An aviator's luck

Then with a quick turn the eagle darted toward the plane,
meaning to sweep upon it.

AN AVIATOR’S LUCK

CHAPTER I

From one side of the beautiful little club house sounded the ear-splitting squeak of swing chains. All the swings were going back and forth as fast as they could be propelled by a score of pairs of active legs and arms. A patient procession toiled up the ladder of the toboggan slide and sailed gloriously down the other side. Eight small boys and girls dangled from the rings of the Maypole.

The sand piles at either side of the steps of the club house held bright little dabs of humanity all solemnly making sand pies.

Across the lawn, green as emerald and close as velvet, children in bathing suits ran to and from the bathing pool, a round, curbed fountain bed.

On the other side of the club house were the tennis courts, where, in spite of the July sun, a dozen enthusiastic players hopped lightly around the courts while as many more sat waiting their turn on the benches set against the shrubbery.

Drawn up on the grass just beyond the courts was a marking wheel, and beside it lay a boy flat on his back. His cap was tilted down over his twinkling brown eyes, showing only a brown cheek and a wide, smiling mouth. It was a good mouth and very, very rarely was it ever seen drawn down into the sullen lines that it could assume when the owner forgot. When Eddie Rowland was happy, he was way, way up; when he was gloomy, he went down, down to the very depths and stuck to the bottom like a sculpin! All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t drag him up until the cloud passed, and then pop, there was Eddie sailing around like a May morning, all happy and full of glee! He was only fourteen years old, and had a man’s job at the Park during vacation. He was in charge of the courts, and they reflected credit on their keeper. Never was there a time when the markings were not perfect; never did a grass blade dare show itself within the lines prescribed. The players learned there was not pull enough in the world to get them a place on the courts out of turn.

And through it all Eddie sang and joked and whistled his way along, good friends with everyone.

Another boy lay at his side. His knees were bent, his legs crossed, and he was apparently looking with a good deal of surprise at the foot that was wagging cheerfully at the end of the excessively long leg. It was really a good way off, that foot. A nice foot, in a well-blackened shoe. Bill Wolfe’s eyes were blue, and deep; his smile was quite the brightest and kindliest that a boy could have. Already, to Bill’s great annoyance, it had made the block he lived on a favorite after-supper walk for a number of girls. Bill had been quite forced into the habit of sitting with his back to the street or else pretending to read the paper.

Bill and Eddie were good chums. Like many people who are different in almost every respect, they seemed to get along with very little friction. Both boys were honorable, both scorned a lie, both were willing to do what they could for other people. The fact that they differed in the little they knew of politics, religion, and general history merely served to give them never-ending subjects for discussion.

Bill, wagging his foot, turned his head and squinted at Eddie under the limp visor of his cap.

“J’ever hear such a racket?” he asked and not expecting a reply, went on, “It does look to me, Rowland, as though the city ought to put in three or four more courts.”

“Three or four more courts,” echoed Eddie with a wail. “What you wishin’ off on me, Bill? Don’t I have enough to do now? Don’t I work here ’til eight o’clock at night? Don’t I get up at six to get the courts marked? Say, don’t I? Where would I be with more courts?”

“Why, you would have a helper, and that would be me,” said Bill, uncrossing his legs and elevating the other foot. “Of course you do all those things, but don’t you drag down a man’s pay for it? I say you do! Gosh! I don’t see why you don’t apply for a helper anyhow. How’s that, Rowland? I’ll help you for anything in reason. Say thirty a month.”

“Thirty a month!” cried Eddie, sitting up. “Thirty a ... say, Bill, what sort of a drag do you suppose I have with the Park Commissioners? Why, I only get forty-five myself.”

“Course you do,” said Bill, grinning. “Course you do, and you grudge me thirty! Tell you what, you are always yelling about how hard you work and all that. All right. I will do half your work for you, and you can split even with me.”

“No, you don’t, and no, I can’t!” said Eddie with the decision of the man who has his job clamped down tight. “Go find yourself a job, the way I did!”

“I would,” said Bill; “I would do it just to show you what a real fellow can do in the way of getting a real life-sized job, but it’s too late. It’s only a little while before school begins, and I have to study.”

“Only a little while!” repeated Eddie. “I say it is! Today is the sixth of July. Oh, man, you amuse me!” He flopped down again, and crossed his legs like Bill, but they did not stick up as high. They were short, stocky legs, those belonging to Eddie.

“Well, I don’t know what I shall do,” said Bill. “I do want a job, but mamma says I have got to go to Georgetown and visit my Aunts down there.”

“Yes, and how you do hate it!” sneered Eddie. “I do pity you! Three Aunts with slews of coin, and two automobiles, and horses, and dogs, and cows and cats, and more cake. I guess I don’t forget the time I went there with you.”

“Here’s this old job,” said Eddie. “I started it and I am going to finish.”

“Hello, who’s this coming? You don’t suppose Fatty Bascom is going to take to playing tennis!”

Both boys propped their heads up and watched the approach of an excessively fat boy. He was so fat that his stockings looked stretched, his knicker-bockers were too tight to look like knickerbockers, and his sweater fitted like a glove. It was an old sweater and would have bagged on any other boy. A small cap perched on the extreme back of his head. A tennis racket was under one arm and a small paper bag was in that hand, while the free hand held an ice-cream cone on which he was nibbling. He did not eat as though he was hungry. Anyone could see that it was simply force of habit.

“What cher got in the bag?” demanded Eddie as soon as the fat boy came within earshot.

“Salted peanuts,” replied the boy and, approaching, stood looking down at the pair on the grass.

“No!” said Fatty Bascom, backing off a step. “Last time I passed around a bag of gumdrops and you didn’t leave any. There was ten cents’ worth, too. I ain’t going to offer things.”

“I’ve a mind to get up and fight you!” said Eddie. “I know just where I could land a knockout.”

“Don’t you dare!” exclaimed Fatty. “I can’t fight. Mamma says it might hurt my heart, because I am fat.”

“Things all taste so good,” said Fatty, turning the ice-cream cone around and biting on a fresh side.

“It is,” answered Fatty. “He will be right over. Him and Skinny Tweeters is looking over our outfit.”

“Wireless,” said Fatty proudly. “Me and Skinny bought it together. We are going to stretch it between our two houses so we can talk together when it rains. I hate rain.”

“Yes, it is wet,” agreed Bill grimly. “Haven’t you both got the telephone?”

“Oh, yes!” said Fatty. “No fun talkin’ over the phone! Central gets mad or somebody wants the line or else you can’t think what to say. Besides, everybody can hear you.”

“That’s so,” said Eddie. “And you wouldn’t want anyone to hear what you have to say.”

“Earned it,” said Fatty proudly. “Skinny, he went down and delivered groceries, and I went without cocoa every morning for breakfast for a month. Mamma paid me for doing it.”

Fatty finished the cone. “I never drank so much as a taste for a month,” he said proudly. “Here comes Skinny now.” He gave a shrill yell, which was answered by what seemed to be the framework, the mere shadow of a boy, who came skimming along with a package under his arm. There was no lack of bagginess in his knicker-bockers. They fell in generous folds everywhere. His thin shirt was full and floppy; his hat came well down over his ears. He had a jolly grin that disclosed numbers of large white teeth. The boys often wondered how he could stand Fatty Bascom for a pal, but they decided that Skinny liked to look at anything so fat, for Skinny was certainly thin.

Skinny threw himself down on the grass while his chum remained standing, braced on his broad feet. It was difficult for Fatty to let himself down to earth, and certainly it was uncomfortable to sit or lie down for a fellow built that way. He stood and watched Skinny as he carefully unwrapped the fascinating wireless receiver. A couple of cards printed with the Morse code fell out, and the boys pounced on them. As they pored over them, Francis Wolfe strolled up. Bill’s brother was built on lines similar to his own. He was thin and very tall and—well, boys and dogs and small kittens all liked Frank Wolfe and old ladies always asked him the way. And that about tells the sort he is.

With him came a solemn looking fellow in the uniform of an airman. They formed a group and looked the wireless receiver over, Bill and Eddie growing momentarily more excited.

“It’s a great thing for you kids to fool with,” Frank said finally, picking up his racket. “I don’t see why you don’t go into it, Bill, and you too, Eddie. Keep you both out of mischief and teach you something on the side.”

“That’s right,” said the airman. “It’s a good thing to know. I knew a fellow once, before they made the rules so strict, who went up and got some trouble with his engine. He was right in a bunch of other planes, and they all had wireless outfits on. He had one too, but he didn’t know how to use it. One chap thought he saw him sort of wigwagging with a handkerchief, but of course he didn’t pay any attention specially, and presently his engine went all to the bad, I reckon. At all events down he came.”

“Not a bit!” declared Mr. Beezley, gazing mournfully at Fatty. “Not a bit! You see he only fell about six hundred feet or so.”

“Queer!” said Fatty. “I fell off the back stoop once, and ’most broke every bone I had. I didn’t really break any of them, but I ’most did.”

He popped a peanut into his mouth, and firmly closed the bag. Ernest Beezley glanced at him, then solemnly studied the sky.

“Looks like rain,” he said. “If it does, I won’t have to fly for a couple days. I hate to go back to the Aviation Field; so many accidents happening all the while. Funny one the other day. One of the best pilots out there. He had been eating stuff; ice-cream, I suspect. Anyway something cold and wet, and he followed it up with a bag of peanuts. I never felt so sorry for anybody in my life!”

“What happened?” asked Fatty. He cast a suspicious look about but every face was grave.

“Oh, he died,” said Ernest regretfully. “Nice chap. Gosh, I never hope to see anyone pass out in such agony! It took ten fellows to hold him, and then they didn’t. Just from following ice-cream with peanuts! About ten cents’ worth, I should say.”

“Pooh, that never hurt me,” said Fatty stoutly. “I wouldn’t be afraid to eat a bushel.”

“No, I don’t suppose so,” agreed Ernest, nodding. “Of course there is always a first time.”

He strolled off toward the court, and the boys continued to study the wireless and the cards. But Fatty stood thoughtfully contemplating the bag of peanuts.

“Hey you, Ernest!” called Frank. Ernest turned and strolled back. “Fatty doesn’t believe what you told about the fellow who died from eating peanuts.”

“Well, he needn’t,” said Ernest. “Of course I can show him where the fellow (name was Peter Jenkins) tore up a lot of the sod when he was just commencing to feel bad. And two of the chaps who tried to hold him are in hospital yet. Why, they say you could hear him yell nearly to Louisville.”

“Oh, cramps, and pains, and convulsions, and delirium, and a deep green color suffusing the tissues around the eyes and nose. The doctor said he had sclerosis of the maltoidus, and there is no cure for that. Of course if you don’t believe me, I can prove it by a dozen of the fellows any time you are out there. I tell you it was awful!”

He turned and walked off once more, and as Frank went after him, Fatty thought he heard Frank say, “It sounded awful! Where did you get that maltoidus stuff?” What he did not hear was Ernest’s reply, “Off the dog biscuit boxes, you know. Maltoid.”

Fatty did not hear, and he stood thinking deeply. No one but Fatty knew how Fatty hated to be sick, or how he shunned pain. But he looked with fond longing at the peanuts. The boys were still busy over the wireless. Looking down, he saw the close green grass. How awful to tear it up by handfuls in his agony! He had had three ice-cream cones since breakfast!

“Hey, fellows,” he said in an offhand tone of voice, “help yourselves to some of these!”

CHAPTER II

The weeks passed during which the boys went their several ways. Day after day of clear weather, not too hot, made the tennis courts all too attractive for Eddie’s peace of mind. Bill went his way to the three Aunts, who petted and pampered him in a fashion that would have utterly spoiled anyone but sweet-tempered Bill.

What Fatty Bascom and Skinny Tweeters did they kept to themselves, partly because no one else was interested and partly because they themselves were too interested to mix with the other boys. Also Fatty felt the hot weather and was kept about home, where he could partake of plenty of cooling drinks. The two were slowly learning the Morse code, and were able to send halting and disconnected messages to each other.

Then came the rain. It rained Monday and Tuesday; it continued on Wednesday, speeded up on Thursday, and seeming to strike its gait on Friday, settled down to a steady drizzle.

Eddie rejoiced at first, and went over to the courts in rubber boots and slicker to gloat over the deepening mud. But by Thursday he pined for Bill, for work, for anything, and his sister Virginia found him hard to live with. When, on Saturday morning, Eddie heard Bill’s loud whistle he upset two chairs and his small brother in a mad attempt to reach the door.

Bill looked well and happy. There was a sort of sleek, prosperous look about him, although he wore the same clothes and necktie that Eddie remembered. It puzzled Eddie. Also Bill treated Virginia almost like an equal and forbore to ask her to run any errands, although she openly hung around.

The sleek look bothered Eddie. Bill was certainly holding something back. Finally Eddie remembered some wood he had to pile in the cellar, and conducted his guest down into a region too damp for the admiring Virginia to follow.

“Aw, you know what! Whatever it is you are holding back. Come on; I know you have something to tell.”

Bill was unable to resist. “Well,” he said, “reckon you will be mighty well pleased your own self when I tell you. It was like this. Come time for me to come home, my Aunts wanted to make me a present. Something that I could keep to remember my visit with. Usually they get me something but every other time they have selected it to suit themselves and not me at all. But this time they told me I was growing to be a big boy, and they wanted me to have a choice in the matter. Gee, but I was glad, because usually they get me something about five years too young.

“Well, Rowland, I had an awful time trying to decide what to pick out, and by and by I happened to think of that softy, Fat Bascom and his wireless, and I thought what larks you and I could have with an outfit. We could have it so we could talk at any time, and take messages out of the air for miles and miles. The more I thought of it the more I wanted it.”

“Well,” cried Eddie, “don’t waste time telling how you wanted it. What did you do?”

“I told them that there was one thing I wanted awfully, but I hated to tell them because I was afraid they would think it was foolish and besides, it cost a lot of money; at least to get a good one, and they all said, 'What is it?’ real quick, and I hummed and hawed, and said, 'Well, I’m crazy for a wireless outfit,’ and then I stopped because I thought they would think I was an awful grafter but, Rowland, you never can tell about women. They all cried, 'That’s perfectly fine!’ and 'We are so proud of you, my boy!’ and 'Dearie, how did you come to think up anything so sensible?’”

“Liked it? Well, I will say they did! And what do you think? They wrote to Frank, and he is to go down town and buy the best outfit they have down there.”

“This afternoon,” answered Bill. “He was busy this morning; had to shine his shoes or something. But we are going down right after luncheon.”

“Well, I’m going too. Can’t I go too?” Eddie demanded, standing up and rolling down his sleeves. “Come on upstairs while I dress!”

“I thought you would like to come,” said Bill. “Get fixed and come along to the house for lunch. Gee, it is a pity we live so close to each other. If you lived in the Highlands, now, or out on the River road, or out at West Point, we could have some fun. I tell you what we can do, we can pick up Ernest Beezley at the Aviation Field at Camp Knox. Won’t he be surprised?”

“Aw, Frank will give it away first time they meet,” said Eddie in a disgusted tone. “Frank doesn’t have any sense of the importance of things. But we will get a lot of fun out of it. Wouldn’t it be great if we could overhear some plots against the government or something of the sort, and break them up, and get in all the papers? 'Wonderful detective work done by two of our Louisville boys.’ That sort of thing, you know.”

“It will more likely be 'Arrest of two of our Louisville boys who have been balling things up with their wireless plant,’” said Bill. “All I want out of this thing is some fun.”

“Of course!” said Eddie hastily. “That’s all. Well, let’s get out of this.” He went up the stairs two steps at a time, brushed his hair, hastily gave his countenance what he called a wash, threw his slicker over his shoulders, and was ready.

Luncheon at the Wolfes’ was a technical affair. Frank, who knew a lot about a great many things, was asked countless questions about wireless and patiently explained all he knew.

The trip down town was all too long. Frank’s little flivver coughed and sputtered and had as many symptoms as it knew, just to be contrary, Bill declared.

But at last they were there, and a little later they were on their way home with everything needed to install a first-class medium-radius wireless. They had everything.

In the rear of Bill’s house was a shed, so-called. It was a two-story affair that had evidently been built for servants’ quarters. There was a second floor, and there, Frank decided, was the place for their receivers.

The two boys went to cleaning with a will. Eddie, with a weather-eye on the clouds, hoped fervently for more rain as he scrubbed and sloshed water over the floor, while Bill cleaned windows. Frank, promising to help them whenever they were ready, went into the house.

“Say, Eddie,” he said, “wouldn’t this be a dandy room for a club room?”

“I should say yes!” he cried. “Oh, man, what a room! No one to be bothered if we made a noise. Gee! Wish we could have a Wireless Club.”

“Presidents are elected,” said Eddie with scorn. “They don’t just elect themselves.”

“That’s all right too,” said Bill, laughing. “But it is my shed and my wireless, and if I wasn’t president some other fellow would have the say-so, and play the dickens with everything perhaps.”

“Well,” said Eddie, “all right; you be president and I will be vice-president.”

“That’s fair enough,” agreed Bill, rubbing away on the window. “But I say we keep it small.”

“Oh, yes; let’s only have five or six fellows in it. That’s the sort of a club to have especially when it is something as unusual as this. Whom will we ask? Shall we have Fat and Skinny? They have a sort of wireless of their own.”

“That’s all right,” said Bill. “That’s dandy! We could use them for practice. I say we have Fat and Skinny, and you and me; that’s four, and Ned Harper is five, and who is nice enough for number six?”

“How about the new fellow down at the corner, in the Cleveland house?” asked Eddie.

“Yes, that’s the one,” said Eddie. “I don’t know him so very well, but he lives right here, and he seems to be a dandy fellow. Plays good tennis and talks like a nice clean boy. His father is blind, I guess. He wears black glasses with little wings-like at the side, so the light won’t get in or so you won’t see his eyes, and he always takes somebody’s arm when he walks around the park. Marion De Lorme is the boy’s name.”

“Not when it is spelled with an O,” explained Eddie. “I don’t guess he likes it so very well himself. He asked me to call him Dee.”

“Well, let’s ask him,” said Bill. “Anyhow, let’s see what I think about him.”

“You will like him,” said Eddie with conviction. “Why don’t we get Ernest Beezley to show us how to run the thing? What do we care if he does know about it?”

“Good plan!” said that young man, nodding. “I thought it was what you would want, so I just telephoned for him. He is on a three days’ leave from camp. His sister is going to be married, or some foolishness like that. He will be along in half an hour or so. What you fellows been doing? You have been long enough to clean a whole house.”

“It was awful dirty,” explained Bill, “and now it is clean as wax. I wish mamma would let us have some of those old chairs up in the garret and a table, so it would look like a real club room.”

“How will these do?” asked Frank, strolling to the foot of the attic stairs.

