Stunned by his emotions, Bill lay motionless in the cramped quarters he had chosen. Presently he heard a light footstep. It stopped close beside him and Bill, raising himself on his arm, peered over the edge of his small quarters at the back of Frank Anderson, who was bending over the engine of Horace Jardin's plane. No one else was in the hangar. Bill heard the scrape of steel on steel and saw Frank slip a small screwdriver into his pocket. Then Bill dropped out of sight, and soon he heard Frank retreating to the small door of the hangar where he stood for a moment looking out before he went out.
Five minutes later he returned with Horace Jardin.
Horace as usual was sputtering.
"I tell you, Andy," he said with his usual bluster, "this is the last day I will fool with that plane. Absolutely the last! If she doesn't go before night, she needn't go at all. I will get rid of her. Dad wrote me this morning that he had had a letter from the chief mechanician here, and what the fellow says about the plane looks as though the company had put one over on us. Dad won't stand for that. He is going to make them replace the car. But they can't have this one back. I will sell it sure as shooting! I need money."
"What's your price?" asked Frank.
Jardin registered deep thought. "I need five hundred," he said.
"I will buy it," replied Frank. "I can make a little on it if I sell it for junk, and you can't afford to dicker around like that. It would be out of place for a Jardin to be dealing in second-hand stuff. Everyone knows I have nothing."
"How do you come to have the five hundred then?" asked Horace suspiciously.
Frank flushed but did not hesitate.
"A present from my grandmother," he said, trusting to luck that Jardin would not know that the lady had been dead for many years.