

Andy dodged as something was thrown towards him, but not in time to avoid a looped rope. It was handled deftly, for before he knew it his hands were bound tightly to his side.

One of the twain ran at him and tripped him up. The other twined the loose line about Andy's ankles.

"Got him!" sounded a triumphant voice.

"Good business," chirped his companion, and then Andy thrilled in some dismay, as he recognized his captors as Gus Talbot and Dale Billings.

"Hello, Andy Nelson," said Gus Talbot.

Gus's voice was sneering and offensive as he hailed the captive. His companion looked satisfied and triumphant as he stood over Andy, as if he expected their victim to applaud him for doing something particularly smart.

"See here, Gus," observed Dale, "I'd better get, hey?"

"Right off, too," responded Gus. "If there's the ready cash in it, all right. If there isn't we'll get him on the way to Princeville ourselves some way."

"Can you manage him alone?"

"I'll try to," observed Gus vauntingly, "I'll just have a pleasant little chat with him for the sake of old times, while I sample this ice cream of his--um-um--it ought to be prime."

Dale sped away on some mysterious errand. Gus picked up the box of ice cream that Andy had dropped and opened it. He tore off one of its pasteboard flaps, fashioned it into an impromptu spoon, and proceeded to fill his mouth with the cream.

"Don't you get up," he warned Andy. "If you do, I'll knock you down again."

"Big Injun, aren't you!" flared out Andy, provoked and indignant--"especially where you've got a fellow whipsawed?"

"Betcher life," sneered Gus maliciously. "Things worked to a charm. Got a hint from some airship fellows that you was somewhere around these diggings. Watched out for you and caught you just right, hey?"

The speaker sat down among the weeds in front of Andy. The latter noticed that his face was grimed and his hands stained with dirt. His clothes were wrinkled and disordered as if he had been sleeping in them. From what he observed, Andy decided that the son of the Princeville garage owner and his companion were on a tramp. They looked like runaways, and did not appear to be at all prosperous.

"Say," blurted out Gus, digging down into the ice cream, as if he was hungry, "you might better have turned up that two hundred dollars for dad."

"Why had I?" demanded Andy.

"It would have saved you a good deal of trouble. It's a stroke of luck, running across you just as we'd spent our last dime. How will you like to go back to Princeville and face the music?"

"What music?"

"Oh, yes, you don't know! Haven't read the papers, I suppose? Didn't know you was wanted?"

"Who wants me?"

"Nor that a reward was out for you?"

"Why?"

"Say, are you so innocent as all that, or just plain slick?" drawled Gus, with a crafty grin.

"I don't know what you are talking about."

"Farmer Jones' barn."

"Oh----" Andy gave a start. He began to understand now. "What about Farmer Jones' barn?"

"You know, I guess. It was set on fire and burned down. They have been looking everywhere for the firebug, and offer a fifty-dollar reward."

"Is that the reason why you and Dale have left Princeville?" demanded Andy coolly.

"Eh, well, I guess not," cried Gus. "Huh! Everybody knows how you did it out of spite against Jones because he hindered you running away from dad. Why, they found your cap right near the barn ruins."

"Is that so?" said Andy quietly. "How did it get there?"

"How did it get there? You dropped it there, of course."

"Purposely to get blamed for it, I suppose?" commented Andy. "That's pretty thin, Gus Talbot, seeing that you know and your father knows that my cap was taken away from me when he locked me up at the garage, and I had no chance to get it later. You left the cap near the burned barn, Gus Talbot, and you know it."

"Me? Rot!" ejaculated Gus, but he stopped eating the ice cream and acted restless.

"In fact," continued Andy definitely, "I can prove that both you and Dale were sneaking about the Jones' place a short time before the fire broke out."

"Bosh!" mumbled Gus.

"Further than that, I can tell you word for word what passed between you two. Listen."

Andy remembered clearly every incident of his flight from the haystack in Farmer Jones' field. He recited graphically the appearance of Gus and Dale, and the remark he had overheard. Gus sat staring at him in an uneasy way. He acted bored, and seemed at a loss to answer.

It was more than half an hour before Dale returned. He acted glum and mad.

"Is it all right?" inquired Gus eagerly.

"Right nothing!"

"Get the money?"

"No."

"What's the trouble?"

"I saw a constable and told him I could give him a chance to make a fifty-dollar reward, us to get ten. He heard me through and said it wouldn't do."

"Why wouldn't it?" demanded Gus.

"Because this is in another county, and he'd have to get the warrant. Said it was too much trouble to bother with it."

"Humph! what will we do now?" muttered Gus in a disgusted way.

"That's easy. Get Andy over the county line, and find someone else to take the job off our hands," replied Dale Billings.

Chapter XIII--Jiu-Jitsu

"Come on," ordered Gus to Andy, unfastening the end of the rope and giving it a jerk.

"Hey, not that way," dissented Dale.

"Why not?"

"Think you can parade him through the town without attracting attention? We've got to be careful to cut out from here without a soul seeing us till we strike a country road. You march," commanded Gus anew to his captive, heading in another direction. "And you just so much as peep if we meet anybody, and you get a whack of this big stick."

