TWO RASCALS GET A SHOCK.
The boy was startled but his presence of mind did not desert him.
Lathrop, although, as has been said, a hectoring, dictatorial sort of
youth possessed plenty of courage of a certain kind, and was no coward.
He therefore exclaimed angrily:
"Take your hand off me. What do you want?"
At the same moment he gave an adroit twist, an old football trick, and
in a shake had freed himself from the other's detaining hand.
"You needn't crow quite so loudly, my young rooster," exclaimed the man
in the tramp's dress, "I merely wanted to ask you a few questions."
"Well," demanded the boy.
"What were you doing up there in the woods while we were talking?"
Lathrop didn't know whether or not the men were armed, so that he
decided that it would be folly to tell them the facts; he therefore took
refuge in strategy.
"What do you mean?" he asked with an expression of blank amazement.
"Oh, come," said the other, but there was a note of indecision in his
tones, that showed that he was not as sure of his ground as he had been,
"you don't mean to say that you weren't lying hidden while we were
talking up yonder and heard every word?"
"As I told you," replied Lathrop, "I don't know what you are talking
about. I am on my way home through these woods and you have stopped me
in this unceremonious fashion. If there was a constable within call I
would have you arrested."
"Oh, come on, Bill," struck in the nattily dressed one of the pair, who
had hitherto remained silent, "the kid doesn't know anything--that's
evident, and we are wasting time here."
"I'm not sure of that," retorted the tramp-like man, still unconvinced,
"if I thought," he added with a vicious leer, "that he overheard us,
I----"
The sentence was not completed for the reason that at the moment a lusty
voice was heard coming up the path from the aerodrome singing at the
pitch of its lungs:
"Three times round went the gallant ship;
Three times round spun she,
Three times round spun the gallant ship
Then down to the bottom of the sea,--the sea,--the sea.
Then down to the bottom of the sea."
As the singer came upon the scene in front of him he broke off abruptly
and the two men who had intercepted Lathrop took to their heels.
"Hullo, there, my hearty," cried Ben Stubbs, for he was the vocalist, as
his eyes took in the situation, "what's all this?"
His voice held a sharp note of interrogation, for he had immediately
recognized one of the two men who had made off as the fellow who had
sneaked up the by-street in White Plains the day before.
"Who are you?" demanded the boy suspiciously, not certain whether in the
newcomer he had a friend or a fresh source of danger.
"Me? oh, I'm Ben Stubbs, formerly skipper of the tug Mary and Ann, but
now one of the crew of the _Golden Eagle II_, sky clipper. And you, my
young middy, I recognize as the chap who was down at the aerodrome a
short while ago, and got all het up because Frank Chester wouldn't let
you see the air-ship--now the question is what were you doing with those
two fellows, who are as bad a looking pair of cruisers as I ever laid
eyes on?"
Lathrop saw at once that unless he told the truth he would be a fair
object of suspicion, and at any rate he had made up his mind to warn the
boys of the danger that threatened. He therefore in a straight-forward
way told of the afternoon's happenings.
"You come along with me," exclaimed Ben, as the boy finished his
narrative, "we've got no time to lose."
They hurried down the path to the aerodrome and Lathrop repeated his
story to the boys.
"Well, forewarned is forearmed," remarked Frank, "and thank you,
Lathrop, for doing the square thing."
"Oh, that's all right, Frank," Lathrop replied awkwardly, recollecting
his fiery threats of a short time before. To tell the truth, Lathrop was
thoroughly ashamed of himself, and declining the boys' hearty invitation
to supper, hurried home to the house on the hill.
He had learned a lesson he never forgot.
"Now," said Frank, as soon as he had gone, "we'll give these fellows a
surprise if they come around here to-night that will stick in their
minds for a good many years."
Under his directions everyone got busy for the rest of the afternoon
driving wooden posts at six foot intervals all round the aerodrome. When
the posts were all in position a copper wire of medium thickness was
strung from one post top to another and the ends connected with the
dynamo ultimately destined to supply the _Golden Eagle II's_ searchlight
and wireless equipment. By the time Ben Stubbs, who had quite ousted Le
Blanc as cook, announced by a clarion summons, beaten on a tin wash-pan,
with a big ladle, that a supper, consisting of his famous baked beans,
chops, spinach and coffee was ready--not to forget Ben's masterpiece, a
huge strawberry pie,--Frank pronounced his preparations also complete.
After supper everybody sat around the stove in the portable house, for
the nights were still chilly, till about ten o'clock. They had all made
as much noise as possible early in the evening with the ultimate motive
of accentuating the quietness later on.
Frank and Harry stood at the door of the portable house as Schultz and
Le Blanc started for the aerodrome and shouted out "good-night" till the
echoes rang back from the hills. Then one by one the lights in the two
houses went out and all was quiet. That is, all seemed so to two
watchers concealed in a thick mass of brush up on the hill, but in
reality no sooner had the houses been plunged in darkness than the boys
and Ben Stubbs had crept quietly into the aerodrome and sat down to wait
for the crisis they felt sure was coming.