A pile of furniture was there, and the boys gave a yell of joy. It did not take long, with three pairs of willing hands and feet, to take their club furniture and place it in the now clean and shining room. Then Eddie raced off home, returning after a half hour with a large, worn but not unattractive rug and a couple of pictures. The pictures, it is true, did not seem to have any direct bearing on the club, one being an old woodcut of the Infant Samuel, and the other a brightly colored lithograph of Masonic emblems with a rather accusing eye staring out of the center, but Eddie had found them in the attic, and both were in gold frames and certainly did brighten up the walls.

With a calendar and a large card of the Morse alphabet, the boys felt that the room could not be more complete.

“We will have just one expense, and we will have to make everybody chip in for that,” said Eddie. “We must have shades at the windows. We wouldn’t want any spies to see what we were doing.”

“Better get that spy stuff out of your head, Eddie,” said Frank. “There is no war on hand now, and spying has gone out of business.”

“I don’t think they will bother you if there are any left,” said Frank. “Better use your wireless for commercial purposes, or for news items.”

“That’s the stuff!” said a new voice at the door. It was Ernest. “Take whatever comes. Like a fellow I knew. Heard something he thought was a coon in the brush, and set his hound after it. Said he’d take whatever came along, but he didn’t. He turned and ran; and even then he was sort of sorry he couldn’t run faster. And the dog, my, that dog was perfectly despised for months by everyone who knew him. It’s a queer world! Did you know that your friend, the plump one who eats peanuts, is sitting on the front porch, and the thin one too?”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you I telephoned for them when I went home for the rug,” explained Eddie.

Bill went after the two boys and they were as greatly impressed by the club room as anyone could wish.

“I will install your wireless for you if you think you can manage to live until tomorrow,” said Ernest.

“That is simply fine of you,” said Bill heartily. “Perhaps we will be able to wait.”

“We don’t need to,” said Fatty Bascom, “but mamma told me to tell you to come down to our house tonight, and she will make us some molasses candy.”

“I don’t suppose you will,” said Ernest. “See you tomorrow—some of you, anyway,” he added, looking strangely at Fatty; and followed by Frank, he went away.

“I think he’s nutty,” said Fat, taking a cake of sweet chocolate out of his pocket and breaking it in two. He laid half of it on the table. “Have a piece,” he offered and rapidly ate the remaining half.

“Have you seen the noon edition of the paper?” he demanded. “The postal authorities have held up three more packages of bombs, and they think they are being sent either from this city or Cincinnati. The Mayor of Boston, who received the infernal machine yesterday, may possibly live and his wife is out of danger. Nice state of affairs, isn’t it? Do you know what? If I wasn’t under government contract as instructor out there at Knox, I would be a detective. I bet I could run some of these snakes to cover!”

“It is awful, all right,” agreed Frank, “but what did you mean by telling those boys to take whatever came along?”

“I don’t know. Honest, I don’t,” said Ernest, “but I had the queerest feeling when I saw that dinky club room. Something sort of came over me. I don’t know what.”

“Mercy, mercy!” said Frank. “You are getting malaria out there at Knox; that’s what ails you. Come on in. I’ll ask mother for the quinine.”

“All right, let’s have the quinine. I hope it is malaria that ails me, because I feel just as though something was going to happen. I don’t know what.”

“I reckon you don’t,” said Frank, laughing. “Of all the chronic glooms, you are the gloomiest! For goodness’ sake, let the kids fool with their wireless in peace. All they will scoop in will be somebody’s love letter to somebody else. Everything is all right.”

Ernest laughed. “I am silly,” he acknowledged. “Perhaps it was the sad sight of that innocent child Bascom committing slow suicide.”

CHAPTER III

When Marion De Lorme first moved into the big, forbidding house facing the monument at Confederate Circle, he was no doubt the loneliest and most friendless boy in all of Louisville. He had no remembrance of his mother other than a little snapshot of a small and frightened looking woman with a bouncing baby in her arms. As for his father, silent, stooped and almost blind, he knew little of and seemed to care less for the stalwart, handsome lad whom he occasionally used as a staff but more frequently sent out of his presence. One thing Mr. De Lorme required of the boy, and that was regularity in his school attendance and good rating in his studies. Marion was the star student wherever he went, but with all his application he knew that he could not offer a report to his father that would wholly meet with his approval.

When Marion heard him railing over a percentage of ninety-eight and declaring that the boys of the present day were no good, and Marion the worst of the lot, his son was sometimes tempted to bring him a percentage of about sixty, just to see the result.

Mr. De Lorme was a chemist. He had long since explained his business or profession to his son. He was an analytical chemist, and his work was all done in his private laboratory, for big firms, corporations, and sometimes even for nations. It was a strange business. Marion had long ceased feeling any curiosity concerning the queer looking, whiskered persons who came to the house, usually during the evening, any more than he hoped to have any acquaintance with the suave, perfectly-dressed gentlemen who drove up in taxis during the day.

All these visitors, clients or customers called but rarely. All day long Mr. De Lorme, shut up in his laboratory, worked away with his strange and delicate instruments, leaving Marion to his own devices, with two ironclad rules: the first, that he should stand always at the head of his classes; the second, that no other boys should ever be permitted to enter the house.

Every morning, early, before school time, leaning heavily on his son’s arm, Mr. De Lorme made the round of the park three times. Every night after dark he repeated the journey. Marion dreaded these walks. His father, stumbling and nearly blind, attracted a good deal of sympathetic attention.

One thing puzzled Marion a great deal, and that was how his father, handicapped by his blindness, could put through laboratory tests that called for the most exquisite accuracy of sight as well as touch and judgment. He decided that the young assistant who worked always with his father must supply in himself the needed vision.

Marion hated the assistant, a greasy, dark-browed, long-haired fellow named Zipousky, but who answered cheerfully enough to Zip. Zip was a strange mixture of youth and age. Marion doubted if there was much of anything that he did not know, yet the fellow showed an almost pathetic eagerness to be with Marion.

When the De Lormes moved to Louisville from Chicago, Marion determined to make some friends. He spent many evenings walking up and down the block, his eyes seeking the uncurtained windows where he could catch glimpses of the family life he so longed for. But the silence of the De Lorme household seemed to throw a spell over the boy. Other boys felt it and made few advances. And Marion did not know how to come half way.

Eddie Rowland did not mind that at all. He was willing to go half way, and able to go the rest of the way if necessary. A stranger to Eddie meant a territory to explore, a new country to travel. So he proceeded to explore Marion, to that young man’s great surprise. He liked it. He liked the way Eddie scorned the name Marion and called him Dee, introducing him as such to the other fellows in the neighborhood. He liked the incidental way in which Eddie treated Marion’s halting excuses for not asking any of the boys to his great gloomy house.

“I should worry!” said Eddie airily. “Beats the deuce how a fellow’s folks cut up sometimes! Wish you could have seen my father once when I brought home a goat. Dandy little one, just a baby. I was going to feed it with a bottle. I only paid a quarter for it, and a dime for the bottle. I got the bottle cheap off Skinny Tweeters. It was one their baby had, but Skinny said she had two, three other ones, so he let me have it cheap. Well, say, Dee, you would have thought I had brought an elephant the way dad cut up! I had to give it away, and lost the quarter, and Skinny wouldn’t take the bottle back either. Said their baby wouldn’t eat after a goat. Such airs! What would she know about it? Huh? Gee, I think you are lucky, myself, to get out all you want to except being home to take your dad out for a walk. Just you come along with me, and you will get to know all the fellows in two shakes. It’s a dandy crowd up here on Confederate Place. Why, trouble is the boys think you are proud.”

“Proud!” said Dee with a groan. “Why, Rowland, I am crazy to know the fellows.”

“Then that’s all there is about it,” said Eddie. “Can you play tennis?”

Dee could and would play tennis, and showed himself such a general good sort that Eddie sang his praises loudly.

It was nearly supper time on the great day of the founding of the Wireless Club before Eddie had time to go down to Dee’s house and whistle. Dee came out immediately, cap and slicker in hand.

“That’s right!” Eddie sang out. “Got something important to tell you.” He hurried him up the street to Bill’s and they went running up to the club room, looking better than ever in the fading light. Dee was crazy over the idea.

“Don’t know,” said Bill. “I suppose we will have to meet in the house at night, because I don’t think dad will like the idea of a coal oil lamp.”

“Well, here is where I come in,” said Dee with a sigh of genuine pleasure. “If there is one thing I can do, it is wire for electricity. In Chicago I had a license.”

“Well, if this isn’t falling on the soft side of the fence!” chortled Eddie. “What will it cost us?”

“I don’t think it will cost us anything,” said Dee. “I think I brought enough wire and fittings along with me.”

The boys went down the street, Skinny and Fat trailing along behind. When they reached the house, the boys, at Eddie’s suggestion, sat in a row on the step, while Dee went in to find his wires. Eddie took the opportunity to tell the boys about Dee’s peculiar father. They were not particularly interested because as Eddie had said, you never can tell what a fellow’s folks are apt to do.

Fatty Bascom was on the end of the line and as he sat there he became conscious of an odor that filled him with a great longing. He was minded to hurry off to his own home and call for supper, but the fragrance that trailed around the corner of the house was too good to leave. It seemed to be a mixed smell. Perhaps fried chicken and tarts, and fruit cake, and prune soufflé and plum pudding could make it, but there was a palate-tickling tang besides that Fatty had never known. He hitched himself over, and lifted a keen nose in the air. It was a hot smell, too. Something for Dee’s supper put out on the pantry window to cool; that was it.

Fatty could not endure it. He felt that he owed it to himself to see what it was. He knew if he could tell his mother about it, she would make him one. Quietly, without ostentation, he slid down and followed his nose around toward the back of the house. Passing through a high trellised gate, he gained the back yard and the bricked porch outside the kitchen. Something was steaming on the sill of the window—a window just too high for Fatty to reach. He was all honest boy. He would not have taken a crumb, he would not have touched the edge even of the mysterious dish, but he could not resist a look. The light from the kitchen streamed out, making the porch quite light. From within, Fatty heard an old voice singing something in a strange, guttural tongue. It made Fatty feel very queer. He looked around for something to stand on. There were three small boxes, quite new, standing on end against the house. Fatty noiselessly piled them under the window, then regardless of his muddy feet, mounted and received the shock of his life. While he had stooped to fix the boxes, someone had removed the dish! It was gone! Fatty ground a heel into the soft pine box in his rage, then sulkily betook himself back to his mates.

No one had seen him; no one had missed him. He resumed his seat, and soon Dee appeared, piled high with all sorts of things for wiring the club room. He made three trips before he was ready to take the things up to Bill’s and, each one accepting a share of the load, they carried their treasure and put it carefully in Bill’s attic.

Then Dee had to hurry home to supper, and Fatty thought with anguish of the mysterious dish. He signalled to Skinny Tweeters, and they walked down with Dee.

“I suppose so,” said Dee. “I never thought much about it. She gives us plenty.”

“I thought I smelt something cooking when we were down there tonight,” remarked Fatty. “Made me wonder if she was a good cook.”

Fatty held his breath, but nothing more was said. No offer to find out what it was, no suggestion that Dee would go get a piece for Fatty. There was nothing, absolutely nothing to do but say good-night and go home; which Fatty did, marvelling at the stupidity of Marion De Lorme.

Dee found his father waiting for him, and as they walked slowly around the little park, Mr. De Lorme asked Dee what he had been doing with himself. Dee told him briefly and then, growing enthusiastic, told his father that six of the neighborhood boys were starting a club. He was about to add that it was a wireless club, but his father interrupted.

“A club, eh?” he snarled disagreeably. “Um! Well, you are about the age to take that disease. All boys want to form a club. Go ahead; but see that you don’t get into mischief.”

“I do not intend to get into any scrapes,” said Dee. “I never have, have I?”

“Not yet,” said Mr. De Lorme. “I just warned you. I am a busy man, an important man and I must not be disturbed.”

“I should think some of the cut-throat looking people who come to the house would disturb you,” said Dee. “A lot of them look like Bolsheviki, and a lot of them like plain tramps.”

Mr. De Lorme was silent for a moment. “You can’t judge a man by his looks, young man. Some day you may be glad to be included in the circle with just such men. The efforts of those very men will be felt as long as the nation stands.”

“Stop criticizing!” ordered his father, bringing his cane down with a stroke as though it was a sword. “But there! What does it matter? If you are worthy of knowledge, some day we will see. In the meantime, amuse yourself. What do the boys think of your father?”

“They think you are about like most everybody’s father, only they are sorry you can’t see better.”

Mr. De Lorme nodded and sighed. “That’s so,” he said. “I am glad they are so sympathetic. Tell them that your poor old father is almost blind; almost blind, Marion.”

“I have,” said Marion, wondering at his father’s whining tone. “And tell them I must have peace, peace and quiet for my studies: that is why you cannot entertain them.” He shuddered. “Why, Marion, a jar in that house, a heavy fall sometimes, well, it would upset some of my finest and most difficult calculations.”

“I know, father,” said Dee gently. “You have always told me that. I would not injure your work for the world. I am sure it is important. I don’t see, though, why you never let me come into the laboratory. What harm could I do?”

“Not yet!” he said. “Get your schooling, get through your play, and then you will be ready for what I have in mind for you.”

They had made the third round of the Park and as they approached the house Zip ran out and bought an extra from a passing, yelling newsie. He glanced at the headlines, smiled and as Mr. De Lorme made his way up the steps, spoke to him rapidly in Russian.

“And so neatly; with such power!” said Zip, breaking into English. “I congratulate you, sir.”

He dropped Dee’s arm, and placing his hand affectionately on Zip’s shoulder walked upstairs. Zip had dropped the paper. Dee picked it up and carefully looked it over. He could not find a single word about chemistry or anything else that might have a bearing on his father’s work.

He refolded the paper, and for the first time noticed running across the front page, in enormous letters:

ANOTHER BOMB DELIVERED
TO MAYOR SCUDDER OF CHICAGO
SAVED BY THE QUICK WIT OF HIS SECRETARY

“Every one of those fellows mixed up in these bomb plots ought to be hanged!” he said to himself.

CHAPTER IV

July ended, and somehow August dragged away. Half the houses on Third Street were shuttered up and the families off somewhere in search of cooling breezes. September arrived, still hot with breathless nights, relieved by thunderstorms.

The strain of the heat had left its mark on the boys, each in a different way. Bill was still sunny, but lacked his old-time bounce. He was nearly always to be found in the room of the Wireless Club, studying the code or testing the wires. Dee haunted the club room too, and brought his books and boned up on math and a couple of subjects that he wanted to pass in as soon as school opened.

Dozens and scores made their way to the courts each day, and languidly batted the balls. Eddie showed the strain. He was thinner, and dark circles showed under the once dancing eyes. His sister Virginia went to Atlantic City. Bill’s mother took her beautiful self down to visit the three Aunts, and Mr. Wolfe and Frank and Bill kept bachelors’ hall, protected by a couple of black and tan dogs weighing about a pound apiece.

Dee saw less of his father than ever. Night and day he spent in the laboratory and occasionally Dee could hear the tinkle of glass when a retort broke. But he had ceased to care what was in the making in that mysterious room. Several times he had asked his father if he might come in and help him, only to be told that it was impossible. Zip was with him; Zip helped him. Quite often Mr. De Lorme preferred Zip as a staff on his three-lap walk around the Park. Dee found that he had reached the dangerous place where it was possible for him to analyze his feeling for his father, and to his lasting grief he found that no love existed between them. A strange new feeling oppressed him. He felt as though in some queer way he was being used as a tool. All through the vacation Dee had been made to attend lectures at the Y.M.C.A.; he had been urged to go to church, and to call at the houses of the various boys he knew. It seemed as though Mr. De Lorme was showing him off. Yet no one came to the De Lorme house except the same ill-favored night-birds and the suave gentlemen of the daylight visits. And now, with a great many new interests and pastimes, Dee missed most of these. Indeed he made it a point to be away all he could, while the feeling of distrust and dislike for his father grew until he could scarcely bear the touch of the half blind man or guide him around the Park.

Anna, the old cook, noticed his lack of appetite, and tried with all her art and skill to prepare good things to tempt his palate.

Dee caught her watching him through narrowed lids at every meal. It might have annoyed him had he had less on his mind. One day, as he was eating a hasty meal all by himself, Anna came and rested her old hands on the table before him. He looked up, and she nodded.

“I was in Siberia,” she said. “The mines. Cold. The keepers are cruel. See?” She rolled up her sleeves and showed lines of white welts on her arms. “I hate and hate, but I like you. There is trouble brewing. Here! Perhaps your fodder get tired of you. Suppose?

“Here is a key. Unlock the trunk it fits. It was your mother’s, just as she left it when you were three. Anna never looked, and your fodder don’t know it here. He always leave moving to Anna. Better see what is in that trunk. Your mother said letters for you. Don’t tell. Go late, dark night.”

She turned and went noiselessly from the room, leaving Dee clutching the key in a hand that shook a little.

Well, there could be no better “late, dark night” than the one just closing down.

Dee went to his room and examined his flashlight. The attic where the trunks were stored was electrically lighted, but he was afraid to use so large a light. Zip was always prowling around and some deep sense told him to use all the precautions possible, although he could see no reason why he should not have the letters or anything else belonging to his mother.

He went up to the Wireless Club as usual, and came home at about a quarter before ten. As he went whistling up to his room, his father stepped through the double door of the laboratory and stood in his way.

“I have had my walk,” he said. “I shall work all night possibly. I expect some men here. Lock your door, so they will not enter it by mistake. You know you do not like my honest friends.”

“They are all right, sir, I only thought they might shave,” said Dee. Mr. De Lorme turned away, and Dee closed the door of his room. He wondered why his father had suggested his locking his door. He wondered if it was to keep others out or to keep him in. In either case it looked very mysterious. More than ever he felt the necessity of getting whatever might be in that trunk for him. If his father wanted to keep him in, someone had tampered with the lock so that an alarm would not find Dee tearing out into the hall. Dee determined to find out. He remembered the balcony outside his window. He stepped out and found that the corner just reached the window of the next room—an empty room half full of rubbish. The night was densely dark. Dee tried the window and found it unlocked. It slid up noiselessly and, satisfied, the boy returned to his own room and noisily turned the key in his door. With a sick feeling that the house was full of intrigue Dee dropped his shoes noisily and hopped into bed, thanking his lucky stars for the squeaky springs, off which he instantly rolled on the floor. Creeping across the room to the door, he listened intently and presently made out the sound of breathing on the other side of the panel. Someone was listening. Dee’s own breath was nothing but a light flutter as he strained his ears.

At last there was the sound of unshod feet retreating. Dee crept back to the window, where he waited for the hour of his own adventure.

Dee made no move until the luminous dials of his wrist watch showed the hour to be one; then he cautiously pushed up the screen and stepped through his window. Getting into the next room was the work of a moment. Fortunately the floor did not squeak, and he made his way with the most infinite care to the attic door.

