“Only three miles. I can go to and come from my work on a bicycle, and the exercise will be the best thing in the world for me,” declared Mr. Hardy.
Ben did a good deal of hard thinking after he went to bed. He had an uneasy feeling that some plot was working against his father’s good name.
Monday morning a neighbor told Mrs. Hardy that she had got out of bed to close a window during the night, and had seen a man with a lantern looking over the flying machine in the work yard. As she let down the window the noise disturbed the night prowler, and he extinguished the lantern and skulked away.
Two nights later, about eleven o’clock, Ben roused up from his sleep to find his mother shaking him gently.
“Ben! Ben!” she whispered in a quick tone of alarm, “get up at once.”
“What is the matter, mother?” asked Ben excitedly.
“A man with a bag over his shoulder just went through the yard into the work shed,” was Mrs. Hardy’s startling announcement.
CHAPTER XIII
THE MAN IN THE GIG
Ben instantly thought of the mysterious visitor reported by their neighbor a few evenings previous. He hurriedly slipped on a few clothes and was down the front stairs in three jumps.