HERC GETS "A TALKING TO."
When Ned came to himself, it was to find the farmer's wife bending over
him and laving the wound on his head with warm water. Herc, with a
quizzical look on his face, stood nearby.
"Whoof!" he exclaimed, as Ned opened his eyes. "What struck us?"
"I guess a bullet nicked me," grinned Ned; "it isn't much of a wound,
is it?"
"Only grazed the skin," the farmer's wife assured him. "I am so
thankful. It would have been terrible if either of you had come to
serious harm through your brave act in my defence."
"Oh, that's all right, ma'am," said Ned, scrambling to his feet, "glad
to have been of service. But whatever hit you, Herc?"
For Herc was holding his head now, with a lugubrious expression.
"Blessed if I know. Wish I did. I saw you fall, and jumped in to land
Kennell. I grabbed him, and was bearing him down, when something
that felt like a locomotive hit me a fearful wallop. Then I went to
slumberland."
"Oh, how frightened I was, when I recovered my senses, and saw you two
brave lads lying on the floor," said the farmer's wife, almost overcome
at the recollection.
"Well, unless this house is haunted by spooks, who can hit as hard as
steam-hammers, we'll have to come to the conclusion that Kennell had
some confederates," decided Herc.
"The whole thing has a queer look to me," admitted Ned, with a puzzled
look. "I can't make it out at all. You are sure that the fellow who
annoyed you had no companions, madam?"
"I'm certain," declared the farmer's wife positively. "He came here
soon after my husband drove off to town. He asked for something to eat,
which I gave him. When he had finished he frightened me by demanding
money. I gave him what little I had, but he insisted that my husband
had more concealed about the premises. If you had not come in time,
I do not know what I should have done. But whom have I got to thank?
You--you," looking hesitatingly at the queer combination of aviation
costume and regulation jackie uniform the lads wore, "you aren't
soldiers, be you?"
"Not yet, ma'am," rejoined Herc gravely, "although at times we are
tempted to soldier."
"We're soldiers' first cousins," laughed Ned.
"Oh, I see, sailors. But then, what is that contraption out there?" She
pointed out of the window at the aeroplane. "I saw one like it at the
county fair. Be you flying sailors?"
"I guess that's just what we are, ma'am," laughed Ned. "And that
reminds me that we must be getting along. It is going on for noon."
He appeared about to go, and Herc was following his example, when the
woman checked them.
"Oh, you must not go till you have told me your names," she said. "My
husband would like to thank you personally for your bravery."
"As for our names, they are soon given," said Ned. "But for thanks--I
guess it's the duty of Uncle Sam's sailors to do all they can to help
the weak, and----"
"Land the bullies," finished Herc, with a flourish of his fist.
"Only this time it looks as if the bully had landed us," put in Ned,
with a chuckle.
"Humph!" grunted Herc, feeling his head ruefully. "But," he added,
cheering up vastly, "we had him on the run, anyhow."
"That's so," agreed Ned, "and I see, 'by the same token,' as Mulligan
says, that he was in such a hurry he left the spoons behind him."
He pointed to a scattered heap at the door which the farmer's wife
pounced upon gratefully. The spoons were all there but one, and
Kennell's exit must have been hurried, to judge by this fact. Evidently
he had dropped them by accident and had not tarried to pick them up.
While the farmer's wife looked on in wonderment, and not a little
fear, Ned and Herc prepared their machine for flight. In a little less
than ten minutes' time, they had taken the air with a roar and whirr,
throwing the domestic animals about the place into panic. Without
incident they winged their way back to the aviation field, arriving
there in time for a hearty noon-day dinner at the farmhouse.
Ned's head was bandaged, and Herc's cheek was swollen, but they
volunteered no explanation of their injuries, and Lieutenant De Frees
concluded that they had met with some slight accident of which they did
not care to speak, and deemed it best not to ask questions.
During the noon-day meal, Ned watched the countenances of Merritt and
Chance narrowly. Although he had not the slightest thing to base his
belief upon, an obstinate idea had entered his head and would not leave
it, and that was, that they had, in some manner, something to do with
the occurrences of the morning. He mentioned this to Herc afterward,
but was laughed at for his pains.
"It was some sort of a hard-hitting ghost that landed me that sleep
wallop," declared Herc, who, as we know, was reprehensibly given to
slang on all occasions.
The afternoon passed quietly. Merritt and Chance asked leave to go into
the town, which was not far off, and they were granted an afternoon's
furlough. In what manner they employed it, we shall learn before long.
Ned and Herc watched them go off, arm in arm, and Herc turned to Ned
with an indignant snort.
"Whoof! I'll bet those chaps are up to some more cussedness. Look how
they've got their heads together. Wonder what they are plotting now?"
"Don't know, and don't much care," laughed Ned; "tell you what,
Herc, you'd better get out and practice, instead of wasting time on
speculations over Merritt, Chance and Co. By the way, I wonder what
they would say if they knew that their old acquaintance, Kennell, was
at large and up to his old tricks?"
"Join him, probably. Especially if it was in anything that would make
trouble for us," returned Herc. "But what are you going to do this
afternoon?"
Herc had noticed that Ned had not donned his aviation "uniform."
"I? Oh, Lieutenant De Frees told me I could get my drawings in shape
for his examination of them to-night. He is to have one or two naval
experts at his quarters, whom he is anxious to show them to. Herc, old
boy, maybe we're on the highway to fame."
"Maybe you are, you mean," flashed back Herc. "I guess I'll be the same
old stick-in-the-mud till the end of the chapter."
"Nonsense. Use your initiative. Think up something new in connection
with our present line of work."
"A new way to tumble, for instance," grinned Herc.
"There you go. That's your great fault. You can never be serious for
two minutes together."
"I can, too," remonstrated Herc indignantly. "That time I was in the
brig on the _Manhattan_ I was serious till--till they brought my
dinner."
Ned couldn't help laughing at his whimsical chum's frank way of putting
things. But presently he resumed, more seriously.
"Come, Herc, you don't do yourself justice. You laugh away your real
ability. Look here, I'll give you an idea to work on. See what you can
do with it."
"I'm all cheers--ears, I mean," declared Herc, leaning forward in
interested fashion.
Ned realized that the flippant tone hid real interest. Without seeming
to notice it, he went on.
"One of the most needed improvements in the modern aeroplane--I
mean where it is used in warfare--is a perfected appliance for
bomb-dropping. The present way is pretty clumsy. An aviator has
to let go of his controls with one hand while he manipulates his
bomb-dropping device with the other. Some bit of apparatus that would
do the work, say by foot-power, would be a big improvement, and add a
whole lot to the effectiveness of the machine using it."
Herc kindled to enthusiasm while Ned talked. His careless manner
vanished.
"That's like you, Ned," he said with real warmth of affection, "always
ready to help a fellow out. I'll try to work out something on the lines
you suggested. It's time I did something, anyhow. But the idea will
still be yours, no matter what I do with it."
"Pshaw!" chuckled Ned, "didn't Shakespeare work over old stories into
great plays?"
"I suppose so," agreed Herc, who did not care to display his almost
total darkness concerning the late Mr. Shakespeare and his methods.