Andy submitted to circumstances. He figured out that it would be some time before his captors could perfect their arrangements for interesting some officer of the law in their scheme. He readily guessed that for some reason or other they did not wish or dare to return personally to Princeville. Andy calculated that it was nearly ten miles to the county line. He believed he would have half a dozen chances to break away from his captors before they reached it.

"Huh, what you going to do now?" inquired Gus in a grumbling tone, as they came directly up against a high board fence.

"You wait here a minute," directed Dale.

The speaker ran down the fence in one direction to face at its end a busy field occupied by aviation tents. He tried the opposite direction to find matters still worse, for there the fence ended against a lighted street of the town.

"What's beyond the fence?" inquired Gus.

"Not much of anything--a sort of a prairie," reported Dale, peering through a crack in the fence.

"We can't scale it."

"Not with Andy in tow. Here we are, though."

Dale had discovered a loose board. He began tugging at its lower end, and succeeded in pulling it far enough out to admit of their crowding through the opening. He went first, grabbing and holding Andy till Gus made the passage.

"Keep away from those lights over yonder," ordered Dale, indicating a point on the broad expanse where some aeroplane tents showed. "This way, I tell you," he added in a hoarse, hurried whisper. "There's a man."

Andy pushed forward, came to a dead halt, bracing himself as his captors tried to pull him out of range of a man seated on a hummock, apparently watching some night manoeuvres of airships over where the lights showed.

"Mister, oh, mister!" shouted Andy.

He received a blow on the mouth from the fist of Gus, but that did not prevent him from renewing the outcry. The man sprang quickly to his feet and came towards them.

He was small, thin, dark-faced, and so undersized and effeminate-looking that Andy at once decided that he would not count for much in a tussle with two stout, active boys. Dale thought so, too, evidently, for he squared up in front of Andy, trying to hide him from the view of the stranger, while Gus attempted to pull his captive back towards the fence. Andy, however, gave a jerk that drew Gus almost off his feet, and a bunt to Dale that sent him forcibly to one side.

"What is this?" spoke the stranger in a soft, mellow, almost womanly tone of voice. "Did some one then call?"

"It was I," proclaimed Andy. "These fellows have tied me up and are trying to kidnap me."

"It is wrong, I will so investigate," said the little man, coming straight up to the group and scanning each keenly in turn.

"See here," spoke Dale, springing in front of the man, "this is none of your business."

"Oh, yes, it is," returned the stranger in the same gentle, purring way. "I am interested. Speak on, young man."

"Get him away!" directed Dale in a sharp whisper to Gus.

Then, quick as lightning, he made a pass at the stranger. He was double the weight of the latter and half a head taller. Andy expected to see his champion flatten out like the weakling he looked.

"Ah," said the latter, "it is so you answer questions. My way, then."

What he did he did so quickly that Andy could not follow all of his movements. The hands of the little man moved about like those of an expert weaver at the loom. The result was a marvel. In some way he caught Dale around the neck. The next moment he swung him from the ground past his shoulder and his adversary landed with a thump.

Gus dropped the rope and ran at the stranger, club uplifted. Again the wiry strength of the little man was exerted. He seemed to stoop, and his arms enclosed Gus about the hips. There was a tug and tussle. Gus was wrenched from his footing, and went skidding to the ground, face down, for nearly two yards.

"Thunder!" he shouted, wiping the sand from his mouth.

[Illustration: THE WIRY STRENGTH OF THE LITTLE MAN WAS EXERTED]

"Go," said the stranger, advancing upon the prostrate twain, who scrambled promptly to their feet.

Both dove for the loose plank in the fence and disappeared through it. The stranger drew out a pocket-knife and relieved Andy of his bonds.

"I look at you and then at those two," he said simply, "and your face tells me the true story. Where would you go?"

Andy pointed in the direction of the Parks' Aerodome, and the man walked by his side in its direction.

"I don't care to have those fellows find out where I am working," explained Andy. "Mister," he added admiringly, "how did you do it?"

"It was simple jiu-jitsu."

"Eh? Oh, yes, I've heard of that," said Andy, but vaguely. "It's a new Japanese wrestling trick, isn't it?"

"I am from Japan," observed his companion with a courteous dignity of manner that impressed Andy.

"I see," nodded Andy, "and you come from a wonderful people."

"We strive to learn," replied his companion. "That is why I am here. I was sent to this country to study aeronautics. Besides that, the science has a peculiar attraction for me. My father was chief kite maker to the family of the Mikado."

"Is it possible?" said Andy.

"I therefore have an absorbing interest in your airmen and their daring work. You must know that we make wonderful kites in my home country."

"I have heard something of it," said Andy.

"Two hundred years ago many of the principles now used in your airships were used in our kite flying, only we never tried to fly ourselves."

"We have a gentleman up at our camp who would be just delighted to talk with you," declared Andy enthusiastically. "He is an inventor, a Mr. Morse."

"I should like to meet him," said the Japanese.

"Then come right along with me," invited Andy cordially; "only, say, please, don't mention the fix you found me in."

"It shall be so," declared his companion.

