SIGNS OF TROUBLE.
“I just knew how it would be!” said Andy, as he came in an hour later,
after having eaten his dinner at the house.
Frank, who was still pottering around the aeroplane, though careful
about having the lamp anywhere close to the gasolene tank attached to
it, looked up.
“What’s ailing you now?” he demanded. “Got a line on that disappearing
monkey wrench yet?”
“Shucks! I only wish I had,” replied his cousin. “But I was referring
to what Larry told us about those bold, bad men, who cleaned out poor
Leffingwell. You know he said they must be hanging around somewhere not
many miles from Bloomsbury, and that the police were hunting everywhere
for traces of their hangout?”
“Why, yes, I believe he did say something like that,” Frank went on.
“But what’s that worrying you for? Have you got an idea you know where
they’re hiding? If so, why not call police headquarters up on the
phone, and let the Chief know? I’m sure he’d thank you, Andy.”
“It wasn’t that at all, you see,” explained the other. “But what Larry
said has got on my nerves, just as I expected. I’m seeing things,
that’s what!”
“Things that don’t happen to exist, you mean, I reckon?” asked Frank.
“Well, I suppose so. That’s always the way with me when I get anything
on my mind. I just imagine I see it everywhere. Now, would you believe
it, when I was coming across the field just now in the dark, for the
old moon is just peeping up over the trees, I thought I glimpsed a
figure that scuttled out of sight.”
“You did, eh?” said the other, eyeing him closely.
“Sure,” replied Andy. “Of course it was an optical delusion, as
Professor Jarvey at high school would say, and there wasn’t anything
there at all. But it gave me some start all the same. Hope I don’t
dream about those desperate chaps tonight. If I wake you up by
shouting, you’ll know it’s only a mild attack of nightmare. Just douse
me with the contents of that water pail, and I’ll come out of it all
right. I always do.”
“I’ll remember,” grinned Frank. “And as the bucket is nearly full just
now, make up your mind, my boy, that you’re in for a jolly good swim if
I’m compelled to upset it over you. I’d advise you to go slow about
dreaming such things.”
“I will,” remarked Andy. “You give me cold feet already; but that isn’t
a circumstance to what a beaut of a chill I’ll get if you douse me
tonight.”
“But see here, perhaps you _did_ see something?” observed the other,
seriously.
“Nope,” said Andy. “The more I think of it the more I’m inclined to
believe it was just my imagination that made me think I saw a fellow
duck down behind that fence corner.”
“Did you go over to investigate?” continued Frank.
“Nixey. That would have been your way, I know, old fellow; but I don’t
happen to be built along the same plan. If it was one of those crooks
I didn’t want to meet up with him; and if my brain was only working
overtime why, what was the use bothering.”
“You can argue yourself out of any hole, Andy. But I think I’ll just
take a little walk out, to see if I can glimpse anything,” and Frank
picked up his cap.
“Be careful, Frank,” said the other, a little alarmed. “Just remember
Larry said the Chief called them desperate characters. So if you do run
up against the precious pair, let ’em have the better part of the road.
We’re not looking for any share in that reward, you know.”
“Oh! I’ll take care,” smiled the other, as he passed out.
Left alone, Andy grew nervous. He would go to the door and listen
every minute or so; for he had taken the pains to close the means of
entrance, and put up the long heavy bar that secured it from the inside.
Finally, unable to stand the suspense any longer he picked up the big
monkey wrench.
“I think I’d better step out myself,” he muttered. “Perhaps Frank may
run across those scoundrels, and need help. There, was that a call? Did
he mean to signal to me then?”
His heart beating wildly, Andy halted just back of the doors. If there
came a repetition of the sound he meant to throw them open and rush
out, regardless of everything.
Instead there came a faint tapping, just as though some little
woodpecker were getting in his work, boring holes in which to hide
grains of corn. Andy listened.
“It’s our code,” he whispered, with a sense of relief. “Frank is there,
and he wants me to open up. Yep, there it goes again--‘open the door!’
Hello! Frank, is that you, and are you coming in?”
“It’s all right, so open the door, Andy,” came the voice of his chum.