Up there in the dust a dozen trunks and packing boxes stood about, and Dee found his mother’s little trunk without difficulty. Opening it he saw piles of clothing; things that had been hers. He lifted them out carefully. Down at the very bottom was what he sought, three packets of letters tied with pink string. They were thin little packets, and Dee hastily shoved them into his pockets and continued his search. But there was nothing more, nothing of the least value. So he repacked the clothing with hands that trembled a little. When he re-entered his own room, it did not seem as though he had been out of it at all, but the letters pressed his pockets and there was attic dust on his shirt and trousers.

Creeping noiselessly to the door, he turned the knob and smiled to himself in the dark. It was as he had thought; the lock was caught, and he could not get out! He wondered who had been clever enough to fix it so it would stick. He wondered why it had been necessary to keep him prisoner.

Arranging his electric reading lamp under a sort of tent made of his blanket, he settled himself to read the letters.

It seemed a prying thing to open and peruse all the closely written pages that had belonged to his mother. He only hoped they were not love letters.

They proved to be letters from his mother’s sister and mother. At first the letters were ordinary accounts of the immaterial happenings about home that would interest a member of the family who was far away. Then the tone of the letters changed to a veiled pity, and there were many suggestions that she should come home for a visit, and at last Dee opened a letter that had evidently been many times read. And it was spotted as though by tears.

“Your last letter, although not wholly unexpected, was such a shock to me that I have delayed answering it until I could believe myself in a calmer frame of mind.

“Oh, Mary, my dear, dear sister, to think that you should be in such trouble! Yet your letter is very vague. You say, 'I have discovered that my husband is a fiend; a fiend in human guise,’ yet you do not tell me what has led you to this opinion. And you continue by assuring me that I must not worry over your welfare as Mr. De Lorme always treats you with the greatest respect and affection. What can you mean, my dear sister?

“Come home, Mary, and let me hear all. If for any reason you feel that you must be guarded in expressing yourself in a letter, you know I will keep your secret with my life.

“Come home, and bring Marion. If this thing is as dreadful as it appears to you, I cannot be too glad that Marion is not Mr. De Lorme’s son.

“Poor little boy! It is a sorry fate for him, losing his own father before he was born, and the second marriage which you fondly thought would be such a great benefit to the child turning out badly and so soon! I hope that your husband is not unkind to Marion.

“Well, my dear, you have a home with me as long as I live, and afterwards you know this farm is yours. Three hundred acres all under cultivation in the best part of the state. It is a goodly inheritance. It will help the boy.”

There were seven letters in all that touched on the terrible knowledge that had come to Dee’s mother, but not a hint of the nature of the disgrace, if disgrace it was.

Dee, stifling under the blanket and unaware that streams of perspiration were running down his pale face, was wholly puzzled. He knew his father, as he always thought him, was a queer sort, wrapped up in his experiments, handicapped by his blindness, caring nothing for the world or its movements. But Dee had never seen anything that would call forth the letters that lay scattered around him. Certainly he had never seen his father in a rage. All his temper was expressed in a cold and biting sarcasm. He did not drink anything but the distilled water that came every week. There was but one thing to think. His father must be a drug fiend. Although Dee had never seen anything peculiar, he determined to watch.

Then his thoughts raced back to the one great sentence, “I cannot be too glad that Marion is not Mr. De Lorme’s son.”

Marion drew a long, deep breath. He was not Mr. De Lorme’s son! That was why he felt so little affection, so small a sense of duty. But there must be a reason why the chemist always claimed him as his own.

The boy determined to keep silence, and watch. He skimmed rapidly through the third packet, mostly clippings. At last he found it. A notice of the wedding of Mrs. Mary Seaton Clay to Dr. Oscar De Lorme. And the town was a well-known village near Lexington.

The last paper read, Dee packed them up, slipped them under his mattress and extinguished the light, emerged from the stifling blanket and got into bed. The time had flown, for the east was commencing to show streaks of red. As Dee lay thinking, he heard footsteps. Several people seemed to be walking with the greatest care down the long hall from the room at the back that had been fitted up for the laboratory. There was one squeaky board half way down the stairs. Dee heard it squeak seven times. The front door opened, and presently closed, but there was no sound of feet on the asphalt sidewalk. Dee decided that the visitors had gone around the house. He listened intently and soon the throb of a high-powered engine came from the garage in the rear. The De Lormes did not own a car.

Dee did not move and before long the tell-tale board squeaked again. Someone came upstairs, and directly to his door. Then Dee heard a slight click as though someone was tampering with the lock, and all was still.

Dee did not get up to see what had happened. He knew he would find out in the morning. He was dead tired and sleepy. The night had been a hard one.

It was eight o’clock before he woke, and the house was silent and empty. Mr. De Lorme had breakfasted early and had returned to his workroom. Zip had gone out.

Dee ate his breakfast, took his precious letters (which he had done up in a parcel and sealed) and went off to find Mr. Wolfe. He asked him to keep the package for him, then went out with Bill to find Eddie.

Eddie was not waiting to be found. He was sprinting down the street, having detached himself from a group standing near the railroad.

“Say! I bet you can’t guess what!” he called. Then as they met, “We have had the excitement up our end of the block! Fellow killed by the midnight express, and the night watchman found him just a little while ago, as he was coming home.”

“No one knows,” said Eddie. “I got there in time to see him. You couldn’t tell. He was scattered all around. Tore his coat all to pieces.”

They walked back, and studied the non-committal ground. Dee walked along the polished rail, and at a frog stooped and picked up a small book.

It was full of small, queer characters that Eddie declared must be Chinese or Turkish.

“Anyhow it belonged to the man,” said Eddie. “See the blood on the edge of the pages?”

“When have I seen writing like that?” mused Dee, turning the book over and over.

Dee’s face lighted. “I have it!” he exclaimed. “Anna, our cook, gets letters written like that.”

Dee chuckled. “You never saw Anna, did you? I thought not. But before we give this up, I am going down to show this to Anna and find out what it all means.”

“That is nothing,” she said. “Some foolish one has written nonsense. What does it say? Nothing but something about young shivering maples and eyebrows and a nose and mouth and the swift running river. A child’s book. Throw it away!”

“It is not mine,” replied Dee. “I shall have to return it. I wish you would tell me just exactly what it says.”

For answer Anna shrugged her shoulders and laughed. But after Dee had gone back to the boys, Anna frowned and shook her head.

“I wonder what they meant, those words,” she whispered to herself in a strange tongue. She shook her old head, and shivered. “Danger; danger! God grant it does not touch the boy!”

CHAPTER V

The following Monday all the men working on the city street car lines walked out. Not a car was taken from the barns, and a strange quiet filled the city streets. Comparatively few persons walked as far as the shopping district, and by late afternoon a footsore and weary procession wended their way homeward.

The weather was much cooler and the boys, braced up by the breezes, spent hours over the wireless.

During the preceding week some peculiar messages had been picked up. The boys pored over them but could make nothing of them. On every porch after dinner everybody talked of the dynamiting that was taking place.

“It looks just like when a package of firecrackers commence to go off in the grass,” said Eddie, who had been reading and listening to the after-dinner discussions. “Dad says no one knows who is accountable for the outrages. Gosh, I would hate to be a mayor, or ’most anything except a boy! But one day pop! off will go a bomb in front of some big building in San Francisco, and next it will be in New York, and next in Dallas. Pop, pop, pop! all over, and not a single man arrested.”

“It is funny,” Bill agreed. “My dad says somewhere a master chemist is making oodles of bombs and infernal machines, and there must be a storehouse somewhere. But he don’t see how they communicate with each other. He says he don’t believe a letter is ever written.”

“Wireless!” he said. Then as the two turned and stared, their thoughts whirling,—“Wireless, and we have been getting some of their messages! They are right here in the city, I will be bound!”

Gently and softly Bill let himself down on the grass. Eddie sat transfixed. Slowly the pop bottle from which he had been drinking tilted over and the precious fluid trickled out.

The boys were silent, thinking, when a loud explosion rent the air. Dust rose behind the houses over by the Home, across the Park. Somewhere a woman screamed shrilly. Men yelled, and with a little yelp Eddie came to himself and streaked down the street after the long legged Bill and Dee.

A street car had ventured out of the barn and the track before it had been blown up.

“This thing has got to stop,” exclaimed Eddie as they walked slowly back home, “Do you know the telephone operators are going to walk out tomorrow?”

“Let’s go up to the club room, and see if we can pick up Ernest Beezley. He would like to hear about things if he is in camp tonight.”

“I know he is,” said Bill. “He is on duty all this week. They are making a lot of changes over there. Knox is a permanent camp now, you know.”

Dee went to the instrument and soon the invisible feelers were reaching, reaching far out into the darkness. Once in touch with Knox, they soon were talking with Ernest, who was indeed glad to hear all the news.

“Of course not!” answered Dee. Presently he turned to the boys. “He says for the whole Wireless Club to pile into Frank’s car tomorrow and come out to Knox for the day.”

“Good work,” said Bill. “I will see if I can get hold of Fat and Skinny. I will telephone so I can talk to Mrs. Bascom if Fatty is out.”

Together they trailed down to the telephone and found that Fatty was just finishing supper. Skinny was there, and both boys were delighted to go.

“What about lunch?” asked Fatty. “Hadn’t we better take along something to eat?”

“Yes, we will have to, because there is no hotel there. Better each one take his own lunch,” suggested Bill.

“That’s a good idea,” said Fatty in a relieved voice. “Then nobody needs to bother about anybody else. What time do we start?”

“Early,” said Bill. “You will have to stir yourself, and we will meet you on the corner of Burnett at six. Don’t be late.”

“All right, I’ll be there, and so will Skinny; and we will each bring our lunch.”

The following morning, Eddie and Dee were sitting on the running-board of Frank’s little flivver long before Bill poked a sleepy face out of the window and hailed them. Each boy had a bulging pocket, where his lunch reposed. But Fatty’s pockets did not bulge more than Fatty’s own self made them. Fatty was standing on the corner waiting for them. His back was nearly covered by a large, roomy knapsack that bulged.

“What cher got in there?” said Bill, punching the knapsack. “A coat? You won’t need it!”

“Be careful!” admonished Fatty, cringing away. “Don’t get so gay! That’s my lunch you’re punchin’!”

“Lunch!” cried Eddie. “Say, Fat, you are a peach! To think of your bringing enough for the whole bunch. I say that’s good of you! And your mother is the best cook!”

“Well, I didn’t bring lunch for anybody but me,” exclaimed Fatty, shifting the knapsack as far as possible away from Eddie. “I did just what you said; I had my mother fix enough for me.”

“Oh!” said Eddie. “Well, that’s what we said all right. I forgot that you like to eat quite a lot. What did you bring, Skinny?”

“Cake of sweet chocolate,” said Skinny. “Mother was tired last night, and I don’t eat much anyway, and so I just brought that.”

“Not very filling,” remarked Frank, turning his kind eyes on the thin boy beside him.

“Awful nourishing though,” said Fatty, eagerly. “I saw in a paper somewhere that there is more juice to a cake of chocolate than there is to a pound of beefsteak.”

“Well, I declare!” exclaimed Frank. “I tell you what let’s do. When it comes lunch time, everybody will swap lunches with some other fellow. It will be all sorts of sport. Sort of like grab bag, because we don’t any of us know what anyone else has. I don’t even know what Bill brought.”

“Good work!” said everybody, glancing sidewise at Fatty. He said nothing at all. Experience with the boys had taught him that silence was sometimes his best weapon. He was conscious of a sinking sensation. Already the crisp early morning air was making him feel a few preliminary pangs of hunger. He knew Frank Wolfe too well to think that he, Fatty, would draw anything besides that miserable cake of chocolate!

Ernest was strolling around the parade ground, waiting for them, and shook hands heartily all around. If it happened that his grasp of Fatty’s plump and dimpled paw was enough closer to make the owner give a faint squawk of surprise and pain, it did not seem that Ernest was conscious of it. He smiled blindly and pumped Bill’s skinny arm up and down. Bill did not seem to mind.

After showing the boys all around the camp proper, they walked to the highest part of the cantonment and Ernest pointed out in the distant hills where the caves were to be found.

Kentucky is full of caves, and every little while someone will discover new ones. These, Ernest stated, had been but slightly explored. They had found dangerous drops and passages in the ones that had been opened, and the others had been forbidden. A sign “No Trespassing” shut them off but Ernest thought that after lunch the boys ought to go over and see what they could.

“Why not go now?” asked Eddie. “Then this afternoon we can go swimmin’.”

They strolled slowly across fields, down and up dusty roads, and over barbed wire fences that invariably took toll of blood from Fatty. After an abrupt scramble up a steep hillside and around a jagged curve that looked impassable a few feet away, they came into a region filled with overhanging, broken masses of rocks, with dark, forbidding holes yawning at them here and there. As they walked on they saw that a number of the openings were marked “Dangerous.” Finally they came to one that looked as though it had been well traveled.

“We had better not go in,” said Ernest. “It isn’t safe without a flashlight.”

Bill produced one. “Frank and I always carry one apiece for fear we will have night trouble with the flivver,” he explained.

“Good enough!” said Ernest. He took the flash and led the way into the cave. “I will lead,” he said. “I have been in here a dozen times!”

The cave, as caves in Kentucky go, was small but strictly up to specifications. The first space or chamber was scarcely head high and only about eight feet square. This was fairly well lighted from the opening and was littered with lunch papers and boxes, and in the center there was the blackened coals of a fire someone had built. From this they went single file through a narrow and twisted passage for fully twenty feet. They found that they were going down a gentle incline. Strange to say, the air was pure and clear; and a soft breeze fanned their faces. It was gloriously cool.

“Hope your flash is all right,” said Ernest. His voice sounded flat and small in the close passage.

“I have a flash, too,” said Fatty unexpectedly, “but my battery is almost gone. I put it in my pocket to get a new one and forgot it.”

“We will stick by Bill’s, I reckon,” said Ernest. He turned a sharp corner and disappeared, light and all. Fatty surged forward and pressed close to Bill, but Bill in turn hurried ahead, shaking Fatty’s hand from his shoulder. Bill didn’t want anyone leaning on him in the dark. They felt their way around the jagged rock and found Ernest standing in a high chamber, turning his flashlight here and there on the walls and the vaulted ceiling.

Snow white pillars supported the roof, which was covered with icicles of sparkling stone. Some of these stalactites were five feet in length, but most of them were no larger than the icicles that hang on the eaves after a hard thaw and sudden freeze, and they were even more beautiful. In the light of the flash they sparkled as though covered with small, brilliant gems.

From a far, far distance came the sound of water dripping. Otherwise the silence was complete.

Ernest walked slowly around the great chamber. It must have been thirty feet in diameter. In the center was a sort of hump or mound of the glistening white stones. Ernest went over to it and they all sat down.

“There is an echo chamber in one of the caves,” said Ernest. “I don’t know whether it is in this one or one of the others. You shout, and all the walls shout back at you for about ten minutes. It is fierce. Some other day, if you come out, we will spend the whole day exploring. But I have to fly this afternoon. I wish I had thought to bring my lunch; we could have eaten in here.”

Fatty felt chilled. He swallowed hard. “No-n-no place to get a drink,” he hastened to say.

“Well, if you don’t want a drink, Ernest, Fat has enough lunch for both of you, and he sure wants to divide,” said Bill.

Ernest clapped him on the back. “Good old scout!” he said. “Fact is, I would rather have half or three-quarters of Fatty’s lunch than anything I know, but I have got to go back to camp. There’s a fellow I have to see at twelve.”

They retraced their way out of the cave with many exclamations over the somber, silent beauty of the place, and on coming out into the air were almost blinded by the dazzling sunshine.

Bill drew in a long breath. “Gosh, I am glad I am not a bat or a mole! I sure would hate to stay down in a place like that!”

“Yes, suppose you were one of those old ducks in Venice centuries ago who were sent across the Bridge of Sighs and who disappeared in dungeons deep below the level of the water. No light, no fresh air, nothing to see, nothing to do, no one to speak to, and rats running all around your cell. Stale water and mouldy bread to eat, and not very much of that. That was the life!”

Ernest looked him over with an appraising eye. “Not right away,” he said encouragingly. “You would have been able to stick it out a good while. But what you want to do, my little friend Fatty, is to keep away from the Cannibal Isles. My, my, how popular you would be!”

The boys sauntered along toward camp, sometimes single file, sometimes in a close group around Ernest. Fatty lagged. His thoughts were unpleasant. He thought of the exchange of lunches that Ernest had suggested. He pictured in his mind’s eye the goodies he had seen his mother pack away in the knapsack given away; divided. Certainly he had never started out for a hard day with so many delicious parcels, all wrapped in paraffine paper. It was unspeakable; unbearable! Fatty lagged far behind as though he could hold back the moment. He knew Frank too well to think that he would forget his diabolical plan. He lagged and lagged, and all at once the whole bunch disappeared around a bend. Fatty had an inspiration.

Hurrying back, panting, listening for a whoop that would tell him that someone had returned to warn him to hurry up and join the crowd, stumbling over the loose rocks that filled the uneven path that led up the mountains, he gained the mouths of the caves. But he pressed on. The path dwindled to a narrow tread, scarcely noticeable. He rounded one turn, and then another. Here the dark cave mouths were less frequent. Fatty looked for a good hiding place in the brush. Just ahead of him he saw a long, narrow slit like a crack in the wall of rock.

A very thin and narrow slit it looked, but Fatty could see that there was an open space beyond, and he painfully squeezed through. Three shirt buttons scraped off, and Fatty barked his plump self here and there, but he made it and getting out his waning electric flash, he turned it around the chamber in which he stood. Someone had been there before him at some time, because two narrow flat boxes stood at one side. They would be nice to sit on.

They could hunt and hunt for him now! He was hungry—starved,—and slipping the knapsack off, he spread its contents on the box and gloated. Sweet chocolate indeed! Fatty smiled. Then he commenced to eat. He went from the left to right deliberately, blissfully. Chicken sandwiches, ham ditto, lettuce and egg and mayonnaise sandwiches. Two cream puffs, sweet pickles, jelly roll, nut cake, a large dill pickle, a thermos bottle of iced cocoa.

Strengthened and refreshed and flushed with triumph, he looked at the empty board, strapped his knapsack on his back and, rather oppressed by the silence, started through the opening.

Then did Henry Bascom, familiarly known to his intimates as Fatty, receive a shock. The narrow opening which had admitted him refused to give him up! It had cost three buttons to come in. It would have cost a goodly slice of Fatty to get out. Sandwiches, cream puffs, pickles, jelly roll and nut cake made a difference, a fatal difference.

CHAPTER VI

The boys, talking busily with Ernest, had nearly reached camp before they discovered Fatty’s absence. Skinny, true friend that he was, turned and would have gone back to find him, but Ernest would not let him.