Andy made sure that his recent captors were not following them as they made a cut across a field and reached the Parks' camp. He led his guest into the sitting room of the living building, to find his employer and Mr. Morse there. Andy introduced his companion. It did not take long for the inventor to discover a kindred spirit in the Japanese, who gave his name as Tsilsuma.

That night after he had got into bed Andy wondered if he had not better tell Mr. Morse or his employer his entire story, and the former about the near proximity of his old-time enemy, Duske. Then, too, he worried some over the appearance of Gus and Dale and his daily risk of being arrested. With daylight, however, Andy forgot all these minor troubles.

There was to be a race for a small prize that afternoon on the aviation field, and Parks had arranged for the _Racing Star_ to participate. The aeronaut was busy half the morning seeing to the machine, while Mr. Morse flitted about adjusting a device suggested by the intelligent Tsilsuma for folding the floats under the aeroplane. The Japanese, too, had suggested sled runners in front and wheels at the rear for starting gear.

The _Racing Star_ had not appeared in the general field before, and this was a kind of qualification flight. Just after two o'clock Parks made his final inspection of the bearings of the motors and the word to go was given. Andy sailed over the railroad tracks and landed in the field half a mile distant, with a dexterity that made his rivals there take a good deal of notice of him and the _Racing Star_.

When the word came Andy started the motor, and a friend of the aeronaut tugged at the propellers. With a blast that resembled a cyclone the airship started.

The helpers worked at the rudders, and after a run of only seventy-five feet the _Racing Star_ shot up into the air.

Andy tried a preliminary stunt that he had practiced for two days past. It was to fly around the field in a figure eight at a height of ninety-five feet. Then, just to test the excellency of the machine, he plunged for the ground.

"The boy will kill himself!" shouted the man in charge of the race, but just at the critical moment Andy shifted his steering planes and flew across the ground, barely skimming the grass.

Once in this fashion he went around the course, then another upward lunge and he circled back to the starting point and came gently to earth. The crowds sent up an enthusiastic roar.

Four other machines made their exhibition in turn. Two went through a clumsy process, one became disabled, and the other retired with the derisive criticism of "Grasshopper!" as its pilot failed to lift it more than ten feet from the ground at any time.

"Mind the wind checks, Andy, lad," warned John Parks anxiously, as the three aeroplanes were ranged for the prize test of a mile run around the course.

"I'll be the pathfinder or nothing!" declared Andy, his eyes bright and observant, his nerves tingling with the excitement of the moment.

"Go!"

The three powerful mechanical birds arose in the air, dainty creations of grace and beauty, Andy in the lead. Then his nearest competitor passed him. Then No. 3 shot ahead of the other two, and then the turn.

"Huzza!" breathed Parks.

At his side, safe from recognition in his great disfiguring goggles, Mr. Morse moved restlessly from foot to foot. The _Racing Star_ had accomplished what he had worked so hard to bring about--a true circle in a rapid turn.

The two other machines bungled. One nearly upset. Down the course came Andy, headed like an arrow for the starting point. A slanting dive, and the _Racing Star_ skimmed the ground fully five hundred feet in advance of the nearest opponent.

Watch in hand, John Parks ran up to Andy, his face aglow with professional pride and delight.

"Won the race--but better than that you have beat the home record by eight seconds!"

"Winner, the _Racing Star_," sang out the starter.

And then he added:

"Time: forty-eight seconds and seven-eighths."

"Hurrah!" shouted John Parks, throwing his hat in the air.

Chapter XIV--The Old Leather Pocketbook

"No sky-sailing to-day, Andy," said John Parks, the aeronaut.

"I guess you are right," answered Andy.

"A rest won't do you any harm. There are three days before the last event, and plenty of time to try Morse's new wrinkles."

"I think I'll go and see what the latest one is," said Andy.

It was a rainy day with a strong breeze, and waste of time, Andy well knew, to attempt any flights under the conditions. He went to the workshop to find Mr. Morse and the Japanese deep in discussion over some angle of a new reversible plane, they called it. Tsilsuma had become almost a fixture at the Parks' camp. He was unobtrusive generally, but his instincts and mission to delve and absorb were accommodated and encouraged by the inventor, and a strong friendship had sprung up between the two.

Andy wandered about promiscuously, time hanging heavily on his hands. Finally he settled down in the comfortable sitting room looking over some books on scientific subjects, and picking out here and there a simple fact among a group of very abstruse ones.

"If ever I get any money ahead," he observed, "I'll put some of it into education, and I'll study up aeronautics first thing. It seems as if it's natural for me to see right through a machine first time I see it, but I don't understand the real principles, for all that. No, sir, it's brains like Mr. Morse has got that counts. If sky-sailing is going to last, and I follow it up, I'm going to dig deep right down into it, college fashion, and really understand my business. Hello!"

Andy had laid aside the scientific book and had taken up a newspaper. Glancing over its columns, his eye became fixed upon an advertisement occupying a prominent position just under some local reading matter. This is what it read.

Notice--Important!

Lost--Somewhere on a train between Macon and Greenville, an old leather pocketbook, marked Robert Webb, Springfield, and containing $200. The finder may keep the money, and upon return of the pocketbook will be handsomely rewarded.

