BUD'S METEOR
Both scouts hurried out to join Bud. They found him standing there
with his head cocked on one side, apparently listening as hard as
he could.
Indeed it did not require any especial gift of hearing to catch the
strange noises spoken of by the ambitious inventor. They seemed to
be close at hand and constantly growing louder all the time. Just
as Bud had declared, the racket was undoubtedly caused by some sort
of machinery.
Hugh immediately made an important discovery. It rather startled him,
too, as well it might, for he had not been dreaming of anything so
unusual.
"Why, it's in the air!" he exclaimed involuntarily.
"Sure it is," agreed the excited Bud; "in the air and everywhere else.
Seems to me I might be listening to a dozen shuttles working with a
rush."
"But I mean that it comes from _above our heads_!" Hugh quickly added;
at which both the others gasped in wonder, though realizing that what
the patrol leader had said was actually true.
"Whatever can it mean?" stammered Bud.
"Say, do you know it makes me think of something I heard over at
Bellville during county fair week!" burst out Ralph.
"Meaning an aeroplane?" declared Hugh.
"Just what it was, Hugh," returned Ralph. "But what would a flier
be doing away up here, going around and around in the dark of night?"
"I don't know, and that's all I can say," replied the other; "but
perhaps we may be able to find out. There it comes again, swinging
around in a circle. If we all look sharp, we may be able to glimpse
something up against the sky."
"My stars! An _aeroplane_!" Bud was muttering to himself, as he
hastened to follow his companions away from the door in order to have
a better range of observation. "Of all the things that we could meet
up here, an aeroplane! And me just pining away with yearning to see
one in action! Oh! don't I hope it turns out that way, though? Do
you see it yet, boys? When you do, please put me wise, won't you?"
All of them were straining their eyes to make a discovery, and as it
was possible to follow the course of the swiftly circling though as
yet unseen object by listening to the rattle of its engine or
propeller, they kept their attention directed to one particular quarter.
"Oh! I think I can see it now!" cried Bud excitedly.
"Yes, we all do," added Ralph.
They continued to stare up at the moving object, which, as seen in
that uncertain light, looked not unlike a monstrous bat with extended
wings. The sound of the busily working machinery grew louder
constantly. No wonder Bud had been so perplexed when he heard all
this, though more faintly, on the previous night and asked whether
it could be possible to catch the sound of the mills many miles away.
As the three scouts continued to stand there gaping at the dimly seen
flier, a sudden terrific crash and vivid flash almost stunned them.
Indeed, Bud crumpled up and might have fallen to the ground, only
that he came in contact with Hugh and received the support of his
firm footing.
The very ground shivered under them. It seemed as though some
subterranean mine must have been exploded, causing the rockribbed
earth to quiver in a sickening fashion.
When they dared look up again, the queer bat-like object had vanished
entirely from sight. Voices were heard, however, close at hand.
They told of more or less excitement; and coming with them was the
sound of one or more persons pushing recklessly through the thickets
that grew in many places as a second growth.
Presently even these noises died away and a dead silence reigned. By
then, Bud managed to regain possession of his voice.
"Oh, another terrible meteor! Why, we must be right in the middle
of a shower of shooting stars! And let me tell you, that one hit the
earth not a great way off, too! I'm going to take a look in the
morning and see if I can find it. They say that college professors
often pay big sums for being set on the track of these meteors that
bury themselves in the ground. What if she had dropped right down
on top of this shanty, boys? I'm glad we got off as well as we did,
aren't you, Hugh?"
Hugh did not answer. Evidently he was thinking deeply at that
particular moment. There was indeed plenty to concern him in
connection with the mysterious aeroplane that nightly circled the
region, always accompanied by that strange explosion.
"Seems to me I can smell something queer like burnt powder," Bud
presently remarked. "Do meteors explode when they hit the earth,
Hugh?" And would they send out a rank odor like that?"
"I don't happen to be up in the doings of meteors, Bud," answered
the other, "but I should think it might be something like that.
We'll all take a look after breakfast, and see what we can find.
Perhaps it may surprise us. This seems to be a general all-around
surprise party for the lot of us. We were taken aback to find
Ralph here in the old shack; he had his surprise when he watched
those two men carry on so queerly; then we had the shock last
night of hearing thunder and seeing lightning when the sky was
clear; after that, the fellow looking in at the window startled
us. You were a little surprised your self, I reckon, Bud, at
your success in trying out your stability device as applied to
aeroplanes. And now comes the discovery that one of the air craft
is skimming around here nightly, doing some stunt that we can't
understand yet."
"We ought to call this Camp Surprise, then," announced Ralph.
"That's what," echoed Bud.
"Now let us go in again," suggested Hugh. "It seems as if the
fireworks might be all over for this particular night. Even the
aeroplane has gone off where none of us can hear the motor working
any longer."
