FOUND
“We’re going to find out something sure,” declared Hiram. “Say, Dave,
that man knows something about our machine.”
The young airman leaped from the auto and approached the farmer. The
latter stood viewing the newcomers in a surly, suspicious way.
“You say you have seen an airship,” observed Dave. “Where? when?”
The farmer eyed our hero and his companion shrewdly.
“What do you want to know for?” he questioned.
“Well,” answered Dave, bluntly, “someone stole a biplane from the aero
field, near Washington, last night, and we are looking for it.”
“Oh, you are?” muttered the man. “Belongs to you, maybe?”
“To a company which we represent.”
“Responsible for damages?” insinuated the farmer, with a shrewd glint in
his calculating eyes.
“Is there some damage to account for?” inquired Dave.
“I reckon,” pronounced the man seriously. “Did you happen to notice the
last farm down the road?”
“We saw it, mister,” nodded Hiram, impatient to hurry up the man with
his disclosures.
“I suppose you saw them smoking ruins. Them was a shed, a pigsty and a
stack of hay. I don’t reckon fifty dollars would replace them.”
“What has an airship to do with them?” inquired Hiram.
“Everything. See here, just at daylight this morning I came to the back
door. I heard a whir and a ping overhead, and I saw an airship going
licketty-switch. Just as it passed over the house, some one in it must
have thrown a lighted cigar overboard. I didn’t see it fall, but after I
had gone into the house and finished dressing and came out again, I saw
the airship dropping into the basin on top of Pike Hill up yonder. Then
I smelled smoke. I ran around towards the sheds. The stack was blazing.
I know it was a cigar that started it, for I found one on the ground
where the fire started, and we smoke nothing but corncob pipes around
these diggings.”
“And you say the airship landed on top of Pike Hill, as you call it?”
inquired Dave. “How do you know that?”
“Say, get up on this rock with me. That’s it. Now then, take a squint
past the spur of rock way up near the crest of the hill. See it?”
“Hello!” instantly exclaimed Hiram, in a state of great excitement.
“Why, sure as you live it’s the end of a wing,” declared Dave. “Have you
seen anything of the persons running it, mister?”
“No, I haven’t. The way I figure it out is that they ran out of steam.
Mebbe they thought no one saw them when they flew over the farm. Mebbe
they’re hiding. Mebbe, when they saw me start on guard down here with my
rifle, after we’d tried to put the fire out, they were afraid to budge.”
“It is very likely they alighted on account of the lack of gasoline,”
Dave said to Hiram. “We didn’t leave much in the tanks last night.”
“That’s so,” assented Hiram. “What are you going to do?”
The young aviator reflected for a moment. Then he turned to the man
again.
“See here, mister,” he said, “I must find out the condition of that
biplane up there. It may not be ours. If it is, I promise you one
thing.”
“And what’s that?” demanded the farmer.
“Your bill will be paid, and as much more on top of it for directing us
to the machine. Is the ascent of the hill hard?”
“A stranger might find it so,” replied the man. “Very few ever go there,
and there’s no regular path to the top. If you’ll wait till some
neighbors I’ve sent for to help rout out those fellows up there come,
we’ll make an attack on them.”
“I don’t think you will find anybody up there,” said Dave. “No, I
don’t,” he reiterated, as Hiram regarded him inquiringly. “I reason it
out just as I said at the first, that whoever stole the _Comet_ planned
to hide it where we couldn’t find it. That is a capital place up there
to fit into their scheme. I’ll tell you, mister, you stay down here if
you want to, and we will go up and see what we can find out.”
“I don’t know about that,” demurred the farmer, suspiciously.
“Why not?” inquired Dave.
“How do I know but what you belong to the crowd and have been telling me
a fool story all along? Easiest thing in the world for you to start up
in the airship and leave me to whistle for my damages.”
“What, with the automobile here for security?” asked Dave, with a laugh.
“That’s so,” remarked the farmer, thoughtfully. “All right, go ahead.
You’ll find it no easy job, though. I can tell you another thing—if I
see that airship rising, I’ll plug it.”
“We will report to you before we go away,” promised the young aviator.
“Come on, Hiram.”
The farmer had not misstated the ascent of Pike Hill. Country bred as he
was, Hiram grumbled heartily at the brambles, and Dave got tangled
several times in a network of hampering vines.
“Whew! the last climb,” announced Hiram, finally, as they gained a
topmost ridge of rocks.
“No one here,” cried the young airman. “See, Hiram, they have let the
_Comet_ sink down into this natural basin here, thinking it was a safe
hiding place.”
“It would have been a famous one if that old farmer hadn’t caught sight
of the machine,” said Hiram. “No one would ever think of looking for an
airship in this out of the way place.”
The _Comet_ lay slightly tipped to one side, unharmed. Dave examined the
machine casually.
“Everything is all right,” he reported to his companion. “I was correct
about the gasoline. There isn’t enough juice left to run the machine a
mile.”
“But where are the people who stole it?” asked Hiram.
“Went down the other side of the hill, I suppose. They had accomplished
what they were hired to do. Now then, Hiram, this is a great piece of
good luck.”
“I should say so,” enthused Hiram.
“You go back down the hill—it will be easier than climbing up.”
“I should hope so,” grimaced Hiram, rubbing his bruised knees.
“Tell the man down there about the situation, and that I am going to fly
the machine over onto his farm and fix things up with him.”
Dave waited till his handy assistant had reached the bottom of the hill.
In a few moments, on the watch for some signal from below, he noticed
Hiram conversing with the farmer. There were apparent explanations and
discussions. Then Hiram waved his hand as had been agreed on with the
young aviator, and Dave knew that the coast was clear for a run with the
biplane.