West, Thorburn & Castle, _Attorneys_, Butler Block, Greenville.

"Well," aspirated Andy energetically, "here's something new!"

The incident stirred up his thought so much that he found himself walking the floor restlessly. Andy had a vivid imagination, and he built up all kinds of fancies about the singular advertisement.

"Wonder what lies under all this?" ruminated Andy. "They don't want the two hundred dollars, and they offer more money to get back that old pocketbook! They will never get the whole of it, though, that's certain. Gus Talbot tore off the flap of it. The rest of it--lying in my old clothes in that shed on the Collins farm, where I helped drive those geese. There was nothing left in the pocketbook, I am sure of that. What can they want it for, then? Evidently Mr. Webb didn't get my postal card."

Andy could not figure this out. He found it impossible, however, to dismiss the subject from his mind.

"People don't go to all the bother that advertising shows," he reasoned, "unless it's mighty important. Can I get the pocketbook, though, after all. I threw it carelessly up on a sort of a shelf in that old shed, and it may have been removed and destroyed with other rubbish. I've got the day before me, with nothing to do. I wouldn't be at all sorry if the two hundred dollars came my way in a fair, square manner. I'll run down to Greenville. It won't take four hours, there and back. I'll see what there is to this affair--yes, I'll do it."

Andy sought out Mr. Parks and told him he was going to take a run down to Greenville on business, and would be back by evening at the latest. He caught a train about ten o'clock, and noon found him at the door of the law offices of West, Thorburn & Castle, Butler Block. Our hero entered one of three offices, where he saw a gentleman seated at a desk.

"I would like to see some member of the firm," he said.

"I am Mr. West," answered the lawyer.

"It is about an advertisement you put in the paper about a lost pocketbook," explained Andy.

"Oh, indeed," said Mr. West, looking interested at once, and arising and closing the door. "Do you know something about it?"

"I know all about it," declared Andy. "In fact, I found it only a few minutes after it was lost."

"On the train?"

"No, sir. Mr. Webb did not lose it on the train."

"He thinks he did."

"He is mistaken," said Andy. "He lost it in an automobile that took him on a rush run from Princeville across country to Macon. I was his chauffeur, and found it."

"Where is the pocketbook?" inquired the lawyer eagerly. "Have you brought it with you?"

"No, sir; but I think I can get it."

"We will make it richly worth your while," said Mr. West.

"There is something I had better explain about it," said Andy.

"Spent the two hundred dollars?" insinuated the lawyer, with an indulgent smile.

"Oh, no--the two hundred dollars is waiting for Mr. Webb to claim it with Mr. Dawson, the banker at Princeville. Let me tell you my story, Mr. West, and then you will understand better."

Andy told his story. He had a surprised, but intent listener. When he had concluded, the lawyer shook his hand warmly.

"Young man, you are a good, honest young fellow, and you will not regret acting square in this affair. Mr. Webb did not get your postal card, because he is no longer located at Springfield. How far from here is the farm you spoke of where you left the pocketbook?"

"About eighteen miles, I should think."

"Can you get there by rail?"

"Within two miles of it."

"And soon?"

"Why, yes, sir," replied Andy, glancing at his watch. "There is a train west in a quarter of an hour."

"At any expense," said Mr. West earnestly, "get there and return with the pocketbook. As to your reward----"

"Don't speak of it," said Andy. "Mr. Webb treated me handsomely when I brought him over to Macon. I can't imagine, though, why he puts so much store by the pocketbook."

"If you find it, he will tell you why," responded Mr. West. "You will be doing the best piece of work you ever did in finding that pocketbook. I shall telegraph my client to come here at once. He will be here by four o'clock."

"And I will be here not more than an hour later," said Andy.

He left the office on a brisk walk, planning his proposed route to the old farm. As he reached the street, he again glanced at his watch and found he had just ten minutes to reach the depot. Andy made a running spurt down the pavement.

He dodged an automobile speeding around a corner, heard its driver shout something he did not catch. Then he heard the machine turn and start furiously down the street in the direction he was going.

Andy saw some people stare at him, halt, and then look towards the speeding machine. Wondering what was up, he glanced back to notice the driver of the machine waving one hand frantically towards him as if bent on overtaking him.

At the same moment the man in the machine bawled out:

"Hey, stop that boy!"

Chapter XV--Behind The Bars

Andy stopped running at the loud alarm from the automobile. Several persons started to block his course and one man caught him by the coat sleeve. Andy recognized his pursuer at once. It was Seth Talbot.

The Princeville garage owner ran his car up to the curb and jumped out. His face was red with exertion and excitement, and he grasped Andy roughly by the arm.

"What's the trouble?" queried the man who had detained Andy.

"Escaped criminal--firebug," mumbled Talbot. "In with you," and he forced Andy into the machine. "Hey, officer, take charge of this prisoner."

Talbot hailed a man in uniform pressing his way through the gathering crowd.

"What is he charged with?" inquired the officer.

"Burning a barn at Princeville. Get him to the station and I'll explain to your chief."