“Leave him alone,” he said. “I have a hunch that we will not see our dear Fatty again until well after lunch time. And then he will toddle into our midst with a heavenly smile on his face and a perfectly empty pack on his back. I think work around the hangars would be good for friend Fatty, and I could take him on a few flights that would put the fear of the Lord in his heart and make him think of something besides his meals. Speaking of flying, I can take you up for a flight this afternoon if you want to go.”

“You bet we do!” said Bill. “I reckon we got off this time without any of our mothers thinking to make us promise not to fly.”

“Mrs. Bascom made Fatty promise not to fly,” said Skinny. “It was the last thing she said when we came away.”

“Then that cuts 'Hennery’ out,” said Ernest. “Four of you to go. Well, we will make two trips and get in time to have a swim besides. Come on, let’s get Frank and eat lunch.”

They wandered over to a shady knoll where they waited until Ernest had seen the man he expected, and as soon as Frank came they brought out their lunches and ate them with much talk and laughter. There was plenty to drink for Frank came along with a basket full of ginger ale and pop, to say nothing of a couple of dozen ham sandwiches he had bought in the village. There was no need of Fatty’s knapsack. It was a feast; and Ernest and Frank saw that Skinny, who would not ask his tired mother to put him up a lunch, did not lack for good things.

Presently Ernest, who had been lying on the grass telling all the blood curdling tales he could think of, got up, stretched himself and announced that it was time for him to go over to the hangar. Ernest was pilot of the Instruction plane. There was only one as the school was very small, and the government only supported the Field at Camp Knox on account of the amount of equipment there. All the students were going into aviation for commercial service, and soon the Field would be closed and the equipment transported to some of the large Fields where men were trained for Government mail service and matters of that sort. So Ernest was practically in charge of the Field as far as flying went.

Reaching the Field, they found the six planes drawn out and their young pilots lounging beside them.

The Instruction plane, with broad scarlet bands across its wings to distinguish it from the others, occupied the center of the Field. All the planes were equipped with wireless.

Drawing on his gauntlets, Ernest spoke to the two men beside his car. “I will take a couple of passengers on each flight this afternoon,” he said. “Report at the Adjutant’s tent for an afternoon off, if you like. It is a perfect day for flying.” He took his place. “Who is going? Bill and Skinny? Somebody lend them coats and goggles.”

Bill and Skinny, pale with excitement, squeezed into the observer’s seat and with rather a feeble wave at the other boys felt a terrific sense of goneness as the plane went hopping along the Field before it rose in the air.

“Tend the wireless!” cried Ernest, and Bill adjusted the apparatus as they soared up.

One after another the other planes followed. The air was filled with humming. Higher, higher still they soared, until the plain, the woods and even the hills looked like a vivid green and brown map, through which in a silver line the river ran. As they passed over the hills they had explored that morning, still flying low, Bill thought he saw a tiny white object moving on the face of the rock, but forgot it immediately.

As soon as Ernest had attained the height he desired, he turned his plane and waited for the others. Calling terse sentences to Bill, he sent order after order by wireless to the surrounding planes, and in response they formed lines, figures and circles around, below and above the Instructor’s plane. For an hour they hung there in the air, then at a last command the planes one by one circled down to earth, followed by Ernest and the two boys.

Landing, they stepped out of the plane on shaky legs and felt surprised that no one seemed pleased to see them. Even Dee and Eddie looked at them more calmly than they felt the occasion warranted.

But they had no time to strut. Nodding to Dee and Eddie, Ernest hopped into his seat after a critical look over his engine, and the boys crowded down in the observer’s place. This time they were not accompanied by any student planes and after they reached the treetops Ernest asked: “Which way, boys? Have you any choice?”

“Over the hills!” shouted Dee, and Ernest turned the plane toward the mountains.

As they swept toward them, Dee, gazing down, was startled to notice what looked like the caricature of a human face against the wall of rock. Two trees bent over like bushy eyebrows, a dark smear made the nose, and a pile of stones a grinning mouth. Eddie saw it too.

He nodded. “I have seen it often,” he said. “It is funny about that. You can only see it from two places. One is where we saw it a moment ago, up in the air, and there is one place you can see it from the camp.”

“No, there is just a slit in the rock there. I suppose a thin man could squeeze through, but no one has tried it. It doesn’t look worth while. I was all excited the first time I saw it and hunted it up, but it is nothing at all. Just a funny coincidence.”

“I thought I saw something white sticking out of the cleft place; the nose, I mean,” said Dee.

Ernest shook his head. “A ray of light striking on a spur of the rock,” he explained. “There is never anyone up there except when the men from the cantonment go up, and they seldom go as far as that. No, there is nothing interesting about the place except what you see up here. And as I told you, you can only get the face from one place.”

He wheeled his plane and commenced to circle about the mountain, now flying low, now rising high in the air. As they made a low flight, Dee noticed two men sitting by the roadside. They were tramps, and had a scarlet handkerchief knotted on the end of a stick.

“More tramps around here,” said Ernest, catching sight of the men. He turned the nose of his plane upwards, and they commenced to climb higher and higher, the hills and valleys dropping away beneath them. The buildings in the cantonment diminished to doll houses, the rough roads turned to narrow yellow ribbons, the fields became smooth blurs of green and yellow. The mountains took on a new, unaccustomed look. Viewed from far above, they became green and yellow hills with dark depressions in their sides.

On and on they flew. They no longer knew the country. Nothing seemed to matter. They were masters of space; they felt as though they could fly into the face of the sun itself; they felt as though they owned that vast infinitude about, above, below them.

And there in higher space than they had ever dreamed that even those tremendous wings could soar, they met him: an eagle!

Straight toward them he came, without fear and seemingly without surprise. It was Ernest who veered, and the eagle, keeping majestically on his course, passed them by. To watch him Ernest circled and turned.

To his surprise, the eagle had done the same thing and once more they faced each other. The eagle advanced with slow, rhythmic sweeps of his tremendous pinions, his piercing eyes watching the strange intruder. Once more, Ernest turned and gave him the right of way. As they passed, the plane swept so close that they could see the piercing, angry eyes fixed upon them. This time they did not turn for, as they looked, they saw that the eagle himself, gallant and fearless warrior that he was, had turned and given chase. Ernest looked at the speedometer. The eagle was gaining, and they were going at eighty-nine miles an hour. As Ernest kept in a straight line, the eagle commenced to climb. Instantly Ernest changed his course and commenced nosing up into the higher stretches of the air. The great bird flew straight up. Ernest grew grave. If the big bird should fly into the delicate wires of the plane he knew that nothing could save them from a whirling dash to the earth. He did the one thing that could save them. He raced the eagle, up and up, round and round, darting here and there, Ernest growing cooler and cooler as the danger pressed closer, the bird bristling with rage. He could not understand this strange winged creature that evaded and pursued him. There were men, his eternal and ancient enemies, controlling those wide, stiff pinions. He could see their heads turn, their goggled eyes watching him.

Dee looked at Ernest and realized that the strange encounter was a dangerous one. The set mouth of the young pilot and the clutch of his gauntleted hand on the steering wheel gave evidence of anxiety and the keen alertness that comes with danger. Eddie, round eyed and silent, sat watching the manoeuvers of the eagle, which constantly swerved upward in his effort to soar above the laboring plane.

But manoeuver met with maneuver, and the bird, wise and keen, truly king of his kind, found himself pitted against a higher intelligence and keener wit. Slowly the great wings began to lag and it took a visible effort to lift himself above the level on which he swung to rest.

At last with a mighty effort he darted up, and up, away from the plane, then with a quick turn darted toward it, meaning to sweep upon it. But quick as he was, Ernest was quicker, and the great bird whirled only to find the enemy just above him. He wavered, caught himself, struggled to rise, and then with a last dart toward the plane, shot downwards, the plane following. The eagle fell like a plummet, wings half spread, head down. Following as closely as he dared, Ernest traced the drop, and they were close enough at the end to see the wings spread out and the bird make a sudden harsh landing in a plowed field. The earth flew up around him like spray, and he lay where he had come down, motionless save the ever keen, savage eye that still followed their movements.

“Not hurt a bit,” Ernest answered, turning the plane upward, “but all in!”

You don’t indulge in long conversations in an airplane. Aside from the noise of the engine, the pilot has his hands and brain busy—too busy to pay attention to his passengers.

So the boys sat watching, until Ernest, making a wide circle, headed for the Field at the cantonment, and landed with his usual skill.

They were both talking at once, telling the less fortunate ones about the affair with the eagle, when Frank came strolling across the field.

“Three more dynamitings, fellows,” he drawled, stuffing a paper into his pocket. “A corner of the New York Stock Exchange blown off, the residence of the Mayor of Charleston, West Virginia, wrecked, and the Fourth Street car barns blown to smithereens.”

“Jingo!” exclaimed Eddie. “What they goin’ to do about all this anyhow? Who do you suppose it is?”

“Well, they have a clue to the organization,” said Frank, “but it won’t do any good, because if they had not been sure of a good disguise, they would never have given them that much information. There was a placard on the wall of the Exchange this morning. It read, “The division of capital must come.” It was signed “Veritas.”

“My word!” exclaimed Bill feebly. “Gee, I am certainly glad I have no capital! That is, none to speak of.” He dug into his pocket and brought out eleven cents, which he handled fondly before replacing it.

“I have heard two or three people say that they thought these geezers who are making the infernal machines are somewhere around Louisville.”

“And papa and Auntie Sue!” added Ernest. “Say, Frank, I tell you what let’s do! My new plane is coming next week, my owntie, downtie, ittie plane that I own all by myself. No Government about it! And to celebrate, I am going to have two weeks’ leave. Now if you will put me up I will come and visit you, since you are so insistent, and I say we go on a little still hunt after these guys. If they are anywhere in the hills, we can loaf overhead and watch for their smoke or trails or what not.”

“S’pose you did find them?” said Bill with a shudder of pleased anticipation. “Suppose you collared the whole batch? What would you do then?”

“We couldn’t collar the whole batch,” said Frank, shaking his head. “They are scattered all over the country. It looks like a brand-new organization to me. Nothing to do with the Bolsheviks or the Reds or any of those ducks. Something perfectly new!”

“Aw, they are all as old as the hills!” declared Ernest. “Just a lot of lazy, half-baked chaps who won’t work and haven’t the brains to study, but who hate everyone else who has anything or does anything. I’d like to see the whole caboodle set to chippin’ rocks for the next fifty years.”

“It is awful, at that, to have that sort of spirit,” said Frank. “I call it plain jealousy. They haven’t anything themselves and they don’t want anybody else to have anything.”

“No, not even your eleven cents,” agreed Frank with a smile. “Well, I went to a meeting of those anarchistic fellows once and, believe me, they all looked hungry. I wonder what they would be like if they were all parcelled out and fed well for two or three months.”

“Well, we will go down and have a swim and by that time he had better put in an appearance.”

“I reckon I had better go back up where the caves are and look for him,” said Skinny.

“Don’t you do it!” said Frank. “He can’t get hurt; there is nothing for him to fall off or into, and he will come mogging along after a while. Let’s go down and swim.”

CHAPTER VII

When Fatty Bascom, surging heavily against the narrow and jagged opening, found that he could not get out, he could not credit his senses. He was there, he had come through the split in the rock with but little personal damage. Why, therefore, was he unable to withdraw? There must be some trick about it. He tried backing out, but just escaped wedging himself so tightly that he could move neither out nor in. However, he managed to free himself and tried it front-wise, side-wise and every other way he could think of. Fatty was a prisoner.

Then his eyes fell on the pile of empty paraffine papers on the small box lying at one side of the chamber, and the truth dawned on Fatty. Fatty, empty and hungry, the lunchless Fatty had pressed through the tight fit of the stone crevice. The well-fed Fatty, augmented by that most ample and filling lunch, had attained a girth just too much.

Physiology never had interested Fatty. And now he wondered with a chill of apprehension how long it would take him to shrink to his old dimensions. Perhaps it would take days. If, thought the worried one, if food, good food went to feed and build up the tissues as the physical culture teacher said, it might be a day or two before he was starved down to the size he had been before that generous meal!

He sat down on the box and gave himself up to dismal reflections. A day or two! In the meantime what might happen to him? Then he smiled. Of course the fellows would come and look for him. All he had to do was to lounge around and wait until they came to look for him. He knew Skinny! Skinny would stay with him. The thought of Skinny, who would not trouble his mother and so took a single cake of sweet chocolate, made Fatty vaguely uncomfortable. He had no watch, and the time passed on leaden wings. He hung a handkerchief on one of the spits of rock, and thought perhaps it would guide his rescuers. Just how they would proceed to rescue him Fatty didn’t know; couldn’t imagine. Fatty knew that no human agency could get him through that crevice after his own frenzied efforts had failed. All they could do would be to come inside and wait for him to shrink.

He commenced to look around. Opposite the opening was another narrow opening into a black, forbidding space. Fatty approached and leaning in, turned his dim flashlight cautiously around the walls. It was a large, long chamber. He could not see the end, and as he commenced to wonder if by chance there might be wild animals lurking inside, he withdrew and stationed himself by the outside slit.

At least human beings had been there before him. There were the two flat boxes lying almost hidden by a pile of rocks. He went up and looked them over. They were empty. As Fatty hauled them over something glistened on the ground beneath and he picked up a small cylinder made of brass and closed at either end. It was a neatly made, pretty toy and Fatty felt in his pocket for a knife, but he had none. Knives always dug into him. He picked with his fingers at the seam but it did not give. Fatty wanted it for a pencil case. It would hold about four pencils. So he slipped it into his pocket to show Skinny, and carefully buttoned the flap.

It was a nice, shiny brass case, and Fatty thought he could swap it some day for an ice-cream cone or a stick of fruiteena gum.

There was nothing else to look at, and Fatty kicked the boxes back where he had found them. He looked at them several times in a vague way. He was conscious that he had seen them before, but as he thought it must have been in some grocery, with figs or something of the sort in them, he gave it up. It made him somehow uncomfortable. Oh, Fatty, Fatty Bascom! What a pity you did not remember that top box! What a shame that you never trained your eyes to remember what they saw! How much trouble it would have saved!

There was some sand over by the “door” as our poor prisoner called the opening, and there Fatty sat down and waited for the diminishing process to continue.

While he sat there an airplane went humming overhead, and then for awhile there was silence; a silence only broken by the sound of rock crumbling in the inner chamber. Fatty thought of wildcats, and his scalp crept. It worked on him so that he gave up watching for someone, some mountaineer to go past on the narrow mountain trail, and fastened his eyes on the door that led into the mountain. The airplane returned and after awhile went over again. Fatty decided that it was Ernest taking the boys up for a flight. He tried the door for the twentieth hopeless time.

The silence was dense; it covered him like a cloak. The place was cool and shadowy, but there was no chill. Fatty found the sand not at all unpleasant, and wriggled down until he lay on his back, with his cap under his head.

When he awoke he did not know where he was, and lay for a moment trying to place himself. It came to him with a jolt. The chamber was dark, and even outside Fatty could see that the sky was grey with the dusk of night falling. Cramming his cap on his head, he flung himself at the opening and in a flash was through and running down the trail. Stumbling, half falling, running, panting along, he followed the trail, now almost invisible in the waning light, around and down the mountain towards the plateau where the camp lay twinkling with electricity. Fatty’s heart and soul reached forward wildly toward those lights as he raced forward. Behind him he imagined soft padding footsteps and the light, slinking forms of great, gaunt cats stalking him. He had heard that the mountains were full of wildcats. Fatty reflected that they would be glad to dine on anything so juicy and tender as his own plump self. Fear lent him wings.

As he rounded the last curve before hitting the open road that led back to camp, he collided with two tramps coming slowly up the mountain. He bounced back with a cry, and as the ill-looking fellows started to swear, Fatty apologized, and dashed past, giving the strangers a wide berth. Fatty wondered if they were moonshiners. He had heard of them, and each man was heavily loaded with a pack that covered his back. What Fatty could see of their faces in the gathering gloom did not tend to make him want to stop and converse. He fled toward camp. Once he nearly went headlong, but saved himself, and feeling of his pocket to see if he had lost the queer cylinder he hurried toward his goal.

Outside the Adjutant’s office, Fatty recognized the well-known lines of Frank’s little flivver, and around it a dejected group that split up as he approached and greeted him with a volley of questions and reproaches.

Fatty, absent and possibly hurt, had taken on the aspect of a dear departed. Fatty, turning up perfectly hale and hearty, was an object of scorn and reproaches.

Ernest and Frank and Eddie and Dee, ably assisted by Bill and Skinny, demanded to know what he meant by it, where he had been, why had he gone away, and what ailed him anyway.

When the hubbub subsided a little and they were on their way, it transpired that the whole party had gone all the way back along the trail to see if they could see anything of the lost one. They had found no trace of him, and there had been no answer to their shouts.

Fatty thought guiltily that he must have been asleep. The more they talked, giving him no chance to explain, the more Fatty felt that he would not tell anything about his experience. So when at length Frank quelled the uproar by saying, “Let’s let Fatty tell us what he has been doing,” Fatty serenely told them that he had gone off in the woods, had fallen asleep, and that was all there was of it. No adventure, no excitement, nothing. Just that.

“Well, I am sorry for you!” said Eddie with scorn. “You can’t tell me! I know why you went, and that’s what you get for going off and hogging all that lunch. Just went to sleep all afternoon. Serves you right! We had a peach of a feed. Frank bought some dandy eats, and pop, and ginger ale, and say! we went up in Ernest’s plane and ran across an eagle. Say, his wings were twenty or thirty feet across, and we had a fight with him!”

“No, sir,” said Eddie. “Didn’t we have a fight with an eagle?” he appealed to Dee.

“What do you think we did?” said Eddie scornfully. “Reach over and pull out some of his tail?”

“I’d ’a’ done it,” said Fatty. “I found something dandy up where I was, and I brought it home for a souvenir.”

“Not much!” retorted Fatty. “Not on your life! It’s a peach of a thing too, but let’s see your feather, and I will let you see what I found.”

“Aw, I don’t care what you found,” said Eddie. “You have missed the best time you ever had, and the best swim, and I’m sorry for you.”

It turned hot again next day, and Fatty hung his flannel shirt away. The queer cylinder was in the pocket. Mrs. Bascom found that shirt a few days later and put it in the wash. The cylinder, looking nice and bright and brassy, she laid in the drawer beside Fatty’s handkerchiefs.

Fatty found it there on Sunday when he dressed for Sunday School, and thinking that there might be a chance for a dicker between lessons, he rubbed it up on his pocket handkerchief, and putting it in his breast pocket where the end gleamed out enticingly, he started off.

Now it happened that the innocent looking cylinder that looked like a new sort of pencil case was an infernal machine of the deadliest kind!