Harry and Billy each carried a long thin package that might have
contained anything from dynamite to a pistol. Ben Stubbs, with a grim
expression on his rugged face, grasped a stout club he had cut that
afternoon. It was pitchy dark in the aerodrome and as they waited, in
the absolute silence Frank had enjoined, the watchers could hear one
another breathing. Upstairs only the rhythmic snores of Schultz and Le
Blanc, who were not in the secret, disturbed the silence.
Frank sat with his hand on the switch that would shoot a current of 500
volts through the copper wires surrounding the aerodrome when he
connected it. A hole, bored earlier in the afternoon in the wooden wall
of the aerodrome gave the boy a command of the view outside in the
direction of the woods. So dark was it, however, that even his keen eyes
could detect little in the black murk. He saw they would have to judge
of their enemies' whereabouts solely by sound.
They must have sat there in the darkness for an hour or more, with no
sound being borne to their ears but the unmelodious snoring of the two
mechanics in the loft when, suddenly, and without any further warning
there came a sharp "crack" from up on the hillside as a branch snapped
under a heavy foot.
"Here they come," whispered Frank to the boys, whom he knew were there;
but couldn't see any more than if they were in the antipodes.
"Get outside now, you fellows, and when I give the word, let go!"
Silently as cats Billy Barnes, Harry and Ben Stubbs slipped off their
shoes and tiptoed out through the door of the aerodrome, which had been
left open to allow for the noiseless exit. Frank was left alone in the
barn-like aerodrome save for the two sleepers upstairs. The tension in
the silence grew painful. When would the persons who had crackled the
broken branch on the hillside recover their courage enough to make a
further advance?
All at once, close at hand, Frank heard a loud whisper of:
"Well, they are all asleep, evidently."
"Yes," replied another hoarse whisper, "that kid you suspected evidently
didn't hear anything."
"Confound it, it's dark as a pit," came from the first speaker.
"It might be lighter," replied the other, "but the blacker it is the
better for us."
"Hark at those fellows snoring," was the next thing Frank heard. The
remark was accompanied by a smothered laugh.
"Yes, they are sound asleep as run-down tops," was the reply.
Frank inwardly blessed the stalwart lungs of Schultz and Le Blanc. All
unconsciously the sleepers were helping on their plans.
"Do you think that's the boys snoring?" asked one of the two men who
were cautiously creeping nearer to the aerodrome.
"I hope so," was the response, "I'd like to see them go skywards with
their infernal air-ship."
"Scudder will have reason to thank us for a good night's work," was the
next remark of the prowlers.
There was silence for a few seconds and then a jangling sound. One of
the men who had the destruction of the _Golden Eagle II_ at heart had
collided with Frank's wire fence.
"Confound it, what's that?" angrily hissed his companion.
"A wire fence," replied the other.
"Well, it will take more than that to stop us," was the angry answer,
"come on, grab the top wire and over we go."
"Now!" shouted Frank, as he threw in the switch and 500 volts coursed
through the copper wire both men were grasping.
At the same instant Billy and Harry outside pressed the electric buttons
that ignited the Coston navy signal lights they both carried and the
whole scene was illuminated in a white glare as light as noonday. And
what a scene it was!
On the ground by the fence sprawled the marauders yelling till the air
rang with their cries of mingled pain and amazement at the surprise of
the powerful shock that had knocked them off their feet.
Above them stood the stout figure of Ben Stubbs belaboring them
impartially with the heavy club he had cut for that special purpose.
"Take that, you lubbers, you longshore loafers!" he shouted as his blows
fell with the rapidity of a drumstick on the two prostrate carcasses.
The two men, however, had laid their plans better than the boys knew.
They were prepared for a surprise, but not one of the kind they had run
into.
Without a second's warning there was a sudden flash from the hill behind
them, followed by a sharp report. Ben Stubbs threw up his hands and
rolled over with a yell more of surprise than of anything else.
"Put out those lights!" shouted Frank, realizing that in the white glare
the group outside presented fine targets for the hidden marksman on the
hill, whoever he might be.
The boys instantly shoved their glaring torch tips into the ground. Even
as they did so they could hear rapidly retreating footsteps.
"Don't let them get away," shouted Harry wildly.
Frank, who by this time had switched off the current, and was outside,
seized him with a detaining grasp.
"No good, Harry," he exclaimed. "It would be taking needless chances.
Now, let's look to Ben."
"Only a hen-peck," hailed that redoubtable ex-mariner, coming up, "just
nicked my starboard ear, but I thought for a minute they had done me."
"That was no fault of theirs," answered Billy, "they----"
He was interrupted by a series of guttural shouts and piercing shrieks.
"Ach Himmel--donnerblitzen vass iss----!"
"Sacre nom de nom! Qu'est-ce que cela! To the aid. Monsieur
Chest-e-erre!"
The cries came from the aerodrome and were uttered by the awakened
Schultz and Le Blanc, the latter of whom was almost in hysterics. Frank
laughingly quieted them and explained what had happened.
"Ve vos only eggcited on your aggount," remarked Schultz bravely when he
learned that all danger was over.
"Comment, vee fight lek ze tiger-r-r n' c'est pas?" demanded Le Blanc,
flourishing a pillow fiercely. "A pitee I deed not see zee ras-cals."