There was no chance for Andy to expostulate or struggle. The officer held him tightly by one wrist, while Talbot whisked them away till they reached a police station.

Here the garage owner drew the officer in charge to one side. They held a brief consultation. Andy caught a word here and there. It was sufficient to apprise him of the fact that there was a reward offered for his arrest, and Talbot was agreeing to divide it with the officer if he would take charge of Andy till he was delivered over to the authorities at Princeville.

"You are in charge of the law now, young man," said the officer, leading Andy back to the automobile. "I won't shackle you, but don't try any tricks."

He and Andy occupied the rear seat in the automobile, while Talbot drove the machine.

"May I say something to you?" inquired Andy of the officer.

"About what?" asked the officer.

"My being arrested this way. I don't see what right Mr. Talbot has to chase me and give orders about me like some condemned felon. I haven't seen any warrant for my arrest."

"You'll see it soon enough. Meanwhile don't say anything to incriminate yourself," returned the officer, glibly using the pet phrase of his calling.

"I've done nothing to be incriminated," declared Andy indignantly. "What I wanted to ask was the simple favor of getting word to some people here in Greenville, who have sent me on an errand, and will be put out and disappointed if I don't show up."

"What people?" quizzed Talbot, overhearing Andy and half turning around in his seat.

"A firm of lawyers here----" began Andy.

"Yah!" derided the garage owner. "Guessed it was something of that sort. Want to tangle up this affair with some legal quibble! Officer, you just hold on to him tight. He's a slippery fellow."

Andy saw that it would be useless to appeal to either of his companions in the automobile, and put in his time doing some pretty serious thinking as the machine sped over the landscape.

"This is a bad fix at a bad time," reflected Andy. "The lawyer will expect me back as I promised, and think all kinds of things about me because I don't come. And there's Mr. Parks. And the race. I mustn't miss that! But then, I am arrested. They'll lock me up. Suppose they really prove I fired that barn?" Andy's heart beat painfully with dread and suspense.

The town hall at Princeville was reached. Andy had been in the main offices of the structure many times, but this was his first visit to the lower floor of the building where the prisoners were kept. He only casually knew the deputy sheriff in charge of the barred cage, and who looked Andy over as he would any criminal brought to him to lock up.

"This is Andy Nelson--Jones' barn--ran away--reward." Andy was somewhat chilled as the deputy nodded and proceeded to enter his name in a big book before him on the desk.

"Search him," said the official to the turnkey.

"Hello!" ejaculated Talbot, as Andy's watch was brought into view, and "hello!" he repeated with eyes goggling still more, as Andy's pocketbook came to light, and outside of some small bills and silver, a neatly-folded bill was produced.

The officer himself looked surprised at this. Andy, however, did not tell them that this represented the prize he had won at the aviation meet, treasured proudly in its entirety.

"Wonder if that's some of the money I've found short in my business?" insinuated Talbot.

"If there is any shortage in your receipts," retorted Andy indignantly, "you had better ask your son about it."

The shot told. The garage owner flushed up.

"What's that?" he covered his evident confusion by asking, as the officer unfolded a slip of printed paper.

It was the advertisement about the lost leather pocketbook, that Andy had preserved. Glancing over the shoulder of the officer and taking in its purport, Talbot gave a start. Then he eyed Andy in an eager, speculative way, but was silent.

"What are you going to do with me?" Andy asked of the officer.

"Lock you up, of course."

"Won't I be allowed to send word to my friends?"

"Who are they?" demanded the officer.

"I think Mr. Dawson, the banker, is one of them," replied Andy.

"Mr. Dawson has been away from town for a week, and will not return for two."

Andy's face fell. The thought of the banker had come to him hopefully.

"Can I telegraph, then?" he asked, "to friends out of town?"

"Telegraph," sneered Talbot. "My great pumpkins, with your new suit of clothes and watch and one hundred dollar bills and telegrams!"

"I can grant you no favors before I have notified the prosecuting attorney of your arrest," said the deputy. "Lock him up, turnkey."

All this seemed very harsh and ominous to Andy, but he did not allow it to depress him. He followed the turnkey without another word. The latter unlocked a great barred door, and Andy felt a trifle chilled as it reclosed on him and he was a prisoner.

"How do you do, Mr. Chase?" he said, as he recognized the lockup-keeper, an old grizzled man, who limped towards him.

"Got you, did they?" spoke the man. "Sorry, Andy."

"Yes, I am sorry, too, just at this time. Of course you know, I'm not the kind of a fellow to burn down a man's barn."

"Know it--guess I know. I can prove----" began Chase, so excitedly, that Andy stared at him in some wonder. "See here," continued Chase, controlling himself, "I've got something to say to you later on. Just for the present, you count on me as your friend. I'll see you get the best going in this dismal place."

"Thank you, Mr. Chase," said Andy.

"You needn't sleep in any cell. I'll let you have a cot in my room," continued Chase with earnestness and emotion. "Andy----" and there the speaker choked up, and he grasped Andy's hand, and turning away trembled all over. "You're a blessed good boy, and you've got a true friend in me, and remember what I tell you--they will never find you guilty of burning down Jones' barn."