Filled with the most powerful explosives, the compact little engine of destruction was powerful enough to shatter a building. If Fatty had known ... if Frank had known when he bounced and jolted home in the flivver.... if Mrs. Bascom had known when she shifted it to the pile of handkerchiefs—well, this would have been a different story, with a different ending.

As it was, Fatty walked sedately to church, and with no trip or jolt violent enough to send Fatty skyward in scraps.

He could not stick it out until after Sunday School, however, and during the service brought it forth for the admiration of the boys in his class. A group of heads gathered about some object held under the back of the seat caught the attention of the Superintendent. Walking down the side aisle, he came back toward the front of the church by way of the middle aisle and leaned suddenly over the shoulders of the interested group. He quietly took the cylinder out of Eddie’s hand.

“Rowland,” he said sternly, “I regret to see you acting thus during Sunday School. If you cannot deport yourself in a proper manner I shall have to report you to your parents. I will give you your toy after service.”

Without giving Eddie a chance to explain he walked off, bearing the cylinder which he deposited on the desk.

“I do,” said Fatty. With a possible swap in view it was wise to boost his prize. “If I can get the top pried off it will make a dandy pencil case.”

“It might do for that,” said Eddie. “Tell you what, Fat. I will give you a nickel for it.” And Eddie who always had honestly earned money in his pocket took out a bright coin and with one eye on the Superintendent, danced it in his palm where Fatty could see it.

He looked and was lost. After all he didn’t want the old brass thing. So the nickel became his and after Sunday School was over, Eddie went meekly down to the desk and waited for the cylinder.

The Superintendent was talking to one of the elders and saw Eddie out of the corner of his eye. He picked up the brass tube, but fumbled it. It rolled down the slope of the desk and would have fallen had not Eddie caught it deftly as it fell.

“No, sir,” promised Eddie, and went off, little knowing that his quickness of movement had saved a perfectly good Sunday School and all the innocent people in it.

He looked the cylinder over and decided that the top had been screwed on. A wrench would take it off, but as Eddie did not carry a wrench in his Sunday clothes, he put the cylinder in his pocket and, whistling happily, went home to dinner, where his mother at once insisted on the Sunday suit being put away.

So once more the pretty brass tube with its deadly load found a temporary resting place in a clothes press where nothing more deadly than Christmas plum pudding had ever been harbored. Once more, all unconscious, Fatty and Eddie had handled the frightful thing and there it hung within reach of Eddie’s little baby brother Jack and the careless hands of Virginia.

He was not at the club room the next time the boys gathered to take some messages. Theirs was, thanks to Bill’s three aunts, the only wireless in the city capable of carrying long distance messages. So they seldom bothered with any of the short circuit lines that crossed and inter-crossed. They were tuned for far-away messages. This night, however, as Dee sat idly tapping out the words that crossed his instrument, he heard something that caused a strange alertness to take possession of his mind. And these were the words:

“From the adjutant’s office, two shivering maples make the brows, a slit the nose. In the inner chamber, six. Wash Seattle.”

With breathless intentness Dee listened for more. A faint “Correct” reached him, then the word “When?” “The Thirteenth” was the answer. After that silence save for the weather reports coming from the Great Lakes and a jumble of messages flying from here and there from boy to boy across the city. The words Dee had heard might well have been some of these, but where had he heard of the “shivering maples” for eyebrows? He racked his mind in vain. Eddie, clamoring for the table, came raving up, followed by Bill.

The three boys were alone. Dee told them what he had heard but for awhile they were able to make nothing of it. Suddenly Eddie exclaimed, “I know what! Do you suppose it is the face we saw on the hillside out at camp that day?”

“Well, if there is a face there, what do they want with it?” he asked. “I bet that is it, but how are we going to know what they mean? Say, suppose it has something to do with all that dynamiting? What would 'Wash Seattle’ mean?”

“My, my, you are cheerful!” said Bill, shivering. “I say we report this to somebody!”

“We can’t,” answered Eddie. “Frank and Ernest are both away, and I am afraid to tell the police.”

“If we mix up in it, we will get our own little heads blown off like as not,” said Bill ruefully. “Mine is a nice head.”

“Aw, what ails you?” said Eddie. “Nobody is going to know! What did you do with that book anyway, Dee—the one you showed Anna the day the man was run over?”

“I gave it to the police, but I copied the writing in it,” said Dee. “If Anna won’t tell me exactly what it says, I am going to take it down to the Public Library and find out just what it means. I can translate it near enough by one of the dictionaries there.”

“All right, I will,” answered Dee, and went down the stairs three at a time.

When he reached the house his father and Zip had just crossed the street on their way around the Park. Dee could not help a feeling of sadness as he saw his stepfather, a man who should have been in full health, shuffling carefully along with the hesitating gait of the nearly blind. He called a greeting, to which Zip replied and his father nodded. Then Dee hurried up to his room. But he stopped there only long enough to get a key, and went up to the attic. He required no light but went over to his mother’s trunk, opened it, and found the paper he had hidden there.

As he retraced his steps he heard a familiar ticking, crackling noise. He smiled as he thought what tricks his brain was playing him. A mouse in Zip’s room of course, but it sounded exactly like a wireless that needs adjustment. With a smile he stepped down the hall and paused at Zip’s door. The noise continued, and with a paling face, blank with amazement, Dee recognized the sound of a wireless trying to pick them up!

Racing down the stairs, he heard Zip’s high prattle as the two returned. Dee slid off the side of the porch and sank down into the depths of the honeysuckle bush. The two men came up the steps.

They were talking rapidly but close as he was Dee could catch nothing of the low sentences until Zip turned the door knob. Then Mr. De Lorme said: “What was it—the thirteenth? We will have to make haste!” and together they disappeared in the house.

CHAPTER VIII

When the door closed behind Mr. De Lorme and Zip, Dee scrambled out of the dense bush, cut through into the alley and turned toward Bill’s. He was shaking but whether with fright or apprehension he could not tell. He only knew that something of awful import was close at hand.

There was a wireless in Zip’s room! Actually a wireless in his father’s house! And was it chance that his father was asking about the thirteenth?

When Dee reached the back gate he sat down on the curb and gave himself up to his thoughts. But thinking did not help. It was all a miserable muddle; no head, no beginning, and no end. Dee sneered at himself for a suspicious cub, yet he knew that other houses never had the dark air of mystery that hung over his home. And his mother’s letters. When they flashed into his mind, Dee knew that there was something afoot that at least called for an explanation. What was his part in the dark play unfolding back there? What was it that the blinded chemist was working on so endlessly?

Dee determined to know. At first he decided to talk it all over with the boys, then to keep his own counsel until he had some real clues. At the present he could only connect his father and the scraps of information that he had gathered with the dynamiting that had been going on, and reflection told him that he had very little indeed on which to base his suspicions.

Certainly there was not a word in the letters to his mother; his father’s reference to the thirteenth might have had a very different meaning, and all the other straws of circumstance might have meant nothing at all. Dee realized how suspicion colors everything.

Finally he went up to the club room and said that he had not seen Anna; he would see her the following day. He soon went home, dragging his unwilling feet to the door of the house that now seemed the abode of evil spirits. As he turned the knob he glanced at his wrist watch. Nine o’clock.

He went slowly up to his own room, entered and leaving the door wide open behind him, went over to the window and sat down in the dark. He stared hopelessly out into the dense waving branches of the trees, thinking, thinking. He was perfectly still, and when Zip came hurriedly out of the laboratory and glanced into the boy’s room, he evidently did not see him and passed on downstairs. He returned presently, a package under his arm, and went into the laboratory, locking the door. Still Dee sat in the darkness, silent and moody. He heard a plane humming overhead and knew that it must be Ernest in his new flyer on his way to Stithton. Ernest had told the boys that he would always fly low and beat out taps in the exhaust whenever he went over.

Once more Zip came out of the laboratory and left the house. Although the night was clear, he wore a light raincoat, and he carried a small black satchel. Dee had seen this satchel many times. Zip took it when he went down-town, as a woman carries a shopping bag.

Then, very softly, so that Dee could scarcely hear the muffled ticking, the wireless in Zip’s room commenced to call. Over and over Dee heard the signal. Finally with swift decision he leaped to his feet. Remembering that Zip might return at any moment, he went softly down the stairs and slipped the latch so that Zip could not unlock the door. Dee hoped that he would think the latch had slipped. In any event, he would be obliged to ring for admission. Slipping off his shoes, he raced up the carpeted stairs, and noiselessly passing the door of the laboratory, entered Zip’s room and commenced his search for the instrument. The faint ticking guided him and he discovered the wireless cleverly concealed in a bureau. The drawers had been changed so that the whole front opened like a door. There Dee found a perfect set of instruments, and dropping on his knee, he answered the call and commenced to take the message.

“How goes it?” asked the wireless, and Dee, remembering Zip’s pet word, said, “Fine, fine!” and waited.

“Take this down,” said the wireless next. “We need ten cases. See that they are in charge of the keeper in the inner chamber. The thirteenth is the day.”

“All right,” answered Dee, and waited breathlessly. In the silence he thought he heard his father walking in the hall. Reaching over, he turned off the electric light.

“Two men are coming to take the stuff out,” the wireless went on. “They will come as usual. Be very careful. We are closely watched. Leave the garage—”

With a start Dee turned, and the receiver jolted from his hand. The room door had opened suddenly, and Mr. De Lorme entered. He had evidently heard the ticking and was hurrying to take the message.

As he crossed the dark room to the electric light, Dee sat motionless. He was caught! There was no way for him to escape. Mr. De Lorme pressed the electric button and flooded the room with light. Then Dee, blinking in the sudden glare, looked up full at his step-father.

But what a change! In all his life Dee had only known his step-father as bowed, half helpless, nearly blind, his eyes always guarded by the dark, disfiguring glasses. Now before him stood a straight, sinister man, with clear, piercing eyes that bored into his own. As he saw Dee an indescribable snarl distorted his features.

Dee leaped to his feet. A trickle of blood ran down where De Lorme’s heavy seal ring had cut his cheek, and Dee mechanically wiped it away. As De Lorme took a step toward him the front door bell rang. Zip had returned. For a moment Mr. De Lorme hesitated, then taking Dee by the collar roughly bundled him to the attic door, thrust him up the stairs, and Dee heard the key turn in the lock.

The boy sat down on the top step, his heart pounding furiously. Well, he was a prisoner all right! He wondered dully if they would kill him. He supposed so. And that very plan was being discussed down in the closed laboratory. Mr. De Lorme was walking the floor, furiously gesticulating, tossing the hair from his forehead, striking one hand savagely into the open palm of the other.

“Of course we will have to get rid of the worthless cub,” said De Lorme. “I have kept him with me because of the fat inheritance he will receive when that old aunt of his dies. She does not know where he is, but it has been enough for me to know where the property is. And that can’t escape. But I can’t afford now to have him about. He knows too much. Get rid of him, Zip.”

“How?” asked Zip blankly. Zip was perfectly willing to assist in the manufacture of infernal machines that would blow hundreds of innocent persons to a frightful death. That was part of Zip’s distorted creed—the wholesale abolishment of property and personal power; but he was kind to animals, and it did not occur to him that Mr. De Lorme meant what he said, so “How?” he repeated.

“Any way you like!” raved the madman. “Shoot him! Poison him! Drown him! I don’t care! Do you suppose that we can afford to get ourselves strapped into the electric chair for a blundering cub like that? You might, but not I. I, De Lorme, the maker of explosives, I who am known in our Order as the Avenger: what right have I to risk my life for a cub?”

“Much or little, it does not matter,” said De Lorme. “He was at the wireless; he has seen me with my disguise off. Why, you were the only man living who knew that I am a perfectly well man! That boy has never guessed or dreamed that I am not half blind. Think how I stumbled round the Park with him. Half to win pity from our most aristocratic and respectable neighbors, half to fool that boy.”

“One of us, one of our Order?” thundered Mr. De Lorme. “He is a slave to what he calls law and order; he is all patriotism. They have lectures in their schools. Ah, when we get this government into our hands things will be different! Then Truth will be taught. Get rid of him, Zip. I command it!”

De Lorme turned on him with the savage suddenness of a panther. “Then do you want to be snuffed out for disobedience?” he demanded.

“No, I don’t,” said Zip, “but you are so angry that you can’t see straight. How are we to get rid of the boy here; here on a block where every man and woman and child knows him? You yourself have made him make friends.”

“It was a safeguard,” said Mr. De Lorme. “Think of the fool women who have sent jelly and beaten biscuits home with him for his sick father! Bah!”

“All right,” said Zip, pressing his momentary advantage, “It is as you made it, is it not? Well, we will not be here much longer. We can keep him a close prisoner, and when we go we will decide what to do with him. There are millions of safer places than this for the sort of work you want me to do.”

Mr. De Lorme pondered this. “All right,” he agreed finally. “I am willing to concede this much. See that the boy is kept a close prisoner for the next two days. He cannot possibly escape from the third story.”

“Go up in the morning—no, tonight, and put the fear of death into his soul,” said Mr. De Lorme. “I cannot see him. It disturbs my balance, and I am unfit for our delicate labor when I am nervous. Let him have food, but not too much.”

He snatched the door open and went over to the door leading into the attic and shook it. It was stout and heavy, and yielded nothing to his savage handling. Dee heard him, and running down, leaned his ear against the panel. So he heard the end of the strange conversation.

“That will hold him,” came the muffled voice of Mr. De Lorme. “Give him water too. I shall have to work all night now, if this dynamite and the infernal machines are finished in time. Better take a nap, Zip. You are worthless when you are sleepy.”

“No, not I,” said the arch plotter. “I need no rest when I do this work, only I must not be annoyed. Do not mention the boy to me!”

Heavy footsteps passed down the hall and a door closed. Stepping backwards up the stairs, Dee gained the top and lighted the electric light.

He wondered what next. The next came quickly. Zip appeared, locking the door behind him. He had a pitcher of water in his hand. Setting it down he looked at Dee with a queer grin. Dee did not speak.

“Do what?” said Dee, willing to talk in the hope of gaining some information from the plotter.

“Monkey with the wireless,” explained Zip. “You must know about the whole thing.”

“I wonder if you thought I was all in the dark all the time,” he asked. “Don’t you suppose I knew what you were working on back there in that laboratory? What do you think I am? As blind as he pretended to be? I guess not! What do you think about the men who come here in the middle of the night? You make me tired!”

“Well,” said Zip, surprised off his guard, “if you have known about our Order and the dynamite we are producing, I suppose you know where we are storing it and all the rest of it.”

“I am not telling anything I know,” said Dee. He had learned what he wanted to know from Zip’s loose tongue. But the man’s next words chilled him.

“I was sent up here to tell you that you will have to behave pretty well if you hope ever to get out of this,” he said. “Your life hangs on a thread, and a thin one. De Lorme would have killed you tonight if I had not begged for your life. I may as well tell you that you are a prisoner, and your best chance is to behave and make no trouble. I will bring your breakfast to you in the morning.”

“All right,” said Dee. “Leave it on the stairs. I don’t want to talk to you or see you again.”

“Keep talking like that and you won’t get any breakfast,” growled Zip sullenly, and left.

Dee found some extra bedding and made himself a very comfortable bed on the floor, where he slept soundly until morning. The first thing he heard was the key turning in the lock as Zip placed his breakfast on the stairs and retreated. The attic had been intended for servants’ quarters. Dee explored and found in one end a small bedroom and a decent bathroom. He ran a cold bath and, plunging in, felt fit for any fate. Next he found a pile of magazines that had evidently been left by the former owners. He looked at his tray and thanks to Anna, began to think that his imprisonment was not to be painful at least. By afternoon, however, time commenced to drag. Three or four times he had heard Bill and Eddie whistling down in the street. The whistle had a peremptory note. Dee wondered what was up.

He went to the window, but the screen was nailed in and he was afraid to call. And the boys did not look up. It was a tall house. By five o’clock Dee was walking the floor. When about six Zip came with his supper and peered at him over the top step, Dee refused to speak.

“All right!” said he. “Tomorrow you go on bread and water, young fellow, and you will find it down here at the door. I won’t come a step for you until you come off your high horse.”

“Bread it is, then. As soon as you act decently you shall have more. We are pretty busy downstairs. When it comes the thirteenth, just listen and you will hear some noise.”

Dee did not eat his supper. He sat by the window and puzzled out plan after plan. How could he get the message to the boys? How could he effect an escape? It grew dark and below he heard the children playing, and saw a gleam of white as the girls walked two and two back and forth on the block.

Presently he heard a whistle. Then another, in a different key. Bill and Eddie were below. Dee pushed against the screen, but it did not give. He knew it would mean death if he whistled. Then inspiration came.

Taking his flash from his pocket, he sent a message into the night. It was a frightful risk. If Mr. De Lorme and Zip happened to be taking their evening walk, they would see it, but Dee knew that he must take a chance. The thirteenth was drawing near. Perhaps hundreds of innocent men and women would die on that day if he was not freed.

“S.O.S.! S.O.S.!” over and over he flashed, wondering if the boys would understand that secrecy was vital.

The whistling stopped suddenly, and Dee ventured another message. Then he stopped, straining his eyes into the deepening darkness. In what seemed about an hour, but what must have been ten minutes Dee’s heart leaped. Out over in the ornamental bushes that filled the lower end of Triangle Park came a tiny flash of light, then another. A moment more, and Dee caught the Wireless Club signal. He flashed an answer. Then as briefly as possible he declared his dangerous position. “Go away! Danger! Tell Ernest and Frank. Help at once!”

There was no answering flash to this, and Dee wondered if the scheme had been discovered. He did not dare leave the window, although he was listening with all his might for sounds at the stairway for he knew that if the flashes had been seen his life would pay the forfeit.

All at once the light glimmered again, this time from the fence surrounding the Reform School across Third Street.

CHAPTER IX

“Side next to Corey’s,” Dee replied, remembering that side of the house had a blank wall until it was broken by the dormer window in the third story. He hurried over to that window and with his pocket knife cut the screen. It was rotted by the wind and rain, and crumbled easily under his knife blade. Then he leaned far out and distinguished four dark forms creeping beside the house.

Bill’s flash sent up a single gleam. Dee answered it. As Dee leaned out, a slim line, weighted at the end, whirled toward him and fell. Again it rose, this time reaching the level of the window. Over and over this happened, one after another of the group below trying to send the weighted end close enough for Dee to seize it. Suddenly he waved to the fellows to stop, and withdrew his head. Flashing his light over the attic, he spied a bed-slat and carried it to the window, then waved a signal for the ropes to be thrown. Holding the slat at right angles with the window, the third trial sent the rope whirling over the slat, and Dee grabbed it. He rapidly drew it up, knowing that the other end would hold some sort of instructions. Sure enough, there was a scrap in Frank’s handwriting, so Dee knew that both Frank and Ernest must be below.

