The Flying Machine Boys on Duty. Frank Walton

awakened his chums before giving the signal to the stranger. There was no knowing what the man might attempt to do. Ben did not fear physical violence for he considered himself more than a match for the intruder. But he knew that a stick of dynamite or some other destructive explosive tossed into the mechanism of the machines would render them absolutely useless.

      For this reason he watched the visitor closely, never taking his eyes from the rather large and ham-like hands which swung pendulously at his sides. The stranger did not appear to notice the attention he was receiving.

      “What I came down for,” he said as he approached the camp-fire and stood warming his hands before the blaze, “was to ask questions.”

      He smiled brightly as he spoke and gave a searching glance at the shelter-tent where Jimmie and Carl were sleeping.

      “It’s easy enough to ask questions,” suggested Ben.

      “Easier than to get them answered,” responded the other. “I found that out this afternoon.”

      Ben eyed the stranger in wonder but asked no questions.

      “About the middle of the afternoon,” the man went on, “I came upon a machine lying in a little dell back in Indiana. I shot down with something like the nerve I exercised in visiting you, and began talking with the aviator. He certainly was about the most insignificant looking specimen of humanity I ever saw.”

      “Wait a minute,” smiled Ben. “He had a small, weazened face, large, wing-like ears, and hunchy shoulders—shoulders which give one the impression that he has spent the most of his life at the end of a mucker’s shovel in the subway. Is that a good description?”

      “A better one than I could have given!” answered the stranger. “You must have seen him somewhere. I hope your experience with him was not so unfortunate as mine.”

      “He made you trouble, did he?” asked Ben.

      “He stole a pocketful of spark plugs,” was the reply.

      “Yet you seem to be traveling all right,” suggested the boy.

      “Oh, he didn’t get all I had,” was the answer. “I volplaned down to him, and he invited me to partake of a lunch he was serving himself on the grass. Just for form’s sake, I sat down with him. Then he began asking questions. He wanted to know where I came from, if I had seen any other machines in the air that afternoon, and if I had heard anything of two aeroplanes starting out on a journey across continent to the Pacific coast. After a time his questions became personal.”

      “And you answered them, I suppose!” laughed the boy.

      “No, I didn’t,” returned the stranger. “I closed up like a clam in a short time, and then he arose and, without my permission, began examining my machine. To make a long story short, he got the spark plugs out of a box under the seat without my knowing it. I never discovered the loss until I was some distance away.”

      “You left him there in the dell you speak of?” asked Ben.

      “Yes, I left him there in a little hollow between two hills.”