Andy returned the pressure of the hand of the man whom he was meeting under peculiar circumstances, feeling sure that his avowed friendship was genuine. He had good reason to believe this.

When Andy had come to Princeville, Chase was a worthless drunkard, who worked rarely and who was in the lockup most of the time. One winter's night, as Andy was returning from taking a customer to the lake, he lined a swampy stretch and noticed a huddled-up figure lying at its half-frozen edge.

Andy got out of the automobile and discovered a man, his body and clothes half frozen down into the reeds and grass. It was Chase, sodden with drink and fast perishing.

Andy managed to get the poor fellow in the tonneau and drove home. It was late, and Talbot had left the garage for the night. Andy dragged his helpless guest into his little den of a room and hurried for a doctor. He was a favorite with the physician, for whom he had done many little favors, and the latter worked over the half-frozen Chase for nearly two hours. He refused to think of taking any pay, and at Andy's request promised to say nothing about the incident.

Andy kept his little oil stove going all night and plied the patient with warm drinks. When morning came Chase was awake and sober, but he was so weak and full of pain he could hardly move.

All that day and into the next Andy managed to house and care for Chase without detection. Talbot finally discovered the intruder, however. He stormed fearfully. He was for at once sending for an officer and having Chase sent to jail or the workhouse.

Andy pleaded hard for the poor refugee. Talbot declared that his wet garments had spoiled the automobile cushions. Andy got Chase to agree that he would work this out when he got well, and Talbot was partly mollified.

When Chase got about he did some drudgery at Talbot's home. Then one day he came to tell Andy that Talbot had got him a position. Chase was well acquainted with prison ways. Talbot had quite some political influence, and the forlorn old wreck was installed as lockup-keeper at the town jail.

Once a week regularly he came to visit Andy at the garage. It was usually Saturday nights, after the others had gone home. Chase would bring along some dainty for Andy to cook, and they would have quite a congenial time. During all this time Chase never touched a drop of liquor. He told Andy he had received the lesson of his life, leaving him crippled in one limb, and that he would show Andy his gratitude for his rescue by keeping the pledge.

"Mr. Chase," now said Andy, "there is something you can do for me, if you will."

"Speak it out, Andy," responded the lockup keeper eagerly.

"I want to send a telegram to a friend right away. They have taken all my money from me, but the message can go collect."

Chase hobbled down the corridor rapidly to return with paper and pencil.

"Write out your message, Andy," he said. "I'll see that it goes without delay."

Andy wrote out a telegram to John Parks. It ran:

"Under arrest on a false charge. I want to see you on important business."

Chase took the message, put on his hat, and going to the barred door tapped on it.

The turnkey appeared and unlocked the door. As Chase passed out, Andy observed that someone passed into the cell room. It was Seth Talbot.

"I want a little talk with you, Andy Nelson," spoke the garage owner, "and it will pay you to listen to what I have to say."

Chapter XVI--Bail Wanted

The garage owner moved a few feet away from the grated door of the cell room and sat down on a bench. He beckoned to Andy.

"No, I'll stand up," said our hero.

"All right, I won't be long. Short and sweet is my motto. To begin with, Andy Nelson, I've been a second father to you."

"I never knew it," observed the boy.

"Don't get saucy," replied Talbot. "It don't show the right spirit. I gave you a job when you didn't have any, and took on myself a big responsibility--agreeing to look after you like a regular apprentice. What is the result? Ingratitude."

Andy was silent, but he looked at Talbot, marveling that the man, mean as he was, could imagine that he meant what he said.

"You've brought me lots of trouble," pursued Talbot in an aggrieved tone. "The worst of all is that it's led to my son running away from home."

The speaker evidently thought that Andy knew all about this, while in reality Andy only guessed it.

"Oh, I'm responsible for that, too, am I?" observed Andy.

"Yes, you are. You left me in the lurch, and while Gus was off with a customer some one robbed the money drawer. I was mad and accused Gus of taking it. Gus got mad and left home."

"What did I have to do with that?"

"Why, if you'd stayed where you belonged it wouldn't have happened, would it?"

Andy actually laughed outright at this strange reasoning.

"What!" he cried. "Me, the firebug, me, the thief you accuse me of being!"

"Well, anyhow, you've been a lot of expense and trouble to me. Now you're in a hard fix. You are dead sure to go to the reformatory until you are twenty-one years of age, unless some one steps in and saves you."

"You think so, do you, Mr. Talbot?"

"I am certain of it."

"Who's going to step in and save me?" inquired Andy innocently.

"I'm the only man who can."

"Oh!"

"And I will, if you're willing to do your share."

"What is my share?" demanded Andy.

"Doing what I advise you. I'm a man of influence and power in this community," boasted the garage owner. "I can fix up this business all right with Jones. You've got to help, though."

"All right, name your terms," said Andy.

"I wouldn't put it 'terms,' Andy," replied Talbot, looking eager and insinuating, "call it rights. There's that two hundred dollars at the bank. It was found on my property by one of my hired employees. Good, that gives me legal possession according to law."

"Does it?" nodded Andy. "I didn't know that before."

"You can get that money by going after it," continued Talbot.

"How can I?"