"Perhaps she dropped to the ground," remarked Bud. "There might be
another open place not far away, like the old field where we tried
out my little model this morning. And say, doesn't it strike you
as funny that just one solitary meteor should take a notion to
explode each night?"
No one answered this question, though Bud was too busy pondering on
the run of strange events that had fallen to their share of late to
notice the lack of interest his comrades seemed to take in the matter.
Once inside, they again sat around talking. It was Ralph this time
who gave utterance to a certain fact that had been in his mind, which
interested both his chums as soon as they heard it.
"I don't know," he started to say soberly, "whether either of you
happened to notice it, but there seemed to be something foreign
about the voices we heard after the big noise. Not a single word
could I understand, either, and yet they seemed to be pretty near
by."
"I didn't happen to notice that, Ralph," Hugh observed seriously;
"but if the men who spoke were your mysterious friends of the other
day, one thing is sure---they weren't the ones who sat in that
speeding monoplane."
"Eh? How do you know that?" queried Bud, becoming deeply interested.
"Well, in the first place," suggested Ralph, not waiting for Hugh's
reply, "the sound of voices came from the same level as our own
location. I'm dead sure of that fact. Then again we could hear the
swish of brush, and I even caught the sound of men crashing through
thickets and falling over logs."
"Yes," added Hugh, "and it struck me that they were in something like
a blue fright, as though the nearness of that explosion had given
them a bad scare. Only a sudden panic could make men rush through
thickets as recklessly as they were going."
"Everybody may not like meteors to drop all around 'em," Bud muttered;
"and I can't blame the fellows much, either. I came near being
knocked flat on my back, myself, when that one let go with a bang.
My ears are ringing yet, and I'm afraid I'll go deaf if I have to
hear much more of that sort of cannonading."
Although they continued to sit up for some little time and talk, Hugh
did not see fit to mention certain suspicions that had taken root in
his own mind. He believed he was on the track of the truth, but
until he had a little more positive evidence he hesitated to speak
out boldly.
They finally settled down and tried to sleep. Bud seemed to find
little difficulty in forgetting all his troubles and triumphs, for
his heavy breathing quickly announced that he was dead to the world.
With the other two it was a more protracted task, and possibly they
turned over as many as half a dozen times before surrendering
drowsily to the god of slumber.
There was no further trouble during the balance of that night, the
second they had spent in the old shack. Saturday morning dawned
with a clear sky, and it looked as though the day might be a
repetition of the two previous ones. This gratified the scouts
very much, for no matter how seasoned a camper may be, the weather
has considerable to do with his enjoyment. If rain continues to
pour down, there is very little pleasure to be found in spending
hours or days under canvas or the leaking roof of a cabin, wishing
in vain for a break in the weeping clouds. And so the three lads
expressed themselves as contented when they broke out from the
shelter of the shack on that morning and found the conditions so
favorable.
Bud hoped to make another try with his model before noon, since they
expected to be on the move shortly afterward. There was a long hike
before them ere they could expect to reach the road leading home,
where possibly a wagon might be hired to help get them into town
again.
One thing pleased them, and this was the fact that for the most part
the return journey would be down-grade. In consequence they expected
to make the distance separating them from the road in about half the
time it had taken in coming.
Bud hurried through the morning meal. Indeed, Ralph even joked him
on his seeming lack of appetite; for as a rule Bud was a good feeder
and came second only to Billy Worth, long recognized as champion in
the troop.
"Well, you see," Bud explained, "there are a whole lot of important
things I mean to do to-day, and the sooner I get busy the better
chance I'll have to go through the list. First thing of all is to
take a little tramp around toward the west of the camp, to see if I
can stumble on the place where that last old shooting star struck us.
I'm going to look sharp for a hole, because it seems to me such a big
lump of iron and other ore would smash into our earth at a pretty
lively clip."
"Hold on a minute and let's start fair!" called out Ralph. "We're
just as anxious as you are to make some sort of discovery, eh, Hugh?"
"Some sort, yes," the patrol leader admitted, with a queer little
smile that Bud noticed, but could not understand just then.
So the three boys started to comb the immediate vicinity of the shack,
spreading out in something like a fan formation. They took to the
west, because all of them seemed to be of one opinion: that the
dreadful crash had come from that particular quarter.
Now and then one of them would call out or give the Wolf signal, just
to inform the others where he happened to be. In this manner some
ten minutes went by and Hugh was thinking that the explosion must
have been much further away than any of them had suspected at the
time, when Bud was heard giving tongue.
Bud, when excited, always broke loose and allowed himself free rein.
"Come this way, boys!" he was shouting gleefully. "I've run the
old meteor to earth. My stars! what a terrible hole she did make!
Must be as big as a house!"