A PLOT DISCOVERED.
In accordance with Frank's resolution the three young members of the
party and Ben Stubbs divided the night into four watches which were
religiously kept, but rather to Frank's surprise nothing occurred to
excite suspicion. The next morning Le Blanc, who had driven into town,
returned shortly before noon with a letter from the Secretary of War
which contained information of much interest to every member of the
projected expedition.
"I have arranged with the Department," it read in part, "to have the
torpedo destroyer _Tarantula_ detailed to duty along the Florida coast
and you can keep in touch with her by wireless. For this purpose,
besides the apparatus attached to your air-ship, I have ordered a
complete field outfit to be forwarded to you,--of the kind with which
several western posts have been experimenting of late and which has
proved entirely satisfactory.
"The instrumental part of the outfit--i. e., the keys, detector,
condenser, tuning-coil, etc., are permanently fastened into or carried
in a steel-bound trunk, but little bigger than an ordinary steamer
trunk, and weighing about one hundred and fifty pounds. Two storage
batteries, both sufficient for ten hours of continuous sending,
accompany the outfit, and come in wooden cases which form supports for
the trunk when the outfit is in use.
"A mast of ten six-foot sections, which can be jointed together and set
up in a few minutes, forms your aerial pole and each section is coppered
so as to provide a continuous conductor. In another box are packed the
aerial wires, extra rope, wire-pegs, etc., as well as a waterproof tent
to protect the outfit from the weather. Of course a charging station is
a necessity and another case contains a small, but powerful gasolene
motor and generator. Another attachment for use with the appliance is a
combination Malay and box kite carrying a cord of phosphor bronze,
wire-woven about a hemp center. There are eight hundred feet of this
wire wound on a reel. If for any reason the work of setting up and
attaching the pole and its aerials is considered to be too lengthy an
occupation it is a simple matter to send up the kite, its wire rope
acting as an aerial in itself."
The boys grew enthusiastic over this description. The outfits seemed
from the account to possess the merits of portability and efficiency and
in the country into which they were going portability was a strong
feature in itself. It was this very question that had caused Frank, when
designing the new _Golden Eagle_, to so construct her that she could be
taken apart and the various sections boxed in a very small capacity each
box weighing not more than fifty pounds with the exception of that
containing the engine which weighed one hundred and fifty without the
base.
That afternoon the boys worked like Trojans on the _Golden Eagle II_
with the result that shortly before sundown they had progressed to a
point where the air-ship was ready for the attachment of the engine.
They were all surprised, and somewhat startled, when their solitude was
invaded, just as they were thinking of knocking off work for the day, by
a loud rap at the doors of the aerodrome. Frank opened the small flap
cut in the big door and stepped out to see who the intruder might be.
He was greeted by a boy of about his own years smartly--too
smartly--dressed, and with a confident overbearing manner.
"Why, hello, Lathrop Beasley," exclaimed Frank, with all the cordiality
he could muster at seeing who their visitor was,--and that was none too
much, "what are you doing here?"
"I guess you're surprised to see me," rejoined the other.
"I certainly am," replied Frank.
"Why don't you ask me to come in," went on the other, "you're a
hospitable sort of fellow--not."
"I beg your pardon, Lathrop," apologized Frank, "won't you come over to
the house and sit down awhile?"
An unpleasant sort of smile broke on the other's face.
"Oh, so you're afraid to let me see your aeroplane are you? Well, I
don't know that I care so much to anyway. Since you fellows left New
York I have been made president of the Junior Aero Club and have
designed a 'plane that can beat anything you ever saw into a cocked
hat," he exclaimed.
Frank smiled. He was used to Lathrop's boasting ways and at the Agassiz
High School which they had both attended had frequently seen the other
humbled. Now when Lathrop said that he didn't care about seeing the
_Golden Eagle II_, of course he was not telling the truth. He would have
given a great deal to have even caught a glimpse of her. In fact, when
that morning he had heard that the boys' aerodrome was once more
occupied, he had determined to walk over from his home, which was a
splendid mansion standing on a hill-top not far away, and take a look at
her for himself. That Frank should have objected to showing him the
craft was an obstacle that never entered his head.
"Oh, come, Frank," he went on, changing his tone, "let me take a look at
her, I won't tell anyone about it. What are you so secretive for?"
"I myself should be glad to let you see the successor to the _Golden
Eagle_ that we are building," replied Frank, "but my employers might not
like it."
Lathrop pricked up his ears at this. He was an ambitious boy and had
designed several air-ships and planes but he had never been able to
speak of his "employer." The word must mean that Frank was building the
craft for some rich man. Although Lathrop had plenty of it the idea that
Frank and Harry were making money out of their enterprise roused him to
a sullen sort of anger.
"Oh your employers mightn't like it," sneered Lathrop, "I tell you what
it is, Frank, I don't believe you have any 'employers' as you call it,
and that all this about a new air-ship is a bluff."