"Why, that advertisement they found in your pocket says so, don't it? See here, Andy," and Talbot looked so mean and greedy that our hero could hardly keep from shuddering with disgust, "tell me about that advertisement--all about it, I want to be a good friend to you. I am a shrewd business man, and you're only a boy. They'll chisel you out of it, if you don't have some older person to stand by you. I'll stand by you, Andy."

"Chisel me out of what?" inquired Andy, intent on drawing out his specious counsellor to the limit.

"What's your due. They're after the pocketbook that held the two hundred dollars. Don't you see they're breaking their necks to get it back? Why? aha!"

"That's so," murmured Andy, as if it were all news to him.

"So, if you know what became of that pocketbook----"

"Yes," nodded Andy.

"And where it is----"

"I do," declared Andy.

"Capital!" cried Talbot, getting excited. "Then we've got them. Ha! Ha! They can't squirm away from us. Where's the pocketbook, Andy? You just hand this business right over to me. I'll do the negotiating."

"And if I do?" insinuated Andy.

"You won't be prosecuted on this firebug charge. I'll take you back at the garage and raise your salary."

"How much?" inquired Andy.

"Well--I'll be liberal. I'll raise your wages twenty-five cents a week."

"Mr. Talbot, if you made it twenty-five dollars I wouldn't touch it, no, nor twenty-five hundred dollars. You talk about your goodness to me. Why, you treated me like a slave. As to the two hundred dollars, it stays right where it is until its rightful owner claims it. If he then wants to give it to me as a reward, you can make up your mind you won't get a cent of it."

"You young reprobate!" shouted Talbot, jumping to his feet, aflame with rage. "I'll make you sing another tune soon. It rests with me as to your staying in jail. I'll just go and see those lawyers myself."

"You will waste your time," declared Andy. "I have told them all about you from beginning to end, and they're too smart to play into any of your dodges."

"We'll see! We'll see!" fumed the garage owner, as he went to the cell-room door and shook it to attract the attention of the turnkey. "I'll see you once more--just once more, mind you, and that's to-morrow morning. You'll decide then, or you'll have a hard run of it."

Andy was left to himself. He walked around the stout cell room with some curiosity. There were two other prisoners in jail. Both were locked up in cells. One of them asked Andy for a drink of water. The other was asleep on his cot.

A clang at the barred door attracted Andy's attention again, and he reached it as the turnkey shouted out in a tone that sounded very official:

"Andrew Nelson!"

He stood aside for Andy to step out. An officer Andy had not seen before took him by the arm and led him up two flights of stairs to a large courtroom.

It had no visitors, but the judge sat on the bench. Near him was the prosecuting attorney and the court clerk. Talbot occupied a chair, and conversing with him was Farmer Jones.

"We enter the appearance of the prisoner in this case, your honor," immediately spoke the attorney, as if in a hurry to get through with the formalities.

"Let the clerk enter the same," ordered the judge in an indifferent tone. "Take the prisoner before the grand jury when it convenes."

"In the matter of bail----" again spoke the attorney.

"Arson. A pretty serious offense," said the judge. "The prisoner is held over in bonds of two thousand dollars."

Andy's heart sank. He had heard and read of cases where generally a few hundred dollars bail was asked. He had even calculated in his mind how he could call friends to his assistance who would go his surety for a small amount, but two thousand dollars.

"How are you, Andy?" said Jones, advancing and looking him over critically. Andy was a trifle pale, but his bearing was manly, his countenance open and honest. He was neatly dressed, and looked the energetic business boy all over, and evidently impressed the farmer that way.

"I'm glad to see you, Mr. Jones," he said respectfully.

"I suppose you feel a little hard agin' me, Andy, but I couldn't help it. That barn cost me eight hundred dollars."

"It was a serious loss, yes, sir," said Andy, "and I am sorry for you."

Jones fidgeted. Talbot was talking to the attorney, and the farmer seemed glad to get away from his company.

"See here, Andy," he said, edging a little nearer, "I've got boys of my own, and it makes me feel badly to see you in this fix."

"What did you place me here for, then?" demanded Andy.

"I--I thought--you see, Talbot had the evidence. He egged me on, so to speak. Honest and true, Andy, did you set fire to my barn?"

"Honest and true, Mr. Jones, I had no hand in it. Why should I? You have always been pleasant and good to me."

"Why, you see, I stopped you running away from Talbot that day."

"And you think I turned firebug out of spite? Oh, Mr. Jones!"

"H'm--see here, judge," and Jones moved up to the desk. "I don't know that I care to prosecute this case."

"Out of your hands, Mr. Jones," snapped the prosecuting attorney sharply. "The case must go to the grand jury."

"Andy--I--I'll come and see you," said Jones, as the officer marched Andy back to the jail room.

"Two thousand dollars bail," ruminated Andy, once again under lock and key. "I can never hope to find anybody to get me out. Too bad--I'm out of the airship race for good."

Chapter XVII--A True Friend

"All right, Andy."

"Did you send the telegram?"

"Yes, and paid for it, so there would be no delay."

"You needn't have done that."

"I wanted to be sure that it went double rush."