He read the words, “If your scrape is serious, pull the string three times and we will send up a rope. If you have just had an ordinary fuss with your dad, say so, and be a sport and stick to your guns.”

Immediately there was a quick pull on the line, and Dee commenced to haul up. A rope followed the string, and another note was bound to the end.

Dee did so and soon the heavy rope hung taut. It was difficult work getting out of the window and starting down the three story slide in the pitch dark, but Dee knew it was his one chance. He had but little faith in the continuance of Zip’s friendship; he knew him too well. And as for Mr. De Lorme, Dee knew that his life was worth absolutely nothing as long as he remained in that house. And of more importance still, there was the mystery of the dynamite to unravel. The fatal thirteenth was drawing near.

Sliding painfully down the ropes Dee thought of all this and as soon as he felt his feet on the ground he jerked the rope down with his own hand, and turning to Ernest and Frank, who were hastily coiling it, whispered,

One at a time, they made their way through the back garden into the pitch dark garage, and out the other door into the alley. Once in that comparative security, they raced up the alley and turned in at Bill’s gate. Up to the club room they hurried, Dee whispering, “Don’t make a light!”

But Ernest would not talk until he had made sure that there were no listeners, and then in as few words as possible Dee told his story.

The boys’ eyes grew round and wild as they listened, and at the conclusion Ernest looked at his watch, and said to Frank, “Where is the flivver?”

“You, Bill, sneak in and get a couple of your mother’s long coats, and Frank will take Dee and Bill and me up to the landing-field at Camp Taylor where I parked my plane. I want the kids to look like a couple of girls going out of here, so if we are seen or watched they will not spot Dee. I hope for an hour or two before they find he is gone. Bill can come back. You, Eddie, get down to the end of the Park, where the bushes are thick, and watch that house. If anyone goes out, follow him. And for the love of Mike don’t let a cop catch you, because you can’t explain. See? This is not a little hold-up or second-story job. It may be the discovery of the gang that has been sending infernal machines all over the United States. I am going to fly with Dee over to the United States Intelligence Branch of the War Department at Cincinnati and let Dee tell his story.”

Bill came hustling out in a moment with coats and hats, and the two tall boys (not as tall as Mrs. Wolfe, however) enveloped themselves in her wraps and walked sedately out of the front door and stepped into the chugging flivver.

Fifteen minutes later at Aviation Field a man and a slim boy left the car and hurried aloft in a little racer that belonged to Ernest, setting their faces toward Cincinnati.

Frank and Bill went back home and not knowing just what part to take, went up to the club room to wait for news of Eddie. Half an hour later, just as dawn was beginning to streak the sky, he appeared. A half dozen morning newspapers were under his arm and he looked the early-bird of a newsie to the life. But he flung his papers on the floor and himself into the biggest chair.

“Oh, gee!” he said in a hushed voice, “things are didding down there at Dee’s. I say that is an old whale when it comes to plots.”

“Have a heart, man!” he said, waving a grubby paw at Frank. “Can’t you see I am all out of breath?” He panted loudly a couple of times, then condescended to tell his experience.

“I went down there in the bushes,” he said, “and glued my eyes to that house. There wasn’t a soul in the street, and nobody came. But by-and-by I thought I saw someone sneaking around the corner from the back and sure enough there were two men pussy-footing it up the front porch. Well, someone must have been watching for them because as soon as they reached the door it slid open a little bit and they went in. They didn’t have time to ring at all. When I saw that there were no more of them, I skinned across and tried to see in the windows.”

“All for the Cause!” said Eddie airily. “Well, I couldn’t see a thing, so I went over to the next porch and swiped the papers on two or three steps, and then I laid down in the hammock like I was a newsie and dead tired. But I had an eye to the crack of the hammock, waiting for them to come downstairs. I knew they would have to come out. Then all at once I happened to think that the house has a back door, and I thought, 'Suppose they go out that way!’ Because they came around from the back.

“So I skinned around and drifted along by the fence till I came to the garage. I went in, and say, fellows, hope I may die if I didn’t fall right over the hood of a big machine! I made a clatter that you could have heard up here, but I was sure afraid to pick myself up. So I laid still as long as I dared, then got up and sneaked behind a couple of barrels in the corner, and there I waited some more, and pretty soon in waltzed the two men. They never made a sound, and they scared me nearly to death. They didn’t walk; they just sort of appeared. One of them had a big suitcase, and I bet it was full of dynamite, because he set it in the bottom of the car easier than if it had been eggs. The other one opened the garage doors and got in the driver’s seat and started the car, while the other fellow sat down beside him, and lifted the suitcase on his lap like a sick baby. Then they backed out and in another second were gone.

“That car was a whiz. It was big as the ark, and it went with less sound than I have ever heard an engine make. And I have had some experience, I will say!”

“Of course!” said Frank absently. “Well, one thing is clear, they take their stuff away somewhere in a car. Gosh, Rowland, if that suitcase had gone off there in the garage, it would have mussed you all up, wouldn’t it?”

“I should say so!” said Eddie solemnly. “I thought of that. Oh, yes, there was one thing. Just as the car started, one of the men said something about 'the last trip tomorrow afternoon.’ So I bet they are coming back for more.”

“Good, and more of it!” said Frank. “We must find out where they are taking their stuff.” He yawned. “I wonder if you fellows aren’t sleepy. Seems as though I hadn’t had a nap for a year or so.”

“All right,” said Frank, “you can stay here, and if Ernest comes while I am dozing, come wake me up. He won’t stay in Cincinnati any longer than he has to. Don’t know what he will do with Dee. His life isn’t worth much around here I should say, if old Papa De Lorme was to get track of him. Ern will attend to that, I know. He will bring Dee back disguised as a hot dog if he has to. So long! I won’t be able to think if I don’t sleep for a spell.”

He went off, and Bill and Eddie sat talking in low tones. Presently Bill took up the wireless. “Wonder if I can catch any fish this early?” he said idly, then his eyes bulged as he listened.

“Two more cases needed,” the wireless ticked. “Reached here safely with suitcase. If chosen messengers ask, tell them machines and bombs are under shale in back chamber. Rush work. Will motor in about four tomorrow afternoon. Be ready.”

There was a pause, and the answer snapped back quickly. “Working without rest or sleep. Cases will be ready in time.”

Sleep banished from their eyes, Bill and Eddie stared at the slip of paper whereon Bill had written the two messages.

“Make another copy of that,” said Eddie. “No one knows what will happen to either of us and the other one wants to have the message to show Ernest.”

Bill wrote rapidly. “He sure does!” he agreed. “Gee, I wish Frank hadn’t gone to sleep, but I bet he would be mad if I woke him up to show him this. We will have to wait until Ernest comes.”

The boys concealed the scraps of paper on themselves, and presently even the excitement failed to keep them awake. Without meaning to, they too went to sleep, one on the big center table, and the other stretched out on the couch. For two hours they slept, utterly tired out, then awoke when Frank wandered in, announcing breakfast in a voice that would have been easy to hear a mile away, Bill declared.

“That’s all right,” said Frank. “You don’t know who is around, and our play is to be as noisy as usual. Come on in and get something to eat. I have telephoned your house, Eddie, and got them just in time to keep them from dragging the river.”

“You, I reckon,” laughed Frank. “No, they were not up when I called, and did not know that you were not right in your own little downy cot. So it’s all right. Come on in and eat. I suppose it is nothing in your lives that I am starving. Oh, no; what’s that to you?”

“Well, lead on, lead on!” cried Eddie. “I hope you got a good breakfast. I am starved.”

“Wow!” cried Eddie, and the boys were at the table before you could think. Now the Wolfe cook was a waffle artist. And when you had had six or eight of her waffles, crisply brown, light as feathers, swimming in real maple syrup, why, then you were just ready for a good start. And she loved to cook for hungry boys, loved to see them eat. But this morning was the triumph of her life. Never had any boys in that house eaten so much or praised the waffles so loudly.

After breakfast, Frank went out and looked his car over, and “tuned her up,” and the boys showed him the message they had picked up.

An hour later, Ernest wandered across the Park as though he had not a worry in the world. He was alone and, greeting them in the most casual and off-hand way, he watched Frank tinker with a brake for a moment or two, heard the news, then asked, “Wonder if I can go in and wash up, Frank?”

“Sure,” said Frank, dropping his tools and leading the way toward the house. “Have you had breakfast?”

As soon as the door closed behind them, Frank demanded, “Where did you leave the kid?”

“Up at Taylor in the Provost Marshal’s office,” answered Ernest. “He is all right. The Intelligence Department took it up with the Department of Justice on the long distance. Result is five secret service men are on their way here by the fast train. They will arrive about noon.”

“We will have to be on the job, every one of us, this afternoon.” In a whisper he repeated what he had heard in the garage, and Ernest said, “They didn’t say what time, did they?”

“Hope they pull it off late,” said Ernest. “We had a great time, boys. I wish you had been along. Those chaps think Dee had a narrow escape.”

“I’ve got to finish the car,” said Frank. “Come on out when you get ready. I think we ought to keep in sight.”

They all trailed out after Frank, and proceeded to assist him by sitting on different parts of the car and giving advice.

“Don’t look, fellows,” he said rapidly. “Here comes that fellow Zip! I bet he is going to speak to us!”

They bent their eyes on Frank and commenced a low chatter as the black-browed stranger approached them.

“I was wanting to ask of you if you had chanced to see Marion De Lorme this morning.”

“No, we haven’t,” said Bill and Eddie honestly enough. “Did he come up this way?” asked Eddie cheekily.

“I don’t know,” said Zip, with a queer twitch of the jaw. “Mr. De Lorme wants him. If you see him, will you say for him to come home at once?”

“Down by the L. & N. Station,” said Ernest calmly. “Looked as though he was traveling.”

“I did see him there!” he said. “That was the truth. With me. Up in the air.”

CHAPTER X

Mr. De Lorme did not know that his stepson had escaped. When Zip discovered the empty garret he did not dare break the news to his employer. The inquiries after Dee were wholly on Zip’s own hook. He hoped to find that the boy had taken refuge with one of his chums. He could not suspect any of them knowing anything about Dee, however, after Ernest’s guiltless information. Down at the L. & N. Station! Zip smiled. The boy was thoroughly scared, after all, and had made good his escape! Somehow or somewhere he might have found out his Aunt’s address. Zip felt sure that when they wanted him they would be able to go down to the great fertile farm in the Blue Grass and find the boy.

Zip went back to the house with a light heart. He took the daily chunk of bread and set it on the attic stairs; then, for fear Mr. De Lorme might take a fancy to unlock the door and go up to see Dee, Zip took the key from the lock.

He found Mr. De Lorme in the laboratory, flushed with his labor. His keen eyes looked tired but steady as he glanced at Zip. “Well?” he interrogated.

“I did not bother to go up,” said Zip. “He is so sulky that I will not try to talk to him at all. I just leave his food at the bottom of the stairs.”

“Perfectly right!” said Mr. De Lorme absently as he slid a paper tube inside a small brass cylinder—and with the utmost care and a touch delicate as a jeweler’s proceeded to cap it. A heavy, thick pad of fluffy thick cotton batting covered the table and he held the cylinder close to it. Mr. De Lorme did not like to take unnecessary risks.

Zip took off his coat and arrayed himself in a tight jumper. He filled several retorts with queer-looking liquids, and fell to work. There was much to be done. The thirteenth was nearly at hand!

Up at Bill’s Ernest was rapidly outlining his part of the plans for the capture of the dynamiters. At the Aviation Field, at Camp Taylor, his little plane was “parked” ready for action. Safe in the Provost Marshal’s office, near a couple burly M.P.’s, Dee, well guarded, was waiting for the next act in his life.

At the L. & N. Station a fast express was drawing in. Among the throngs that hurried from the cars came a young clergyman, a traveling man loaded with sample cases, a couple of enlisted men, and a laborer in his blue overalls. These five lost themselves in the crowds and were gone. That they were Secret Service men picked for the difficult task of taking a dangerous gang and breaking up a lot of dynamiters, the crowd with whom they mingled did not guess, nor would they have believed if they had been told.

Up on Confederate Place the usual afternoon began with just a few variations. An understudy took Eddie’s place on the tennis courts. Frank’s father, Mr. Wolfe, drove to his office in Frank’s little flivver, and left at the curb in its stead his own powerful touring car, and Frank was engaged in his pet recreation of “tuning her up.”

Eddie and Ernest, taking a trolley, were well on their way to Camp where they expected to await developments at the Aviation Field.

Bill, whose easiest job was collecting an admiring circle of girls, went down to the Crowleys, next door to the De Lorme house, and proceeded to fascinate Elizabeth Crowley, a delicate little blonde beauty, and Virginia Rowland, whose big black eyes sparkled and whose merry laugh tinkled out at the least of Bill’s rare sallies of wit. At intervals—and of course this was part of the plan—Bill whistled lustily and once or twice yelled, “Hey, Dee!”

In the Park sat a couple of enlisted men, young fellows who soon started a bantering conversation with two girls passing. The four had a jolly time. It was not hard for the secret service men to “jolly” and keep hawk-eyes on the De Lorme house at the same time.

At the extreme point of the Park, facing the monument, was the wreck of a beautiful drinking fountain which had been shattered by a runaway automobile. The pieces of broken stone were being gathered in a pile by a workman who seemingly had no eyes for anything but his work. His overalls were roomy and loose; otherwise someone might have noticed the bulging pockets underneath where he carried two big revolvers and handcuffs, as well as heavy shackles for stubborn ankles. At the station a man with two suitcases sat patiently reading the paper, while close to his elbow a meek-looking young clergyman watched the crowds or looked at a long railroad ticket which he held in his hand.

Nothing happened. Time dragged on. The clocks struck two. Bill was worn to a frazzle. He commenced to wonder why men ever married. The girls prattled on and Bill “entered into the silence” as they talked in a chorus. He lost track of their remarks and answered so at random that Virginia demanded to know what was on his mind. At that Bill, who was trying to disguise the fact that he had a mind, braced up with a long, long story of a transaction in ginger ale and pop between himself and Eddie one night when the Community singers were at the Park.

It certainly was a long and complicated tale, and when the clocks struck three Bill was weaving uncertainly through a maze of incidents which meant as little to him as they did to his listeners.

But as the clock struck three ... Bill saw a familiar automobile approaching the De Lorme curb. Once more he cried, “Hey, Dee!” but this time he went down the steps and looked up at the De Lorme house. His young voice rang out and carried across to the Park, where the four young people on the bench had passed from jokes to a quiet conversation. One of the soldiers was telling blood-curdling tales of a front he had never seen, gas he had never been subjected to, and trenches he had only dreamed of. But he was a born talker, and his listeners shuddered and thrilled. At the call from Bill, the two soldiers glanced quickly across the street and shifted positions a little. The workman at the broken fountain, tired out, sat down on the curb and lighted a short pipe.

Then a large car drove up before the De Lorme house—a beautiful touring car. On the front seat sat a chauffeur in livery. A stunningly dressed woman and a thin man, both enveloped in large, loose dust coats, sat on the back seat. The three scanned the houses, and the man spoke to the chauffeur. He jumped out and approached Bill, who stood staring on the steps of Elizabeth Crowley’s house.

With a flourish the chauffeur opened the door, the man descended and assisted the lady to alight. Her loose cloak floated around her. She was very beautiful, and she smiled at the girls and Bill. Then she ran lightly up the steps and the two disappeared.

Bill immediately lost interest in the charming damsels who had been so attractive for two hours or more. He said, “Well, gotta skip! Goo’bye!” and ambled off toward home, whistling.

“Now there is a mix-up,” said Bill anxiously. “There is a car in front of the house, but it’s got a lady for one of the passengers and, say, she is some looker!”

“Them same,” said Frank sagely, “is sometimes the worst kind. On our way, brother, on our way!”

“All right,” said Bill cheerfully, and dashed into the house, returning straightway with a small bundle which he tossed into the car as he hopped in. Frank turned and they went slowly down the block. The large empty car still stood before the house as Frank drew in at the curb in front of the Crowleys. Elizabeth still sat serenely rocking, her face toward the De Lormes’. She did not intend to miss a second view of the radiant stranger.

“Hello, Elizabeth!” said Bill affably. “Care if I telephone? I’m in a hurry and hate to go back home.”

Bill, frantic for fear the strangers would come out before he did, called, “Taylor 5000” and when they answered, he continued, “Is this the Provost Marshal’s office? Well, I want to speak to Mr. Beezley, please. Yes, Lieut. Beezley. Oh, Ern? Get busy! Ready to start, guess. Two men and a lady; a bird! All right. Try the Dixie Highway. Goo’bye!” He hurried outside and stood talking to Elizabeth, while Frank patiently waited in the car, head down, as though he intended to stay there all day. His brilliant red-and-blue plaid cap was pulled well down, and under it keen eyes scanned the car ahead.

The workman, rising from his seat on the curb by the broken fountain, idly knocked the ashes out of his pipe and looked around for his crowbar. In the park two young soldiers said good-bye lingeringly to two reluctant girls, and with many promises for picture postals walked away.

Zip came out and looked in the postbox. It was all very peaceful, very natural. He did not recognize Frank by the top of his spotty cap, but he saw Elizabeth, and nodded affably to Bill across the lawn. He was glad they were there to see the well-dressed visitors coming and going so casually. He went inside, and in a moment the lady appeared, followed by the man, and behind him the chauffeur bearing the bulky blanket.

They walked slowly down, Bill having all the acute symptoms of apoplexy. Elizabeth stared.

“She is fatter than I thought,” she said scornfully. “I thought she was real thin. And the man! What a funny, careful way he has of walking, as though he might break himself!”

“Do you think so?” said Bill. “Oh, Elizabeth, I do hope you think so! I certainly do!”

“How funny you are!” exclaimed Elizabeth. “You act as though you cared how he walks. I don’t see—”

But here something happened that took Bill a long, long time to explain away. When Elizabeth looked up, Bill was gone. The strange car had gone too, and Bill was leaping into Frank’s car and he looked as though he had forgotten every single thing about her. The strange car turned the first corner and so did Frank, but he slowed down as he reached it, and Elizabeth, angrily looking after, saw two soldiers leap on the running board and a blue-clad workman tumble into the back seat.

The strange car cut across to Fourth Street and turned down. On the side street one of the soldiers and Bill leaned out and ripped off a narrow piece of tire-tape that ran around the whole top, just at the edge. Then the workman, who made himself wonderfully at home, reached out the back window and hauled down a large piece of black oilcloth that had been lying flat on the top and that had been secured by the tire-tape.

Then for the first time someone spoke. It was the workman, and he addressed Frank. “Sure you painted that white panel good and large?” he asked.

“Sure!” said Frank. “Fact is, Ernest did it himself, and he said it would be pie to follow it. They don’t seem to be in a hurry, do they?” he added, his eyes on the strange car ahead.