This was a move intended to irritate Frank and make him offer to show
the air-ship as proof positive that he was really at work on such a
craft, but if Lathrop had meant it in this way it was a failure. Frank
was quite unruffled.
"You are welcome to believe what you like, Lathrop," he rejoined, "and
now, as we are very busy, I shall have to ask you to excuse me. I've got
too much work to do to stand talking here."
"That's just like you, Frank Chester," burst out the other boy angrily,
his temper quite gone now that he saw that there was to be no
opportunity of his seeing the air-ship.
"Maybe you'll be sorry that you wouldn't show me the ship--and before
very long too."
As Frank, not caring to listen to more of this sort of talk, re-entered
the aerodrome the Beasley boy, almost beside himself with anger, shouted
after him.
"I'll remember this, Frank Chester, so look out."
He strode angrily off through the woods making a short cut for home.
Lathrop was not a bad boy at heart, but he was an intensely jealous one,
and the idea that the Boy Aviators were constructing an air-ship that
they refused to let him see irritated him almost past bearing. When he
shouted at Frank his last words they were dictated by his anger, more
than by any real intention of carrying out any plan of revenge for the
fancied slight; but, as he strode along through the woods, he suddenly
heard voices that, after a few minutes of listening, convinced him that
he was not the only person in the world who even momentarily wished harm
to the Chester boys.
"We'll wreck the aerodrome to-night;" were the words,--coming from
within a clump of bushes that grew to one side of the trail,--that
attracted his attention. The boy halted in his tracks as they were
uttered and then crept cautiously through the undergrowth till he
reached a spot from which he could both see and hear without being seen.
The man who had uttered the threat that had brought him to a standstill
was a person bearing every evidence of being of the genus--tramp, that
is so far as his clothes went. But his white hands and carefully kept
nails showed that he had assumed the rags he wore as a disguise. His
companion was a man of very different appearance. He was in fact the
natty person whom the boys had seen at the Hotel Willard, and who had
since been on their track, as Frank had guessed when Billy had spied his
escaping figure in White Plains the day before. With a beating heart the
concealed boy listened as the two plotters went on.
[Illustration: Lathrop discovers the plot.]
"Do you think they have the machine finished yet?" asked the better
dressed of the two.
"Confound them, they were too sharp to let me go to work for them or I
might have had the plans of it by this time," rejoined the other. "I
think, though," he resumed, "that it must be so far advanced that if we
can wreck it now we will delay their departure for Florida till we have
been able to destroy the plant and escape."
"I owe them a debt of gratitude for the loud way they talked at the
Hotel Willard," said the other. "Thank goodness we are now in possession
of their plans at any event. Don't you think we might head them off
without destroying the aerodrome? It's risky, and means jail for us if
we are caught."
The other gave a short laugh.
"No, we'll hit them a body blow," he said. "If I could blow them up
along with their air-ship I'd gladly do it. I'd like to treat them as we
mean to do with that white-livered Lieutenant when we get through with
his services."
"Are they going to kill him?" demanded the other with something like awe
in his tones.
"No," replied the man in the tramp's rags, "not unless he gives too much
trouble. They are going to put him to work in the sulphur mines of
Ojahyama and let him slave for his living."
Even from where he was the concealed boy could see the other shudder.
"It is a terrible place," he said.
"It is the best place for men of his caliber," retorted the other.
"Perhaps it would be as happy a fate for him as being compelled to slave
for Foyashi."
"I hear that he would not have anything to do with their schemes and
defied them to kill him before he would aid them to manufacture his
explosive until he was influenced by Foyashi," said the first speaker.
"I guess you're right," replied the other worthy, "but he's passive
enough now, I fancy."
They both laughed and arose to go. As for Lathrop he lay almost
paralyzed with fear. Of course much of what he had heard had been
meaningless to him, but he did understand that a plan was on foot to
blow up the boys' aerodrome, destroy their ship and possibly injure
themselves. As the men's footsteps died out, as they walked off down the
path through the woods, the boy, who a minute before had been seriously
pondering some sort of harm to Frank and Harry felt conscience-stricken.
What he had just heard had changed him from a possible enemy into a
fellow-schoolmate and he determined to warn the boys of their peril.
With this end in view he was hurrying down the path, retracing his steps
towards the aerodrome, when he was seized roughly from behind and
whirled about. The man who had seized him was the one who had assumed
the costume of a tramp. His eyes blazed with rage. He had hurried back
to get his knife,--which had dropped from his pocket as he sat
talking,--a few seconds after Lathrop had left his place of concealment.
As luck would have it, in pushing through the bushes he had discovered
the depression in the grass where the boy had lain. A brief
investigation showed him that it had been recently occupied and that
whoever had crouched there must have heard every word they said. Calling
his comrade the two had set out at full speed in pursuit of Lathrop.
As his captor gripped the boy in a hold that clutched like a vice,
Lathrop realized that he had fallen into bad hands.