“Come, Walter,” exclaimed Kennedy, “let's go up there on the roof of the stand where we can see better. There's a platform and railing, I see.”
His pass allowed him to go anywhere on the field, so in a few moments we were up on the roof.
It was a fascinating vantage-point, and I was so deeply engrossed between watching the crowd below, the bird-men in the air, and the machines waiting across the field that I totally neglected to notice what Kennedy was doing. When I did, I saw that he had deliberately turned his back on the aviation field, and was anxiously, scanning the country back of us.
“What are you looking for?” I asked. “Turn around. I think Norton is just about to fly.”
“Watch him then,” answered Craig. “Tell me when he gets in the air.”
Just then Norton's aeroplane rose gently from the field. A wild shout of applause came from the people below us, at the heroism of the man who dared to fly this new and apparently fated machine. It was succeeded by a breathless, deathly calm, as if after the first burst of enthusiasm the crowd had suddenly realised the danger of the intrepid aviator. Would Norton add a third to the fatalities of the meet?
Suddenly Kennedy jerked my arm. “Walter, look over there across the road back of us—at the old weatherbeaten barn. I mean the one next to that yellow house. What do you see?”
“Nothing, except that on the peak of the roof there is a pole that looks like the short stub of a small wireless mast. I should say there was a boy connected with that barn, a boy who has read a book on wireless for beginners.”
“Maybe,” said Kennedy. “But is that all you see? Look up in the little window of the gable, the one with the closed shutter.”
I looked carefully. “It seems to me that I saw a gleam of something bright at the top of the shutter, Craig,” I ventured. “A spark or a flash.”