“No, they won’t dare to speed up on account of the load they have. And traffic is pretty thick.”

They carried the game of follow-my-leader down through the heart of the city, stopped at the Seelbach Hotel for twenty minutes and then turned and headed for the old Dixie Highway. “It’s them, all right,” said the workman joyfully. “Wonder where they are really going?”

With a swift motion Frank swept the brilliant cap from his head, donned a black one and adjusted a pair of large goggles. He slid down in his seat and watched the car ahead.

“Wonder what makes the guy so slow?” remarked Frank presently. “Suppose we should bust a tire?”

“Never anticipate trouble,” said the workman. “It looks to me as though they were pretty busy ahead there. I shouldn’t wonder if they might be changing their general appearance a little, but I don’t suppose we had better draw nearer.”

There was a faint humming in the air and a plane soared high above them. It was very high, but as they watched it, something white fluttered down from it, and Bill gave a sigh of relief as he saw the prearranged signal. “It is Ernest and he has seen our white panel. Now he will look after the car, I suppose, according to agreement but I declare it doesn’t seem fair to have him have all the fun. What are we going to do? Can’t we go on?” he asked.

“No, indeed,” said the workman and a soldier repeated, “No, indeed! An aviator’s luck!”

“We will turn back as soon as we come to a store where drinks are sold, or a gasoline station, or anything of the sort.”

“No need to do that, son,” laughed the workman. “We will have 'fun’ in plenty, if you call it that. Why, what do you suppose we are going to do about those people back there in Louisville? Did you expect to let them get away so they could cook up more deviltry? I say not! We have some arrests to make on your nice respectable street, and that house to search. And we want you to have all credit of this affair, young fellow, you and your mates. If it hadn’t been for your precious wireless!”

“I wonder where they were talking the time I caught the messages,” Bill said as their car stopped at a little place where soft drinks were sold.

“The way the Bureau dopes it out,” said the workman, “is that they have a chain of short-circuit wireless stations, so they don’t have to trust anything to letters; not even to word of mouth. That is how all these frightful attacks on innocent persons are arranged so safely.”

He took out a clinking handful of shiny handcuffs and shackles and looked at them lovingly before he tossed them down in the bottom of the automobile.

“I hope if we catch him that we will be able to persuade Mr. De Lorme to talk.” he said.

CHAPTER XI

While the car carrying the Secret Service men and Frank and the disgruntled young Bill dashed back to the city, the car with the dynamiters and their terrible load rolled smoothly on toward Camp Knox at Stithton. They were a clever lot, hiding their infernal machines within the very boundaries of the Government camp, and if it had not been for the boys and their wireless, they might have operated forever. The country was so rough, so uninhabited, that the wandering hoboes strolling along the mountain trails so near the camp never raised a question in the minds of the M.P.’s. And luxurious cars bearing pretty women driving back and forth between Louisville and Camp Knox were so numerous that even the people living along the road had ceased to look after them as they passed.

A couple of miles from West Point the car stopped beside the road, and a young woman in sport skirt and sweater jumped out, a book under her arm, and strolled up into a little grove. The car went on. The lady sat down, felt into a silk work-bag for a piece of candy, and fell to reading.

A couple of miles out of Stithton, in a deep gully where the road was bad the car stopped again. There was a long wait, but no one got out, and an airplane far overhead turned and in a series of circles went humming far to the left. When the car started, the plane, strangely enough, was once more high overhead. But the men in the car did not notice that. Airplanes from Stithton were always buzzing around. The Station at the Camp flew from four to six planes all of every day. The man at the wheel looked up in an interested, casual way, and drove his car carefully forward. A half mile from the Camp the car stopped again and a stout man stepped from the brush. He took the driver’s seat, and the man who had been driving crawled over into the tonneau.

In a couple of minutes, two tramps hustled out of the machine, as though they wished to swing free of it before anyone saw them. One of them carried a large bundle carelessly done up in a red bandana of extra size, the other a frayed and torn knapsack.

They strolled leisurely toward the Camp, and the new driver, starting the car, went on, entered the Camp, and stopped at the Adjutant’s office, where he asked for an officer, but who was away on sick leave. The stranger was sorry. They were old classmates, he explained. He was passing through, and thought he would look the Captain up.

The Adjutant was sorry too, but cheered up over the cigar the stranger gave him. Cigars like that were like a patent of nobility. Wouldn’t the stranger like to look over the Camp? The stranger had some time to kill and he would be delighted. The Adjutant joyfully steered him around. When the stranger finally drove off, the Adjutant made haste to lock four more of those amazing cigars in his locker.

Up in the airplane, Ernest sat at the wheel, while Eddie and Dee, each armed with powerful glasses, watched the car far below.

Everything had gone with the utmost smoothness. Thanks to the white panel which Ernest had painted on the top of Frank’s car, he had been able to pick them up without the least trouble. And once on the Dixie Highway he followed the other car easily. Ernest listened to the reports of the boys without interest. He thought that the lady passenger would be dropped in some safe place, and was not surprised at the appearance of the third man.

But when the two hoboes got out and dawdled along toward Camp, the boys and Ernest felt that the plot was unfolding fast. They watched the car enter the Camp, while the tramps trudged along in the rear, and when the Adjutant, after talking to the driver, sallied out with him, Ernest growled. “Now we will have to do all our sleuthing up in the air. We can’t come down and chase those fellows up while that guy is on deck. The very minute the airplane started down to the Field they would come hustling over. That Adjutant is nutty on flying, and this is the only plane out today. Keep your eyes on the tramps, boys!”

He brought the plane directly over the Adjutant’s office and, cloud-high, commenced a series of lazy manoeuvers.

“It is getting near sundown,” he said. “If they don’t know it is me, they will think some of those kids are crazy. They are supposed to come down by four o’clock. Well, they will have to work it out! Do you see the hoboes?”

“They have just turned in at the gate, and are going toward the hill trail,” reported Eddie.

“Wish ’em a pleasant journey!” said Ernest hopefully. “I want them to get wherever they are going before dark. If they don’t suspect us, they will, too, because there is no reason for them to wait for dark. You can’t see a step of that mountain road from the Camp.”

They hung high in the air, watching the two tiny figures, invisible except through the glasses, move ever so slowly up the winding road. Imperceptibly Ernest allowed the plane to settle until with the naked eye they could see the face of the mountain with the dark gashes along the trail here and there, where the openings to the caves smeared the rock. Then a violent start and gasp from Eddie startled Ernest so that the plane ducked.

“Look, look!” he screamed. “There it is! There is the face in the rock! See the eyebrows made of the bushy trees? That was what all the messages and the writing in the book was driving at! I bet there is where the tramps will land!”

“I bet you are right,” said Ernest, no less excited than the boys. “Where are they now?”

“Well, if they are loaded up with dynamite and infernal machines, I bet they are good and ready to rest,” said Dee.

However, in a couple of minutes the men plodded on and soon, as the boys watched breathlessly, they reached the queer face, and like shadows disappeared and were gone.

“They have gone in, sure as shooting!” exclaimed Eddie in awed tones. “Now what next, Ern?”

“More watchful waiting, kid,” replied Ernest. “Don’t take your glass off that face. If they leave, we will go down and explore. If they stay, we will get some help from Camp and take ’em alive.”

For what seemed an eternity the plane hung there, swinging idly on the air currents, the boys straining their eyes at the glasses.

Then at last, one after another, two figures appeared, stood for a moment, and passed rapidly down the trail. Ernest with a sigh of relief settled a little more and saw the big car of the stranger turn and make rapidly out of the Camp.

Ernest flew over to the landing field and came down. Leaving his plane in the care of one of the men, the three made their way across the Camp.

“Now, remember, boys, not a peep to anyone! We will go sit on the trail, and see if the tramps come down and start toward the highway. Then we will go up.”

In ten minutes the tramps appeared, passed unsuspiciously, and were lost to sight.

“Now!” said Ernest. “Are you ready?” The boys were on their feet in an instant. They swept up the hill, and reached the narrow opening all out of breath. All three had flashlights and Ernest leading, they squeezed inside.

They looked the space over carefully but saw nothing suspicious. Then one after another they wriggled through another small opening into the second and larger room. This too was empty, but Ernest, flashing his light about, brought it to a standstill in one corner.

“For goodness’ sake, don’t joggle a single pebble!” said Ernest. “You don’t know how they have cached this stuff. Perhaps they have fixed it so if any stranger touches it, it will go off.”

“You are a cheerful chap, aren’t you?” demanded Eddie as he took stone after stone gently from the pile and laid it down behind him.

“It is there!” said Ernest. “Don’t uncover any more of it. Now I tell you what. Are you boys game to stay here with me on guard tonight? If so, I will go down and wireless to Bill, and the Secret Service men can grab the gang back there in Louisville.”

“Of course we are game!” said Dee cheerfully. “Anything that will help to break up this gang goes with me.”

“I will telephone,” he said. “I won’t wireless on account of old De Lorme getting the message game as we have picked up his now and then. Don’t light a light in here unless you have to. No one knows who is prowling around.”

He went off, and the two boys sat down in the inner chamber and whispered together. A cave is never a cheerful spot. Even in daytime it gives you queer thrills and chills, and at night, without a light— Well, Bill and Dee sat close and said little. Every little while they heard strange sounds like someone stepping on the gravel outside. Or sounds inside like sniffles, or grunts, or breathing! Once, near them on the hillside, a fox screamed, and Eddie felt, as soon as he was able to feel anything at all, that his hair had turned white. He could tell by the chilly, creepy feeling at the roots that the damage was done. He wondered what Virginia and Elizabeth would say when they saw his snow-white head.

He thought that he was alone in his terror until he heard Dee whisper shakily: “S-s-s-s-say, E-e-e-eddie, w-what w-was t-that?”

“Naw, that’s only a fox,” said the country-wise Eddie. “They make a fierce racket when they yell.”

“I wonder if that one wants to get in here. Perhaps it has a den in here somewhere,” whispered Dee.

“Shoo!” whispered Eddie hoarsely. He did not care to have a fox galumping in, in the dark. He was not afraid, but he carefully drew in his feet. He knew that Dee’s were well under him. But the sound was not repeated.

When Ernest presently said “Hi!” in the entrance, both boys leaped and then sighed so loudly with relief that Ernest heard them, and laughed. “Not scared, were you?” he asked.

“Naw, of course not!” the boys hastened to assure him, and to change the conversation quickly Eddie asked, “Did you get them on the telephone?”

“Yes. They were waiting to hear from me,” said Ernest, sitting down. “I don’t believe there will be any trouble out there. I am going to sleep. I don’t see any reason for any of us to sit up. There is no suspicion afloat, I will be bound. I brought three blankets up from my quarters, and the floor isn’t hard. It is certainly bone-dry,” he added, kicking up a little dust. “And here are some sandwiches,” taking some parcels out of his pockets.

“I don’t think this is so worse,” grinned Eddie, biting out a neat semi-circle.

“We heard a fox screech,” said Eddie, “and you should have seen Dee jump. I thought he would go through the ceiling.”

“Aw, what makes you say that?” objected Dee. “Eddie, here, threw a fit!”

“You both got a good scare, if it was anything like some of the foxes I have heard,” said Ernest, laughing. “Now, let’s go to sleep. I want to get up sort of early because the Secret Service men will be here to take charge of this stuff soon after daybreak.”

In Louisville things were happening. Even while the car Frank was driving was still on the Dixie Highway, things happened! The workman opened the bundle that Bill had thrown into the car, and in a few moments there was no workman there at all! Just a well-dressed, kindly looking, middle-aged man with glasses who sat back and looked with interest at the scenery. The two soldiers faded too, and in their places two officers, a Major and a Captain of Infantry, flecked the dust from their boots and exchanged pleasantries.

“Gosh!” said Frank when he had taken in the changed appearance of his passengers. “Wish I could turn into something! Wish I could turn into a millionaire!”

The others laughed. “That’s a hard turn to make,” said the Major. “But we change so often that sometimes it is hard to tell what we really are.”

“That is what you are very likely to turn into, my boy,” said the Captain, “if you keep up your present trick of catching dynamiters by the heels.”

“Gee, I would like that!” said Bill longingly. “How do you go about it? What do you have to study?”

“Yes, indeed,” seconded the Major. “Lessons in High, and then some! You will use all you can possibly learn and then you will spend a good part of your time kicking because you don’t know ten times more.”

“What are we going to do next?” Bill asked. Remarks about school bored him to tears.

“If you will drive down to the L. & N. Station, I will send the fellows there up to watch the hotel, where the men and the woman are staying. As soon as it is dark we three will call on Mr. De Lorme.”

“Aw,” said Bill pleadingly, “can’t I be in on that? Are you going to arrest him?”

“We are going to try pretty hard,” said the Major, smiling. “Well, it is rather unusual, to be sure, but if you happen to be on the next porch working hard, the way you were this afternoon, we will see what we can do.”

“Certainly, and I hope you will never have to do anything harder.” He clapped Bill on the back. “Just be there, and see what happens.”

At the L. & N. Station the Secret Service agent who had been the workman went in and presently came out saying that that was all right. And then Frank headed for home, and arriving there, took the three strangers to a room where they made certain additions to their attire in the shape of revolvers and handcuffs. The one-time workman strolled out into the alley a little later as a good-natured looking policeman, who squinted into the garbage pails on the block, to the distress of several well-meaning but forgetful maids who could not remember the hard and fast rule of the city about the division of garbage.

And soon after supper Bill, smooth of hair and rather pale of face, donned white flannel trousers and a clean white shirt, and in this gala attire went down to call on Elizabeth Crowley.

CHAPTER XII

Elizabeth looked rather surprised when Bill wandered up to her steps a second time in one day. But she was a wise little girl, oh, much, much wiser than her kind, and she said nothing; just greeted him in her pleasant low voice, and gave Bill the chair she had been sitting in. If Bill had not been a mere boy, this in itself would have made him wonder. Elizabeth’s chair faced the De Lorme house. It was Elizabeth’s silent little sarcasm to offer it to Bill when he was pretending that he had come to call on her.

And Bill, being a mere boy, did not even notice that Elizabeth had changed seats, but took her chair and felt lucky to think that he could have an unobstructed view of the house next door!

In three quarters of an hour, when two spruce looking officers came up the street, Bill had talked himself to a standstill. He only wished the man who had said slurring things about his work that afternoon was about ...

But up the streets at last came the two officers and went up the steps of the De Lorme house, and rang the bell. Bill stopped trying to talk.

It seemed a year before the door opened, and then Bill could not see who was standing within, but he saw the heavy portal suddenly swing shut, and at that moment both men sprang forward and pressed it open. With a scuffle they both plunged into the hall, and Bill could stand no more. Again Elizabeth found herself alone.

Bill leaped across the lawn and was close on the detectives’ heels when they closed on Mr. De Lorme. But that gentleman was not yet in their grasp. With the quickness of a trained athlete, he sprang into the parlor and stood with a table between them.

“What does this intrusion mean?” he asked harshly. “Are you drunk? Have you mistaken the house?”

“Neither!” said the Major. “We are here to arrest you. Better come quietly. It will be better for you in the end.”

“Arrest me?” said Mr. De Lorme, smiling. “Arrest me for what? Why should you arrest an old and harmless student like myself?”

“You know why,” said the Captain bitterly. “Don’t try to escape! If you are curious, we can tell you where your dynamite is hidden, and where your accomplices in this city are located. Come, step up here, and get these bracelets on. Why, we know you! It is nearly the thirteenth, and you are known as 'The Avenger.’ Does that convince you?”

He took a step forward, and De Lorme found himself looking into the muzzle of a revolver.

With a queer, nervous motion, he fussed with his watch chain for a moment, then clapping his hand over his mouth, dropped into a chair. He looked at the men strangely, his face twitched, and his outstretched legs jerked for a moment. Then he straightened up and laughed aloud, a jeering, sneering laugh, looking from one to the other, and past the men at Bill, whose flesh crept at that sardonic sound. Then his head dropped, bobbed queerly, and both men sprang to his side, crying “Poison!”

The body slid to the floor and lay there crumpled up. The glasses fell from the staring eyes; a bit of white powder lay on the sneering lips.

“As quick as that,” said the Major bitterly. “I never thought he would try that!”

“He—he’s dead!” gasped Bill, shuddering as he looked at death, death that is meant to be peaceful and lovely, lying there in its most unlovely form, a man dead by his own hand.

“Yes, he is dead,” said the Captain. “He will wait for us now, I reckon. Where is the other one, do you suppose?”

The three walked out into the hall and turned toward the stairs just as a door above opened, and Zip appeared at the head of the flight. He took one glance at three faces below and instantly a flash of flame leaped at them; he had fired from his hip. An answering flame from the Major’s revolver, and Zip’s right arm hung useless.

“It is all up!” said the Major. “Come down here and take your medicine!”

Groaning, Zip descended the stairs, holding his uninjured hand above his head. The detectives shoved him into a chair, shackled his ankles and handcuffed the well arm to the back of the chair. He was unable to move if he had wished to do so, and sat shivering a little as he stared at the form of his former employer on the floor.

“You will get the electric chair, I suppose,” said the Major, “and the man on the floor, who deserves it as much or more than you do, has escaped it.”

“Oh, oh, oh!” cried the prisoner. “I shall not go to the electric chair! I shall turn state’s evidence. I shall tell all!”

“You can commence right off then,” said the detective, and turning to Bill, asked, “Where is your brother?”

“Here!” said Frank from the hall, where he too had been a witness to the encounter.

Frank whipped out a notebook and pencil, and Zip, staring at his captor, asked with chattering teeth, “What do you want me to say?”

“We made it here ... the dynamite .. and those infernal machines that went through the mails. They were an invention of Mr. De Lorme’s.” He glanced shudderingly at the dead man. “They were very powerful. One would blow a house up easily. We made them all. The cases were cylinders of brass, and the top was screwed on. They never failed unless they were wet. Water spoiled them. We could never invent a top that could be screwed on easily enough not to send the blast off and that yet was tight enough so water would not enter. Otherwise they were perfect.

“Mr. De Lorme stored the infernal machines and the dynamite in small cases in a cave out at the Camp at Knox. No one would think to look for anything of that sort right in the bounds of a military camp. We had friends, members of our Order, who came in and took the stuff out there.

“They are preparing for a great dynamite plot on the thirteenth. All the material out there will be taken away and distributed, and all the public buildings in many cities will be destroyed. But you will let me go, and I will tell you where it is.”

“You needn’t trouble about that,” said the detective. “We know. What did you use that wireless for?”

“We did all our communicating by means of wireless,” said Zip. “We have a network of plants all over the city and throughout the country so we can use one short circuit after another, and communicate from sea to sea.

“It was too dangerous ever to write, and still more so to telephone. No one knew that our wireless was anything more than a lot of boys talking. A great many boys have little wireless plants.”

“What about this boy Marion that De Lorme has been calling his son? And what about his blindness?”

