“Oh, then you’re calculating on staying here all night,” spoke the farmer. “Well, now, I’m sorry, but you see I’ve only got one bed—that is I’ve got more, but they’ve been taken down to be painted, and they’re not dry. The bed clothes have gone to the wash woman’s too. In fact that’s why my wife went away. We’re sort of house cleaning, and the only bed fit to use is a couch I sleep on.”
“Oh, we wouldn’t think of troubling you!” interposed Jerry. “We’ll go aboard the Comet and sleep there. We always do. We have plenty of bunks.” The more he saw of the queer man the less he liked the idea of spending the night under his roof.
“Oh, if you’ve got your own accommodations it’s all right,” went on Mr. Rossmore. “I can give you plenty of victuals.”
“That’s good!” exclaimed Bob, involuntarily.
“We have plenty of things to eat, too,” went on Jerry, who felt a growing distrust of the farmer, “though we are much obliged for what you have given us. We’ll go aboard our craft now, I think, and in the morning we’ll see if we can get to the smithy.”
“Well, it’s quite a bad break,” remarked Jerry a little later when, as they were all on the airship, he and his chums had made another inspection of the fracture. “There must have been a flaw in the steel. I don’t believe we’d better risk going on to the blacksmith shop.”
“What will you do?” asked Ned.
“Make a new brace here. We can build a sort of forge out of stones and heat the metal enough I guess. I can make a temporary repair, that will last until we can get to a machine shop.”
“Then we’ll stay on at this place a little longer, eh?” asked Bob.