“Did you find anything?” demanded the keeper of the fort, as Frank
glided in through the opening.
“No, not exactly,” replied Frank, dropping into a seat.
“But you say that as if you weren’t quite sure,” expostulated his
cousin.
“I went over to the place you mentioned. There was certainly nobody
there,” continued the late scout, positively.
“Just as I said,” declared Andy, “it was one of my freaks. I’ll just
have to put a brake on that imagination of mine. It’ll get me in
trouble one of these days.”
“But the grass seemed trampled down, and in one place I found where it
looked as if somebody might have been stretched out looking through
between the bars of the fence. I struck a match, and picked up this
thing.”
Frank held up a partly burned cigarette.
“Which shows,” he went on, “that after all perhaps some one _was_
hiding in that corner, watching the hangar. And when you stopped to
look, it alarmed him, so that he scurried off.”
“A cigarette, eh? Well, we know who uses that sort of thing all the
time. And his name is spelled Sandwith Hollingshead, too,” Andy
declared emphatically.
“Perhaps,” admitted Frank; and he would not continue the discussion
further.
Andy knew from the signs that his chum must be thinking about something
connected with this matter; but if so, Frank kept his suspicions to
himself. He really had nothing sound on which to base them, and did not
wish to alarm Andy unnecessarily. Andy was an explosive sort of fellow,
and at times only a spark was needed to set the magazine off.
Both the boys expressed their intention of getting to bed early, being
tired, and not having slept any too well on the preceding night.
Frank took to his board pile again, though Andy had fetched out more
blankets so that he could stack a lot beneath him to relieve the
hardness.
He heard the regular breathing of his cousin close by, long before he
could get to sleep himself. The moon had begun to mount quite high, and
sent more or less light through the little window. Frank several times
raised himself on an elbow, and looked around the dim shop; but nothing
seemed amiss.
Finally he must have dropped off, nor could he imagine how long he had
slept, when he opened his eyes suddenly. It was no loud bang, as on
the preceding night, that aroused him this time. Indeed, he did not
believe he could have heard any sound at all, and that it was only some
intuition that made him awaken.
He seemed to just be possessed with a conviction that some sort of
danger was hovering over them. There was no tangible reason why he
should believe this; but the fact seemed to be impressed upon his
sub-consciousness as he lay there and listened, almost holding his
breath with suspense.
Had there come no sound, doubtless, after lying there for five minutes,
Frank must have become sleepy again, and laughing at his fears, turned
over on his rude bed to drop off again.
But he did hear something. It sounded like a whisper, too, and
positively came from over toward the doors. Frank looked closely, but
so far as he could see, they were closed and barred, just as the boys
had left them.
There it was again. Could it be Andy murmuring in his sleep? He was
sometimes given to talking at such times; but Frank felt sure the sound
did not come from the cot at all.
He slipped quietly off his bed. Fortunately the night was warm, and
not like the preceding one, when they had shivered in their pajamas. So
he crept over toward the double doors.
As Frank bent his head close to the rough wood in order to listen he
felt the door quiver. It went through him like a shock of electricity
that some one was trying to see if the entrance to the hangar was kept
locked, since there was nothing in sight outside to indicate the fact.
Could it be Puss Carberry and his shadow, coming back again to attempt
further destruction? Frank had another suspicion flash through his
brain that gave him more of a shock than this first thought. The two
robbers who were said to be in hiding somewhere close by--might they
not have conceived the idea of stealing the completed aeroplane of
the Bird boys, and in this fashion making an escape, outwitting the
officers of justice, who would never dream of a flight through the air?
He listened further. They seemed to be whispering together again,
though he was quite unable to catch a single word of what was said. But
he fully believed that if his last thought proved to be the truth these
desperate men would not give up a cherished scheme because of such a
little obstacle as a barred door.
Then his first duty must be to arouse Andy, and without making any
noise, if it could be accomplished. After that they would have to adapt
their movements to circumstances.
So Frank cautiously made his way back to the cot where his cousin was
peacefully slumbering, possibly dreaming of future triumphs that would
fall to the portion of the Bird boys when they became masters of the
air.