“The blindness was his safeguard. Everyone who saw him thought him half helpless. It was for that reason that he made Marion make friends all over the neighborhood. The ladies around here sent him jellies and good things, because they like the boy, and are sorry for his father. Not a soul suspected us. I don’t see how you got on.”

“About Marion; he is Mr. De Lorme’s stepson. Mr. De Lorme married Marion’s mother when he was only a baby. She died soon, and the boy has been a care and a drag, and yet a great safeguard. We have travelled widely, and everywhere the boy has made friends, and people have pitied him because of his half blind father and his apparent loneliness. The boy was never abused, although Mr. De Lorme hated him. And he was getting beyond us. He did not tell what his pursuits were, or where he spent his time. Then all at once he heard the hidden wireless in my room, and answered it. And Mr. De Lorme put him up in the attic, and told me to get rid of him.”

“How?” asked the detective, his steely eyes hypnotizing the man into the truth.

“He ordered me to kill him,” said Zip. “I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t harm anyone.”

“Why, you fool!” exclaimed the Major. “Wouldn’t harm anyone? What do you think happened when your infernal machines exploded in San Francisco, in Detroit, in Newark, and Syracuse and New York?”

“That is different,” said Zip. “That is part of our creed. It must be for the good of humanity.”

“Of course!” said the Captain bitterly. “Well, go on! Did you finally accept the boy as part of your creed, and kill him?”

“No,” said Zip. “He escaped. A fellow up the street here saw him going into the L. & N. Station. I suppose he found out the address of a relative in the Blue Grass country and has gone down there.”

“If he is not up in an airplane headed for Louisville,” said the Major, “he is now sitting on or near a pile of dynamite in a cave out at Camp Knox.”

“Enough to electrocute you all right,” the detective agreed. “But not enough to save your life.”

It galvanized the man into speech. “I will tell you!” he babbled. “Be sure to put it all down!

“We have been preparing for a great stand here in America. The time is ripe for the overthrow of the Government and all in power. Sixty thousand anarchists have come to this conclusion.”

“These men and women, devoted to their Cause, are stationed all over the United States, and from several stations like ours explosives are to be distributed. Then, at a busy hour, eleven A.M. on the thirteenth, as though struck by a single blow, these bombs and delicate infernal machines will explode.”

“Aunt Merriar!” whispered Frank as his pencil flew over the paper. “I would like to see about sixty thousand electrocutions done Dutch.”

The Captain looked at him questioningly. He did not understand; but Zip was speaking.

“Mr. De Lorme was the greatest chemist of them all; and aside from the fact that we could never manage to make the infernal machines waterproof, he invented a number of ingenious and deadly toys. They were all to be used on the thirteenth. He used to send prescriptions all over; formulas for the lesser men to pattern after.”

“I want the names of all these men, their workshops, and also a list of as many anarchists as you have,” said the Major.

“You’re one already!” and the detective shoved his revolver hard into Zip’s meager stomach.

“Take that away!” he gasped. “Let me say what you want, and for mercy’s sake get me a doctor! My arm is killing me. The lists, complete to date, with names of the inner circles, and the addresses of the men who were to handle and distribute the bombs, are on a typewritten memorandum under the marble top of the stand in my room.”

The detective turned. “Go up and see if he is telling the truth, Bill,” he ordered.

Keeping as far away from the dead man on the floor as he could, Bill left the room and hurried up the stairs. There was only one room with a marble top table and, lifting the slab, Bill found several typewritten sheets fastened together. These he carried to the detective, who glanced at them, placed them carefully in his pocket and asked, “Is there a telephone here in the house?”

“You know the people next door,” said the detective, smiling meaningly at Bill. “Perhaps the young lady will allow you to call up the police station. Tell them S. S. Detective Harris wants a patrol and six officers sent here. And the ambulance. Say there is a dead man here.”

Elizabeth still sat on the porch rocking. She rose when Bill came leaping up the steps.

“What is going on, Bill?” she demanded. “I heard a pistol. What has happened?”

“Lots of things!” said Bill, tantalizingly. And then he added hastily, if importantly, “Tell you all about it soon as I can! A Government affair we are mixed up in. Let me use your telephone, will you?”

While he was getting central, Elizabeth murmured, “Government affair indeed! Well, I reckon you will tell all about it, Bill Wolfe!”

The ambulance arrived first, and the dead man, decently covered and laid on a stretcher, was carried through the crowd that had assembled about the door and hurried away.

Then the patrol thundered up, and Zip, still shackled, was carried out and placed in it. Stationing a policeman at the front and another at the back of the house and calling, “See you later!” to Bill, the detectives and Frank got into the patrol and went rattling down the street.

Bill heard a voice; a determined, quiet voice at his elbow. “Now, Bill Wolfe, what is it all about?” said Elizabeth.

CHAPTER XIII

Eddie was the first to wake. He rose, stretched himself, and went to peer out of the cave mouth. He did not like to go out until Ernest gave the word. Ernest and Dee slept on and on, and Eddie fumed, not liking to disturb them. At last the pangs of hunger so beset him that he shook Dee and then Ernest into wakefulness. Just as he succeeded in persuading that last named person to open both eyes at the same time and sit up the two Secret Service men appeared. They had been thoughtful enough to bring some breakfast for all hands, and as they themselves had driven from Louisville without stopping to eat, they sat down in a circle near the mound of shale and consumed innumerable sandwiches and hot coffee from the thermos bottles.

Breakfast over, the detectives carefully scooped the shale away from the canvas cases containing the explosives. Lifting one of them, with the greatest gentleness and care they opened it. Inside, wrapped in rolls of cotton, were rows of little brass cylinders.

The sight of them seemed to excite Eddie. He started, stared and pointing a shaking finger at them, managed to ask in a dry whisper:

“Sure!” said the detective. “The worst ever! Give that a tap and see where we would be. Angels, every one of us!”

“Don’t joke!” cried Eddie, such agony in his voice that they all looked at him in surprise.

“Take me home, Ern: take me home! Come on, I got to go right now! Oh, don’t, don’t wait!” he begged.

“Oh, it’s not that! I have one of those things in my Sunday pants! They are hanging up where Jack can get at them if he takes a notion. He is always going through my pockets to find pennies. Oh, come on! I will tell you as we go!”

“All right,” said Ernest. “Keep cool, youngster! They are all asleep at this hour, and you know Jack is always the last one up.”

“I will tell you all I know in a word,” said Eddie, putting on his coat. “Fat Bascom had it, and he brought it to Sunday School and I gave him a nickel. I meant to pry the top off, because it wouldn’t unscrew, and I was going to keep pen and pencils in it. It looked sort of pretty and funny with those pointed ends like a torpedo. But I was busy and left it in the pocket of my Sunday pants, and it is where Jack can get it. And if he hasn’t been through ’em by this time, he will do it any minute. Oh, come on, Ern!”

They rushed for the Aviation Field, rolled the plane out of its hangar, and were off.

The engine was not working right, and Ernest was obliged to coax it along. Eddie, with a set and anguished face, stared ahead as though he could pull the city towards them. It took them twenty-five minutes to reach the landing field at Camp Taylor. Then Eddie, leaping from the plane, dashed for the road. He threw himself at the first automobile with such earnestness that they stopped for him. He rode down silently, and when the car turned into Third Street, where Eddie could look across the Park and see his home, his courage failed him and for a fearful moment he closed his eyes, unable to look at the wreck he felt sure was there. But when he forced his eyes to scan the familiar scene, he found the scheme of things entire. The house, his dear home, stood intact.

He leaped from the automobile, and with a fervent “Thank you!” raced over the tennis courts, pushed through the bushes surrounding the Park and leaping across the narrow pavement, burst open the door.

He could hear his mother in her room, and his father was in the bath-room shaving. Eddie ran up the stairs three at a time, and bolted into his own room. There in his own small bed, young Jack slumbered peacefully. What a darling he was! Eddie’s heart filled with manly tenderness and love for the small brother, and with a racking sigh of relief he went over to the clothespress and felt carefully in his pocket.

Eddie staggered back and with hands that commenced to shake pawed his clothes over, looked on the floor among his shoes, and went through the bureau. Then without knocking, without a salutation, he burst into his mother’s room.

She was a pretty woman, dark and sparkling, and her black eyes grew round and astonished as Eddie breezed in with a wild cry of: “Where is it? Did you take that brass thing out of my pocket? Where is it? Where is it?”

“Good gracious, Eddie, what a fuss! I don’t like you to burst in like this. It is rude,” she said, beginning to coil her long, wavy hair.

“Why, I took it,” said Mrs. Rowland. “Why not? It was sticking in your pocket. I saw it when I brushed your clothes, and it was just what I wanted to mend your father’s glove over. Its round end just fitted the thumb.”

“I left it in my work basket,” said Mrs. Rowland. “If it is not there now, I don’t know where it is.”

“What’s the excitement?” said Mr. Rowland, coming in. “Eddie lost something? No use being so noisy, Ed, no matter what you have lost.”

Eddie had been trying to get the infernal machine back without frightening the family, but now he was stung into an explanation. He talked as he felt through the socks, underwear, embroidery and uncut materials that filled his mother’s basket.

“Well, it is an infernal machine, if you want to know!” he said with a sob in his voice. “And it isn’t here!”

“Infernal machine! Infernal joke!” said Mr. Rowland, scolding. “Talk sense, Eddie!”

“That’s just what it is,” said Eddie. “Some detectives and us just found a whole case of them in a cave. They are the most powerful machines that have ever been made. Oh, where do you suppose that is?”

“What were you doing with it in your pocket if it is an infernal machine?” demanded Mrs. Rowland, looking through the pile of things on the bed.

“I traded for it in Sunday School last Sunday. Gave Fat Bascom a nickel for it. I meant to pry off the top and use it for pencils and pens.”

“I suppose Jack has it,” said Mr. Rowland, forgetting the line of lather still decorating his dark jaw. He went to Jack, and woke him up. Jack objected, and was only made to sit up and talk by many promises of ice-cream cones.

“Ess, me toot it! Ittle tin fing. Wanted it to teep marbles in, and me touldn’t det de end off. And me was doin to hit it wif a tone, and toot it out-doors.”

“Going to hit it with a stone!” groaned Eddie, shivering. “Well, you didn’t anyhow, Jack, so where is it now?”

“Gone where?” coaxed Eddie, but Jack, feeling that his information had already brought in huge promises of reward, shrugged and dimpled again, and was silent.

“Gone where?” begged Eddie. “Tell you what, Jack, if you show me where you put that funny thing, I will buy you an ice-cream cone every day for a week!”

“Fatty Bascom bought it back!” cried Eddie. “I suppose he thought that was a joke on me. My soul, dad, what will we do now?”

For answer, Mr. Rowland ran down to the telephone and sent in a frantic call for Fatty Bascom’s house, only to find the telephone “temporarily discontinued.” Mr. Rowland did not wait for his necktie. He turned up the collar of his coat, cried, “Come along, Ed!” and opened the garage where his powerful car waited.

Fatty had once, long ago, been a Confederate Place boy, but had moved into the Highlands. Driving as fast as he could, Mr. Rowland crossed the city and approached the Bascom place. Once more Eddie looked to see a pile of racked and shattered timbers where a house had been.

The house was there, but no Fatty, although Eddie whistled and called as they drove up.

Mrs. Bascom herself came to her door. She was scarcely taller than Eddie, but smoothly fat as a little butter ball.

“Why, Mr. Rowland, how are you?” she exclaimed, shaking hands and dragging them into the house. “And Eddie too! Come right out to the dining-room. Mr. Bascom is just getting a taste of breakfast. I declare that man doesn’t eat more than a sparrow! And early as this, I know you have come off without your breakfast. Come right out and join. There’s plenty, always! I tell Bascom you never know when a friend or neighbor will drop in, and I always believe in being on the right side.”

“We can’t stay, Mrs. Bascom. We are just on an errand,” but she interrupted as she threw open the dining-room door and pushed them in.

“Simply nonsense! As if you can’t eat and talk at the same time! Bascom, here’s somebody you will be glad to see.” She drew up a couple of chairs and firmly sat her unwilling guests down as soon as they had greeted Mr. Bascom. After shaking hands, that gentleman sat down and picked up his fork.

“Mighty glad to have you come in,” said Mr. Bascom, cutting large slices of beefsteak for each one, and piling delicate fried potatoes beside them. “Seeing someone takes my mind off myself. Wife thinks I don’t eat the way I should; don’t seem to relish things right.” He took a large spoonful of orange marmalade, and poured thick cream in his cup of coffee.

“No, I don’t relish the way I used to. Try those muffins, Rowland. Take two! There’s only about ten bites in each one. I tell Mrs. Bascom she don’t make them as thick as she used to.”

“Where—” commenced Eddie, but Mrs. Bascom interrupted. “You are an early riser, Eddie, I will say! I do wish I could get Henry up like this. I declare, it is all I can do to drag that boy out of bed. He would sleep till noon if he could. And I do wish school hours could be changed. I say when a child needs his sleep, the way Henry does, he ought to have time to take it. Nothing like good food and rest for children, Mr. Rowland?”

“Yes, and they can sure sleep and eat, these youngsters,” said Mr. Bascom, helping himself to more fried potatoes.

“Well, they ought to,” said Mrs. Bascom, pouring quantities of thick maple syrup over a muffin which she had loaded with butter for Eddie. “Think how they have got to grow! No coffee, Eddie? Well, just you drink some milk.”

“Can’t I go up and wake Fa—Henry up?” asked Eddie, finally stemming the conversational torrent.

“Why, hon, he isn’t here,” said Mrs. Bascom. “He has gone to Cincinnati to see a cousin. He’ll be back in a day or two. I thought, and so did papa, that he looked run down; sort of peaked, and we thought the change would do him good. My sister sets a real good table. Not plain like ours, but things that would sort of tempt him.”

“Well—er, he has a sort of pencil case of mine,” said Eddie, “and I have got to have it.”

“A little brass thing, with sort of pointed ends?” asked Mrs. Bascom, reaching for the muffin plate. “Let me get some hot ones, Mr. Rowland.”

“Yes, that is it,” said Eddie, cheering up. “Perhaps it is up in his bureau. I will look while you get the muffins, Mrs. Bascom.”

“Not a bit of good to look, sweetness!” said Mrs. Bascom, patting him on the back. “Not a bit! I helped Henry pack, and he put it in his suitcase. I remember he said he didn’t want to scratch it, because he was going to make something or other of it, and his cousin has a regular workroom, with a vise and carpenter’s bench and all.”

Mr. Rowland shook his head. Eddie instantly lost his appetite. Mr. Rowland somehow got them away without more beefsteak and things, and when they were in the car, said: “No use making them worry. We will telephone Fat at his cousin’s.”

“We can’t,” wailed Eddie. “They have just moved into a new house, and there is no telephone connection yet. Fatty told me the other day. I know! Take me up to the camp, and I will get Ernest to fly over to Cincinnati. We are not needed here. Oh, gosh, I suppose there isn’t any Fatty by now! Somebody is going to swat or drop that cylinder, and that’s going to be the end of them! Here’s Ernest now,” he added as they swung round by the Aviation Field.

Rapidly he explained to Ernest, and before he had finished, the car was in place, and Ernest was at the wheel. Waving a good-bye, and calling “Explain to mother,” Eddie settled down and drew on his goggles.

CHAPTER XIV

Ernest’s plane had never made a prettier flight. Everything looked clear as crystal in the light of morning, and the occasional clouds through which they sailed were fleecy and thin.

Eddie enjoyed the trip in a subdued way. He had been through so many shocks since awaking and had had so many hairbreadth escapes that he put Fatty and his fate out of his mind. It would do no good to worry. His one deep hope was that Fatty, who had taken a late train, was not yet up.

On the other hand, Eddie knew that if Fatty was up, he was certainly tinkering with his cousin’s tools, and if he was, why, by this time there was no Fatty. And worrying could not help it. It could not drive the splendid little plane a breath faster. When at the end of the second hour of smooth flight Eddie saw the city of Cincinnati lying far ahead, his thoughts returned to Fatty. If Fatty had sold that to anyone else, Eddie knew that by the time they found it out, the last owner would be well on his way to Europe or South America. And Eddie, who was tired out, vowed that after that it was up to Fatty to reclaim the dangerous tube. But all seemed to hinge on Fatty being still in bed.

Reaching the city, they descended at the Landing Field, and grabbed the first taxi. After a long ride they reached the house they were seeking. And it was all there!

“Gosh, I hate to go in!” said Ernest. “Fatty may drop that thing any second.”

“Where are the boys?” Eddie asked the maid who answered the doorbell. “We want to see Henry Bascom.”

“I don’t believe he is up,” said the girl. “He came very late last night and Mrs. Harding said the boys were to sleep as long as they wished. I think you might go right up if you are friends of theirs,” she added.

Quietly they went up the stairs, quietly they opened the door indicated by the maid. And there, safe and sound, looking like a young human balloon in pink pajamas, was Fatty, sound asleep.

“My, my! Gaze on that!” said Ernest. “Looks like a baby dirigible, doesn’t he?”

“Hello, you fellows,” said Harvey Harding joyfully. “I wish you could tell me some way of making this chap wake up.”

“I did,” said Harvey. “Tickled him everywhere. He’s so fat he don’t feel it.”

“I will fix him,” said Eddie. He went to Fatty’s side and in a deep, gruff voice exploded, “Class in algebra, stand!”

Fatty sat up so quickly that he nearly bowled Eddie over. Everyone laughed, and Eddie retreated to the window seat where he rolled around in glee.

Then he said soberly, “Say, Fat, you know that pencil case sort of thing you sold me in Sunday School?”

“Sure!” said Fatty. “I bought it back all square and fair from your brother Jack. Paid him money for it! Why?”

“It’s mine, all right,” said Fatty, sniffling and reaching over to get a handkerchief. The suit case was beside his bed.

“All right,” said Fatty, still fumbling. “I want it myself. I was going to fix it for a pencil case, but if you want it so bad as all that, why, take it!”

Without warning, he sat up, the cylinder in his hand, and threw it across the room toward Eddie.

Eddie says he didn’t know how he managed to do it, but he reached out his left hand, and caught the cylinder.

“Sweet heavenly day!” said Ernest weakly, and flopped back in his chair. Eddie found himself near tears.

“You do that again and I will knock the stuffin’ out of you!” he said to Fatty. The hand that held the infernal machine shook.

“I will tell you what ails us,” said Eddie savagely, “but I want to know where you got this. Where did you find it, or who gave it to you? Come on! Ern and I have come all the way in his plane to get this. Now you get busy and explain!”

“Well, I didn’t tell where I got it because I didn’t want to be guyed. Remember that day we went out to Camp Knox? Well, when you were all rushing down the hill road after seeing the caves, I thought it would be a good joke on you to sneak back and eat my own lunch.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XV

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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