"All right, I will settle with you when they give me back my money."

Chase, the lockup-keeper, had promptly and willingly attended to the errand upon which Andy had sent him.

"See here, Andy," said Chase, "I understand they had you up in court."

"Yes," answered Andy, "they took me up to fix the bail."

"How much?"

"Two thousand dollars."

"Why!" exclaimed Chase, his face darkening, "that's an outrage."

"I think so, too."

"There's something behind it," muttered the lockup-keeper.

"Yes," returned Andy. "Mr. Talbot is behind it. He seems to stand in with the prosecuting attorney. Mr. Jones was quite willing to drop the case, and said that Mr. Talbot had egged him on."

Chase did not say any more just then, but as he strolled away, he muttered to himself in an excited manner. He busied himself about the place for the next hour. Then he showed Andy his own sleeping quarters, a quite comfortable, well-ventilated room, and set up an extra cot in it.

"You and I will have our meal in my room after I feed the other prisoners," he said. "I'll make it as easy for you as I can, Andy."

"I know you will, Mr. Chase," responded Andy heartily.

"I'll do a good deal for you," declared the faithful old fellow. "What do I care for this mean old job, anyway? Say," and he dropped his voice to a cautious whisper, "suppose there was a way for both of us to get out of here?"

"What do you mean?" queried Andy quickly.

"Just what I say. Suppose you and I could get to some place a long way off, where they couldn't trace us, could you get me another job, do you think?"

"Don't you like this one?"

"No, I don't. I despise it. I have to give Talbot half of my salary for getting it for me, and I'm tired of the jail."

"Do you mean to tell me that Talbot takes one half of your salary?" questioned Andy indignantly.

"I do."

"Then he's a meaner man than I thought he was. I can get you a much better job when I get free," said Andy, "and I'll do it, but you mustn't think of such nonsense as my escaping."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm a sticker, and never ran away like a sneak in my life," declared Andy strenuously. "No, I'm going to face the music like a man."

Chase was silent for a while. Finally, evidently struggling with some new disturbing thought, he said:

"Sure you can get me a job, Andy?"

"I am."

"If I cut loose from here and make Talbot an enemy for life, you'll see to it that I get work?"

"As long as you keep sober, Mr. Chase, you can always get a position. You have made a brave start. Now brace up, think something of yourself, and earn a comfortable living."

"I'll do it!" cried Chase. "I'll risk everything. Andy, you didn't fire that barn. Do you know who did?"

"I have a suspicion," replied Andy.

"If I guess right who you suspect, will you nod your head?"

"Yes."

"It was Gus Talbot and Dale Billings."

Andy nodded his head. He started slightly as he did so, wondering at the sturdy declaration of Chase. Then he asked:

"Why do you think so, Mr. Chase?"

"I don't think, I know," declared the lockup-keeper.

"Did you see them do it?"

"No, I didn't, but--see here, Andy, I've nothing more to say."

"Why not?"

"I want to find an old tramp named Wandering Dick, before I go any farther."

"Does he know?"

"I'll not say another word except this: they'll never prove you a firebug, and old Talbot will be sorry for the day he stirred things up and started out to persecute an honest boy. Drat the varmint! I'll be afraid of him no longer, Andy, you are a good friend."

"I try to be, Mr. Chase."

"I'll prove that I am to you."

Chase refused to say another word. Andy curiously watched him stump around attending to his duties. The old fellow would scowl and mutter, and Andy believed he was mentally discussing Talbot. Then he would chuckle, and Andy decided he was thinking something pleasant about himself.

Chase appeared to have entire charge of the cell room. At five o'clock in the afternoon he let the other prisoners out in the corridor for exercise, and at six o'clock he gave them their supper in their cells. Then he and Andy adjourned to the little room beyond the cells and had a hearty, appetizing meal.

Chase supplied Andy with some newspapers, and later they played a game of checkers. About nine o'clock a prisoner was brought in and locked up.

At ten o'clock, just as Andy was going to bed, the turnkey's ponderous key rattled at the barred door, and again his voice rang out:

"Andrew Nelson!"

"Wonder who wants me now?" said Andy.

"Somebody to see you in the sheriff's room," said the turnkey, "follow me."

Andy did so. As they entered the apartment indicated, a man with one arm in a sling advanced and grasped Andy's hand warmly.

"This is a blazing shame!" he burst out, "but I'll have you out of here if it takes all I've got and can beg or borrow."

It was Andy's employer, John Parks, the Airship King.

Chapter XVIII--Out On Bail

Andy's heart warmed up and he felt that the tide was turning. Parks was an energetic, impulsive man, and generally put through what he started at. His hearty greeting showed what he thought of Andy and the charge against him.

"Is that the sheriff coming?" he demanded impatiently of the officer or guard at the door of the room.

"He'll be here soon," was the reply, "we have sent for him."

"Come over here, Andy," directed the aeronaut, leading the way to a corner of the apartment so the others could not overhear their conversation. "I want to talk with you. Now then," he continued, as they were seated by themselves, "tell me the whole story."

"I wish I had done it before," began Andy, and then he recited his experience with Talbot and the details of the barn bur